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We cleaned house today after discharging all the kiddies home.  The peds ward is secured for sea again.  This means we had to tie up everything, just in case we hit rough seas.  We also locked up the beds. 

I'm really amazed and humbled by these young men and women who make this whole mission happen.  This includes the NGO volunteers and military personnel.  We've helped over 6000 people between the islands of Tobelo, Morotai, Ternate, Jailolo, and Sofifi.  Watching the kids play in the peds ward today gave me a warm sense of achievement.  It's as if I won some sort of lottery and the price was to have this once in a lifetime opportunity to meet people from all over the world, and from many different backgrounds.  We all seem to have one common goal, which is to help others.  I have seen diseases that I would probably only see in these parts of the world.  There are kids who come in with malaria, TB, scabies, active worm, etc.  We had a little girl who threw up a live worm after getting albendezol (de-worming med) as part of her admission process.  One of the nurses took a pic... it's wicked!  We also had little Cindy, a 7 year old girl who came in with a bone infection that turned out to be a huge osteomyelitis.  The pediatric team discussed plans for a picc line but everyone was worried about infection and complications so we after Cindy had an I&D of her shoulder, we discharged her to a hospital in her home town.  She will be receiving her IV antibiotics with peripheral iv's instead. 

We cleaned and closed up shop by 1500.  I took a yoga class, changed, then ran upstairs to eat dinner.  I contemplated whether or not I should go to the gym, take a shower and call it a night.  I went outside to the weather deck with Laura and we saw an incredible view of Ternate.  I knew Ternate was surrounded by volcanoes, but I must have missed the one that was shaped like a perfect up side down cone.  Laura had to go back to work but I stayed out and saw Lucia, one of the latter day saints volunteers, we took some amazing pictures.  We also saw a few people fishing.  Lucia and I borrowed one of their her hooks and "went fishing". 

July 24, 2010

Last night was the reception party for the end of the Ternate mission.  Laura and I weren't invited so we crashed after work.  There were a lot of party crashers after 2030.  We were escorted by one of the pilots... .whoo-hoo! lol.  We asked him how we would be able to get up to the flight deck, he asked us to wait 10 minutes and we got in.  Since our days our counted before we leave the Mercy in Australia, I bluntly asked, "So, seriously, how do we get on the helos?".  To my surprise, they didn't turn us down, but told us that one of the helocopters is broken and it's harder to bring an extra personfor now.  They didn't promise us anything but they weren't against the idea either. 

I'm off today, but then again, we don't have patients in the wards so all the NGOs are off.  I'm savoring every minute of my day off after working 5 12-hr shifts in a row.  We're leaving Ternate today at 1500 for Ambon.  I think surgcaps are on Sunday or Monday, and surgery starts Tuesday.  I really want to see a surgery so I'm going to try to catch one on the 27th (day off).  I was scheduled to work 6 or 7 days straight but thankfully my commanding officer got me on a medcap for the 29th... how exciting!