Ruinedbylove

Last year in Israel I started this blog, I decided to start a new one for several reasons, I was going to have one for travels and then one for personal, but I decided to have it all in one because the point of having a blog was not just to update everyone that wants to know whats going on, but the purpose was to share my heart with anyone that would like to see.

For so long I have felt the need to keep my thoughts and feeling inside of me and not really share them, but I have learned that knowing others are going through the same thing is so reassuring, so I am here to say your not alone, and its also a great way to share about the awesome things of G-d. The blog is also a really good way for me to process everything that goes on in my life.

 

The title

now some of you might think oh that’s a creative title or have been wondering why I would name it ruined by love when love heals.

Now that’s true, love does heal when nothing else can, and I have seen that more then ever at Ruel, these kids are dying sometimes when they come in, and you might not know how to help them, but if you love them they start coming to life, no medication, no training, but love.  (yes, we do use some meds when we need to,but I am saying if you couldn’t, love can help bring some of these kids back from the darkness they seem to be in, a lot of them give up, cus its so hopeless) I said all that to say that love does heal.

 

But real love, true unconditional love, that never stops, ruins ones being completely.

In the middle of last year, a few months before I left for Israel, I asked G-d to show me His love, to unravel my understanding and to ruin me with His perfect love, because I know it’s nothing like the love this world has destroyed, its pure and perfect, just the way He wanted it.

It started in Israel, my heart felt like it was being ripped out of my chest, I spent nights crying wondering why I felt this way, my heart was being broken.  I felt ruined like I had nothing left inside of me to give, that’s when G-d said, ok now reach out. I shook my head and said I have nothing left I’m empty I cant do anything for anyone.  It was almost like G-d grinned and said maybe not, but I can.

I have learned that when we feel the most broken thats when G-d chooses to use us, it brings glory to His name. Because everyone can see that its not coming from with in ourselves. 

Last day?

 

It was the day before everyone was heading out, me and Lesley decided to head out to get some food for the next few days and look around for some souveniers. After we got what we needed to, we were walking, just looking at shops but we were enjoying walking so much we just kept going and then we realised that we were at the prison which told us how far we had walked but we kept going, knowing that at any moment if we got tired we could just hop on a trike and go home. We passed the gas staion that told us we are about half way to Ruel Foundation, I looked at her and said is that were we are going? We had no plan to go there or to even walk this much I wanted to get in and out of town fast but it didn’t matter anymore, she was enjoying walking so on we went. Towards the end of it, it became our goal to get there, I mean we already walked far why not more. I really wanted to say good bye to the kids, and here was my chance. Soon as we got there my heart broke, it broke every time we drove pass it, I had so wished I spent more time there during my stay but I had thought that maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea I would just keep getting attached to the kids and they would get attached to me and then I would leave them. I didn’t want to make it hard on them. So I didn’t try so hard to go.

Here I was standing there holding the little on that stole my heart, and I said I cant go I just can not leave. Now this is not a new thought, I had this feeling before, I had been feeling really unsettled about going home the past few days but I didn’t have the money to stay and I knew I had to start getting ready for some of the things G-d had told me to do but I also felt Him say stay but to stay just seemed too much of a hassle, I had so many reasons not to stay, but my heart was telling me to stay. Well being there that day tipped me over and well my heart won.

I am now staying here for an other 40days as of now. To work with the kids and whatever else G-d leads me to do while I am here.

The life changing room

 

Among laughing and talking, the room became quiet in my head only to hear the clanking of metal surgical instruments being placed on a tray, it was one after another each one make my heart beat faster, and the shape of each one made me feel more and more light-headed. I was overwhelmed with thoughts, I wanted to shake my head and scream no, What was about to happen next couldn’t happen I couldn’t let it.

