Quickie because I’m boarded. I’m sitting on a plane full of stinking Chinese men. They stink because they all smoke. It’s a friggin’ national sport here!
I apologize to my family, friends, colleagues and patients for ever smelling like this. Ugh!!!
Thursday was Consolidation Day 20 of 500 🙂
Daily Weight: 149 (please don’t yell at me, Mom!)
Goal Weight: 155
Early start for me because I’m going to Dongguan to one of our hospitals there to do a comprehensive health and safety audit and to give 2 lectures on International Patient Safety goals. I love visiting the hospitals in our group (my company owns 20 maternity hospitals in Southern China) and I always feel warmly received… This was at the main entrance when I arrived…
A big shout out and thanks to my Guangzhou PA Rose, who sent out this picture to the branding department at Dongguan so a more up-to-date me is on the posters 🙂
These hospitals have amazing branding and marketing departments and the are FINALLY using new pictures on the posters. Here’s a poster from April 2011. The pic is one that they were still using a month ago!!
That’s my Vivien in the picture above. She’s the Director of the Hangzhou International Medical Care Center… My home base hospital. Pic was taken April 2011. I’ve changed a lot, Vivi still looks awesome!
So, after getting a nice tour of all 7 floors of the hospital and enough tray brewed Chinese tea to have a good buzz going, I was off on my own to do the audit. These are some of the challenges that I came across. What I love about finding these things is that they are wonderful for educational purposes and a way for me to be a change agent. Having the support of the administration of the hospitals is key.
Can you guess what’s behind this picture frame?
You’re correct if you guessed fire fighting equipment!
Sure looks pretty, unless there is an emergency! At least they don’t have any hiding behind couches like this one…
One thing I really loved was that these posters were everywhere in the hospital…
And they take it seriously with a zero tolerance policy. This is the first Chinese hospital I’ve been in that I could not smell cigarettes! All of our hospitals have a no smoking policy, but the nurses are too polite to say anything. This hospital has empowered the nurses to say no! So exciting!
A big issue I have with H&S here is Sharps containers. I either find yellow bags in cardboard boxes or like this…
They put yellow bags inside the Sharps container and when it’s full, they take it out and put it with the medical waste. I can’t imagine the needle stick injuries that occur 😦 There is a very high Hepatitis B rate here and I shutter to think how high it must be in the healthcare practitioner field. I am currently trying to get our company to convert to snap on top Sharps containers. They are very good at complying with my suggestions!
This is another really cool thing I found today. One of the elevator doors…
After the inspection I did 2 health and safety presentations. The first was on patient identification and the other on the “time out” procedure. And then, as a bonus I showed them my Water Birth in Pictures presentation which is my daughter Tiffany’s 4th birth. A huge hit. Lots of questions, everyone loves that presentation 🙂 Heck I love it. I’ve presented it probably 20 times and I still beam with pride at Tiff’s beauty in labor and the moment she and Joey bring the baby up out of the womb.
This is right before I left to go back to Guangzhou. Me and the Admin from Maria Maternity…
Crazy drive back to GZ and I hurriedly changed clothes and ran to the subway because I had a 7 pm appt with Joey, the torturer, errr my personal trainer. It hurts my triceps to type this post! Lol. We focused on arms and abs for an hour. I then went out to run. It was 84 degrees and 96% humidity… I didn’t get too far…
Note that the stadium I’m running around is to the southeast of where the GPS has me running in circles, lol? Anyway, I pooped out. I couldn’t get any kind of rhythm going, so I jog/walked/limped to the subway and went back to my room.
Food:
Breakfast: Low fat Greek yogurt with flaxseed and Splenda
Lunch: broiled fish, garlic stems, broccoli raub with big chunks of ginger
Dinner: 2 chicken sausages, low fat cottage cheese
Snack after workout: 20 almonds and 2 oz low fat sharp cheddar
Ciao!
Day 09 – A picture of the person who has gotten you through the most.
Well, this will probably be the most difficult post to write out of all of them. Because the person who has gotten me through the most in my life isn’t in my life anymore. She could probably say that I got her through the most, as well.
