Bienvenidos!
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Macaws and Amazons
Well, my week in neonates ended on Friday. I thought I was never going to get out! They had me helping to take babies' blood, and as I hadn't eaten for about 6 hours, the sight of the needle poking around in their little veins was making me feel queasy. They really need to get some smaller needles. And not move it around in there. I dreaded to think how many weeny structures they were shredding with that monster. And the heel pricks were just mean. I mean, it's bad enough jabbing the foot once, but this intern stabbed them about 20 times. I know the kid won't remember it but still, they were screaming and crying and I felt so mean. I ended up picking them up and rocking them after she had finished to make them feel better. I spent about an hour on Thursday too walking around the ward with this one baby who kept crying in his crib. I eventually got him to go back to sleep and stay sleeping when I put him back down. Afterwards my arm was almost dead. Babies get heavier the longer you hold them! It wasn't all cushy stuff though. I helped resuscitate a couple of premature twins, did lots of neonate examinations, looked at some case histories; it was all good. Next week I'm in Medicina 6. I don't know what they deal with there.
After not being able to go to fencing on Wednesday because of seeing Alex off at the airport (more reporters and photographers. Pfooey.), I finally plucked up the courage to go back on Thursday. I still felt very uncomfortable and it was reflected in my performance - we had a team game - because I was fencing very dejectedly and only scored more than one point in one of my matches. It was a step though, and yesterday we went back again and it was a lot easier. We had a pseudo-pool yesterday, fencing everyone twice to 5 hits. It started out with 7 people, but then the pentathletes turned up and we had about 15. I think I got about 5 matches in. I won 4 and lost 6 rounds, but I don't feel too bad about that as it was an improvement from yesterday and it was their national squad, whereas I'm just a middle-ranker.
After we got back and showered we went out to a mexican restaurant that did micheladas, the beer, lime juice and hot sauce drink that Mario made for me at home once. It was a bit weird - very sour at the bottom and the beer was kind of weak, and it had ice in it so the top was all watery. Not so sure I liked it this time around. We had a huge appetiser so I didn't finish my main, and was almost falling asleep by the end of the meal.
Today we went to the botanical gardens/mini zoo near Gamboa. It rained torrentially on the way over as we'd left the house a bit later than planned, so when we got there it was all wet. Some of the animal cages were a bit too small, but some were a decent size. I felt a bit bad for the few big cats they had. Those enclosures were definitely not big enough. The gardens were impressive though. They showcased the diversity that Panama enjoys and it was really interesting to walk around. I nearly stepped on a frog under one tree, and then Mario spent ages trying to get it to crawl onto a leaf so he could take a picture. It was being very stubborn though. There was a gorgeous red and green macaw in one area, which came right up to the mesh of the enclosure and clacked its beak at us. Then there were some green parrots (red-lored, yellow-crowned and mealy amazons, Mario tells me) near the entrance which kept wolf-whistling, saying 'hola' and crying like a baby. It was quite funny and I wanted to stay and see what else they did but we had to go. Apparently his sister is on TV tonight in about an hour. Not sure which channel though.
We're supposed to be going out to Old Quarter tonight with his friend Amilcar. Hopefully we'll be able to go in the daylight one day so I can take some pictures, and then tomorrow we're going to watch the World Cup final at the pizzeria around the corner. Apparently his brother has told us to be there for 11am to reserve a table. The match doesn't even start til 2! Ah well, at least we won't starve...
6:33 p.m. - 2006-07-08
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