There and back again...

Wow, I think I'm having culture shock again!!

I came home Wednesday, July 20th after traveling for 26 hours!! In my travels- I met a Baptist Filipino taxi driver that is 52yrs old and working to put his 3 kids through college.  Also, I met a 34yr old Korean name Joshua, who is a Presbyterian and who was headed to NJ to take his lawyer's exam. (Did you know that in Korea you are one year old when you're born?)

I haven't written in a while so I'll do a quick recap of my last 2 weeks in the Philippines:
 I continued to stay at the clinic until right before I left. My internship ended July 15th and two new girls came to do their internship.  I had a lot of down time the last week or so because there weren't any births. I helped with prenatals and postpartum, worked on my Tagalog, talked with the midwives, went to the market, did first aid care to the guys, gave a little baby antibiotic shots( he had to have them 3 times a day), read some good midwifery material, and enjoyed some sunny days at the beach and the river! =)

When I got home from my nice long airplane rides it seriously was like having culture shock!  Just being able to drive our own car away from the airport was just weird. I'm use to being squished beside other people all crammed into a Jeepnie. Our house seemed so big!!  I will never complain on the size of a house in the states again!

My first morning back I had cereal with REAL milk!  When I got hungry in the afternoon I had CHEESE on some HOMEMADE bread!  Wow, the things we American's take for granted....

To kind of sum everything up --- I have been gone a month and 20 days. I have seen terrible, hard, life-changing, wonderful, amazing things. I have performed 64 prenatals, 8 postpartums, 7 new born exams, and assisted with 6 births. I learned how to start  an IV (and actually did on a real live person!), suture, apply an anti-shock garment, give shots, feel the position of a baby, use a pregnancy wheel, use Doppler, preform a newborn exam, prenatal, and postpartums and SO much more!!   I have given antibiotic, Hep B, vitamin K, and tetanus shots.

 I saw the huge need for health care workers, but even more for Spiritual care.  I prayed with the ladies I did prenatals on, but the language barrier was hard. (Though several of them new minimal English)

I made several new friends, learned SO much, saw so much, and will remember so much! My life is forever changed.

Signing out from her last blog posting,
 Miriam True

PS.  My plane ride on the way back was Manila-Tokyo, Tokyo-New York, New York-Nashville, Nashville-HOME!! =)

PPS. A word of warning to travelers- It is hard to exchange Filipino pesos in the Tokyo airport and everything in the Tokyo airport is like 4x the cost as it is in the Philippines and about twice as much as in the States. =)

Photos of our trip

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150715715015024.701263.8998400
23&l=ad22ff7ffb&type=1
   Copy and paste this link to your browser to see pictures of our trip!!! (for some reason just clicking on the link doesn't work...)  One more blog post to come!\
 
    Here's another album of pictures =)
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150715860140024.701316.899840023&l=15d9f02ae6&type=1

