Las Gringas que Curan y Ponen Inyecciones

Thursday we woke up to the sweet vision of my roomie, Casey, on the tele! 

She is in charge of a project we're doing at the schools in the community with Hogar de Cristo. She is making the rounds with the press this week-- she got interviewed by the TV station, the newspaper, and a radio station! She's famous here. So glamorous. 


The newspaper article title was the best-- "Las Gringas que Curan and Ponen Inyecciones" which means the white girls that cure and give injections. The white girl part they got right but we don't in any way cure or give shots to anyone. Quality journalism right here. 


What we're actually doing is a project on anemia in schoolchildren in the rural communities. Our nursing students do assessments on all the kids and check their hemoglobin. We're going to try a few interventions- soy milk, anti-parasites, and both to see what is most effective. Anemia (and malnutrition in general) is a huge problem with the kids so hopefully we find an intervention that can help. 

 

Here's another pic from the TV of a student, Sammy, working with a little boy

After the exciting morning, we headed off to the pediatric hospital. I love going to the pediatric hospital. It's most similar to where I work in the US so I feel more at home. We first visited the PICU. The parents only have a few visiting hours per day and at the time we were there parents weren't allowed in. It was so fun to give the little ones some love while they were all alone. 

 Isn't this pic so cute? I took it of my student, Tad, and a sweet babe.

 This boy was so well-behaved! He had one piece of paper and some colored pencils and was just coloring quietly. He loved it when we came by though. 

Another sweet patient I met...

This is my friend Michael. He is so awesome! He has cystic fibrosis and this is his 20th hospitalization of his life. I used to care for patients with cystic fibrosis at Primary Children's. It was so interesting to talk to someone with the same disease in Ecuador. Much of the care was similar to the United States-- chest physiotherapy, IV antibiotics, inhalers, etc. However, his hospitalizations are a month-long and in the US ours are only 10-14 days. I can't imagine how hard it would be for him and his mother to be in the hospital for a whole month! I once went to an education day with the head Cystic Fibrosis pulmonologist at Primary Children's and she said a cure is close. Some strains of the disease already have drugs being tested. Michael's mom was so excited about this. I really hope they find a cure soon. Even with a terrible disease, Michael was so sweet and told my student nurses all about his medical care. 

 I must work the students too hard-- they all fell asleep during our five minute drive back to the hotel. :) 

Postparto y el templo

On Wednesday we were invited to do a presentation to the maternity nurses. They had a big day of education-- we sat and watched a doctor explain complications of prematurity and a respiratory therapist discussed using ventilators on newborns. I was really impressed with the education they were given. I probably would have learned a ton... if my Spanish was good enough to understand their discussion. :)

I presented with three of my students. The craziest part was that I had sent my students downstairs to teach the mothers because we weren't sure when the presentation was going to start. All of a sudden the previous presentater ended and the nurse in charge told me it was my turn! 

I started on my own and hoped that my students would magically return to finish the presentation. Luckily they did! I was sweating bullets and trying to delay starting the powerpoint. About three slides in, all of my students walked in the back door to save the day. 

We showed the nurses some things they could teach the postpartum women. We taught them about changes in the woman's body after pregnancy, getting back on birth control, breast feeding, the "baby blues", hygiene for an infant, how to care for the umbilical cord, and preventing SIDS. 

The presentation was hilarious because we would start talking and then the nurses would yell out and help us with our Spanish pronunciation. We were learning too. :) 

Erika 

Tad 

Nicole 

This is the nurse who asked us to present. She coordinates all the education for the nurses and helps us get into our clinical spots. It's so fun to meet sweet nurses like her in Ecuador! Also, check out the classic nursing hat they wear-- so cute but I'm glad we don't have to wear them in the states.

After the crazy day, we got to go to the temple! Here's me and my roomie Casey before we went in. It was my first time going to the temple in Spanish. I think I understood most of it.... :)

I didn't take this but isn't it pretty? Photo cred LDS.org

Revisiting the baby factory

I didn't really explain but I am in Ecuador with a group of undergraduate nursing students from BYU. We split up the students every day and take them to different places. They go to Luis Vernaza (adult hospital), Sotomayor, Roberto Gilbert (pediatric hospital), or the community with an organization called Hogar de Cristo. 

I am in charge of taking the students to the maternity hospital and to the pediatric hospital. On Monday, I took my first group of students to Sotomayor, the maternity hospital in Guayaquil. 