Susan and I met in 1975 at Stuart Middle School. Her dad was our band leader and we both played clarinet. It would take me days to write all the stuff we’ve been through together, middle school, high school, marriages, divorces (me), kids, kid with disabilities, grandkid with disabilities, concerts, job problems, kid problems, legal problems, health scares, college graduations, tons of trips together, scary subways, diets, and mean people. Through thick and thin we stayed friends, often calling each other at the exact same time, always ending our phone conversations with I love you… And we did and probably still do, but sometimes it’s time to say goodbye and put a relationship to rest. That happened 4 years ago. I haven’t spoken to her since. And although I miss that closeness that we had, I knew it was time to move in another direction.
But she is undoubtedly the person who picked me up, brushed me off and got me through some of the craziest times in my life and I will always have that!
The first picture is 1975 marching in a parade.
We’re the first and second ladies from the right. Celebrating our 40th birthday with friends we graduated high school with. Picture taken 2003.
Day 08 – A picture that makes you laugh.
Two pics came instantly to mind and I’m not picking one over the other so today is a twofer 🙂
This is my daughter Tiffany’s eye… Lol. She and my granddaughter Sadie were playing around with my iPhone when I was home on a holiday. I didn’t see it until I was on the plane flying back to Abu Dhabi. I laughed so hard because I could imagine her and Sadie giggling while taking covert pictures with my phone 🙂 Today my daughter and her husband Joey celebrate 7 years of marriage… Happy Anniversary, you two!
This is my dear friend Cathy. We are on a bamboo raft in Thailand and she is mocking me! LOL! I was terrified on the raft (I have this ridiculous fear of crossing water on anything made of wood products, including bridges). If I’m feeling blue, I open this picture and remind myself that life is grand and full of wonderful friends that mock you… Hehehe… Love you, Cat!
p.s. she and her husband AKA The Big Guy celebrated 33 years of marriage this past week.
Day 07 – A picture of your most treasured item.
This one is a no-brainer 😀
This ring comes with a lot of history. My friend Tammy gave me this ring back in 2000 as a thank you gift for being her clinical preceptor during her midwifery program. I attended Tammy’s birth of her son Landon in 1997 and we have a lot of history together.
In 2004 I was attending Tammy’s sister Cindy in labor. As she was in the throes of transition, she grabs my hand and says, “is that my fucking ring?”. Um, I say, “no, Tammy gave me this ring years ago!” (mind you, we’re all like sisters) and she looks at Tammy and says, “you stole my ring AND gave it away?”… LOL. My reply was, “ya ain’t getting it back, now get this baby out”.
As you can see. Still have the stolen ring. Cindy went on to have an amazing birth 20 minutes later, a gorgeous boy named Brady. Every chance Cindy gets, if she sees MY ring in a pic on Facebook, she asks if it is her ring 😀
I LOVE this family… I went on to be present when their little sister Rhonda gave birth to Stella 5 years ago… Blessed to serve this family, blessed to count them as sisters, blessed that Cindy didn’t make me give this ring back… I wear it every single day!
Day 06 – A picture of a person you’d love to trade places with for a day.
I honestly can’t think of a single person I’d want to trade places with right now. I think my life is just about as good as it gets. I’m sitting in a cafe in Hong Kong on my 2 days off from work, resting after shopping for things my friends have asked me to pick up for them.
I’ve lost more than 100 pounds since last August, I’m running a 5K in less than 2 weeks (gulp), I’ve got a wonderful family and friends and I’m gainfully employed… Wouldn’t change any of that 🙂
Quick weight update:
Daily Weight: 154
Goal Weight: 155
Sunday food:
Breakfast: 2 scrabbled eggs with lavender and Edam cheese
Lunch: Tom Kar Gha soup and pork in yellow curry
Snack on way to gym: 20 raw almonds
Dinner: raw salmon and cottage cheese (low fat)
Exercise:
2 km run in the rain
2 km brisk walk on treadmill
30 mins yoga
60 minutes with personal trainer using weights (didn’t feel anything this morning, but I feel it now!!)
30 mins stretching in yoga studio
Walk to and from subway = 1.1 miles/1.6 kms
Ciao!
Day 05 – A picture of one of your favorite memories.
First off I have so many amazing memories (like the birth of my kids and grandkids) that it’s hard to choose. This is a story with more than one photo about my medical mission trip to Vanuatu in September 2005.