News from Miriam

Tuesday, July 5, 2011, 11:59 PM

It’s been a while since my last posting! Let me catch everyone up to date!  I moved into the clinic about a week and a half ago, so I wouldn't miss anything =) It's been fun staying with the midwives and hearing Tagalog all the time. I'm picking some up, slowly, but surely =)  The biggest news is that Liz went home! WAAAAA!! We already miss her! =(  A group of us took her back to Manila (a 3 hour  bus ride) and spent two nights there. We went to this awesome market that was inside. It had tons of vendors with clothes, jewelry, furniture, carvings, chimes, etc. So cool! Things are a lot cheaper here than in the states! I would l have gotten lost in it! HUGE!! And of course our hotel had to be right across from a Starkbucks-a nice treat.  We saw this chocolate castle (like Willy-Wonka!), but didn't go inside. Maybe when I go back we will. John said it was really cool. It’s kind of like a chocolate factory.  Monday morning John, Kelsey and I took Liz to the airport at 2AM. Liz was pretty nervous, but calmed down a little by the time we had to leave her. I found out later she threw up a little before she got on the plane. =/  She doesn’t do early morning real well. We went back to the hotel and slept in and then caught the 3:30 bus back home! I ‘m so glad we are staying in Olongapo because Manila is too big and busy for me! ( 14 million people)  BEST PART OF THE TRIP WAS THE HOT SHOWERS!!!!!!! Oh, I can now ride in a taxi without getting over charged! =)  I assisted with a labor on June 29th. I was in charge of keeping up with baby's vitals before and right after birth. Then I kept up with the Mom and baby's vitals every 15min for an hour then every hour until we cut the cord (about 4 hours later).  She gave birth to a maganda bata babae (beautiful baby girl-- spelling might be a little off, but I can say it!) at 11:25AM and they named her Princess.  I got to go to the  postpartum visit the next day and mom and baby were doing well. Mom had to be reminded to wake Princess up to nurse her and not to cover he umbilical cord. She and her family live by the land field (city dump), but they live in a nice concrete house.  Today (July 6th) and yesterday I got to assist with two more births!  Yesterday the mom was in labor for about 5 hours at the clinic. She came in and was dilated to  3cm with irregular contractions.  She was a small lady from 12th Street ( the slums), this was her 2nd child.  She delivered at 3:53 PM and had a little girl also. They named her Jenelyn. I again was in charge of baby's vitals during labor and right after.   Jessica (a lady that is a nurse from El Paso that is helping out and learning) and I did the newborn exam together and I cut the cord.  She was a small baby at 4.5 lbs, but nursing good!  The birth that happened today was super fast! Well, she had been in labor for a while, but when she came in it went fast.  We were doing prenatals and she comes in holding her stomach say she's in labor. Cecille (the Filipino midwife who has  been one for like 25 years) checked her and she was fully dilated and 100% effaced.  She literally gave birth like 15min after getting inside. Another girl =)- Charmee was what they named her.  Jessica and   I kept up with mom and baby's vitals    Getting a lot of experience in!!! Yay =) Okay, so other news.  My first visa will be up the end of July/first of August and instead of renewing it, I decided to go ahead and come home. The cost was more than triple the cost I had planned for and my internship will be over.  So after prayer, and talking with mom and Dad, I decided to go ahead and come back early. Mom was so disappointed =) When I bought my return ticket through a Christian travel agent I got one that could be flexible without a lot of hassle. Bummer thing is, now I'll have to help with tomatoes! =)

Miriam's Update

Hey everyone!
 Whew! It's been over a week since my last posting and we've been busy!  Plus it's been a pain to get in and out of the property because of all the rain. 
    
This past week, in my midwife internship, we learn several different skills.  We learned how to suture on a chicken breast which was way awesome!! =)  I would love to take a more intense class of it.  We did different shots, vacuum extraction, and nasal gastric feeding tube...Probably more, but my mind isn't remembering them all! 

 One evening that I was on call at the clinic, I had to walked through the rain and knee-deep river water to get out!!  (The water wasn't moving)  Good times =)
   
I was able to be a part of 3 births this past week!!  And they all happened within 13 hours! =)  The first one was at 2PM, then 1:30AM, and 4:10AM.  I almost got baptized with amniotic fluid with one of the births. Glad I have fast reflexes =)
 
 For one of the births I was able to cut the chord, which was awesome!!  I had watched a couple be cut and explained to me and then I got to do it!
  
I'm now staying at the clinic (about a 25 min walk from the property) so I can always be around for births, prenatals, and postpartum visits.  My internship is over on July 15th when 2 other interns come in, so I want to get in as much as I can in my last two weeks.  I'll probably be able to help with some things after that, but only if the other interns aren't there for some reason.    

Three of the girls who were here for the intense two week training left yesterday and I already miss them!! They were super neat girls!  Allison is heading to Australia to do the YWAM midwife program, Nadia is headed to Thailand for 6 months of YWAM training and then to India indefinitely, and Amy is going back to Taiwan to finish up teaching English in several different schools there... Had super fun, good times with them all!
  
This next week is the last week I have with the other intern, Kelly. She's 37, has 3 kids and is very awesome to be around!  Her and her husband want to move to China and she wants to use midwifery there as a ministry.
     
A lot of our things are getting moldy out at the property because of the rain and humidity and just not being able to dry out.  I cleaned our money off yesterday cuz it got moldy. =/  But we're dealing with it =)  The washing lady either must hate us or love us for bringing her so many clothes! =) I better sign out for now!
 Miriam

News from Liz

I now define a lot of rain as not just two or three days of non stop, but six. I have never seen so much rain in my life! It has slowed all our outside construction work down a bunch, but we are able to get some things done at the other established clinic so that's good!

 The rain also provides some fun when we took a walk about three miles or so to the McDonalds one night late. We were completely drenched, but had a good time.

