Today was not too shabby- In the morning we headed to the dentist office to continue to work on a piece of equipment other EWH students had started on last month. The machine itself looked in decent condition but one of the main tools- a water/air sprayer had not been spraying and air was leaking out of the handle. After some epoxying and figuring out the water trigger, we were able to get it mostly running. There is a loose rubber ring in the handle making the water unpredictable. First thing on Monday, we will be coming up with an alternate seal. Also, I checked back in with the lab and they found the other piece of equipment that isn’t working/programmed properly so I’m hoping just by googling it I can find the general manual since they don’t have one. Soren and I packed up around 4 p.m. since that’s when the storage department workers head out.
Instead of leaving, I decided I’d go and check in the newborn room if they were using any of the equipment we had fixed. Turns out, they were! The oxygen concentrator we fixed the first week was on and running with the preemie I had seen all week, baby James (his picture was in one of my last blogs). It was great to see them using it, but it was not so great to see the little guy having such a hard time breathing. The nurse on duty was really nice and let me walk around and watch her do her work. It is amazing how much responsibility is placed in one person’s hands at the hospital. She had the evening shift from 2:00-6:00 and was the ONLY person on duty, can you imagine trying to take care of over 20 newborns, some who are in respiratory distress!? Little James, about a half hour after I was there, stopped breathing so the nurse had to direct all of her attention towards him trying to get color back in his pale blue skin. I couldn’t believe how “easy” or natural it was for her to do so. Once he was breathing again, she continued her work with the other babies administering shots and asked me to keep an eye on him. While she was feeding a baby, she asked me to repeat what she had been doing with him by basically squeezing his chest baby CPR style since he stopped moving. That was a pretty crazy experience seeing him start to breathe again. The nurse would also flick his little feet to get him to react which seemed to help a lot. At the end of her shift she had to sit down and do paper work in the little office next to the room so she appreciated that I’d watch to make sure he kept breathing and in the mean time, I asked if it was alright to hold some of the babies that were crying. Nothing like holding a little life in your arms and having her fall asleep within minutes of feeling warm and safe! I ended up leaving around 6:15 to be able to walk home before dark, but was so glad I stayed a little extra :) After that, I came home to cook some dinner and just relaxed until around 11:30 where a few of us tried out another Tanzanian club- Triple A. It was super fun and filled with almost 4 hours of straight dancing. I’m pretty good at keeping up with the locals now and of course always love to dance as long as there’s good music!
Instead of leaving, I decided I’d go and check in the newborn room if they were using any of the equipment we had fixed. Turns out, they were! The oxygen concentrator we fixed the first week was on and running with the preemie I had seen all week, baby James (his picture was in one of my last blogs). It was great to see them using it, but it was not so great to see the little guy having such a hard time breathing. The nurse on duty was really nice and let me walk around and watch her do her work. It is amazing how much responsibility is placed in one person’s hands at the hospital. She had the evening shift from 2:00-6:00 and was the ONLY person on duty, can you imagine trying to take care of over 20 newborns, some who are in respiratory distress!? Little James, about a half hour after I was there, stopped breathing so the nurse had to direct all of her attention towards him trying to get color back in his pale blue skin. I couldn’t believe how “easy” or natural it was for her to do so. Once he was breathing again, she continued her work with the other babies administering shots and asked me to keep an eye on him. While she was feeding a baby, she asked me to repeat what she had been doing with him by basically squeezing his chest baby CPR style since he stopped moving. That was a pretty crazy experience seeing him start to breathe again. The nurse would also flick his little feet to get him to react which seemed to help a lot. At the end of her shift she had to sit down and do paper work in the little office next to the room so she appreciated that I’d watch to make sure he kept breathing and in the mean time, I asked if it was alright to hold some of the babies that were crying. Nothing like holding a little life in your arms and having her fall asleep within minutes of feeling warm and safe! I ended up leaving around 6:15 to be able to walk home before dark, but was so glad I stayed a little extra :) After that, I came home to cook some dinner and just relaxed until around 11:30 where a few of us tried out another Tanzanian club- Triple A. It was super fun and filled with almost 4 hours of straight dancing. I’m pretty good at keeping up with the locals now and of course always love to dance as long as there’s good music!
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