The week before the trip, my very dear friend and partner in birth, Julie Anna Congdon, died from leukemia at the age of 30. Julie was suppose to take this volunteer journey with me and a week after we committed to the trip, she was diagnosed with CML and died 9 months later. I can’t on any level begin to tell you the immense grief I had and I nearly cancelled my trip, but Julie would not have wanted me to do that. She died on Sunday and I flew on Wednesday. There was a storm a’brewin in the Atlantic named Katrina and AA asked me to fly a day early, so I did. I did not find out about the devastation in New Orleans until 40 days later, sitting in the first class lounge in the Fiji airport.
First, I spent 4 glorious days in Sydney with two very generous ladies that I met on a tour in Beijing earlier that year. I saw most everything you could possibly see in Sydney in a whirlwind 4 days, the harbor, the Blue Mountains, koalas, cockatoos, Palm Beach on the back of a HARLEY! A phenomenal and memorable 4 days!
At the Sydney airport, waiting for my flight to Vanuatu, I was obsessed with the fact that I had only 35 packs of cigarettes for a 29 day trip and wondered if I should get one more carton. I sat there chain smoking like a fiend and finally had an epiphany, dumped the cigarettes on the table in the smoking lounge and walked away from cigarettes… FOREVER!
After being on this 72′ sailboat for 4 days, I was ready to explode… Lol. I had just quit smoking, one of the most awesome people I knew had just died and I had gone to Vanuatu to volunteer, not be stuck on a boat! The boat owner had refused to use the engine, because he didn’t want to put “money in Bush’s pocket” and there was no wind. I threatened mutiny (hell hath no fury like a chain smoker sans nicotine x 4 days) and he finally turned the engines on. When we were offshore of the first island we were stopping on, I dove off the boat and swam the 100 yards or so… It looked a helluva a lot closer from the boat!
I ended up on this beach and cried and cried and cried for nearly 2 hours… Loudly, sobbing and grieving… Alone, which was cathartic. The tide was moving out and as I sat there I pulled my camera out of my waterproof bag and took this shot…
I also wrote a long note to Julie in the sand and watched the tide take the message to her. It was the beginning of the mourning I needed to go through. No one bothered me the entire three hours I sat on that beach, except for the villager who brought me a coconut to drink out of.
We left medical supplies with the aid post worker, picked up the Chief of the village to come with us and headed to the island of Espiritu Santo. Most of my crew were going up “on top” to set up an aid post there…
When I say “on top”, I mean to the top of the farthest mountain back. We hiked through forest, creeks and mountains. I was scheduled to sleep one night up there, then head back to the beach for a trip to Wusi, where I would be teaching traditional birth attendants life saving skills in obstetrics. I got 500 yards from the top and could go no further. I had horrible vertigo and hyperventilated. I instead went half way down and stayed in a village over night… These were our typical accommodations…
Banana leaf mats on top of shale rock 🙂
The next morning I hiked down to the beach, where I sat with a dog and ate fruit and read a book waiting for the sailboat…. After about 3 hours it came. I really enjoyed the solitude. The next day I began training 32 birth attendants in the Wusi village church. One of the skills I taught them was how to stop a woman from hemorrhaging after her baby has been born. Emily, the niece of the boat captain was my volunteer…
This photo brings me so much joy! These ladies came to learn! I was impressed with the amazing colors of their dresses!
I taught for 3 days in Wusi. During the afternoon break on the 3rd day I noticed they were bathing the village cow and adorning it with Fresia flowers around its neck. When I asked Simu (the Ni-Van who worked with me on the 3 day conference) what they were doing, he explained that they were thanking the cow for blessing them with the food for the feast we were having that night in my honor. ACK!!! I’m a carnivore, but I didn’t want them to kill their only source of meat for me! Simu told me that they were honored that I came and that a chief from a larger village (who had sent 3 midwives for training) would send another cow. Phew! I went and thanked the cow, as well, and walked way down the beach while he was humanely slaughtered. It was quite an honor, to,say the least and they use every single bit of the cow from the meat to the hide to the bones.
The following day the sailboat came back and we went to the south western tip of Espiritu Santo to treat people for scabies and do general health checks. This is how we typically got from the sailboat to shore…
I’m in the yellow shirt!
