Looking mint in mint

Wow, what a week! Today marks the completion of my first week volunteering at the Iizuka Hospital in the Brain surgery and Cerebral Internal Medicine ward. 

To begin, let me just comment on the staff in this ward. Watanabe san is the head nurse, she's the one that's really taken us in and provided us the opportunity to work in her ward. She is so wonderful! She's loud, outgoing, jokes all the time and smiles at us and laughs with us. She's also ALWAYS at the hospital. She's there before we arrive at 8:25am and is still there when we leave at 5pm. She is constantly working or in meetings. The few times we have seen her, she yells at me (in a fun and friendly way) to keep studying Japanese and then all the nurses laugh. She also laughs when we ask for more things to do "SHIGOTO, HAI!" I've recently let her know that I would be absolutely ecstatic if I could watch brain surgery. After some confusing talk with lots of dictionary use, she's told us to simply trust her and high-fived us on her way out the door. Looks like my next weeks might become more exciting.

I've also met Chie san, a careworker, Yu san, a resident doctor, Yano san, a caretaker trainee along with multiple others including a nurse who speaks excellent English who likes to practice with us and the "number 1 pretty nurse" as she says. There are also two nurse aids in training who are working the same duties that Samantha and I are. The entire staff are really great and deal with my limited Japanese really well. Lots of pointing and lots of "okay".

This ward is truly a well oiled machine. They have a morning meeting at 8:30am and before I know it everyone is off working like busy bees. Things are very well organized and always on time. Which generally means that Samantha and I don't have much to do, we slow everything down. The first couple of days we watched as the daily routines were carried out. Because the ward is Brain Surgery and Cerebral medicine, the patients are elderly and have commonly suffered strokes. This leaves them weak and not unable to do a lot of things on their own. They are very well looked after though. They are cleaned, changed, washed, fed and seem very comfortable. We have been helping where we can even if it's just holding a patients hand.

Some highlights of my week:

- Taking patients for head/thorax CT scans - the doctors in the CT room now recognize me and indicate what the scans show. 

- A nurse tells me that I have a "hana takai".....a tall nose. 

- "A snake is...scary. It makes me scared." Teaching a nurse the difference between a patient with dementia being scary vs. being scared.

- Me directing us in Japanese when moving a patient to a different ward. Migi ni magemasu! Turn right!

- Japanese anatomy is the best. Hands are "te", feet are "ashi" and neck is "kubi". Wrist is literally "te kubi" (hand neck) and ankles are "ashi kubi" (foot neck). Also, fingers are yubi and toes are ashi no yubi, feet fingers.

- The day where Watanabe san wore Samantha's name tag

- I had a palm reading done by a patient. He said I was going to live a long life, whereas Samantha should look out when she's 45, she might have a bad fall.

- The time I had to sit with a 70 year old particularly rebellious patient and talk with him (aka keep him occupied for a little while). I'm sure he spoke about excellent things...the only thing I got was I'm 70, Japanese....and car. He also calls me Miss Canada and says I have a white face. He also thanked us for making his bed so well. We call him bell man because he has bells attached to his ankles so the staff can keep track of him. He also wears a pink towel around his head.

- A woman looks at us and says "I'm going home today!" as her family bows low and thanks us for our help.

And, to not have you feeling robbed or deprived of pictures of food or of the town of Iizuka, I have decided to include both.  This sky caught my attention on a bike ride home and had to catch a shot of the clouds and mountains.

I found a curry house on one of my runs (currently at 9, including one of 4.0km) that does UNREAL food on the CHEAP. This cost me ...580 yen (about $6.50) and it was WAY more than I could handle. They also serve with pickled ginger...oh...my...lord. I see myself spending all the money on their takeout (well, whatever money I haven't spent at TRIAL).

This week I've also become way over obsessed with Derren Brown. If you haven't heard of him check out some of his "experiments" videos on youtube. They're something else.