Wednesday-day one of hot training!

Jasmine and I have been in the red zone! And we are doing just fine!! No breaches of protocol to our knowledge. We stayed in the PPE for 45 minutes! Mercy!!! When you "doff" you are doused in 0.5% chlorine often. The fumes linger. I have been out of the ETC 4 hours now and can still smell a hint of chlorine! The doffing process includes multiple steps. Again, once they are more second nature to me I will count them. We went in with 6 ex-pat nurses; 3 of us were touring and 3 conducted the tour and gave meds while we were inside. And we admitted a very small child today and had to start an IV in her before dehydration sets in. Obtaining IV access is difficult on a dehydrated person, and the difficulty is significantly increased on a dehydrated pediatric patient. It is also hard to explain to one so young why the sharp pointy object is poking him or her and that you are causing temporary pain in an attempt to help make him or her feel less rotten. Peds are hard:-( I dread witnessing the first death of a child here. I have upmost respect for NICU, PICU, and pediatric oncology doctors and nurses! I could not do your job--and someone does need to! Thank you!! (Translations for the non-medically savvy: Neonatal Intensive Care Unit-NICU, Pediatric Intensive Care Unit-PICU, and, essentially, children with cancer.  I couldn't do it. Thank you for the work you do!

We had to separate the small child from her mother which was heart-wrenching to witness. We have a few Ebola survivors that have offered to be caregivers for the small children. Our newest pt can't understand what Ebola is nor that she can't leave her area to enter another one. She is far too young:( And unfortunately, the very young do not do well with Ebola. We have had a 3-yr-old recover and more recently, a 3-month-old---but those two are the rare exception.