We treated lots of adorable babies and kids for scabies and their parents and their huts. It was awful and sad, but reports from the following year showed that the incidence was greatly reduced. We left the medicine there with the aid worker. Here’s one of those cutie patooties…
Michael and I held a hygiene class for this group of kids on our 2nd day in the village and left them with toothbrushes, toothpaste and body soap…
On the 3rd day in that village (maybe my 2nd week there) we walked through a village to a creek where we actually had a proper wash! And then we found this little chapel in the forest…
I left my shirt with Julie’s tears on it at this chapel. I was torn at first about leaving it behind. I held her in my arms the Wednesday night before she died and told her it was OK to let go. Her tears, yellow from liver failure, stained my shirt, as mine had soaked her gown. After a little prayer in this forest chapel I felt it was the perfect place to leave a little piece of Julie. She wanted to go on this trip with me and she did… And I left some of her goodness and light and sunshine there.
In the end, I didn’t go back to the States as scheduled. One of the volunteers on the trip needed medical care on a flight back to Europe. As we sat in the first class lounge in Fiji I learned of the devastation that Hurricane Katrina left behind a month earlier. We landed at LAX and I called my family to let them know I was flying to Europe and would be home later in the week…
I have to say with all the things that happened surrounding this trip, it has to be one of my favorite memories!
Sandy over at TheSandyTongue nominated me for the Kreative Blogger Award. I’ve totally been wanting this one and I’m glad it came from him! I’ve mentioned his blog several times before. Sandy says things the rest of us think and wish we had the balls to say. He’s rude, crude and politically incorrect and I laugh until I cry at most of his posts. He is honest and I love that about him. If you’re easily insulted, don’t click the link… If you want to have a good laugh and do some thinking, I encourage you to visit his blog!
Seven things about me:
1. I played softball as a kid and loved it. My mom was the coach and we celebrated whether we won or lost! My favorite co-player, Joy, grew up and married my favorite cousin!
2. I was a Rainbow Girl.
It instilled leadership values in me that I use to this day.
3. I’ve been divorced for 18 years and have had my ex-husband’s last name, not married to him, longer than I had my maiden name.
4. I have no fear of dying. None.
5. My favorite color is green.
6. I voted for President Obama, but have not lived in the States his entire term! Time to go home.
7. I’m very capable of multitasking, as I am doing now. I am at a marketing event smiling, nodding and typing a blog post 🙂
Seven nominees:
Anna who blogs about her diet, exercise and organic homesteading.
Tatjana who is a runner living in the UK, but travels all over for runs!
Cindy over at trigrandmatry. She inspires me to keep running and I’m committing to running a triathlon next year because of her and a few other runners like…
Sandra who has talked me into doing the Danskin Triathlon next year in Pleasant Prairie, WI. Can’t wait!
Cris at Lipomachia who was diagnosed with Type II diabetes and changed her lifestyle and is losing an amazing amount of weight on the process!
Cyn at ChunkyGoddess who cracks me up, uses the ‘F’ word more than me and just puts on her big girl panties and gets on with it! You go girl!
And MJ at Emjayandthem who makes me laugh, has wise words to live by and always lifts me up in her comments.
This list doesn’t even begin to touch the number of bloggers I could choose. There are SO many creative bloggers out there that inspire me daily!!!
Day 03 – A picture of the cast from your favorite show.
I loved this show. Hell, I’m emotional writing this and the show ended 7 years ago! I loved Andy Sipowitz, played by Dennis Franz. I can’t tell you how many tears of joy and sadness I shed over the course of 12 years.
Ironically, I was here in China on March 1, 2005, when the final episode aired. I was doing a private home birth in Hong Kong. A friend of mine recorded it on her VCR for me. I still have the tape! Actually I have the entire series on DVD 😀
Great show, wonderful cast… I miss Andy!
Day 02 – A picture of you and the person you have been close with for the longest.
This is easy… There are three of them… Nick 30, Jenni 28 & Tiffany 26.
People come and go and I have some life long friends that I’ve known longer than my kids, but as far as steady, long term longest… That would be these three awesome people…
Photo taken with my Canon in November 2009.
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