August 19th: Third Surgical Day
This will be a shorter post as there were no major events. Being on the boat eliminates many of the things that make the days remarkable. There’s no going into town to a local restaurant or craft market, and the food is definitely not Dominican. By having the surgery on the boat, not only are we not experiencing the D.R. culture, we’re also not seeing anything close to normal family interactions. In Latin America, there are generally aunts or grandmas around, and certainly siblings. Especially in the smaller villages, people live more communally. Here, only one parent or guardian or relative is allowed to accompany each patient due to space limitations. I am experiencing a foreign culture, but it’s a mix of the U.S. Navy and this altered Dominican Republic. The mothers, and a few fathers, are here on their own in a very foreign environment and most are very subdued, (with a few notable exceptions.) I find I really miss the loud, communal parenting that I’m used to seeing on my Latin American missions.
There’s a routine we go through every morning after discharging the post-op patients from the day before. As we were doing it, I realized how strange and frantically hysterical it might look to someone not living in this environment. I’ll try to describe it, and hope to get some photos to post for tomorrow. I’ve put up some patient photos, some pre and post, and some just uplifting ones.
We have two identical wards with bathroom, showers and a small kitchen between them. Each has 22 lower and 22 upper bunks. There are also 20 upper bunks on each side, reached by ladders and are therefore only appropriate for spry parents or teen patients having fairly minor surgeries, so bed space is tight. Each day there are between 19 and 22 surgeries and we have to "turn over" beds quickly. The patients for the next day come over on the Tender boat at about 1:00pm and settle into what has been designated as the pre-op ward. On the other side, the post-op patients are gradually returning from the OR. The next morning, all of the post-op patients have to be discharged by 8:45 to be on the boat back to the dock by 9:00am. As soon as they are out the door, the four day nurses, two medical records people and anyone else we can snag and I run around stripping the beds and throwing away trash. Next, two people sweep using big industrial brooms, and two people follow them with huge mops while everyone else wipes down the mattresses, pillows, etc. There’s a race to get this done before the first patients start returning from the OR to the ward. Today we were still mopping when the first one arrived. Eventually, all of the pre-op patients from the other ward grab their sheets and bags and move over to the now clean post-op ward and we help them remake their beds so they can wait there for their surgery. Next, we go over to the now empty pre-op ward and repeat the cleaning process and make up those beds.
Today we had a big cake to thank all the corpsmen who have been helping us – cooking for the parents and patients, fixing things on the wards, getting our laundry, etc. They are so young and earnest! A young woman, April, a nurse from the ICU is our assigned contact for any problems, and she comes to the ward twice a day to check in. The Navy has done a great job with all the details.
True to form the day ended late though closer to 10:00 than 10:30. The holdup was a three year old with some trouble coming out of anesthesia that kept her in the PACU for a long time. Since I stay on the ward till all the kids are back and settled, it was another late night. HOWEVER, tomorrow is Thursday and then Friday and then we’re done!
This will be a shorter post as there were no major events. Being on the boat eliminates many of the things that make the days remarkable. There’s no going into town to a local restaurant or craft market, and the food is definitely not Dominican. By having the surgery on the boat, not only are we not experiencing the D.R. culture, we’re also not seeing anything close to normal family interactions. In Latin America, there are generally aunts or grandmas around, and certainly siblings. Especially in the smaller villages, people live more communally. Here, only one parent or guardian or relative is allowed to accompany each patient due to space limitations. I am experiencing a foreign culture, but it’s a mix of the U.S. Navy and this altered Dominican Republic. The mothers, and a few fathers, are here on their own in a very foreign environment and most are very subdued, (with a few notable exceptions.) I find I really miss the loud, communal parenting that I’m used to seeing on my Latin American missions.
There’s a routine we go through every morning after discharging the post-op patients from the day before. As we were doing it, I realized how strange and frantically hysterical it might look to someone not living in this environment. I’ll try to describe it, and hope to get some photos to post for tomorrow. I’ve put up some patient photos, some pre and post, and some just uplifting ones.
We have two identical wards with bathroom, showers and a small kitchen between them. Each has 22 lower and 22 upper bunks. There are also 20 upper bunks on each side, reached by ladders and are therefore only appropriate for spry parents or teen patients having fairly minor surgeries, so bed space is tight. Each day there are between 19 and 22 surgeries and we have to "turn over" beds quickly. The patients for the next day come over on the Tender boat at about 1:00pm and settle into what has been designated as the pre-op ward. On the other side, the post-op patients are gradually returning from the OR. The next morning, all of the post-op patients have to be discharged by 8:45 to be on the boat back to the dock by 9:00am. As soon as they are out the door, the four day nurses, two medical records people and anyone else we can snag and I run around stripping the beds and throwing away trash. Next, two people sweep using big industrial brooms, and two people follow them with huge mops while everyone else wipes down the mattresses, pillows, etc. There’s a race to get this done before the first patients start returning from the OR to the ward. Today we were still mopping when the first one arrived. Eventually, all of the pre-op patients from the other ward grab their sheets and bags and move over to the now clean post-op ward and we help them remake their beds so they can wait there for their surgery. Next, we go over to the now empty pre-op ward and repeat the cleaning process and make up those beds.
Today we had a big cake to thank all the corpsmen who have been helping us – cooking for the parents and patients, fixing things on the wards, getting our laundry, etc. They are so young and earnest! A young woman, April, a nurse from the ICU is our assigned contact for any problems, and she comes to the ward twice a day to check in. The Navy has done a great job with all the details.
True to form the day ended late though closer to 10:00 than 10:30. The holdup was a three year old with some trouble coming out of anesthesia that kept her in the PACU for a long time. Since I stay on the ward till all the kids are back and settled, it was another late night. HOWEVER, tomorrow is Thursday and then Friday and then we’re done!
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