Day 103 Dalaguete, Cebu

I worked the ER noc shift with Tim tonight. Totally quiet night. Just spent the shift catching up on my blog and talking with Tim.

Day 102 Dalaguete, Cebu

Worked the PM shift in the ER today. It was pretty routine with not much going on except for one particular case where a child (she was probably between 5-7) came in with a pretty nasty burn on her leg. Other than it being a pretty bad burn was that the mother and father had rubbed chili pepper leaves over the burn and the child wasn't crying. I asked Tim why they did that and she said the mountain people use chili leaves as home remedies but she wasn't sure if it actually worked. I looked up the effect of chili leaves being used as a remedy for pain and found an interesting article explaining how the capsaicin in the chili binds to pain receptors blocking out the actual signaling in the body. It wasn't the most reputable site but it does make me think there's some science behind remedies that persist over generations. Strangely enough, the girl didn't cry until the wound was being cleansed -- perhaps washing away the capsaicin opened up those pain receptors again. Because the patient was a small child and in severe pain, I just observed as the nurses and doctor performed wound care. 

The type of chili plant the leaves were most
likely taken from.

Day 101 Dalaguete, Cebu

I spent the second day of Dalaguete's fiesta walking around the town with Tim. A big part of the celebration is visiting the town church. Each town has their own and are super old and tied, historically, to the Spanish empire. Tim gave me an unofficial tour of the church and we spent the rest of the night walking around the town and enjoying the sites.

The inside of Dalaguete's church Sn. Guillermo
de Aquitania. A quick search online says this
church was founded in 1711!

Tequila! Drank the same everywhere!

One of the rides set up for the fiesta. 

Day 100 Dalaguete, Cebu

Today was Dalaguete's fiesta. I spent most of the day and night with Ricky and his family. Fiestas are a huge deal in the Philippines and it was finally Dalaguete's time to celebrate! Ricky and I stopped by his friend's house who was making a roasted pig for us (sadly, all the pigs Ricky had bought to rear died from illness so he had to buy a pig and pay to have it roasted). His friend told me they start as early as 3:00AM and roast pigs all day to sell. While we were there checking out the progress of our roast, I was able to see the process of roasting a pig starting from livestock all the way to finished product. Even though I've already seen a pig prepped for market, it still amazes just how quickly people can go from a live pig to on a spit using a length of rope, a knife, and a bucket. The roasting "oven" is just a fire pit with a length of bamboo sticking through the pig and is manually turned. I can't imagine doing that at 3:00AM, but during fiesta families can make a lot of money just by selling roasted pigs. We spent most of the day preparing for the evening meal, which is a huge part of the celebration. Ricky took me early in the day so we could have the freshest pick of produce. Here's some pictures of our trip to the market.

I spent the rest of the nigh with Ricky's family. People stopped by throughout the day and evening (including most of the people from the hospital). The roasted pig was delicious!

Day 99 Dalguete, Cebu #DPC IVTT, ECG

It was a quiet day at the ER. It was so slow the nurses convinced me to have an ECG done. I'll post a picture of the readout once it's up. Other than that, nothing too exciting today.

Day 98 Dalaguete, Cebu #DPC IVTT

I worked the AM shift today and floated between the ER and the floor. It was a pretty routine day. I administered meds via IVTT and prepared the med passes while on the floor and took vitals and helped with OPD's at the ER. It's nice working both the ER and the floor because you get to see how the team works as a unit to give treatment and medication accurately. It's the best feeling admitting someone from the ER and seeing them later at the ward reciving what they're supposed to be reciving -- and almost all of this is done without computers. The only thing they really use the computers for are printing recipiets. There's no electronic medication administration record or treatment administration record; just good old pen and paper.

Pamela also had a dance routine for her school today. Once a year the teachers get together and perform a traditional dance routine for the students in preparation for the annual town fiesta. While my sister was here Pamela asked her to come in as a guest speaker so my sister was able to hang out with her for a day. She told me how the students and teachers have a relationship that's more like uncle and aunt, niece and nephew. I've always been aware that Filipino's are close as a culture, but the way my sister described the schools brings further depth and understanding about that aspect of my culture. The first thing my sister noticed was how the teachers and students have a very relaxed sense of time. Start and end times for classes are not set on a strict schedule. Is it raining hard out? If yes, start class a little later. Is it uncomfortably hot and humid? End class a little bit earlier. Lunch breaks are also very relaxed. My sister said after the lunch period the students went back to the classroom and the teachers took their time discussing their day and their remaining lessons. It sounds disorganized but because the students view their teachers as extensions of their family, they treat them with the same respect they'd treat their relatives. My sister said that after the lunch break she was expecting Pamela to have to come into the classroom and get everyone settled, but when they came in everyone was in their proper spot waiting to learn.

Anyway, here's a picture from the dance routine.

Day 97 Dalaguete, Cebu 7 #DPC Wound Care

I worked the AM shift with Tim at the nurses station. The census was pretty low so I just helped out with vitals, prepped the med pass, and assisted with a wound dressing. As usual, I cleaned the wound with PVPI making sure to work from the inside out. The patient had been involved in a MVA and had some minor abrasions that needed cleaning and was being kept for observation to rule out the possibility of a head injury or opportunistic infection. 

The Dalaguete Fiesta will start in the next few days and I'm pretty excited to see what it's like to celebrate the fiesta in our town. I've already been to a bunch of other town's fiestas but Dalaguete's will be special mostly because I'v spent so much time here. It's been slowly filling up with vendors and the whole seems to have a buzz of excitement. The market, especially, has been super busy as families start buying ingredients for upcoming festivities.