Day 11

Today was another early day... we had to be on the bus by 7:30 and so that required 2 cups of coffee for me! Luckily we did not have to start out with any presentations today. Instead we broke off in to 2 groups. I was put in to the first group with Brandon, Emily, Cameron, Sarah, Jeanna, Irena, Alex M, Carrie and Alecia. We stayed at the Sotero de Rio hopsital with Jeanette who is nurse, usually for children and maternity areas. The other group went with Sandra to Josefina Martinez hospital where our group will be going on Friday when we switch activities. Jeannette took our nearly formed group through the kidney patient ward where we were able to see both the infant and adult wings of the building. In the adult wing we were able to walk through the rooms where people were receiving dialysis, which was very interesting. The rooms were very warm and people were covered with blankets to keep their blood flowing smoothly as the machines filtered out toxins from their blood. From there we headed to the maternity ward where we again split in to two smaller groups. My group turned in to Sarah, Emily, Brandon, Cameron and me, and we were the first group to see the maternity ward with Pilar Espinoza while the other went with Jeanette to the ER and the medical ward. Our group was taken on to the first floor of the maternity ward where we had to put our bags down, wash our hands and put on apron scrubs before we could go in to where the babies were. We went in to several different rooms where there were small babies in incubators. The rooms were split up depending on the conditions of the babies such as premis with illness, severely underweight premis, premis with severe conditions, and there were also normal weight babies as well. I loved seeing all the babies but some of them were soooooo tiny that they probably could have fit in my hands like a little puppy. One of the babies we saw was born from a mother who wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. She was addicted to drugs, which caused birth defects in him like dislocated ankles and knees and malformations of his face. The poor little guy was so sweet looking... I just wanted to hold him! There could have been a chance for us to see the birthing of a baby as well, but we had no such luck today. I was not too disappointed though. We met up with the rest of our group in the administrative room of the maternity ward and gave them our scrubs so they could prep to see the babies as well. Then we headed with Jeanette to the ER where she told us that we would be able to watch a procedure. The ER was absolutely nothing like in the states. The rooms had multiple patients in them, and almost all with out a curtain divider. It was also a very small area, not as large as I had expected for an ER. We were taken in to a room for ER patients who needed intensive care and were told that the procedure we were to watch would be a woman receiving a jugular IV. Wow, it was intense. I was very excited to see it because I am definitely interested in things like that. The woman was very old and frightened... she kept saying to the nurses "please don't kill me" (very sad, I know). The needle that they had to stick in to her neck was huge, but I was not grossed out or anything... In fact it wasn't until we started to leave the room that I felt dizzy. Luckily, I was able to read the signs and sat down before I fainted. Brandon, on the other hand was not so lucky and we had to carry him to a bench so that he could recover. It was a very intense situation, and I never would have known that would happen to me. I'm just glad that Emily was there to sit with me. Thanks Em! After Brandon was OK to stand again we headed to the cafeteria for a snack and waited for the rest of our smaller group to join us. Then we had to wait for the other group to pick us up and take us to our next destination. The day had already been quite an adventure, but there was more to come. We had a 3 hour break before the next part of our class so Juan drove us to a near by mall where we were able to wander around, get food or do whatever. Emily and I bought me a scarf that I could wear because it is suppose to be colder down South and boy was it cold in Santiago today! While at the mall Emily also ate our usual packed lunch of PB&J, pringles, apple slices and we even had a cookie. At 3:30 we met back on the bus and Juan drove us to the Pontifica Universidad Catolica de Chile where we would be having our presenation of the day. There we met up with Kelly who had been running around getting her passport sorted out. She was also able to buy a new backpack, yay Kelly! The presentation this afternoon was several short ones about the different public health projects that are currently being implimented in Chile. Emily and my favorites were the ones on "The Initiative for HIV/AIDS Prevention." After the presentation Juan drove us home and I made burritos for dinner. We had some steak left over from a sandwhich Emily ate that we heated up with rice, beans, cheese and avocado. It was delicccciiiiooous. A bunch of people went out to take tango lessons but Emily and I stayed in. I don't think that learning a complicated new dance would be the best idea for my knee and Emily is pretty tired. As a matter of fact I think I might go get ready for bed and watch some TV with her right now. Hope all is well with every one back in the states!!!