I tried to understand what she said, her words were lost in translation and panic, her head was shaking, saying something I could not understand. The room just transformed from a place your eager to enter to the point of no return. Your life is never the same once you leave this room, and that was going to be the same tonight, that thought was followed with a deep nagging sadness. I was praying in my head, as I was trying to figure out whether to cry or to yell. There was nothing I could do. So I held her hand to try to calm her down, I didn’t offer the empty promise of “everything is going to be ok” as I tried to remain strong.

Once the nurse put on her gloves I knew it was the point of no return. Her eyes were getting heavy as she rose her hand to — and praying quietly, I was praying right along with her. She slowly started to fade away as the sedative pumped into her vains were kicking in. All dignity was lost as her legs were put in straddles and long metal interments were inserted into her vaginal opening. She cringed her face, as my heart cringed, the sounds of metal scraping the uterus lining will forever be etched into my mind. The nurses were talking and laughing as one held the vagina open and one scraped.

“Why G-d why?” I ask as the blood flowed out into the bucket placed at the end of the bed. The procedure is done, the nurse then shakes her hand over the tray and there it is the little fetus; only 3 months, smaller then the top of my thumb, yet you can see little arms and legs and head, it was then place in a jar that later was taken a way, if my heart was not already broke, it broke then. I really did not know how to feel, I knew this room as a life giving room in the past; where I have had my joyfullest moments of getting to see life enter this world and how I even got to be the first one to see a sweet little boy as I caught him coming out his mother. This room had been known to me as the life changing room it changed my life and I know it changed every mother that came it there, but today the life was sucked out of it, yet it still remained the life changing room. For that mothers life will never seem the same again.

It was not her plan to have a spontaneous abortion but sometimes theses things happen. It was easy for me to get angry at the nurses for being so disconnected, but it’s so much easier to deal with if you don’t allow yourself to get emotionally involved. The hardest part of it for me was I didn’t understand what was going on because I don’t speak the language and sometimes I feel like they don’t want us to understand.

Delivery

 

I  barely had my gloves on and there the head was, making it’s way through the birth canal, awaiting me to catch it. I grabbed the head the body slipped out and the cord was cut. I am not even sure quite what happened, because it happened too fast. At 6:14pm there was a baby boy born. He was taken away to get clean, all the nurses left and there I was holding the umbilicle cord, left on my own to deliver the placenta, thankfully Andrea was on duty with me that night and having done this before she talked me through it, in a few minutes there was the placenta in my hand, the sac that the baby lived in for the last 9 ½ months. Then I cleaned out the momma, now in the states we don’t do this unless the placenta tears and we just wait a week for all the extra tissue to come out on its own. But in this hospital they do, so I put my hand in the uterus and feel around fore the extra tissue and try to scoop it all out. It was a wierd feeling to have your hand inside a woman but then it was such a natural thing and part of the process. It did not grose me out or seem that strange. After I did that the nurses were all back in the room, to surture up the tear that had happened when the baby came out. I held the string and blotted blood , she asked if I wanted to stick the needle in, the first words out of my mouth were NO, before I even thought about it, as much I want to learn how I was not going to learn now, my praceting on a banana had not giving me the confidence that I needed and we did not learn how to do deep tears like this one. 

I

Then it was over. The baby was healthy 2.6kg. I am still in awe that I delivered a baby I have to keep reminding myself that it happened. Oh how awesome is Ad-nai. Just so awesome.

 

The wonders of birth.

As my steady steps approach the OB wing I start to get excited,.We enter the hot sticky hall way, there is a baby in a bed crying with no one to console it.  We enter an empty room with lots of windows, change into our scrubs, and with compassion, we head for the crying baby.  This was the start of our shift in the OB.  There were two mothers getting ready for caesarian sections and unfortunatly, we could not be involved but, we picked up the babies from the OR and started cleaning them. The first caesarean was twins so I got to clean the little boy, who weighed  1.6 kg (3.52 lb).  I got to give him a shot of vitamin k and put tetracycline (eye cream) on his little eyes, dressed and swaddled him up. His sister was 2.3 kg (5 lb) she was the bigger one but she was having a hard time breathing, so we put an oxygen tent over her little head.

