JULY 10,
2015 FRIDAY: BLOG POST #5
0530
shower, breakfast, 0700 muster
Today
we attempted laundry. Out of 10 washers and dryers about half of them are out
of service and since a lot of people went out to site we all had the same idea
to wash clothes today…so we waited around for a free washer which usually takes
35minutes to run a load…we went back up to pharmacy and helped clean and
watched movies…we went back down to switch our laundry at the 37minute mark and
someone had already switched our clothes into dryers and started them so that
was nice…not quite like back in undergrad when you would just find a pile of
your wet clothes in the corner…
JULY 11, 2015 SATURDAY
Day #2 at
medsite #1 today I brought along $5 because there was a restaurant behind the
site that was approved for us to get lunch if we wanted…the most popular dish
was fried chicken, coleslaw, beans/peas, rice, soup, a fried plantain and guava
juice…chicken was more just breaded but it was still a decent meal and it gave
me a chance to try Colombian food. Today was supposed to be set up as a general
health fair and you could tell on the walk to the site! There were tents and
balloons and massive lines…in the brief before we got started they said they
were expecting 20-30,000 patients to come through (we did about 860 scripts so
we didn’t see anywhere near that number but still a large crowd). We got a
warning about if any vendors were trying to offer us skee (or ski?) to get away because
it was cocaine…you know Colombia after all…TODAY WE HAD AN INTERPRETER! Things
went very smoothly on site…with the usually hurry up and wait…
So once we
got back to the pharmacy we heard that someone at site #2 got shot…turns out it
was an engineer (called CBs in the navy) that got electrocuted…saying “shock”
sounds exactly the same as “shot”…so there was a nice mini panic when the
pharmacy was trying to get an emergency bag ready for a gunshot wound…also both
helicopters were down so the patient had to endure the hour boat ride back to
the Comfort…
JULY 12, 2015 SUNDAY
The usual
morning routine plus we swept and mopped the whole pharmacy…extra power hour
so we cleaned the cabinets and whatever else we could find to do…this may have
been part of another day’s activities but the days have started to blur
together…Today I made 10 cefazolin ANCEF bags in the MIC hood…I’ve never used
that kind of hood before and it was nice to actually practice making IV bags
since most sites I’ve been too just have students observe…There were 2 separate
patients that needed ANCEF bags for surgery prophylaxis which we did a dosage
check for using 30mg/kg…patients weighed 29 and 30kg therefore the calculation
looks something like this… (each vial contains 330mg/1mL)
330mg/1mL=
900mg/x x=2.7mL àput into 50mL normal
saline bag
YAY! I math'd my way through it. LT X has actually impressed me with his speed of calculations in his head...his also shown me some short cuts for APAP and IBU dosing...he worked it out and proved it to me of course but man does it amaze me how some people's brains work
YAY! I math'd my way through it. LT X has actually impressed me with his speed of calculations in his head...his also shown me some short cuts for APAP and IBU dosing...he worked it out and proved it to me of course but man does it amaze me how some people's brains work
JULY 13, 2015 MONDAY
Today I
mixed Zosyn 3.375mg…everyone hates making the Zosyn because it takes a pretty
long time to reconstitute…but I liked the practice…LT Xie went over the
chemical structures of morphine and heroine and compared them…morphine has an
OH group where heroine has COOH which makes it more lipophilic therefore crossing
the blood brain barrier more easily and having a more addictive profile. I went
over my notes on sedation and ICU since there are now plenty of patients on
board getting surgery and if I ended up back in the OR I wanted to be prepared
for any questions that would get thrown my way…
JULY 14, 2015 TUESDAY
Today was
my first day at medsite #2 in Juanchaco…this site is definitely what you think
of when you think of rural places we would go to provide healthcare…today we
rode out on the hospitality boats (canvas covers)…the ride to the site is
longer and slower than to site 1…I listened to the Wilder Mind Mumford &
Sons album all the way through consecutively 3 times + another random
assortment of about 10 other songs…Mumford was a good choice for the slow ride
as the sun was coming up over the coastline…can’t take in that kind of view
with Bangerz or Turn Down for What blasting lol…I got stuck with a pretty
crappy seat on the boat as it had no back and my feet didn’t touch the
ground…really I was just on a storage box…this Army photographer had a much
better seat
So once we
pulled up to the little pier in Juanchaco we were in a little beachside town
that was mostly restaurants…there was a random horse and plenty of stray
dogs…We walked on a sandy unpaved road for about 5 minutes until we turned and
got to a concrete path that’s only big enough for 1 car…it was a nice scenic
walk that definitely looked like the jungle with shanty houses that were all
open air without glass windows…not quite like Vietnam jungle I picture from
Forrest Gump but still the jungle…The walk took about 20 minutes and all along
the way we had protection from Colombian Marines…some you could see and some
