December 8, 2014

Greetings from my ship bunk!

December 2

Last week I was asked to help out in the PACU (recovery room) this week while they had a transition of nurses, and of course I said yes! Since it is part of my skill set and they gave me a day of orientation, I jumped in with both feet. Isn’t that what we travel nurses are asked to do with each and every assignment – be part of the team and always give our best?

It has been great being with the patients as they wake up and experience the gratitude that they have been taken care of and will be until they leave the ship and beyond. One of my patients’ first words were, “you didn’t take my organs, I’m alive.” Yes, there are a lot of myths around what we do on Mercy Ships. The takeaway from his experience is that he will go back to his village, which is almost 70 km away, and share the good news. Word of mouth from our own patients is the best PR we could ever receive.

Yesterday one of my patients had a 13-pound lipoma (benign tumor) removed from his right quad. Can you imagine how he walked around with an additional 13 pounds protruding from his thigh? I saw it and still can’t imagine.

It hasn’t all been work here. Over the weekend I went to the local market, Bizarre Be, to do some shopping, and then on Sunday a group of us went to the Lemur Preserve. It was amazing! We saw lemurs out in the wild, a beautiful waterfall and a group of Malagasy dancers that were making a video we assumed for tourism. There is rarely a dull moment on or off the ship.