Next we had a little boy coming from the OR, he was  a big baby, nice and healthy. I later got to deliver him to his aunty (his mom was still in recovery).

We were starting to give up that a mother was going to come in for a live birth. Then all of a sudden there was a girl with a big round belly 2 cm dilated, so we decided to stay so we could see a live birth. The time there was amazing, the conditions of the hospital were not so much. There really was no running water so we had to get  it out of a bucket, and gloves were only worn when cleaning a new born and in the delivery room, but that was just the way it was.  At 3 am the mother went into labour then 15 minutes later there was a babies head and then out came a boy that was 3.6 kg ( 7.9 lb) it was amazing to see life enter into the world. It was amazing. Life is amazing. G-d is awesome so awesome. Then after that we had a women walk in that was pre term and bleeding way more then she should be and had been bleeding her English was really good so we got to talk to her, she was not worried and said she could feel the baby. The doctor was paged but was not showing so all we could do is have her lay there and wait,  we also had an other mother that came in 7cm dilated, this was her 3rd baby and the first 2 were C sections so the doctor needed to see her, but the doctor was still a no show and she was going into labour, all there was to do was pray and that I had been doing since I got there. A few hours later the women was 10cm but the head was not showing so they moved her into a emergency C section by a doctor that does not do them often.  We left after she was sent to the OR and later one of the girls went back (was really tired from the 13 hour shift so I was sleeping) to visit the mommas. We found out that both moms deliverd and the babies were healthy and well. Bless Ad-nai.

the one that had a C section had a little boy.

and the pre term mother had a little girl who was names Sara.

We also got to see the twins again, they were looking so much better.

I cant wait to go back.

GREAT DAY

After driving down the jumpy road passing rice fields, random baseball hoops and water buffalos, we arrived  in Inarawan for our practical.  Off to the BP station I went, starting the day off with greeting people is a great way to start the day. In this barangay the blood pressure was a whole lot lower then that last one we went to. After spending half the morning taking BP pulse and spO2 (oxygen saturation in blood), I headed off to patient care where me and Stacie took turns checking and treating patients with the oversight of one of the doctors. Hands on is the best way for me to learn and this was way hands on.  The doctor we were with let us do everything, when I was stuck I would just look at him and he would ask me questions till I gave him the answer. It was a great time we got to see a lot of different problems, but the main reason people came was because of coughs and colds which we have victims C or multi vitamins for them. But in-between the coughs and colds we had goiters, yeast infections, TB, nose polyps and some other things.  My knowledge was  tested for sure and made me feel like I have to go back to the books and start anew, but it was nice to see  how much I do know. To tell you the truth, I was kinda fearing patient care today, because i new they were going to make me do most of the treating, we have gotten to  ask a lot of questions in the past; but today it was more up to us. We were the doctors. I was worried i would not know the answer to simple things, and some times i didn’t but now I do.  I found out that I like treating kids, anyone that knows me probably would not find that as a suprise.  Most of the kids just had a cough, or so they say, almost 50% of the people we saw at the clinic   yesterday said they had a cough. For a clinic filled with coughing people, i sure did not hear a lot of coughing, but maybe its one of those you feel a lot better after you walk 5 miles to the clinic and you don’t look sick anymore. After patient care we were off to Dental Clinic, where I got right in on the action and started packing mouths with lidocaine and using forcepts to pull on teeth, ok I only got to pull out one.. BUT I got to pull out one! It was great. That had been what I was waiting for. The last few Praticals I have not even had a chance cus I have not been put there.

