Thursday, July 5, 2012

4th of July

This year was the most I have celebrated the 4th of July ever, and I wasn't even in the U.S.! The kitchen/dining room was decorated red, white, and blue when we came down for breakfast.
We started off our day with a fiesta at a local school. The little kids formed a huge receiving line, they were all waving American flags and cheering when we arrived.


The kids (age 3-16 I think) put on a show for us with singing (Proud to be an AH-MEH-REEE-CAHN, national anthem, etc.) and traditional dancing. The highlight for me was the last act, where a group of 5 year olds dressed up like cowboys/girls sang and danced to Old McDonald in Spanish. It was sooo cute! I do have a video of it but I'm having trouble getting it to upload.
Even though it was a holiday we still had clinical in the morning and afternoon. Once again I was at hospice and did some home visits. Some of the patients at hospice are now recognizing us and are happy to see us. While hospice is probably the most tiring for me, it's good to see them when we go. One of our patients (a 22 year old with severe & multiple disabilities due to prenatal drug abuse) who is often fairly unresponsive gave us a huge smile when we got to him! He really likes when someone holds his hand. 
This is Felix- he loves having his picture taken. He is very happy hanging out listening to his radio all day. He has cerebral palsy and lives at the hospice because he requires too much assistance to live alone.

This is the hospice courtyard. The patient rooms surround this area like a square which you can kind of see on the left. All rooms have cement floors and would probably never pass a JCAHO inspection.

We did some wound care on home visits, always interesting. An elderly man with either epilepsy or Parkinson's (I know these aren't even close to the same thing but all we got was a description of symptoms) had taken a bad fall and sustained cuts on his face and legs. Hypertension, hypertension, and more hypertension.
Mass on the 4th was a healing mass, which meant doctors and nurses got up and prayed for the sick and had a candlelight vigil. The church was packed (which is really saying something because it's huge).
After mass, we headed to ANOTHER fiesta for some dancing and fun. In other news, I ate a burger and fries last night. Very American, very delicious.


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