Every Tuesday morning, the hospital nurses have a continuing education session and this week we were asked to speak, so we left early for yet another presentation. We would be lost without Drill Sergeant Britty blasting into her metaphorical megaphone every morning, "IT'S TIME TO GO! WE CAN'T BE LATE!" (meanwhile I'm stumbling out the door with my shoes untied shouting "Wait for me! Hakuna Matata!"). Cari and I presented on "What is Cancer?" again, since this was a new group of nurses and we found that people are very unfamiliar with this topic. It's very cool to see the wheels turning in everyone's minds as we explain the pathophysiology behind cancer. They all asked really great questions. We are really trying to focus on empowering them to take the education they have received and pass it along to their co-workers, patients, and patient's caregivers, so our work continues after we leave.
After a few miscommunications (we are getting used to this), we realized that we needed to do another PowerPoint presentation at another location and the nurses had been waiting an hour for us to present. Britty and Kari quickly did an impromptu presentation on various cancers seen at the cancer care clinic. They did a great job!
Today wasn't an infusion day, so clinic let out early which gave us time to go home and finish the rough drafts of our chemo protocols for the clinic. It is an intimidating (and tedious) process to scribe the correct chemotherapies and dosages. Hopefully, this will make the process much simpler for everyone involved!
On our way home, we decided that tonight was a wine type of night, so we crossed our fingers and went to a small, nearby shop, hoping that they would have some! We were elated to find a rack of wine in the back. The bottles may have been covered in a thick film of dust, but we didn't care (I suggested it just meant it was better aged)! We were excited to have a bottle...or three. I insisted we got the bottle labelled "Church Wine", because...come on...who doesn't like church wine?! Much to our dismay, as Cari opened the Church Wine, a bizzare aroma erupted from the bottle, and Cari's smile quickly turned upside down as the flavor of sickenly-sweet mixed with wet dog touch her taste buds. Bottle after bottle proved to be more and more of a disappointment and we sadly had to poured all of the wine down the drain! It just wasn't in the cards for us to have wine tonight.
While we were at the "bad wine" shop, we finally found something we all have been pining for: WASHCLOTHS! We each got to choose a color and were so excited to get home and scrub the layer of dirt that formed on our legs throughout the day. Unfortunately, as we got home, I held my washcloth up to the light and realized that the cloth was so thin that I could easily see through it. Cari described it as "trying to wash your body with a Q-tip". It definitely was better than not having a wash cloth. #firstworldproblems
Kari became paranoid today when her computer started shocking her legs and I informed her that this was how my computer's battery died when I was in Kenya, so she decided to take extra care and use this contraption to "safe-guard" it. The contraption consists of 2 adapters and a converter. Oh Boy!
Other interesting things we learned today:
1. Morphine is literally dispensed here in old Coca-cola bottles in a liquid form. That's what we call a strong drink!
2. Cari's foot is NOT broken! It is so swollen and bruised that the doctor at the clinic suggested she get an X-ray, so Cari got to be a patient for a minute. Thankfully, the X-ray was negative for fractures!
3. One of our toilets is very inappropriate and likes to goose you when you go to sit down...I thought I was the only one!
Well, that's it for tonight. We are off to dream more vivid dreams! Wish us luck!
Until Kesho (tomorrow),
Nat
P.S. We miss you all 'sana' (a lot)!
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