The girl seemed pretty nervous about me coming at her with a needle and the forsepts but it was an easy pull. In fact it was so easy that it didn’t feel like it happened. I got the tooth out, threw it in the trash ,had her bite on gauze, got her pain meds, watched her leave, and then Marven (the dentist) was like so how was it, and I looked at him with a question on my face like “how was what” and then I was like oh the tooth pulling, I pulled a tooth! Like it still feels so unreal, it was so easy, now I know that is not always the case. I was there and I saw the ones he pulled, he gave me the easy one, and I was glad for that, now I passed the dentistry, but I don’t want to stop I want to keep pulling and learning more. My mind is over filled today so I will rest a bit and overload again tomorrow when I head to the hospital. What a great day it was.

my heart was stolen

4 July – 7 July

This week is the middle of the course and a long weekend for us. Most of the people have made their way to other islands to have a relaxing week. I have decided to spend my weekend at Ruel Foundation which is an orphanage for malnourished kids, and help out the care givers.  The director of our programs’ wife started the foundations to take in kids and heal them with the intention to bring them back to the parents the name of the foundations is the name of the first little boy they helped out. But it has now turned  into a orphanage; and because it is not in the culture here to adopt, they have been trying to set up with other countrys. Let me tell you, I am enjoying this way more then I would enjoy travelling. There are 8 kids and they have all stolen my heart. They range from 8 months to 5 years and they are so amazing. There are a few that  I would love to take home with me (i would love to take all of them) 

Camila (AKA Milla) for sure stole my heart, she is a 22 month old mugen girl, she is the newest addition to Ruel  arriving 3 weeks ago because she was extremely malnourished and under cared for. They said she had lots of worms in her tummy ,more then they have ever seen,  there was no poop coming out ..just worms. She also had broken ribs, and has a really hard time breathing due to asmtha.  Within the first 5 minutes of being there, I could see that she was underdeveloped and the weakest of all. She just sits there, one look and she had my heart ; I want to take her home with me so I can take care of her. She really needs one on one care, but that’s not really possible at most times. Here little legs are weak and don’t move much, so me being me, I have been doing some PT with her and at first she didn’t like it.. now she just looks at me with a face that says “what are you doing with my legs”. We put her in a jolly jumper for the first time yesterday so she could strengthen her legs. The first thing she did was hold them up, after showing her a few times how to do it she slowly picked it up and today she was in there for awhile laughing and giggling while I was singing silly songs to her. She is so cute, and you know ,you dont have to buy a ticket for lap babys  

The other one that has got my heart is Gillbert .He is 16 months and just so adorable with the cutest two tooth smile. I don’t know all his story but he was malnourished and has week legs but is starting to walk with help. His laugh is so adorable and he loves to be held. He had a bit of a fall yesterday and got a really big egg on his head it was almost instant from impact but he was all right and the egg is almost all gone now.

Then there is Mark who is 4 and has grown fond of attaching himself to me for several hours at a time. One of the care givers said he was getting too old for that in which i responded that everyone needs love know matter what age. All these kids just want to be loved, and all fight for a place on your lap but they all love each other and get along so well.  The care givers have really done a good job with teaching them how to love.  I cant imaging how hard it is. Most days there is just one care giver on at a time and they work long shifts.  Catiy , the one on this weekend watches them all weekend with no time off, I know that’s what a mom does but 8 kids, and some of them are sick.

Mark also has a brother Pador who is 2 years old and has developed a rash around his neck and feet and now all over his face and head, we put ginger violet on it to help it dry up and heal ,and well it lives up to its name because we had a very purple Padro today.

John Mark is 14 months and the most active, he came in very malnourished as well, and is growing to be a strong and healthy boy climbing on everything he can and always getting into mischieve. I wonder what’s going to happen when he can fully walk on his own. 

Ryan is the oldest of the boys (5 years) ,he is adorable with his curly hair and his laugh, I dont know his story ; so far as i know is that he is a Mongen boy and he was not wanted and even though the Foundation is for malnourished kids ,they have made a few exceptions.

Kat-Kat is the youngest girl at 8 months. If she does not capture you with her smile then you must have a cold heart, she is so sweet but man she can cry if she wants to.

