There are only two new departments in my revised work schedule for this month: the nursery and the operation room. I worked in both of them for the first time last week, so I can tell you a little about them now.
Before my timetable changed, I worked on the wards every day of the week. Now, with the nursery on Wednesday mornings I have a break from that, a 'weekend in the middle of the week' as May called it. It made a huge difference. How could it not have? Instead of changing bed sheets, folding towels and making oshibori, I am playing with a dozen children under the age of five. They were all very cute and very shy at first, but after about half an hour they were jumping all over May and me – literally – and trying to out-do each other in impressing us. The teachers were great too; they didn't even laugh when they had to show me how to change a nappy.
The highlight of the morning was watching the children's Christmas concert rehersal. I felt a little sorry for them though. They must have been petrified performing to a couple of foreigners instead of their parents. To my surprise, they didn't show any more fear than you might expect from a toddler singing a solo to an audience. It was a great little show. The costumes were wonderful too. And because this was a Buddhist Christmas concert, there was no mention of the birth of Jesus or telling of the nativity story – as you would expect – just lots of singing about Christmas time... and food, for some reason. I can't wait to go back there on Wednesday.
Second, the operation room. You're probably wondering what work two un-trained volunteers could possibly do on the surgery floor. Unfortunately for me, it turned out the answer didn't involve anything inside the theatres. We were doing behind the scenes stuff – packaging sterile equipment mainly, for both the OT's and the wards. I thought it was quite satisfying in a way, knowing that this medical equipment was soon going to be used by a surgeon or doctor. Maybe I was grabbing at straws though; I wanted to be observing surgery.
Anyway, that's about it. My timetable will change again come January. I will no longer have a free Wednesday afternoon but will be working in Nutrition and then Radiology. Although I will obviously miss my free afternoon – especially considering that is the only time I have been able to watch surgeries so far – it will be nice going back to Radiology. I already miss it after only a week without it. There's such a great atmosphere there, one that seems to be unique to Radiology. Plus, May and I have made some good friends there. Matso-san stands out for both of us. He is a similar age to us (he's 24) so we feel like we're on a similar level to him. I am the youngest employee on the hospital staff so, according to Japanese culture, everyone else is essentially my boss, including May. Matso-san treats us more like equals though, maybe because if it weren't for us, he would be the youngest on the staff. I also miss the chief Radiologist, 'Ojiisan' ('Grandfather' – not his name, just what everyone calls him). He shows me the coolest x-rays, MRI's and CT's that he can find and then lets me try and work out what they are of. At least we will see all the Radiology gang at Bonenkai on Friday. Yay.
Monday, 10 December 2007
げか 2 - Surgery II
I went back into surgery on Wednesday. It was only the third time I have been in there but it felt like the hundredth. I feel like I have been watching surgeries all my life, but each one is still just as amazing as the first one I saw.
I watched two operations on this visit: a Cholecystectomy (removal of the gallbladder) and a skin graft.
Cholecystectomy:
This was an endoscopic (or laparoscopic) procedure. Several small incisions are made at strategic points on the patient's abdomen and then the surgeon detaches the gallbladder and pulls it out through one of the holes. This particular patient had a rather bad case of gallstones, so his gallbladder was very enlarged. It was about the size of a pear, and the incisions are roughly the size of grapes, so there was quite a bit of tugging and twisting when it came to pulling it out. It reminded me of birth, only the result isn't a cute baby but a diseased sac of bile. Oh, speaking of bile, the surgeons accidentally punctured the gallbladder while they were detaching it from the liver, and this caused some of the bile contained within to gush out into the patients abdominal cavity. It was quite a sight!
This procedure was particularly impressive because the surgeons can't see anything they are doing directly. They have various long instruments stuck into their patient, which they are enthusiastically moving around, thrusting them into the far corners of this poor man's stomach, all time while looking at a TV screen. It must take a lot of practice. Obviously.
Skin Graft
Now this one was very interesting indeed. Whereas all the other procedures I have observed have been fairly routine, a skin graft can never really be routine, can it? I mean, if you need some of your skin replacing... how often does that happen?
The patient had had a malignant melanoma on her foot. The cancer was very aggressive so the dermatologist had to remove a lot of skin from the foot around the tumour to ensure there wasn't a single cell of it left that would spread. That happened several weeks ago. Now, the patient was well enough to undergo a second surgery to repair some of the damage sustained to her foot as a result of the first surgery. A large section of skin was removed from the patient's abdomen – about the size of a mango, to continue the fruit sizing system – and while an intern and resident took to sewing up this huge hole, the chief of dermatology started preparing the skin for grafting. This involved carefully cutting off the inch of fat – which is a delicious, bright yellow colour by the way – that was present and then smoothing the underside of the skin by cutting away any imperfections. When she was finished, the skin looked so thin and shrivelled I was just hoping that it was stretchy, otherwise it would never cover the wound. It turned out to be remarkably stretchy; The skin really is an amazing organ, you know.
