Hope everyone had a great July 4th weekend!!!

Well in this post I will talk about what has really made a difference for me during these past weeks.

First of all the orientations are amazing. During my first orientation in Labor and Delivery I saw a cesarean section. Seeing a babies first breath and his first instances outside of the womb is incredible. If was so amazed by what I had seen, that I called my mom back in Haiti to tell her THANK YOU !!!

My second orientation was really sad. I met a man who not only had AIDS but who also had some sort of cancer. He had undergone chemotherapy but sadly the latter only worsen the situation. Because of the chemicals he was unable to breath by himself thus had to be plugged into a machine that sustained him. The tube delivering the air entered the body through his throat and the doctors had to give him a sedative to force him to sleep and reduce the pain.

Finally my most extraordinary experience was at the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). We arrived that night at seven pm. We began our rounds by observing a lumbar puncture: it lasted approximately one hour (the attending was teaching an intern, thus it took more time than a usual lumbar puncture). After observing the lumbar puncture, the attending brought us to a room where a baby (barely a day hold) was connected to various machines. He explained that this baby had a lung infection; because of this infection he was unable to bring oxygen to his blood (thus the rest of the body wasn't oxygenated either). This baby had a tube in his throat, and was receiving a drug to increase his blood pressure... If the blood flowed through his brain while deoxygenated he could get brain damage....

Finally, before leaving for the night I saw a baby that had jaundice. The doctor explained the two methods to take care of a such baby: we can either expose the baby to daylight (or artificial light) and render the heme soluble. Or we can do a blood transfusion, the blood of the baby is"taken out " of the system while the blood of the donor is given to the baby. If jaundice isn't taken care of a baby can sustain serious brain damage. The doctor's explanation reminded me of story my dad had told me a long time ago (he's a pediatrician and sometimes tells me these types of stories). I called him, asked about what had happened, and discovered that he was actually talking about me. When I was born I had jaundice, and I was also close to sustaining brain damage... At the time my dad had to rush from the hospital where my mom and I were to get blood from the red cross... Our hospital didn't store blood...

I feel blessed because I could have not been here today writing this blog...


Well that's all for now


Take care!!!!!!!!