Iris is 3 and she has a lazy eye and parents that didn’t want her or take care of her. She is up for adoption and has a lovely couple that are in the process to adopt, its just taking a long time and it is so crazy how hard they make it and how long the process is. In the mean time she is in this loving place ,but that’s not always the case, (oh how i would love to change the system) so her “mama” & “dada” to be, pick her up almost every day from 9 to 5-ish ,so I have not had so much time with her but she has still managed to capture my heart.

This afternoon all 5 of the boys got hair cuts. And they all screamed the whole time through, now we have 5 bald boys.. its really cute. they were trying to comb their hair but there was nothing to comb, so they combed my hair instead and all fought over my lap while we watched a movie. The little ones were all asleep so it was a lot more peaceful and less going on. not having to worry about Jonh Mark climbing on things and falling over or throwing glasses on the floor or Kat-Kat trying to escape to outside or Milla falling over or Gilbert crying for no reason. 

I was about to retire to my room for the night when iIheard Camila crying, now normally we just let them cry till they fall asleep so we were not thinking much of it ,but as i walked by her I relised she was coughing really bad. Now she always coughs but this was worse then I have ever heard it, so I patted her back for a while and then we put some herbal medicines on her head and tummy to help her breathe better and then softly hit her back to break up what was in her chest. I wanted to take her with me to my room so I could watch over her for the night. I really do want to take her home or at least stay here and take care of her till she is a healthy little girl that can walk and talk. 

She did manage to scoot herself across the floor today.  She has been getting used to everyone picking her up, so she has not even tried ,but when she saw that i was not going to retrieve the toy she threw across the room ,she slowly pulled herself across the room (with a lot of encouragment). The caregiver looked at me with suprise in her eyes and smiled. 

best week so far!

30 June- 5 July 

This week was by far my favorite week, Monday and Tuesday was the subject that I was waiting for OB GYN. Pregnant moms with big bellies and babies ..it doesn’t get much better then that, the awesomeness of new life straight from Ad-nai. We started out with talking about the women and how women were made and the women anatomy. We went over prenatal check ups and what they entail, how to tell if a women is really pregnant, what age the baby is if the baby is healthy. Then we talked about the process of delivering a baby and different cases we could have.  It is so fascinating ,we also got a chance to watch breached births on the video along with going to the hospital to see what the maternity word looks like, this was our second trip and they know we are students .We ended up staying the whole morning just helping out .There are 12 of us so they split us all up in different wings. Ryan and I were directed to the male surgical word which was just a room full of beds and people either getting ready or recovering from surgery. The hospital is a government owned biulding and not in the best shape. Most of the doctors and nurses are volunteers or don’t get paid much, but have such a heart for their people. The people that come to this hospital are the ones that cant afford going to a private hospital. We didnt really get a chance to see anything because it was a slow day for them but we did get to talk to the head surgeon a bit and learn about his persceptive. We learned that all the surgeries are free and some of the meds but they still have fees.These are the people that cant even afford to put food on the table and most of the time they just wont go and it will be too late.  There was this man in the ward that had a tumour on his chest and it was likely he had one on his liver causing jaundice and his skin to turn yellow. It was so sad, all the doctors could do was send him home and tell him to make the best of things, because he didnt come as soon as he should have, there was nothing the could do.

My heart is being broken, it breaks even more to know how cheap the meds and surgery is for these people that are seriously  ill.

After lunch we had more classes about what to expect in the delivery room and how women works and how to console the new mother. 

The next day we had classes about eyes and elephtises and all that fun stuff that i pray i never get.

The coolest things that we learn this week was next week we get to be on call at the hospital to witness a birth and i am  hoping we get to see more then one and maybe even help, I am so excited i cant wait.  

very late updates

 sorry, updates have been lacking on my end, being sick really threw me off,

so if you just scroll down you’ll see the new updates in order latest will be on top if you want to see what happened to up to two weeks ago just scroll down

Practical med

Ever wish that some how you could press a record button in your head and be able to not only replay but re-live a certain event or even a day, because it was just so great the first time you are sure to see how even greater it is in the second time and third.

