Wednesday, January 12, 2011

We're nursing students without boarders

        Today we held assessments and teaching at the house in the morning. Erica and I did the assessments on the veranda (with the help of an interpreter). We saw a lot of elderly adults with musculoskeletal pain. One man for example is eighty years old, still working in the fields everyday complained of shoulder and back pain. Another woman in her late seventies described pain in her neck, knees and lower back which does not surprise me because she has been carrying things on her head (like buckets of water) for her entire life. These people work so hard their entire lives, it’s no wonder they hurt! It makes me sad that pain relieving medications that are so readily available at home are so hard to come by here. A lot of the children we saw were dehydrated, following thier recent illness, which is why it's included in our health teaching!! It's so much fun to see how our teaching plans have evolved from planning them months ago, to our first day here, to now. Plans never go as planned.
       In the afternoon our group split up to visit both the primary and secondary schools in a neighboring village. The little kids love malaria tag and the hand washing song (in French) is also a really big hit, everywhere we go. After our teaching I went to help with the assessments of the children. One little girl I saw had been sick for the last five days and was pretty dehydrated. We were able to talk with her mother and provide some oral rehydrating solution, stressing the importance of replenishing the fluid she has lost. We also saw several healthy children, which is always very encouraging!
It’s amazing to me to think about how much I have grown as a nurse even in the last year. A year ago, I had one semester of nursing school under my belt and now… I have one semester to go! In the last year I have learned how to ask the right questions and prioritize needs; today I got to put those skills to good use! I wish I could express to you, in words, how much I love what I do.

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