Once the skin was loosely attached with just enough stitches to hold it in place, a blue dye was injected into the tissue around the would, presumably to track the blood flow to the new skin over the next few hours/days. That's when it happened.... the foot moved!!! Ha! The surgeon stopped what he was doing and gave a rather amused look to the anaesthesiologist, who quickly made a few adjustments to the station at his end of the table. Aw man, the foot moved.... awesome :-)
I watched two operations on this visit: a Cholecystectomy (removal of the gallbladder) and a skin graft.
Cholecystectomy:
This was an endoscopic (or laparoscopic) procedure. Several small incisions are made at strategic points on the patient's abdomen and then the surgeon detaches the gallbladder and pulls it out through one of the holes. This particular patient had a rather bad case of gallstones, so his gallbladder was very enlarged. It was about the size of a pear, and the incisions are roughly the size of grapes, so there was quite a bit of tugging and twisting when it came to pulling it out. It reminded me of birth, only the result isn't a cute baby but a diseased sac of bile. Oh, speaking of bile, the surgeons accidentally punctured the gallbladder while they were detaching it from the liver, and this caused some of the bile contained within to gush out into the patients abdominal cavity. It was quite a sight!
This procedure was particularly impressive because the surgeons can't see anything they are doing directly. They have various long instruments stuck into their patient, which they are enthusiastically moving around, thrusting them into the far corners of this poor man's stomach, all time while looking at a TV screen. It must take a lot of practice. Obviously.
Skin Graft
Now this one was very interesting indeed. Whereas all the other procedures I have observed have been fairly routine, a skin graft can never really be routine, can it? I mean, if you need some of your skin replacing... how often does that happen?
The patient had had a malignant melanoma on her foot. The cancer was very aggressive so the dermatologist had to remove a lot of skin from the foot around the tumour to ensure there wasn't a single cell of it left that would spread. That happened several weeks ago. Now, the patient was well enough to undergo a second surgery to repair some of the damage sustained to her foot as a result of the first surgery. A large section of skin was removed from the patient's abdomen – about the size of a mango, to continue the fruit sizing system – and while an intern and resident took to sewing up this huge hole, the chief of dermatology started preparing the skin for grafting. This involved carefully cutting off the inch of fat – which is a delicious, bright yellow colour by the way – that was present and then smoothing the underside of the skin by cutting away any imperfections. When she was finished, the skin looked so thin and shrivelled I was just hoping that it was stretchy, otherwise it would never cover the wound. It turned out to be remarkably stretchy; The skin really is an amazing organ, you know.
Once the skin was loosely attached with just enough stitches to hold it in place, a blue dye was injected into the tissue around the would, presumably to track the blood flow to the new skin over the next few hours/days. That's when it happened.... the foot moved!!! Ha! The surgeon stopped what he was doing and gave a rather amused look to the anaesthesiologist, who quickly made a few adjustments to the station at his end of the table. Aw man, the foot moved.... awesome :-)
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
Truffles & Blood Clots
With too many truffles to handle even between the two of us, May and I decided to hand some out to a few of our friends at the hospital. This included our friends in Pharmacy and Radiology, Kimura-san, Kumiko-san, Oka-san and Nakashima-sensei. Everyone was really impressed, exclaiming "Oishii!" ("delicious"), and I think they they won us a few brownie points too. Now we're not just the GAP volunteers, we're the GAP volunteer who give them confectionery. Who couldn't love us?!
*
Ide-san, the woman who met all of the Gappers in Tokyo back in September, came to visit Nagasaki last week to check on May and me. Since everything is fine, it was a short, concise visit, only lasting for more than an hour because we broke for lunch. She gave us a piece of advice though that has really stuck with me: be less shy and more active when it comes to asking for more things to do. She said this in the context of asking to watch a birth, but I have already applied it at work in a different context. Yesterday in the Test Department I asked if I could help take the clots out of centrifuged blood - something I see the other lab tech's doing scores of times a day. They didn't even hesitate and handed a blood-filled test tube and a tooth pick each to May and me. They were so impressed they gave us our tea break early and then let us leave for lunch early too. Ide-san's advice really worked! I wonder what else this could lead to? With less than three months to go now, I really have to try to make the most of this.
