Hello all! I just finished my first stretch of night shifts (I'll have another one before I go) and the hospital is definitely busier! We have two ORs running and enough patients to fill two wards. I'm assigned to the ward that mostly takes of the patients after their reconstructive plastic surgery. Most of them are children who had some sort of burn which did not heal properly, so their scarred skin makes it difficult or impossible to move the affected joint. Reading their charts, it hurts my heart how long they have been living with this condition (years and years). Most of these patients were screened back in December, so they have been anticipating this for months! Their surgeries usually require skin grafts and take weeks to heal, which means they will be on the ship for awhile. It will be fun to get to know them, especially now that I'll be back on day shift and not waking them up all night!

Here is a picture of the ward after we finished cleaning it last week! Each ward can hold 12 patients. Note that the beds are on little risers- that's so the care giver can sleep on a mattress under the bed. If you need a parent during the night, you have to duck down under the bed to wake them up! A couple times I've been looking for my patient and realized they were asleep on the floor next to their care giver (I'm guessing that's probably closer to their sleeping situation at home). Our plastics patients are higher risk for infection and will need to stay in the bed, so that won't be happening as much now!