Hospital visit

Kinda looks like home, eh? Minus the mountains of course!

Time is flying by and it's hard to keep up on here! I've almost reached the 6 month mark of my time here in Switzerland - can you believe it??? It almost feels like a "downhill" ride from here until I go home and then to Africa. Some days I am really excited to head to Africa, and other days I wonder just what I've gotten myself into.......yet, I know that God is good and has called me down this path for now. I find peace in that alone at times.

I finally got to visit the hospital in Neuchatel - don't worry, it wasn't for me, I was the moral support for a friend that had cut her finger. Luckily, I had seen the hospital while on another bus line the week prior......since I had no idea where it was before that! We took the bus down there and figured out where to go. Then, we had an agonizingly long wait of 3 hours to just get back into the ED (Emergency Department). It woudn't have been so bad (well, okay it probably would have been) if there had been 20 people in the waiting room - but no, I think the most at one time was 6. Maybe it's worse for me, being in the medical profession, since I know what goes on "in the back." I was getting so antsy I even asked the desk guy (in French, of course) if there was another clinic/hospital in the area. No luck.

Finally, we got in the back. The doctor rushed in, looked at the finger, asked a few questions and rushed back out. I managed to squeeze in the question (in French again) if steri-strips would suffice. Nope, stitches it was. Actually, it turned out to be 1 stitch and I think steri-strips could have worked, personally, but then again I'm not a doctor. We managed to catch the last bus of the night (11pm-ish) and the day was done, thankfully.

For me, this was a great experience in some ways. I realized that I haven't forgotten everything I know about medicine, I can communicate in French and ask relavent questions, and I saw again how much I love being a nurse. Granted, I also saw the worst technique EVER used to give an injection and I realize how little medical French terminology I know - but those are just "details" as my Grandpa would say.