*
I watched surgery again last week. I didn't mention it before because I took May in with me so we only stayed for an hour. She was very impressed but said that once was enough. Me? I'm going back in this afternoon. It will never be enough :-)
*
Ide-san, the woman who met all of the Gappers in Tokyo back in September, came to visit Nagasaki last week to check on May and me. Since everything is fine, it was a short, concise visit, only lasting for more than an hour because we broke for lunch. She gave us a piece of advice though that has really stuck with me: be less shy and more active when it comes to asking for more things to do. She said this in the context of asking to watch a birth, but I have already applied it at work in a different context. Yesterday in the Test Department I asked if I could help take the clots out of centrifuged blood - something I see the other lab tech's doing scores of times a day. They didn't even hesitate and handed a blood-filled test tube and a tooth pick each to May and me. They were so impressed they gave us our tea break early and then let us leave for lunch early too. Ide-san's advice really worked! I wonder what else this could lead to? With less than three months to go now, I really have to try to make the most of this.
*
I watched surgery again last week. I didn't mention it before because I took May in with me so we only stayed for an hour. She was very impressed but said that once was enough. Me? I'm going back in this afternoon. It will never be enough :-)
Monday, 3 December 2007
クリスマス – Christmas
It is getting rather Christmassy here. May and I agreed 1st of December would be a reasonable date to start celebrating Christmas so we spent the day putting up a little tree that one of the previous Gappers left in May's room, watching a movie ('Notting Hill', in case you were wondering) and making chocolate truffles. The truffles were probably the best thing I have ever made. They were divine. Seriously. However, it was slightly depressing eating them since we knew exactly what was in them. Our truffles contained only four ingredients: chocolate, cream, butter and cocoa powder. Yeah, we're going to give some away as presents to prevent us from eating them all. Anyway, guilt aside, it was a great day. We each made our own advent calendar back in November so of course, we got to start those too.
The landowners put up a tree in the entrance of our apartment building too. It is especially nice coming home after work now, being greeted by a Christmas tree with twinkling lights. It does make me a little homesick though, all this Christmas stuff, since it is my favourite time of the year back in England. Oh well, this will certainly be one to remember in years to come.
The landowners put up a tree in the entrance of our apartment building too. It is especially nice coming home after work now, being greeted by a Christmas tree with twinkling lights. It does make me a little homesick though, all this Christmas stuff, since it is my favourite time of the year back in England. Oh well, this will certainly be one to remember in years to come.
ふくふぐ – Happy Fugu
Well, I am alive. The fugu dinner was excellent and, given that none of the attendees died, could be considered an all-round success. It was actually a retirement party for Hamano-san, the lady who works in the Medical Office where May and I spend Friday afternoons 3-5pm. It is so sad that she is retiring; she is like a mother to everyone in the hospital, including all the surgeons who use the office as a break-room. It was an honour to be invited to her retirement dinner, it really was. I am going to miss her when she leaves at the end of December.
The meal consisted of fugu sashimi, then fried fugu, battered fugu, fugu soup and finally, fugu risotto. The window to the tiny little restaurant we were dining at doubled as an aquarium for the (live but soon-to-be-dead) fugu; by the time our party of six was done with all that food, I kid you not, the tank was half-empty. Given that each one of those fish contained enough poison to kill 15 fully grown men, I must commend our highly skilled chief separating the 'safe' parts from the 'deadly' ones. The battered fugu tasted remarkably like battered cod from the chippies back in England, so that obviously had to be my favourite. We fried the pre-sliced chunks of fish on little grills in the centre of the table, which wasn't anything special in itself but what was endlessly entertaining, the pieces of fish were doing that post-mortem death-twitching thing. They kept twitching for about five minutes too. I thought it would last only a few seconds after death but apparently not. They were really strong muscle contractions too.... amazing.
Here's my plate of sashimi. The sashimi is the pale pieces of meat laid out to cover the plate; the white and grey pieces in the middle are some of the fish's skin. Yum. And yes, my lips did go quite numb after just a few pieces. Way to go, chef!
*
I got my new work schedule last week. Monday and Tuesday are the same as before, but here are the changes:
Wednesday
am. Day Nursery
pm. Free time
Thursday
am. Pharmacy
pm. Nurses Station
Friday
am. Nurses Station
pm. 13:00-15:00 Operation Room
15:00-17:00 Medical Office
Also, starting in January after my Japanese classes finish at the Brick Hall, we won't get free time on Wednesday afternoons but we will spend 13:00-15:00 in the Nutrition Section and 15:00-17:00 back in Radiology. Overall, these changes are pretty pleasing, although I don't know yet what May and I will be doing in the new departments. I'll let you know.
The meal consisted of fugu sashimi, then fried fugu, battered fugu, fugu soup and finally, fugu risotto. The window to the tiny little restaurant we were dining at doubled as an aquarium for the (live but soon-to-be-dead) fugu; by the time our party of six was done with all that food, I kid you not, the tank was half-empty. Given that each one of those fish contained enough poison to kill 15 fully grown men, I must commend our highly skilled chief separating the 'safe' parts from the 'deadly' ones. The battered fugu tasted remarkably like battered cod from the chippies back in England, so that obviously had to be my favourite. We fried the pre-sliced chunks of fish on little grills in the centre of the table, which wasn't anything special in itself but what was endlessly entertaining, the pieces of fish were doing that post-mortem death-twitching thing. They kept twitching for about five minutes too. I thought it would last only a few seconds after death but apparently not. They were really strong muscle contractions too.... amazing.