A shot of Luis Vernaza as we dropped students off

Please notice how the surgical scrubs are capris on the girls. Ecuadorians are a little bit shorter than us Americans. :)

Ready for the babies

 The women at Sotomayor are not allowed to have any family with them and do not receive anything for pain during labor. Most of our time at the hospital we spend basically being doulas for the women. Here is one of my students, Erika, and her patient.

 They both look much happier after the delivery :)

The bitty baby on the left was the patient's. This hospital has so many babies born each day they often just lay them in a row like this in one crib. I love going in the nursery because there are just babies on top of babies on every surface. I also love going in there just because the babies are super cute. :)


The first day was successful! We got to see two births at the very end of the day. It's much more stressful being in Ecuador this time around because I actually have responsibility. I'm getting pushed with my Spanish because I have to set everything up each day with the nurses and administrators. One of my students said she was impressed with how confident I was with my Spanish. I laughed because I'm not really that confident but I just put on a face when I'm forced to talk to everyone! I'm sure the hospital staff just laugh after I leave because of my broken Spanish and the funny things I say. 


They also laugh because they can't believe I'm the students' "profesora". I've decided to start using a new term- supervisora. This seems to go over better. It's probably confusing when I look just as young as the students but I'm telling them I'm the one in charge. 


I'll keep catching on posts!

Malecon

The Malecon is the riverwalk area in Guayaquil. We went there Sunday to walk and happened upon an art exhibit. There were 30ish huge hummingbird statues artists had been given to paint. Here are a few of my favorites. 

This is me with my professor, Sondra.... and notice I'm still in the purple shirt. :) 

Hola from Ecuador

So I made it! Desafortunadamente, my bag did not. NBD though- all my pals let me mooch off of them for the first few days. The students also politely ignored my smelliness. I think I wore that purple shirt below for 48 hours straight. Luckily, my bag arrived and my hygiene is back up to par. (TMI?...)


I need to catch up on posts but for now here's photo of my roomie, Casey, and I at the "Iguana Park". It's very appropriately named--the place is crawling with these guys. 

A fun fact is that Casey and I came to Ecuador together three years ago and now we're both back again as "mentors"/psuedo-instructors. I'm so glad we get to do this together and can share in the stress of actually having responsibility now. :) 

Tomorrow I'm giving a presentation on NICU care to a group of nurses at the pediatrics hospital-- wish me luck! 

Breaking the budget

For the last few months I have been agonizing over a few different decisions for this summer. Basically, Justin and I both had some amazing opportunities to travel but the die-hard cheapskate side of me wasn't sure how it would fit into our budget... If I'm clipping coupons for 20 cents off of a can of beans how can I justify traveling across the world?! 


Well, I finally decided to live a little :) and later we both found out we got some amazing grants and scholarships. We feel super blessed-- first, to get to travel and second, to have a good part of it paid for.


Good news is the blog should get much more exciting! I'm always better at blogging when I'm abroad. So here are the details... 


1) I am going to Ecuador with the BYU undergraduate nursing students as a "mentor" of sorts. :) It is the same study abroad I went on as an undergraduate so I'm super excited. I just need to practice my español because I'm a little really rusty. I'll be supervising the students in the maternity hospital, Sotomayor (aka the "Baby Factory", which I wrote about here and here), and the NICU area of the pediatric hospital. 

2) Justin and I are going to Mozambique with a non-profit called Care for Life. Justin will be there for a month and I'll join him for the last two weeks. We are SO excited. We will be working with their health director teaching a new health and hygiene booklet they have made. I'll post more about them later, but they are an awesome organization.

We will be working in some villages near Beira (kinda in the middle of the coastline).

Here's a little video about Care for Life. We are so excited to work with them.

Easter Sunday

My Easter miracle this year was getting to be on-call! I was scheduled to work but luckily (for me and the patients) we sent almost everyone home Saturday. Sleeping in, going to church, and spending time with family was even more wonderful on Easter because I was expecting it. 

Here are pics from Easter dinner at Justin's mom's house. It was so fun to celebrate and eat a yummy Easter dinner. We jumped on the tramp, did an Easter egg hunt (Justin had the duty of hiding the eggs), and blew colored bubbles. 

Easter egg hunt fail: I grabbed a large candle off of the piano (thinking it was a bowl and there was possibly an egg inside) and poured hot wax all over myself and the piano. Luckily, I wasn't burned and Jana didn't mind scraping wax off of her furniture. I'm really smooth, right?

I am so grateful for my Savior this Easter Sunday. I know He lives. I'm so jealous Ashley is here right now: 

P.S. Second Easter miracle: me blogging something same-day! Aren't you proud?