The 13th Angel

I want to extend my greetings to my sister, Chamitos Angel Acosta aka Maiah Querubin Acosta, who is celebrating her birthday today.

Just last Saturday I was urging the mother who delivered a baby girl to name her daughter after my sister but I do not think that the mother liked her name. Although this was not the case with my first ever patient inside the OB ward last June.  She asked me what name should she give her baby since she and her husband cannot think of a name. i said Maiah would be cool and my patient was really glad with it, according to her Maiah rhymes with her name, which is May.

Well I just hope that the girl would not grow up just like my sister. Yeah sure my sister was a cum laude in UP, and was ranked 11th in board exam, and was awarded  with the prestigious  “Kalabasa Award” as the “Violation Queen” in her Dorm last 2003 or 2004, but sadly, despite such achievements, she needs to take some refresher courses about Patriotism and stuff.

Last Christmas, I was setting aside all fake coins that I found so they wont be used again and brought back to the circulation, but then when I looked at the canister where I was hiding them, i was shocked because my sister gave them all to the carollers. When i told her about this she didn’t even care.

Another one, she always tells me that I should go abroad after I graduate, but that is not what I was planning. I want to serve our country (NAKS), but she would ridicule this idea then tell me that I should set aside such stupid idea.

But anyway, Happy BVirthday to you sis, you know we’re proud of you.  Kaya ichecheer kita;

One

Two

Three

Go Maiah Go

YEHEy !!!

(CLICK HERE) This is one of her gozzillions Friendster acounts BTW.

4 @ Delivery Room

(Click Images to Enlarge) Since I only entered the bukol ward, or the lump ward, and was not able to go inside the Operating Room where the Major ORs are done, i was stationed last Saturday at the Delivery Room together with my groupmates who have the least cases of Handle or Assist in the DR.

I was really surprised and happy at the same time when the Nurse who was stationed there told me that i’ll be inserting an Intravenous Fluid Infusion (Dextrose or Swero). Even the Registered Nurses are not allowed to insert IVFs unless they have undergone a special training. And so are we, Student Nurses. That’s why I was really eager yet nervous when the Nurse told me that I’ll be inserting the bottle.Luckily I was able to insert it at the first trial. This was not my first time though, we had inserted all sorts of injection at each other in our Health Care class when we were in second year, but this was my first time to try it with a real patient, actually the first time in our group. I am really glad that I successfully inserted it in the right vein. Some registered nurses fail to do it in their first trial even if theyre doing it for years so I guess I was really lucky.

The baby was delivered, it was a baby girl.

This is by the way the photo of the cyst, which was roughly the size of a head, that my groupmates were able to extract from a man inside the OR lastThursday.

More Pics tomorrow

Last, last Saturday

(This entry should have been posted last Saturday, but it was difficult for me to gather all the pictures. Thanks Lallaine!)

We finally turned our backs to the hospital that never let us set our feet in its elevator. Imagine climbing down to the ground floor from the fourth floor every time you want to pee.

According to my professor in Pediatrics and our Student

Head Nurses last week, Interns were barred from the elevator after a group from the previous batch played inside the elevator. It turned out that the whole group found an opportunity to take their photos one night inside the elevator. They barricaded the elevator and lifted it to the top floor.
Unknown to them, an emergency was happening in the third floor and an oxygen tank was ordered. The utilities were unable to bring the oxygen tank to the patient so the patient died.
What was really sad is that the patient was just 5 years old. The mother was so angry and devastated.
The Students were threatened to be dropped from the subject, but for an unkown reason they were spared and were just given an Incidental report each and were suspended for a whole week. (click images to enlarge)

And so that was the story…
… many more unfortunate events happened to some of the student nurses who had their duties there. The girl that was raped on the very first day of our internship was interning there that time. And also the girl who was robbed of with her cellphone and left with slashes on her wrist was also from that hospital. And will I ever forget the two Stdent Nurses ahead of us, who both died after acquiring Meningococcemia from their patient.

There are actually 15 of us in the group. 10 girls and 5 males (this is usually the ratio of sexes in Nursing schools) and add the two fourth year students who were with us as our Head Nurses.

Instead of having our usual duty, we had our comprehensive case study presentation last Friday. Before that, the whole group decided to meet in a nearby park, but I was unable to come… i decided not to come. Then we proceed to the rooftop were we had our case pres. so far it is the best.

Angelo doing the self-breast-examination

The group and our CI

while doing the case pres

views from the top.

The Team

I was assigned at the “Bukol” Room (Lumps Room), named because the Medical mission changed the Payward into an operating room for minor cases. I was very much excited when I entered the room since I know that the Doctor that would be doing the surgeries is really nice and extremely cool. She’s a Doctor for Armed Forces of the Philippines… her real name is Maricel, but her nickname is even more enchanting… Peaches. She jokes a lot. She bullies her partner,Dr. Dwayne (an American). And she asked Neil yesterday to find her a boyfriend.

