Ciatta

Tuesday evening I was assigned to D ward and I had one of the Academy students (the school for the kids on board) as a job shadow. KimAna's family served on the Caribbean Mercy when we were there and now are on the Africa Mercy. She is 15 and is interested in being a nurse, she will be following Megan and I for 7 shifts. We received report, started our assessments, charting, vital signs, and of course held the babies.

Around 5pm we heard that we were getting an ICU patient with a Dental infection (big surprise). She came in and was having a hard time breathing. All the Doctors came in and we got her ready for emergent surgery.

We went to dinner and when we got back the patient was on her way back. Her name is Ciatta, she has 4 children and a husband for 13 years, that loves her so much that when he saw her after surgery he threw himself on the floor out of despair. Ciatta came back from the OR still intubated ( breathing tube in her nose and on a ventalator). We got her settled by putting her on sedation meds ans morphine for pain control. We placed all the tubes that are normal for a intubated patient. KimAna got to see a lot.

 The next day we both came back bright and early for morning shift. Ciatta looked much better. By late morning we started taking out all the tubes we placed the night before, including the breathing tube. Ciatta made a wonderful recovery. She sat up in a chair and was even transferred out of  the ICU.

At the end of the day I was blessed by Ciatta. I got to see the whole process including the recovery, what a blessing.

Yogurt!

I have had quite a few comments about yogurt but here is a general reminder:

Yogurt is like oatmeal, if it's done it will be a volunteer that will have to work around our limitations. I know maybe you have been in our kitchen/galley...if you have, you see our galley is even smaller than the ANA with more people to feed.

Last I heard someone was supposed to take over for the last person who was making it volunteer-ely (if that's a word) doing it on the weekend out of the way of the cooking teams & dining room working hours.

Also, we (galley/dining room) are not in charge of any part of it and can not be pulled away from our work hours to assist you, every working person in food services is precious and their time during work is precious...if you would like to be that volunteer you need to contact a previous volunteer that can show you how to make it, take care of it, and overall be totally responsible for it within the basic guidelines AND permissions for galley and dining room use. (because the warmers that are used for the yogurt are in the dining room).

Otherwise, you are free to enjoy the yogurt cups that we supply from time to time...no it may not have that 'fresh made' yogurt nutritional health, but it does taste good every now and then when you really start missing that yogurt taste!

B is for Baby

One of the weird things (there are many) on the ship is that even on your time off you hear about the new patients, the emergencies, and the funny things that are going on in the ward. When you live literally 200 feet from the ward it is easy to go down on my time off to see what is going on. Earlier in the day I heard we got 2 more babies on the ward. Actually, it is the mom who is having surgery, but the 2-week old twins are with her. I walked down to B ward and was taken back when I opened the door and heard 3 babies crying. It was music to my ear, mostly because I knew that I would be able to hold one of them. I picked up Anthony who is 10 days old and he instantly calmed down and nestled into my chest. He was brought to the ship when he was 6 days old with a condition in which his spinal cord was exposed in a little sack and was becoming infected. Now, little itty bitty Anthony is on the ward. after his surgery a couple of days ago, getting antibiotics and spoiled by all the nurses that crave baby time like I. Stephanie

Cooking Teams

The team setups for cooking are a bit unusual but they work. I'll explain. The baker kind of has his own hours that usually start way early in the morning and finishes up around midday...nothing really unusual there. Right now the baker takes Wednesday and Sunday off. Before the baker used to take the weekend off but made sure and had enough backup bread in the freezer to last thru the weekend.

Then we have 2 or 3 people on salad team which usually runs 8-5 Mon-Fri. But our cooking teams, of which we have two, work 2 on-2 off- 3 on- 2 off- 2 on- 3 off...confused? It looks like this. Team one works Monday and Tuesday, then Friday, Saturday, Sunday, then Wednesday and Thursday of the following week...that's a two week schedule. Team two works the alternating days. Their schedule on each team starts at 8 in the morning and ends about 7 at night. Oh its not that bad if you think about it...two fifteen minute breaks one at 10am and another at 3pm(approximately) then usually an hour for lunch and an hour for dinner.

We also have devotions (devo's for short) or some kind of meetings every morning Mon-Fri so that is another half hour deducted from actual physical working time...and they do work hard! But if you subtract the breaks, lunch and dinner break, and devo's you eliminate 3 hours from the 11 hour shift which brings it nicely back to an actual 8 hours physical work time. The stress and heat of it can can make it feel like 12 hours straight sometimes.

In addition to that at least one person is dedicated to being ward cook on each team (cook for local patients on the ward) because if the locals ate our food it would probably give them some extra grief adjusting to a new diet so we have a local person cook local food for the locals, sounds like it makes sense doesn't it? (at least locally right?). Also a dedicated dishwasher (this usually takes two sometimes) and two storeman because a crew and local workers of this number/multitude eat a lot of food and we don't have the privilege of ordering food every week from a local supplier who can meet our demand. So most of our stores are in months supplies stored in the bowels of the ship. Including 4 walk in freezers and a walk in cooler/fridge/reefer as well as a few upstairs (mini versions).

Back to the teams...

Instead of calling them team one and team two, lets change the name so in case they read this post/blog they won't start teasing each other about who's number one and number two.

Right now we are actually staffed right in the galley, dining room needs more workers.

Team Fried Chicken consists of the following nationalities: Ghana x2, Guinea x1, Canada x1, Australia x1, Liberia x2

Team Water Melon consists of the following nationalities: Australia x1, US x1, Ghana x1, Guinea x1, Hong Kong/Canada x1, Liberia x2

Salad Team consists of the following nationalities: US x1, England x1, Liberia x1

Storeman consists of the following nationalities: Ghana x1, Canada x1

Baker consists of: Germany x1

So you see its a very diverse group of teams I work with daily, and its constantly changing.

I'll get more into my role later on...don't want to put you to sleep all at one time.

For all the coffee lovers...

Coffee Art

There is a restaurant in Vancouver ..actually three
where they dress up the lattes.

You get to watch them create the pictures.

(thanks Carol for passing this one along!)