Blood

I like being a nurse! I had the opportunity to remember that today. I was planning on heading out to the village this morning but just couldn't drum up the energy. So  when I got a phone call from the dutch nurse at Amecet I was free.  She said she had a couple of sick kids, and she needed to go with the one at the hospital so could I come over for the other? I got report- my patient today was Immaculate. She is a 12 year old girl who weighs about 21 kg from extreme neglect and TB. She is HIV positive and her CD4 count is 1.  Today our concern was based on her symptomatic hbg of 4.  When I arrived she was sitting in the bed is the treatment room crying.  Her IV just would not flush for me. So we dc'd that one and got her set up with a new one.  Then we got a unit of packed RBC's running. (This seems strange- Amecet is a baby shelter.  Not a clinic or medical facility. I was running blood. No IV pump, just mentally calculated drip rates. No charting. No recorded vitals, just observation. My nursing really has changed a lot in two years.) Anyway, got her comfortable in the bed, set up with some music and some chocolate that I had in my bag. She fell asleep and was still sleeping a few hours later when I reported off.

*Thanks to Ella, a volunteer at Amecet, for these pictures.