Haylex and Kaylone: Wo shi Meiguoren (pronounced Woh shr May-gwoh-wren) means I'm an American

I posted the last blog post a little early yesterday. I didn't think that we were doing anything else that night but we did a few more things and I took more pictures! Later that night, Kris and Sarah wanted to go the knife store (the one that makes knives out of human bones), so we got our friend Jane, hailed a taxi and went downtown. After we went to the knife shop, we went across the street to this bakery called Donutes. It was so Delicious! Taiwans treats don't often match up to American sweets in my opinion... but this one sure did! They also made awesome decorative cakes. Here are some of my favorites:

Cow- this one's for you Dad :)

pufferfish

Me at the bakery

Later that night, we went to get some more Tsua Bing. The owners of the place wanted us to come so we could sign some paper fans and take pictures. We are going back on Wednesday to see the picture that they are going to enlarge and hang in their shop... so awesome! They probably will have us sign the picture too :)

Tuesday May 25th

Today was another good day in the ICU. I got to do a few things including feeding patients through an NG tube, giving an Insulin shot, helping patients change positions, giving medications, taking blood sugars... you know all the awesome stuff that student nurses get to do.

Dr. Chan (in the ICU) gave us girls a stinky fruit (aka Durian) popsicle... it was actually fairly good, but my breath later smelt like I had eaten something stinky. The doctor told us that you never eat this fruit before going into an interview or meeting or else it might not go so well :) He also said that eating the actual stinky fruit (not just the popsicle) would be 10 times stinkier. I guess some hotels ask people to not eat stinky fruit or stinky tofu because it smells so bad an will bother other guests lol

I pulled these pictures from google - this is what stinky fruit looks like

Rainy and I eating the Durian popsicle

We also had a farewell luncheon today (tomorrow is our last day at the hospital). All of the nurses and doctors that we have worked with this past month were there. It was so much fun and all of the community nurses kept making fun of me for not being able to eat sushi. They laugh at it so much that I am sure that the students next year will probably hear about it :)

Rainy and I with our ICU preceptor Ya Ling

Sophia and the nurses messing around

Group picture!!

My community nurse Ray Gene (I discovered that it is spelled Jui-Chin today lol) gave me a little book that is in both Chinese and English talking about Taiwan and all of the wonderful things that it has to offer. I loved it! She even wrote a nice note in it that was grammatically incorrect and had her whole family sign it. I will miss her and the other nurses so much!

Later in the afternoon, we went to tour the hospice unit. Their unit is so nice and looks more homey than a hospital... which is great for hospice patients. They gave us fresh bakery bread and rolls and showed us a powerpoint presentation. During the presentation I started tearing up. They were talking about taking care of family members after a patient dies and providing crafts and activities for them to do. I have not thought about this for quite a while, but for some reason, it reminded me of the time that my siblings and I went to some type of therapist and did crafts after my sister died. I am grateful for memories like that and so glad when I am reminded of them. They help me to remember whats important in life.

Hospice tour and bread

After clinical ,we wanted to give a little back to our friends Jane and Ya-Ling. We had a "girls night" :) Some of the girls bought face masks and food.
Another fun story: So just about everything that we think will be the same as it is in America, usually isnt :) We opened up the face masks thinking that they were going to be a scrub or liquid type substance... boy were we wrong. They were actually masks! haha They were pretty creepy looking too.
After everyone put on a mask, we ate food and chatted. While we were talking Jane asked me if my eyelashes were real and told me that she had been wondering that since she met me :) She was impressed that my eyelashes were so long. I told her that they were in fact real and showed her the mascara I used to make them look so long. We then spent the next half hour doing make-up. Wow, it has been a while since I've actually had a girls night when you do make-up on each other. I actually really don't miss it. lol I left early and talked to my mom for the first time on Skype. It was fun to be able to catch up with her... it was like I was back in America and had never left :) Here are the awesome pictures from tonight