Happy Mother's Day!!
Wo Ai Ni Mom!! (just imagine that I posted this on Sunday)
Today we went to church... and listened to pure Chinese... I didn't have a translator like last week. It was really good though... I could just tell ;) The primary kids sang mother's day songs in sacrament meeting and it was sooo cute!! I actually videotaped it secretly. Yes, yes I know that you shouldn't video tape during church but I just HAD too. It was too cute to pass up.
All of us girls received flowers from the children. The thing I find funny about the Taiwanese culture is that they don't always stick to formality. Example: After the primary kids had finished singing they all began handing out flowers to the women while one of the speakers was talking. :)
Whoever wants flowers for mother's day, just pretend that I am giving these to you!
We didn't do much for the rest of Sunday except homework and eat... what an relaxing day :P
Monday April 10th
Today I was out in the community all day with my nurse Ray Gene. I thought that today was going to be blazing hot... but luckily it only turned out to be semi-blazing. Actually it probably wasn't as hot because all of the patients that we saw had air conditioning. Woot!! Most of the patients today were pretty well off and my nurse said one was "Very ,Very Rich!" ha ha
It kind of amazes me that some of these houses look so beat up on the outside but are simply beautiful on the inside. I have also noticed that cherry red wood or mahogany (whatever its called) is very popular here in Taiwan. Many of the nicer homes have a lot of furniture made out of this red wood.
So many of the patients that we saw today were so darling!! One woman, had both legs amputated and could hardly see anything but she was so lively and good spirited. My nurse said that she loves to give high fives so my nurse told her who I was and that I wanted to give her a high five. After I gave her a high five, she laughed a little and then started crying. :( I was confused for a second as to why she was crying but then my nurse told me that she was just so happy. I feel so lucky to have been apart of that woman's day and I hope she continues to have hope despite her difficult circumstances.
Speaking about hope... my group had a devotional on Sunday and we talked a lot about how even though the patients that we are seeing live in poor conditions, they love and appreciate what they have and don't seek for more. Even though it is really nice to live with all of the nice things that Americans have, we definitely could live without the majority of it.. I mean I took one suitcase and a backpack and my living conditions are way better than a lot of Taiwanese families.
I will mention for my records :) that I changed 2 foleys (which I am seriously awful at... I can't do everything perfect the way I want to!!) I also changed 2 NG tubes and 1 trach
Here are a few of our patients:
The girl below me is from Indonesia. Many Taiwanese families hire workers from Indonesia or the Philippines in order to take care of family members who are living at home.
I changed this woman's trach... she probably hated me after that :P
Giving the patient a high five
This man was so nice... and knew a little English!!
The after effects of untreated Gout. Even though this patient's problem is evident the family does not want to treat with Western or hospital medication. I am actually learning that a lot Taiwanese families choose not to treat something when it has already happened.. correct me if this is wrong ... but one doctor said that patients will often go to hospital if in an acute situation, but will not be as likely to got to the hospital if the condition is chronic or has not changed.
So today the language barrier really hit me. I was trying to explain to my nurse that I wanted to ask each patient what they believed to be important to them in their lives currently or in the past. well I asked my nurse in broken English and she understood everything and even said that she knew what important meant but didn't understand what I wanted :) I spent at least 30 minutes trying to explain what I wanted but it just got worse haha. I better work on my broken english or my synonyms for words... but apparently I should not use the word important :)
Another thing that I saw today was that at the railroad crossings they have 2 bars come down on each side of the track (for a total of 4 bars) I believe they do this because the Taiwanese drive so CRAZY! I would not doubt that a moped or two has tried to cross the train tracks while the bar was down and was smashed by a train because they thought they could make it (sorry for the imagery) But yeah.... it is not abnormal to see a moped or car on the other side of the yellow lines.
Tuesday April 11th
Went out to the community again. Ray Gene and I went with the doctor that fed me 4 bowls of food last time so I was kind of nervous for lunch. Luckily, we all had to go to a meeting at 12pm and were given box lunches there. Dr. Suh was kind enough to take some time out of his schedule and show me and my nurse around Anping. We went to a museum type place called the Anping Treehouse. It was pretty cool because there is just this house that trees grow through. We didn't have enough time to read what it was actually for but it looked awesome.
A Statue of a Lion (a symbol of protection) for the the city of Anping
We went to the meeting at noon and talked about a patient who had had a pressure ulcer on his heel... it was the most disgusting pressure ulcer I have ever seen... but the patient had his leg amputated. Him and his wife were having difficulty adjusting to it so the meeting was called to discuss what could be done to help them accept this change. Everything was in English except the solution... so I guess I will never know what they decided to do to help... too bad becuase it probably would have been interesting.
In the afternoon I went with Sarah, a Doctor Huang and a new nurse (her name sounds like Chim pin) to "The Mountain" Sarah and I were so curious as to what "The Mountain" was and later found out that the nurses just referred to is as the mountain because the house we were visiting was far away and closer to the central mountain range of Taiwan.
Oh I wanted to mention that I had a couple of different cases today than the regular CVA or head injury. One woman had TMJ where her jaw would lock out of position whenever she opened her mouth and another patient who had a rare fungal infection on his face. The fungal infection had previously penetrated his brain and caused tissue death and hemorrhage. the fungal infection also caused an abscess in his eye and caused him to go blind. He has had 6 surgeries on his head since then and is paralyzed on the left side. He also has a piece of grafted skin on his face which I am not sure but believe that it is possibly due to infection breaking down his skin. I just gotta say... DO NOT GET THIS INFECTION!!
One funny story of the day... we (sarach, nurse and doctor and I) were driving home from a patient's home and I noticed a speed limit sign on the freeway. It said 100. I started thinking of how awesome it was that the speed limit in Taiwan was so high. But then I realized that our car was definitely not going 100 mph. I looked at the dashboard and saw that the nurse was going 105. I quickly realized that it was not in mph... the speed limit in Taiwan is in km/hour... duh!!
Second funny story... this happened on the same car ride. A song came on the radio and I asked Sarah if the person who sang it was Celine Dion. Sarah replied yes. Dr. Huang said a few seconds later. "Oh like Celine Dion off of Titanic... Jack... Jack.. No, don't jump" (in an Asian accent) hahaha Sarah and I couldn't stop laughing.
This was the "courtyard" to a wealthy patients home
And Look! they are Christian! you don't see much of that in Taiwan
After Clincal we went Karaoke-ing with the ICU nurses. We rode mopeds again!!
Here is the nurse that I rode with... I now know why a ton of Taiwanese people wear masks... the smog was horrible tonight because we were continually by a ton of mopeds
Back to Karaoke...The KTV places that they have in Taiwan are so nice!! Here is picture of the VIP room where we sang
Karaoke was a blast! There were 4 Microphones that people could sing from at one time. They even provided a buffet... this place is legit.
Christina and I singing
A few of the ICU nurses showing off their karaoke talent
The whole group singing... it was probably a backstreet boys song :)
This is Jane... she is the funnest/coolest person I have met in Taiwan so far. She is always willing to help us out and is always up for a night of partying with us
So I thought I would put this up there... I thought is was hilarious how every American song that didn't have a recent music video, instead had a video of Americans from the 80's either all over each other or they were all alone and really depressed... oh what a great impression we give to other countries :)
We decided tonight that KTV's and Shwa bing (the shaved ice and fruit) would be a hit in Provo
Haha, I loved the Titanic story! Great blog posts, keep them coming! :)
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