Yesterday was one of those days, we do not have a re-live button built into us, so I will just have to do my best to remember,

This great and eventful day started off at promptly 4 am when my alarm clock started shaking, I reached over and shut if off only to wake up an hour and a half later when I then proceeded to get up and get ready for the day, Practical days are always exciting because we never do know what we are going to do or how the berungy (town) we are going to is going to be; seeing that we are a moving clinic; and we go different places every week.  Today was a bit of a longer ride, so we were getting an early start. There was a few bumps along the way; one that went so far as to pop our tire, and that started out the events for the day.

Changing tires can be fun especially when the tire you changed also has a flat.

Once the tire was fixed off we were back on the rode to the berungy (town) of Gorlya.

Where we were setting up clinic was at a church, the pastor was so nice and a really funny guy.  Me and Andrea were put on BP station, which is where everyone comes after registering to get their blood pressure taken. I have never been on at the BP station ,so it was a new experience for me and really good practice. A few more hours of taking back to back blood pressure and I just might be a pro. Being at the BP station was more then just taking BPs; it was about talking to people and just having a fun time calming them down about going to the doc or getting their teeth pulled. There were so many people, at one point I think I did around 50 BPs in a  row and there always seems to be more to do.  (Now that I think about it, it might have been fun to keep track off how many I did.)

This was by far the biggest out come for a clinic we had since I have been here. The kids seemed to be abundant and certainly not in shortage, they were flocking around me and Andrea, so when we had our slow times we would talk to them and make silly faces at. Even though most of the people did not speak English and our Tagalog was lacking pretty much everything, we found we didn’t really need words, because love surpasses everything ,even language.

One of the first people I took the BP on had a really high sisalici (top number) I thought maybe I heard wrong so I listened again and sure enough it was the same; so I had Andrea check because I just was not so confident in my BP taking abilities. But as I continued I realised that most people had high BP, not only kinda high but really high, 160/95 was common and the norm is 120/80. It was so mind blowing how many people had high blood pressure. It was hot and sticky but the smiles on the peoples faces kept me going as I felt my blood sugar dropping. Then I got some juice and that seemed to help. Every where we go we always get soda or something to drink but today we got coconut juice …like still in the coconut with a small hole in the top. Now I have had coconut juice and I knew I didn’t like it, but it was in a coconut shell and I was drinking in the Philippines  while taking BP. It was all for the experience, and I experienced not liking it the whole time. It was like I would drink it, put in down and then drink it again ,hoping that it tasted better, sweeter, anything. Nope,still was coconut juice, but at the end I started to like it or maybe I was just hot and needed something wet. 

After lunch we moved stations but for some reason we didn’t have any one on BP, so I jumped back on and there I was again full of smiles ready to squeeze anyone’s arm to find out the pressure of the blood. There were a whole lot more older folks this time around and they so sweet and really funny, they kept saying they loved my nose and a few of them wanted to touch it, because they believed if they touched it their baby’s would have noses like my nice big and pointy nose. There was this one pregnant woman that I just fell in love with.. my heart just went out to her, she was so sweet. I don’t think I will ever forget her (moments like those I wish I had a camera). There were some really awesome sweet older women there and one of them took a liking to me and gave me a ley of sampaquita (Philippines national flower) it made me feel blessed.

Some things I have been learning is that Filipinos love to feed people and they seem to want to make us fat even though they are not and I am not sure how, with the food they eat. We were fed this whitish jello like dessert that was made from rice and corn starch with corn on top (they put corn on a lots of desserts, you can even get a corn shake) it was quite yummy and quite filling. And then we tried these fried rice covered bananas.. they were yummy as well and nice and greasy.

After all the excitement we packed up and headed home to eat dinner and take showers.

Oh it was such a lovely day. One I want to keep reliving.