July 4-10

Another week of this experience is in the books! This week we spent a short time in the hemodialysis (HD) unit and a long weekend visiting friends near Manila. Read below for more!

Working in the hospital

As I mentioned, this week we got the awesome opportunity to rotate through the HD unit. Hemodialysis is a treatment modality used for patients with chronic kidney failure. Once a patient needs HD it means that their kidneys, for a variety of reasons, are unable to filter which can lead to excess waste products and fluid. So they get hooked up to a machine that extracts, cleans, and returns their blood for them – it’s basically a robot kidney. In the beginning, this machine was as complicated as it sounds. But, throughout our three days on the unit we were able to grow more knowledgeable and confident with the process. (The nurses on this unit take three months to master these skills before starting patient care) The patients getting HD treatment come in waves (6am, 10am, 2pm) every 4 hours. There is a rhythm to how the nurses work – brief moments of lots of tasks and long periods of observation while the dialyzer is working.

On our very first day, we were able to set up the tubing and prime the lines after we observed the nurses and aids quickly do it before and after each patient. We also got paired with a nurse who we observed cannulate and decannulated patients. On our second day, we started to decannulate patients and I learned the different techniques that each nurse uses as I rotated through the patients with them. We left that day confident that we would not cannulate a patient. To start HD the nurse places two 15-17 gauge needles (more like swords) into a surgically created fistula (I got to see this procedure done as a surgical assist the week before this). Cannulating seemed like a lot of pressure for us students and a lot of pain for the patients. But, we surprised ourselves and took on the challenge of cannulating at least once. It was smoother and easier than I thought and I was really excited that we got to do this! In only 3 days we were able to face our fears, learn the entire process, and help set up and take down the machine.

This weekend

This weekend Jake, Aileen, and I made our way to visit some of the other IWU Freeman Asia interns posted at FNRI. To get from Sto. Tomas to Manila we took one long tricycle ride, one short tricycle ride, a bus, a cab, and a grab (uber). But, once we got there we had just enough time to get to the local mall (SM Bicutan), eat some lunch, and catch a movie! If you know me you know that I am kind of a kid at heart and I love the minions. So, when the opportunity came to see Minions in theaters, I was pumped! It was so good and made me so happy. If you haven’t seen it – you definitely should 🙂 Then we met up with Maddy, Ankush, and Neal to stay with them for the weekend. They hosted some work friends who were lovely to meet and spend the night with. No matter how many people I meet I am continually touched by the kindness of Filipinos. The next day we swam in their pool, went shopping at Greenhills (a popular knock-off mall), and hit up some social spots in Manila. Again, it was so refreshing to be in a city. On Sunday we got lunch with Maddy, a good friend and one of our nursing classmates, and spent most of the day traveling back to Sto. Tomas. This travel included a grab, the bus, and a long jeepney ride which we had stop right outside of Jollibee so we could get a delicious dinner. This weekend was super fun and it was really comforting, exciting, and energizing to see familiar faces. Shoutout to Maddy, Ankush, and Neal for hosting us!