I first saw her when she exited the Operating Room at 6. She was talking with the other doctor then she put her pointer and middle fingers on her lips, her way of asking for a cigarette break. The doctor replied, “Anong sigarilyo, pag ikaw namatay…” (What cigarette, When you died…) then another doctor butt in, “…namatay ng nakangiti.” (Died smiling)… and everyone laughed. She smiled at us. The doctor later on warned her that she’ll put red peppers on her cigarette if she won’t stop.

Her partner is as cool as her, Dwayne. When he saw us, he made us stand on a straight line and told us to dance Boom Tarat… it was so funny. He really likes the show according to him. Too bad he couldn’t say the lyrics correctly. He was instructing as to dance while he sings;

Boom Terat Terat
Boom Terat terat
Sumayath Sumyath Boom Boom Boom

Ms. Leila Busch heard him and corrected him, but he still didn’t get the Tarrarat Tararat line… Wherever he got the Sumayath thing, I do not know. And thank goodness to the correction, we were spared from dancing.

Our first case was a guy with a lump on the Chest. Then next was a Lady with mass on her breast. That lady has previously undergone the same operation on her right breast with Dra. Peaches. The doctor was so good in suturing, she made the cut on the Areola’s (nipple’s) and the skin’s boundary. Them she stitched them so neatly, which according to Dwayne, could not meet his standard, but I think was the BEST that I’ve ever seen. The stitch was almost invisible. I do not think I was able to help them though. I cannot find the things that they were asking and I even noticed that Dwayne was already the one who’s doing some of the things that I should have done. I was actually busy holding the curtain to cover the patient. A hairy guy at my back kept on glancing at her breast.

Then our group had a rotation, I went back to the recovery room, this time I was not accompanied by Ms Leila but by Ms. Beth Rosas, that’s her surname I forgot her whole name.

She, just like Ms Leila, is also a Filipina. She’s a member of Philippine Nurses Association of Greater Kansas City. There is an air of, uhmmm elegance and grace in her. She’s realy pretty and really smart. She’s smart. She explained a lot of things to me and I was able to ask her certain questions. She even showed us her Family Pictures and her pets. I like her very much. She showed me the O2 Sat that is worn by the patient. She inserted my index finger in the gadget, and the gadget blinked 99%. She wa like, “Ay bakit ganun dapat 100.” (Why is it like that? It should have been 100%). So she took the gadget and inserted it to her finger, she was very much positive that her Oxygen Saturation is 1000 but to her dismay and to my delight, her score was only 95. we bothy laughed.

When we were about to go they gave us a stuffed toy each. I named my Panda Bear Dwayne, while Leslie named her puppy Peaches. Angelo got a dog too, Hanzel got
a pelican.

Flowers are for Girls

I only had an hour of sleep last night. I tried to finish my thesis. I slept at 2AM then woke up at 3. My duty is in a District Hospital and this is my first time. I didn’t know how to get there so I left the house at 4:30 (I was planning to leave at 4 but due to my grogginess, I was late). My groupmates left our redevous without me. When I got in the hospital, I was 12 minutes late but Alex insisted that it was already 15 minutes passed 6 so I am absent (Damn him.)

There is a Medical Mission being held by the Philippine Nurses Association of Greater Kansas City in that hospital. We waited for them until 8.

The Nurses were accompanied by some volunteer Doctors from the US and other nurses from the other parts of the Philipines. According to them, this was their 14th year in service. Next year they are bound for Benguet or Surigao.

One thing I and my classmates noticed about this people is how warm they are to their patient. Honestly, I have never seen a Filipino doctor cuddles a baby like his own child. You can really feel the “CARE” that they are giving even if their patients are poor. They joke a lot. One Caucasian doctor even confessed that he loves Wowowie.

I am glad that the FilAm Nurses were also this nice. I thought, if working abroad would mean that I’ll have this kind of people as my colleagues, I might as well fly to America (something that I have not planned before.).

They give gifts to get children’s trust. I was the only one who witnessed this since almost all of my groupmates were assigned with the doctors for surgeries (since I was late.).

There was one instance when the FilAm nurse, Ms. Leila Busch gave a sando to a five years old boy. The sando is white with red lining on its helm. It has the printed portrait of jollibee surrounded by flowers.

The kid noticed the flowers and insisted that flowers are only for girls. His mom had to wrestle with him just to make him wear the sando.

The kid was later on delivered to the Operating room to have his Right pinky and ringman fingers separated (he was born with his two fingers fused by skin).

Hours passed and Ms Leila came to his mother to tell her that the child was also circumcised to get the skin for the skin grafting, the operation btw is a type of plastic surgery. His mom was all trilled of the news, but when the child was brought into the room, it turned out theat the doctotrs were just joking, they took the skin for the grafting of the finger that doesn’t have enough skin from his abdomen.

My groupmates has more interesting stories about big cysts and small cysts… and about a guy’s, according to Aiza,  a guy’s “big Chuvaness.”

Try this site http://www.pnagkc.org/ and this http://www.medical-mission.com//

PS We were dismissed at 12 because of a party that our CI has to attend to.