Shift work is a whole lot easier with a shot of vodka...

May 13, 2010

Last night I (Lindsey) worked another night shift and my first without Katie ;( She is working today so will probably post herself later this evening. So yesterday after I got off work I went straight to bed, was soooo tired, and slept pretty good for most of the day. Did wake up once hearing Katie trying to explain to the maid that we wanted new towels, haha, it was pretty comical. Then I caught the bus with Bonnie for my 2nd shift. The beginning of this shift was much slower than the night before, because the postops from yesterday were much more stable. The first case was a 4 year old complete TET repair who was a previous BT shunt. Her name was Christina and she was a trooper!! She went the whole night without complaining at all and keep in mind that their pain regimen is meds similar to tylenol and ibuprofen. Actually when giving morphine to patients, which is available, they don't put it on the chart because they dont like to have records of using a controlled substance, haha. Its funny because that is the most important thing to make sure is charted at home. Anyways, Christina was really sweet, she would wake up and ask for her mom and look at you with a look that was not quite so sure if she trusted you or not. She warmed up after awhile and would let me hold her hand while she went to sleep. The 2nd case was a cute little 2 and a half year old boy, Dima, who got his ASD closed. He was a sleepy head at first and didn't want to wake up postop so we ended up not extubating him until about 9pm. After extubation they pretty much give all their kids racemic epi, I haven't seen any albuterol so I'm assuming this is all they have. He had an easy night except for the fact that his mom was shoving water down his throat and then he would throw it all up, poor guy. Julia (the little TET baby from the night before) had a great night as well, during the middle of the night we noticed she had p waves, so YAY normal sinus rhythm. She is also taking a bottle and wakes up every few hours like she's never had a bite to eat in her life, haha. It's funny because the hospital doesn't supply feeds for these patients, their parents have to bring the milk for them.

One thing that has been a little difficult in the whole patient care area is that we are not supposed to change things that they already do as a standard in their hospital. So we may see things that we do differently, but if it works for them then they really want us to let it continue. I guess there are still so many things for them to learn relating to care of these pediatric cardiac patients, we don't want to overwhelm them. Also we are not there to change the way they do things (for example charting, etc.) we are just their to teach and help improve the outcomes of these patients. One of the nurses that was on last night named Victoria I thought was really wonderful. She is the first nurse that I have actually seen assess her patient. She was even trying to communicate a change she saw in Julia and was spot on. It was difficult last night because literally not one person there spoke good english. It was me, Bonnie, and Scottie on for our group so obviously none of us speaks Russian. We muddled through with a dictionary and alot of guessing, haha. Apparently it was not only nurses day in the USA yesterday, but here as well. They had some food out last night for everyone and asked us to join them. They offered a drink which you will never guess what it was....vodka, haha. That's right everyone drinking shots of vodka at the hospital. It was a huge bottle that was full...then about an hour later we walked back into their little kitchen room and there was barely any left. Can you imagine that happening at home??? NEVER!!! Don't worry we didn't accept it!! I guess people here hold their liquor better than at home though cause you didn't really notice a difference with anyone. Plus people sleep during their shifts there. The nurses take turns and leave one person in the unit at a time. Hopefully nothing goes wrong! So all in all it was a successful shift!

Today when we got back to the hotel we decided to take advantage of the free breakfast at the hotel. You have the choice between regular breakfast and russian breakfast so today we tried the russian. It was soooo good. They had these meatball looking things with rice in them served with pasta, for breakfast, haha, yummm. After breakfast we went to sleep for a few hours and then Scottie and I went exploring around the city.

He wanted to go to this toy store that we saw the other day to find gifts for his kids, so we trekked on the metro (which we did very well with by the way). The toy store ended up being a bust, they just had cheaply made american toys. So we decided to look for this flea market we had heard about. While wandering around the city we came across some really beautiful places. We ended up in what is known as "Old City". After eating lunch at a great little pizza place (our 3rd since we have been here), we came across this really cool park with gorgeous fountains and some beautiful views of a few churches. Along the sidewalks some artists had their artwork set up. Scottie and I both ended up buying a really cool piece of artwork. The one I bought was of this monastery that we saw. It was so pretty with tall gold steeples. When we walked in to the courtyard this man chased after us and tied a skirt around my waste. Apparently they don't like ladies wearing capris :( We wanted to go inside and take a look but all the woman had scarves tied around their heads, so we are going to try and go back this weekend. After seeing some other great churches and having our own tour of the city, we finally found the market we were looking for. It was pretty much all closed down so we are thinking that we will try again during the weekend. It is soooo big so I'm sure will be hopping on Saturday or Sunday.

So now we are just hanging out waiting for everyone to return from the hospital. I think we are all going to the English pub again tonight!! So hope everyone is doing well at home!! Miss you!!

-Lindsey