Here's my plate of sashimi. The sashimi is the pale pieces of meat laid out to cover the plate; the white and grey pieces in the middle are some of the fish's skin. Yum. And yes, my lips did go quite numb after just a few pieces. Way to go, chef!
*
I got my new work schedule last week. Monday and Tuesday are the same as before, but here are the changes:
Wednesday
am. Day Nursery
pm. Free time
Thursday
am. Pharmacy
pm. Nurses Station
Friday
am. Nurses Station
pm. 13:00-15:00 Operation Room
15:00-17:00 Medical Office
Also, starting in January after my Japanese classes finish at the Brick Hall, we won't get free time on Wednesday afternoons but we will spend 13:00-15:00 in the Nutrition Section and 15:00-17:00 back in Radiology. Overall, these changes are pretty pleasing, although I don't know yet what May and I will be doing in the new departments. I'll let you know.
Wednesday, 28 November 2007
3か⽉ – 3 Months
Well, I have made it to the half way point. Today is twelve weeks since I came to Japan. Three months down, three to go. I don't think the enormity of being half-way through my placement has hit me yet.
Over the past few weeks in particular, May and I have really bonded. She is remarkably similar to me, which does mean however, that she occasionally annoys me. Most of the time though, we spend laughing together. Yeah, we get a lot of stares from people at work, let me tell you. She has become a very dear friend to me and one I will always think of fondly when I remember my time in Japan. We have already made loose plans for me to visit her in Vancouver and for her to visit me in England at some point in the future. Man, I'm going to miss her. Although I am excited about finishing my placement and going home, it makes me sad thinking about leaving May-chan. Her nickname among her friends back in Canada is 'Amazing', as in Amazing May; on the same theme, she gave me the nickname Wonder Lily. We could totally fight crime.
*
This week is the last of my current work schedule, the one May and I have followed for the past three months. We still don't know which new departments we will start working in next week (some of our bosses are having a meeting today, I think, to decide) but we are feeling quite optimistic about the change. Of course, I will let you all know where we end up.
*
Tonight is Fugu Night. I am so excited! I'm going to try fugu at last. I remember seeing that Simpsons episode as a child, you know, the one where Homer demands fugu at a Japanese restaurant and then thinks he's going to die after eating it, but then doesn't. That episode has stuck with me all these years, so I am really determined to go ahead and seize this opportunity. Also, I promised my cousin that I would try it. This is for you, Greg!
Over the past few weeks in particular, May and I have really bonded. She is remarkably similar to me, which does mean however, that she occasionally annoys me. Most of the time though, we spend laughing together. Yeah, we get a lot of stares from people at work, let me tell you. She has become a very dear friend to me and one I will always think of fondly when I remember my time in Japan. We have already made loose plans for me to visit her in Vancouver and for her to visit me in England at some point in the future. Man, I'm going to miss her. Although I am excited about finishing my placement and going home, it makes me sad thinking about leaving May-chan. Her nickname among her friends back in Canada is 'Amazing', as in Amazing May; on the same theme, she gave me the nickname Wonder Lily. We could totally fight crime.
*
This week is the last of my current work schedule, the one May and I have followed for the past three months. We still don't know which new departments we will start working in next week (some of our bosses are having a meeting today, I think, to decide) but we are feeling quite optimistic about the change. Of course, I will let you all know where we end up.
*
Tonight is Fugu Night. I am so excited! I'm going to try fugu at last. I remember seeing that Simpsons episode as a child, you know, the one where Homer demands fugu at a Japanese restaurant and then thinks he's going to die after eating it, but then doesn't. That episode has stuck with me all these years, so I am really determined to go ahead and seize this opportunity. Also, I promised my cousin that I would try it. This is for you, Greg!
Monday, 26 November 2007
I miss rain. I was lying in bed last night, all snug under my duvet and electric blanket and I realised something was missing: the sound of rain against the window. I have been here three months and in that time is has rained four, maybe five times. I am English; I need more rain than that! November brought the cold weather finally. I say cold, I mean by Nagasaki standards, with highs in the mid-teens. But we still have crisp, blue sky almost every day. Wait, why am I complaining again? Oh right, yes, I want night rain. Yes, that would be good, blue sky during the day and rain at night. Oooh, or snow. Mmm, snow would be good. I am told it usually snows here once or twice a year. Fingers crossed, eh?
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