I have had the most fabulous time over the last 2-3 weeks. I may have mentioned earlier that I adore meetings? Yes- I'm a nerd. I LOVE meetings. I love planning. I love dreaming of the future. I love taking notes and making lists and checking things off and emailing people from my sofa.
So you can imagine that I have been REVELING in the planning meetings and behind-the-scenes stuff that we've been a part of for the last month. Dreaming of ground breaking days, medical coordinator meetings, team meetings, Skype meetings, emails, phone calls, organizing, cleaning, renovating, reorganizing, patient visiting, patient phone calls and emails, and more. I love typing up minutes of meetings and reviewing them and checking in and having them available on my desktop. I love receiving 10 billion emails in my inbox and look forward to responding to them. I think I'm just a geek that way.
In addition, in preparation for this week's surgical team, things have been humming along in the clinic. Head Nurse Livida has been hard at work over the last month having things "just right" in the operating rooms and I've enjoyed setting up some of our American "toys" to have ready for today and this week. I am always amazed at what I find hidden away in the clinic's corners and crevices. Due to our "orderly storage" system, I often find treasures hidden away. This week I found some surgical eye shields, EKG pads, glucometers, speculums, otoscopes, and pregnancy tests that I had been searching for earlier and finally found! Livida is a an amazing nurse who has been at the clinic over 20 years. She knows where EVERYTHING is in the clinic and I believe she could easily perform surgery on her own. :)
The pharmacy has also undergone an overhaul over these past 3 weeks. Expired medications were purged in preparation for visits from Public Health in the barrios this week. Scrubs were folded and reordered and the medication shelves were organized and cleaned. I think we can almost actually see what we have available now! Labels for medications have been printed out and printed out and printed out and the intake forms have been copied and cut and copied and cut and copied and cut. Whew- I MIGHT be almost ready?
Anyway, I am more excited than ever for this next team to come. It's been a wonderful quiet refreshing time to catch up on office and administrative work, but I'm also ready to bring on the surgical patients! Bring on the consults and scheduling and bovies and suction machines. Bring on the anesthesia drugs and post op pain medication. Bring on the teaching and sharing and loving-on folks. I've missed it.
I want to share also that I've been ESPECIALLY encouraged in a few ways over the last few months. I've been attending (ummm on-line obviously) Northcoast Church and I have been challenged through the study of James. It has been difficult for me to feel encouraged/challenged with the language barrier in the churches here and although I LOVE the community of our Dominican churches and partnerships, my aching soul has been FILLED with the passionate Bible teachings that I've been able to listen to and watch and understand and process on Sunday mornings through my computer feed. Please know that I have previously poo-pooed all podcasts and online streaming stuff because I am a technological idiot. I was so very, very wrong. This morning's message on Exodus has me all atwitter, able to see God pushing me, burning me, and molding me through His Word. I so look forward to this "church time" every week now.
I also would like to thank you guys, my crew, for your kind encouragement to Monchy and I as we are planning our wedding. There just are no words. Thanks, guys. We feel super loved. Oh, and excited! December is in, ummmmmm, less than 3 months. Right...... so one of us likes to plan and be organized and have everything settled...and the other one likes to....fly by the seat of his pants. :) IT'S BEEN GREAT (actually, it's really been a blast!) :) Thanks for your prayers....
