I guess its about time for another update. What a week it has been.....where to start?
Wednesday and Thursday of last week I started working on a new ward in the hospital. This ward is apart of the old hospital building and mould is crawling up the walls and curtains that surround patients beds. I began working with a new patient who had seriously life threatening low potassium and sodium levels. Her heart was a mess and her stomach and intestine's had stopped functioning. Crazy thing was....the reason for her near death state was due to the hospital giving twice the dosage of a medication that flushed these vital electrolytes from her body. Potassium was being given to this lady at three times the "normal" rate for someone with an electrolyte imbalance to save her. The whole time the patient and her family was left in the dark never being informed of the reason for her condition, in fact; the patient and her family believed her to have a stomach ulcer...harsh. Of course being the nurse it is not my position to disclose any information to her, rather I confirmed with the patient the clinical reason for her condition and explained what treatment she was receiving clearing up the whole ulcer belief. By the next day her heart arrhythmia was better and her stomach pains had lessened. Still, I was left with ethical questions. There was no record in her chart or in discussion with the hospital staff of the medication error. Its like it never happened even though this lady could have lost her life. It makes me wonder how this situation would have been treated in Canada. Generally speaking, Tongans don't seem to seek answers; they wait until someone informs them of information.
Thursday night we went over to an English Gentleman's house for a night of
Cava drinking. It wasn't really a cultural experience though there was some Tongan dancing and of course;
cava drinking. On a whole I was not overly impressed. A few of our girls ended up buying a few kilo's of
cava to take home with them.
Friday morning we left for the resort island of
Atata (Royal Sands Resort) which was a half hour boat ride off of the main island that we are living on. What luxury! We shared four girls to a
fala (luxury like cabin) that had running water, flushing toilets, a fridge, coffee and even hot showers. I think we had forgotten how we have been roughing it. For three days straight we sunbathed, kayaks, snorkel and swam. Each day a boat would take us out to a coral reef for more adventurous snorkeling. I have never seen anything like it! Hundreds and hundreds of fish or all shapes sizes and brilliant colors. At one point I was in awe of the schools of fish surrounding me when out of the murky blue a shark came sauntering around closer to the bottom of the ocean!!!!! At first I thought I was seeing things, then I watched in shock and amazement....then I totally freaked out. Another girl with me saw the shark as well and we kinda got out of there pretty fast. Now in hindsight, I guess we were more afraid of the stigma that goes with a shark and we were in no danger at all. I am not good at judging the size but I would guess it was about 3 1/2 to 4 feet long and a light grey color. We also
snorkeled around giant clam beds. Some of these
monstrous clams would have easily provided me a nice shell to curl up in...(though it would have eaten me alive!).
In all it was a grand experience with one exception. Growing up on the ocean I think I became a little cocky and ventured out too far while snorkeling from shore. Myself and a friend
snorkeled across the lagoon and over a smaller reef that attached to a point of the island, it was
farther that it appeared. As the reef
shallowed the current picked up especially considering the tide was going out, thus all the water from the lagoon was making its way over this reef and out to open ocean. There was also a channel beyond the reef that carried quiet the current. I guess I am not as good of swimmer as I used to be. I reached the reef and a little beyond fine but when we turned around to go back....I realized the danger I had gotten myself into. We immediately felt the strong current, I was
exhausted from snorkeling so far out in the first place, and there was no place shallow enough to rest at this point. I began swimming toward the shore and felt the struggle ahead, at that point my flipper slid off and I grabbed it before I lost it completely. Then I completely
panicked and realized that if I
didn't get my cool together I could easily be taken out into the open ocean, and I was too tired to swim. I swam around searching for a coral reef that reached higher up to the
surface while calling out to my friend who was a bit away from me. Thank God....I found a
piece of coral just shallow enough that I would stand on it with my head still above water. There I calmed down and my friend came to me. She recommended that she swim while I hang on to her foot and she would pull me. But even standing there the current was hard to fight. I really thought I was not going to make it back to shore. There was a deep gully before the lagoon would start to shallow and I did not know if I had the energy to swim again the current to a place where I could eventually rest. I prayed, I actually peed myself from fright and the thought of drowning, then my adrenaline kicked in. I swam with all my might again the wind, white caps and current about forty feet where I found one more
piece of coral high enough to rest on. From there I swam with all my might until the current lessened. Even though we could not yet touch down, I knew I would make it back to shore.
Now looking back, I do NOT find this adventure
humorous. It was sheer stupidity on my part. There was one point in the strong current that I tried swimming on my back to rest. Within seconds the current turned me the other direction and I was swimming out to sea! The girl with me called out and set me straight.
The funny thing, the
whole time I was out there I could hear Pat telling me off. I seem to have a habit of getting into
precarious situations. So thats the adventure for now. Next weekend we are heading to another island that has somegreat hiking in the rain forest....nice solid ground!
