Frontier Psychiatrist

It has officially been one month since my “going-away” party, and it is crazy to think of all that has transpired since that time. A lot. Yikes. I am curious as to how everyone is doing. I have heard from my parents, but everyone else out there, let me know that you’re actually still out there. I won’t be able to respond to everyone (seeing as how the internet to which I have access to about once a week is SUPER slow and also equipped with a French keyboard making typing extremely difficult), but I love reading your emails or posts--so don’t be shy to say hi!

The newest news for me is that on Saturday, during a cooking session, I thought that it would be a good idea to try to slice off the top of my middle finger. Although I was unsuccessfully, I did a pretty good job; it was definitely a valid attempt. You see, I was making yam frites (like French fries) and I was holding the yam in my right hand, cutting with my left and on the first slice through--zip! All the way through to my finger. I knew what I had done immediately and threw down the yam. Pretty shortly after that, one of the guys had gotten me some toilet paper to put on it while I tried to keep the pressure on it. Also at this point, I was sitting down in a chair, and starting to freak out a little bit at the amount of blood I was losing. It was at this point that a facilitator asked me if I needed stitches. I wasn’t sure, so I looked at the wound, saw how deep it was, saw how much blood there was, and immediately started to get light-headed. I said, “I’m getting dizzy” and I meant to follow that with, “I’m going to pass out.” But apparently the second part never came out and out I went--the whole nine yards too. My eyes rolled back, I started to seizure--all for a good 30 seconds or so is what I’m told. Meanwhile, in my brain, I’m flying through the air “Big Lebowski” style, and I actually fly back home, talk to my mom in our kitchen about who knows what, and then tell her I have to go back--this is when I wake up to everyone standing around me staring at me, and after 5 seconds of confusion, I realize that I did, in fact, pass out and utter embarrassment is the only emotion I feel (well that and nausea). Needless to say, I think that I really freaked some people out with my antics. Oops. Conclusion of the story, though, is that after I settled down a bit, I decided that I didn’t REALLY need stitches, and that it could probably heal on it’s own, so that’s what it’s doing, and I think things are going well. I give it a good Dr. Loehrke style cleaning about twice a day, use a band-aid during the day and let it breathe at night, and all signs put to me keeping my middle finger! Hurray!

In other sad news, another one of the volunteers (in Health) decided to leave early due to some medical related reasons. He was definitely an energetic person and really, really fun to be around, and I feel bad that I never really got to do a proper goodbye, but I guess that’s why we should enjoy every moment we’re here, because you never know what’s going to happen.

Other than that, it’s pretty much been the same old same old. Lots of language learning, which I swear is making my English worse. It’s like I can only handle so much language at one time, so as French is sneaking in slowly, my English skills are slowly seeping out. However, my Franglais is quite excellent at the moment. On Thursday this week we are supposed to find out where we will be posted which is obviously quite exciting and nerve-racking, and then next week we go on our post visits, which is sure to be quite the story and quite the wake-up call for pampered little me. No flushing toilets, no running water, no prepared meals, no refrigerator, no one to help translate the French I don’t know, no other stagaires to complain to in the morning, etc. But I’m really excited and ready…I think. Bring on the adventure.

Love Love Love