Hospital Pictures and Update.

So finally pictures of the hospital...
Red Cross Children's War Memorial Hospital

Inside the front doors
The Child Life Girls:
(April is the only month that all 5 of us are there, Cara & Taylor leave at the end of the month, Caroline will be staying tell February and Danielle leaves in July)

Top Row: Cara, Caroline, Taylor

Bottom Row: Me and Danielle

The Ward

The Treatment Room... where all dressing changes take place. That is a bathtub in the middle of the room.
The Bay... where the patients beds are. I'm sorry the picture is so dark, but I was trying to take it with-out getting patients in it and this is the best I could do with the angle I had to work with. Usually there are 6 beds in each bay, but we do have 3 bays that have 1 or 2 beds in them, usually for isolation or the more critical patients.
Now for the weekly update:

It was a 4 day work week, and I am definitely feeling more comfortable here. I have great days and it reminds me why I wanted to be a Child Life Specialist and it's refreshing to fall in love with your job again. It's the simple things, holding a child's hand, singing to a child, blowing bubbles, or just being there and showing that your care. Some days are better than others, some are physically and emotionally exhausting, but I learn something new each day and I love that I am getting to help make a difference in South Africa with Child Life.

I still spend the mornings (a couple of hours) in Day surgery preparing patients for surgery and anesthesia induction and then spend the rest of the day on the burn unit with the other specialists. There is only 2 weeks that all 5 of us are there, so the plan is to stay in day surgery for those 2 weeks and then spend my whole time on the burn unit, where that is our main focus at this time. But the plan is to continue to have Child Life Specialist come in and hopefully expand to other parts of the hospital over the next year.... little steps at a time.

Some days in Day Surgery are busier than others (nothing like my pre-op days at Phoenix Children's when I would have between 30-40 patients a day). Tuesday I had 7 patients between the ages of 3-7 years old, so it was great to have some quality interactions and preparations. One day I went down to day surgery and it was quiet and only 1 patient there (usually it is full by the time I get there). Evidently 2 patients called in sicked and there were 3 no shows and another patient came. Friday was a dental day for the patients. One of the patients I prepared had Down Syndrome, he wasn't really able to communicate or understand me, but his mother spoke English and he looked at my surgery pictures and played with the mask. I felt like it was a fine interaction considering the circumstance. Later that day the anesthesiologist that worked in day surgery came to find Caroline to let her know that whoever the new girl in day surgery was did an awesome job with this down syndrome patient. The mother shared with the anesthesiologist that the patient has had some traumatic hospital experiences in the last year, but when it came to the mask the patient did awesome and gave the credit to us preparing him before he went back. That is why Child Life is so successful here, the doctors and anesthesiologists believe in what we do and see first hand the difference we can make.

I also am getting to know some of the patients on the burn unit and building rapport, which I love. Wednesdays are our busy/ long day (we leave at 6:40am) because it is ward rounds and that means everyone has their dressings changed and the doctor evaluates what needs to be done, surgery, discharged, etc by visiting each patient bedside. When I made it up to the burn ward that morning I was immediately overwhelmed with all the people on the ward. I walked by a patient’s room and no joke there was probably 25 people in there (doctors and students). Because of the holiday, the outpatient dressing changes were off so we had about 20 outpatient patients as well as all the kids on the floor for dressing changes and they each need 2 (one to undress the patient and then to put the dressing back on after they have been examined). It was a crazy, but a successful day. We had many good comfort holds in the treatment room (which the girls have been working on every week, us holding the patient instead of pinning them down on the table when possible), we were able to advocate for patients, and comfort patients, which is so much what they need in these threatening, often traumatic environments. I probably did between 10-15 dressing changes that day (you loose count after so many) and I found it really hard at times for myself, that is when you look pass what i'm seeing and provide what the patient needs. I even had a patient that pooped on me during the dressing change... just another joy of Child Life:) I almost forgot to mention that on Wednesdays there is a scheduled tea break, where everyone stops what they are doing and have tea around 11am. All the sisters (nurses) and doctors have daily tea breaks, but on Wednesday it is more formal and biscuits (cookies), muffins and bread is provided. I love the concept for a snack break, but sometimes the tea breaks can be quit long and all the patients are just hanging out with cellophane over their wounds.

Thursday was a slower pace day not only in day surgery, but on the ward as well. I spent a large amount of time today holding a patient. We played for a while, she slept for a while and did not want to be put down, and since there wasn’t a lot going on, I just held her while she slept and I loved it. Both her and her brother come in on and off for hot water burns they received from a stove accident in their hut. They were sleeping next to the stove. She is 3 and her brother is 6, they don’t speak a lot of English, but that doesn’t stop us from playing and me showing love towards them and all the kids, and that is my favorite thing, giving them the love, affection and attention they deserve. Friday I spent a lot of time with a little 3 year old boy that had such severe burns to his head that his eyes were swollen shut for a couple of days. But today he opend his eyes, talked (even though he speaks Xohsa) and wanted to play and even looked at a book, it's so neat to see the progress that he has made over this past week. So now it's the weekend, don't have a lot planned... beach, sunset cruise, but looking forward to Monday and another week at the hospital.

Random Story of the week:

My friend Danielle and I were doing laundry Tuesday night and you have to have certain coins to do the laundry, which we did not have, so we headed out to the convenience store to get the right change. We walked by this bookstore that I had heard had children's books and cupcakes, so we saw that it was opened and we decided to venture downstairs to check out the cupcakes only to realize they were having a book club party, so we quickly decided to leave, but before we could leave the photographer asked to take our picture. I was about to say no, we didn't not attend the book club, but Danielle said SURE immediately threw her arm around me and smiled... so here we are having our picture taken at this book club that we did not attend wearing t-shirts and sweats when everyone else is wearing cute dresses. I am laughing so hard, I could barely take the picture. Afterwards, Danielle asked if this will be in the newspaper, the photographer said no, but online, to google our names the next day which we did and this is what we found:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/booksa/page3/

(scroll down and we are on the right side about half way down)

As we were leaving we realized we have no idea what we just took a picture of supporting, but luckily it was a non controversal book (we think)... always good times in Cape Town!