Nursing by Headlamp

Tonight is my last night-shift to work, at this moment I have the time and the internet connection to tell you just a little about it.

After the worship service, the patients usually watch a movie together (tonight it was one of the Narnia movies - in French). Sometimes a few of the more ambulatory patients will re-inact the movie and then, eventually, everyone will settle into their cots for the night. Since a majority of our patients aren't fully mobile, getting them to cot (to bed :)) doesn't take too long. It's getting them setteled down that can take a while. Tonight was a night that took longer than some. We had a patient return from surgery (at a different facility) who needed pain and anxiety medication. Unfortunately the medication made her a little loopy with a desire to sing quite a bit.

It gets dark around 6:20p.m., after the main lights are turned off, all of our work is done by head lamp. I've never been so thankful for my little Petzl!

Several of our patients are on IV antibiotics, so we will "hang" those at the appropriate times - sometimes from a homemade IV pole (I noticed one is fashoned out of a Chrismas tree stand and some rebar), sometimes from some railing or curtain rod that may be conveniently near the patient.

There have been 3 nights so far that women have showed up in the evening to have their babies! Tonight is not one of those nights. However, one of our new moms had her milk supply come in tonight and the baby and momma had some trouble adjusting. Fortunately, Emily, the nurse with me tonight, is virtually a breast feeding expert and was able to set our new mom on the right track!

The three year old at the end of a long line of cots typically wakes up 2-3 times a night crying out "mamon, mamon!" You can guess what that means. She's always right at his side, though.

Usually one of our patients, Garry, will decide to have a nice, long chat with his wife, lying in the cot beside him. This usually starts around 3a.m. Whispering doesn't seem to be something the Hatians in our hospital are accustomed to. For some reason many of our patients have cell phones and 4a.m. seems to be the prime time for them to receive calls.

We listen to the combination of snores, roosters, and baby coos and whimpers and try to let our patients sleep through the wee hours as best we can. As the sun comes up at 5:30 our patients begin to rouse. The day starts again and we leave them in the capable hands of the next shift.