Philippines and Subic Bay

 Hello friends and family! Yes I know, I am long overdue for a blog post... and I think more frequent and shorter posts might be your preference, but I have procrastinated and thus the need for a longer post about the past three weeks while in the Philippines.

To be honest, these last twenty-two days have been hard; physically, mentally, and spiritually. I knew when I signed up that this mission would be difficult, but I was really envisioning rainbows, flowers, and great moments of healing. 

While on Vacation at Subic Bay

Since joining the USNS Mercy on May 1^st, there have truly been some phenomenal surgeries accomplished on the ship and tremendous testimonies of healing. While serving as a nurse, I have seen vision restored, massive tumors removed, limbs straightened and people being give a second chance to walk again. In the Philippines the most challenging aspect for me was the sheer amount of hours we put in on the floor. Every person on our team worked 14 days straight in nothing less than 12 hour shifts. After these gruelingly long days serving the people of the Philippines Islands, I had little motivation work out at the gym and relax. Something wonderful I have had to look forward to was the special times set aside for our woman's bible study and prayer group started back in Indonesia. It is such a blessing to have these women come together and lift each other up in prayer.

The patients during this rotation in the Philippines were much more critical than those we helped in Indonesia. There was also more time to conduct surgeries and post-operations care in the hospital since the ship stayed anchored in place. Something really exciting was I took care of my first ventilated (life support) patient. I originally requested to support one of the nurses in taking care of this patient, but he then offered to let me receive the patient directly out of surgery and recover them. It was a great teaching moment and I really appreciated that the nurse gave me the opportunity and supported me through the experience.

  

Sleeping Quarters on the ship
for patients and their escort

We also had large amount of children surgical cases, in fact on one of the fourteen days, our floor had to set up more beds in the ICU and every patient we saw that day was under 20 years old, our floor essentially became a pediatric ICU!  One young boy had a pretty extensive abdominal surgery and it was quite rough for this little guy. He ended up having a 10-day stay in the Intensive Care Unit with close monitoring.  In the end he recovered very well and I was responsible for taking care of him for 8 of of those 10 days. He was a challenge primarily because he cried a lot... he was a young boy and his pain was sever, but when I touched his pinky toe, he cried. It was then that I knew it was not physical pain, rather out of fear and emotional pain. Nevertheless, we became buddies and although we couldn’t understand each other, we made the most of it and the language barrier almost didn’t matter. The words "nooo Nurse Kelly, nooo" almost became endearing :) While taking care of him, I had him walk every other hour and that’s when the tears and whining came... He would be walking completely unassisted and once he realized it, he would start crying for me. 

Finally we had a little chat (via the interpreter) about realistic expectations because this little man may have looked like he was about 6 years old, yet he really was 11. Eventually he asked me, "Why don't you pity me? I am not a strong man!" That broke my heart, it was then that I realized it may not be about the pain of walking post- surgery, but the tears came from him being teased so much as a kid that he was more so emotionally broken. This kid definitely had a cheering team in the ICU and around the ship as we walked everywhere!

Patients and Escorts arriving from the Islands

While treating him, we walked to all of his radiology tests, to the pharmacy when I needed to pick-up meds, and then finally on one of the last days we walked outside and saw the helicopters and jelly fish! His mom was so sweet too - she spoke broken English, but over the 10 days she too gained confidence and sometimes filled in as an interpreter when ours were off the unit. The whole ship took an interest in this little man! The optometry unit came and fitted him for glasses and you could tell he loved them because he stopped squinting. Later in the week I called the dental unit to see if they had any open appointments for escorts to be treated and unfortunately they said they were full. I went to my women’s prayer that night and mentioned it to them and one of the women, Georgie, a dentist from the Australian Air Force and my roommate was like.."I'm off tomorrow and I'm a dentist I'll just tell a hygienist to set up a room for me! Bring the little boy’s mom in at 8:00am" this happened one hour before they were leaving the ship! It was really nice to see all the departments come together and support this family especially after a very long post operative stay.

Taking care of our little patient!

The boy’s mom also asked me if I had a recorder on my phone, she had written a song this week and wanted to sing it for me. It was beautiful! We borrowed a guitar from the ship’s chapel and she played the song again and looked so in her element. The public affairs staff was walking through the ICU and heard the music and asked if they could set up a recording space and record her song. Public Affairs is going to use it as the music behind THIS slideshow! She also got a copy of her songs. It was so beautiful to see how God worked through our various teams to bless this family and in turn how much they taught us and showed us perseverance in the face of trials.

Yes that's a glass of wine while
on Liberty in Subic Bay

The hardest part of the time in the Philippines for me was that I did not have one day off the ship. I returned from my Indonesian MedCAP on June 8th and did not set foot on soil until we pulled into Subic Bay for liberty on July 2^nd and believe me, I was getting a little stir crazy. :) Thus when we received four days off the ship at Subic Bay, I was super excited! Liberty was fun and it was super nice to get off the ship, and it has prepared me for the next destination, I am ready to sail to Vietnam!!! We will be there in 2 days and I have promised my sister, Kim that I will try to get better at posting small tid bits and blogs! Well hopefully you made it through my long blog and I hope that my stories can inspire and bless others so please feel free to share my blog with others in your lives!