I have given up on clean clothes; they never stay that way so I'm just embracing the mud. :)

Mim has gotten to see several births which is awesome!! I'm sure she'll post about it later. She even got to cut the cord at one of the births.

The last couple days we've been putting tile in at the clinic, helping with other random things, and taking a wall down outside and putting a new one up.There is plenty to do, just rain slows everything down.

The river by us is super flooded. We can't take our baths there anymore because it is so flooded. The other day, when the water was very high, a 15yo boy died trying to cross ... more later

Good News from Miriam!

June 15

Hey everyone! Wow, we've been gone from KY for two weeks already! In some ways it seems really long and other ways really short!

Praise the Lord we are all doing a lot better!  John L came out of the hospital Monday night and went back to the property today. John M decided to rent an apartment in the same complex as the directors, just to have a place to shower, relax, and get on the internet. It's very cheap.  He wanted it also to be available to anyone they know who might need a place to stay but it's been the sick bay the last couple days.  =) 

I'm feeling a lot better too after pretty much sleeping all of yesterday and drinking lots.  I'm still not 100% but quickly getting there.

 They've had 3 births in the last 3 days at the clinic! All mom's and babies are doing really well! PTL.  I didn't get to witness any of them, but I'll be able to do follow up visits with them. This morning I did several prenatal check ups at the clinic. It's really cool feeling the position of the baby and hearing the heart beat!  So amazing the life God is growing in their wombs! =)

We have several women that will be giving birth soon and I hope I'll be able to be there for them!  I might go down and spend the nights at the clinic, so I don't miss them.  They had 3 moms give birth within 10 min of getting to the clinic and I couldn't get there in time. =(

The boys hut is just about done and they are glad to be getting out of their tent. Some things got wet and it hasn't been the nicest living place. =)  I'm sure we'll be building them a set of bunk beds also.

Things are kind of settling back down and hopefully we can get back to some kind of schedule.  There are still things we need to buy/do to fully settle in....

I'm super excited about this next week!  Seven other ladies have come to take an intense two  week seminar and  the other midwife intern and I will be a part of them also. I've missed several of the class room studies, but I'll be able to do more of the hands on skills this coming week.  We're going to learn several things, but two that I'm really looking forward to are suturing and starting IV's. =) =)

We've only been here a week and a half and we already can tell how spoiled we are in America.  Here if anyone goes off the property and using a "real" bathroom we go back and tell everyone what we got to do! And I love how little things like going to McDonald's or getting pizza or a soda or ice in our water is a treat now that we're here, where back home those were normal occurrences.   I pray I'll never take little things like that for granted again. =)

PS. McDonald's here is way better quality than the States.  And for a cheaper price!
    Signing out for now! Miriam

Learning to Trust

 This is Pam writing the update.

The team is having a few opportunities to learn to trust the Lord ( aka problems). We here at home are learning too. :)

One of the team, John Langham, got sick and had to go to the hospital. He evidently had an intestinal infection that required IV's and antibiotics. He is on the mend and was released from the hospital today.

Then yesterday Miriam got sick . Here is what she says:

"I woke up at 3 a having horrible diarrhea and nausea. I was super weak and kinda achy. The rest of the group went to midwife class at 7:30 and I went to sleep for a little while. My diarrhea stopped around 10AM but still had other symptoms. Levi brought Liz around 12 and I took some charcoal and my nausea was better. They stayed and entertained me for about 3 hours then went back. They got me water and soft drinks and crackers. I was able to eat some crackers( they have some super amazing ones here) I went back to Scott and Vicki's apartment around 5PM with one of the midwives and have been in and out of sleep since then." I chatted with her this morning( which is night over there) and she is doing OK .She is still having stomach cramps and is weak but she didn't need IV's. She is staying at the director's house and Liz will be her nurse for the night.

 The team purchased a scooter to get around on the island . Yesterday Levi and Liz were on it and this is what Liz said happened:"On way home we hit a tricycle. Sorta like motorcycle with a side car. It was turning stupidly in  the street.It was wet and we couldn't stop,so we hit it. But it's a huge praise because there were no major injuries!! Just a sore neck for me with  a bruise on my side.Levi's knee and ankle are  scrapped a bit. But we were good and so was the  bike. So praise God!!"

So praises with prayer request and lots of opportunities to learn to trust our heavenly Father!