Who would´ve thought?

Don´t have much time today, but I just wanted to give a quick thought about my work at Redima.

So this past week, I worked one on one with a new pediatrician named Viviana---she was helping our clinic out this week because our pedi doc was on vacation. Viviana is 33 years old, so sweet, vibrant, funny, and an awesome teacher! When I first met her, she was just so warm and wanted to know if i´d like to help her. I of course said sure, and this past week we worked as such a dynamic team.

While many of you know, kids are not my forte, you´d be surprised to know how much fun I had this week. Viviana let me do basically all of the assessments and asked me what I thought and what meds I would prescribe and what was normal and what wasn´t. It felt like I was back in clinical, just doing everything in spanish. This past week I saw a girl with appendicitis, an extreme case of thrush like i´ve never seen before, a broken leg (two weeks after the break), and many MANY cases of asthma and bronchitis. Oh and how can I forget Giardia---EVERYONE here has giardia!

All of the sudden, my nursing knowledge is coming back to me, and i´m back in the swing of doing that lovely nursing process. Subjective data, objective data, lung sounds, bowel sounds, reflexes, lab values, teaching, explaining, caring---dare to care, anyone? ha--sorry had to.

I finally feel like I´m doing the work i´m supposed to be doing. Not that anything is or was beneath me because its not, but working with a pedi doc is really challenging me, and pushing my assessment skills outside the box. I´m learning how to do an exam in Spanish, i´m learning how to explain disease processes in spanish, and i´m learning all of the different meds in spanish. It´s exhausting, but at the same time, I can´t get over how much my mind is expanding. While I still don´t know if i´d like to pursue being a pedi NP after this, I am really starting to consider getting my masters immediately after this year. Becoming a family NP is something that I have thought about a lot, because I really love clinic work and feel that basic primary care is ESSENTIAL in healthcare.

Viviana is unfortunately only with us for another week, but her clinic is on the other side of town, and i´ve been told I could work there a day or two every week. I am elated with this idea, and am definitely going to look into this possibility. It´s funny too because I feel like if I did stay around boston to pursue a masters, like i contemplated, Viviana would be someone who i´d love to have as a preceptor, and look at that---it´s like God was watching out for me! I swear, things happen for a reason.

So yeah--life at Redima is good. Semillas---well that´s another story, but I don´t even wanna get into it because i´m in a good mood right now. Let´s just say TGIF.

Tomorrow we´re going out to CHIFA, ha a chinese restaurant, to celebrate steve´s birthday! woot woot! Last night we had a really fun community night where we played Tom´s version of monopoly--let´s just say it was interesting, involved a lot of dancing, question asking, and playing flip cup with Tang ha, what can i say, we make due with what we´ve got here! The best part for me was passing GO and collecting TWO chocolate chips! heaven i swear! At this point my cravings for sweets have gotten out of control---what I wouldn´t do for a freaking bag of m and ms!!!!

Oh and a quick family update---my parents are leaving for Italy one week from today!!! so excited for them, and also, my brother is going to be able to fly over and meet them from Spain! so awesome right! so please keep them and safe travels in your prayers.

Also, my grandmother had bypass surgery this past week, and thankfully is recovering well. It was definitely a shock to me when I heard this, and although I´ve been worrying a lot, she´s doing better. Please keep her in your hearts as she enters into a long road of recovery and rehab. She´s such a trooper and i´m just so grateful that the surgery went well.

Sending you all my love, and lots of besitos!
Paz,
Jamie