you could just make out posted back in the brush…we were told there were recent
cases of murder, kidnappings, and rape in the past 2 weeks as well as that we
had diagnosed a few cases of malaria since we got to Colombia so security and
the harping on taking doxy were high…It rained for about an hour...but I didn't have a problem..after all my awesome tactical pants are waaaaaterrrrprooooof (Yeah, I just said that like Oprah)...The site was actually set up in a
school…it was much nicer than the site 1 there was a fan and light…granted the
pharmacy was set up in a room right next to the port-a-potty’s but it wasn’t
terrible because they were nicer port-a-potty’s that actually “flushed”. All
the classrooms were open air without doors and just metal bars on the
windows…it was a pretty large compound but I’m not sure how many grades there
were in the school. WE HAD A GREAT TRANSLATOR today…Sintayehu and Aycock were
actually getting some Spanish lessons so it was a pretty fun day…the volume of
scripts is not even close to site 1 so we took time going over iron,
prednisolone, Septra, IBU, APAP, amoxicillin, and Benadryl dosing…there were
considerably more peds patients. Something else we noticed was there were many
women who were getting their contraceptive implants removed from their arms…not
sure if it was part of the nation’s healthcare plan for population control but
almost every women that came through had one…what struck me was women that were
only 17-19 years old had chief complaints of infertility and were worried they
couldn’t get pregnant…very different from in the States where many people are
having children in their 30s….it was also around 1000 and we got several
questions from patients if there was any reaction with alcohol and albendazole
because they already had some drinks this morning…island life man, living that
island life…there was also a restaurant across the street we could get food
from some people had a whole snapper fish meal and LT X had a sea snail dish…I
opted for a quick break with a nice chicken fajita MRE whereas LT X waited for
over 40 minutes to get his meal.
On the boat ride back I listened to a different playlist...you feel pretty bad ass pulling away from shore listening to the first 10 seconds of Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum...I also tried to see how many times I could listen to the same song on repeat...why because I have nothing but time...I listened to See You Again by Wiz Khalifa/Charlie Puth but after about the 13th time I switched to some Bob Marley...
#WhatDidIJustWrite #WhatADay #DistractWithPictures #ThundercatsHOOO
: random horse...really pony sized
you can see the Comfort from shore at Juanchaco
Me: She does exist (said like Santa in M&Ms commercial)
Sintayehu carrying empty totes blocking my picture
Aycock carrying empty totes...they joked that I should carry all 5 totes back...but they actually didn't let me carry any...
JULY 15, 2015 WEDNESDAY
Today I
went back to medsite #1 and did A LOT of checking…LT Phung forgot to drink
plenty of water and started crashing really fast…she was basically napping but
it was fine because Jerline and I were able to knock it out. Hedgespeth was
pulling the meds, I was tallying and checking, Jerline was checking and handing
out the medications. We were lucky enough to get 2 medical school student
translators. HM1 Rana took it upon himself to stand at the door as a bouncer to
keep patients from making multiple trips and messing up the flow of which
patients were seen and had gone through discharge…It was a constantly busy day
but we had fun…At site 1 to walk to the head (port-a-potty’s) you had to go
under the bleachers on the other side…maybe like 5’5” clearance…LT Phung is
slightly shorter than I am and I don’t have to duck at all but she was walking
next to Hedgespeth and he had to duck and you just see LT Phung duck…it was
hilarious…also Hedgespeth accidentally splashed some of the orange powdered
drink from his MRE into his eyes…it got around his glasses and into his
eyes…maybe like 3 drops worth but he acted like it was acid and that we has
blind…very dramatic but very entertaining…A nice busy day full of pharmacy and
getting to know the other techs I hadn’t spent a lot of time with yet…today we
found out that they had seen all the patients there were at site 2 so they were
going to shut it down early…made me glad I signed up for an extra day on site
since I was now cut a day short since I was scheduled to go back to site 2 on
7/17…I was extremely efficient today...as soon as we got back to the Comfort I changed into gym clothes, got my laundry and put it in the washer, went to muster, when that was done I put clothes in the dryer and during those 40 minutes I went to the weight gym and did arms (biceps, triceps, and shoulders) and obliques...Family tell Danilo!
#NoDeadlifting2300To0300 #BecauseThatsAThingHere #ThrowItOnTheGround
JULY 16, 2015 THURSDAY
The usual routine but I worked out again today...I know I'm on a roll...I went to the weight gym and did a 5k on the treadmill in the cardio gym...it took me 26 minutes which isn't terrible since I haven't ran since high school...all the stairs here on the ship and walking all the stairs at the Rosslyn metro station last rotation must've done something...
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