Is this really happening?

so i’ve been working on the tuberculosis cases this week, i started sunday. it’s been really interesting to learn about this infection. we’re up to 45 know cases, which is huge for a small village of 650 people. it’s a borderline epidemic. the problem is that there is crowding in the homes, so people with TB are easily transmitting it to their family, as well as work colleagues and friends. TB is totally curable, but the treatment is quite harsh on the body. 

to find out if someone is TB positive, we have to do a chest Xray, analyze sputum, and a skin test. if they are positive, then we start the quadri treatment, of INH (isoniazid), RIF (rifampin), PZA (pyrazynamide), EMB (ethambutol), and vitamin B6 to eliminate negative neurological side effects of this intense treatment. 

i’m still working upstairs sometimes as a northern attendant, when they need me. monday i start training for sterilization. so my two main jobs will be the TB stuff, and sterilization, but mid june i’ll be doing sterilization and northern att. in between i find time to go to the supervised appartement and hang out with the guys there, last monday i went to bake a cake with them.  

so far i’ve kept busy, i’ve had on day off since i’ve gotten to kuujjuaq. we went up to my aunts cottage, it was quite an adventure getting there. i didn’t have snow shoes so i keep sinking into snow above my knees. once we got there, we spent all afternoon outside, i even got a sunburn. it snowed the last couple of days, but sunday it’s supposed to be nice, so hopefully i can do something outdoors-ish. 

it’s never boring at the hospital, right now there’s this old man that suffered a stroke, so he’s really confused all the time, and he only speaks inuktituk. he’s super cute, but he shits everywhere, in his bed, in styrofoam cups, in water bottles, in his shoes! it gets really messy. and also there’s one guy with tuberculosis and two old ladies with clostridium (bactérie C.difficile). so we have to really careful when we interact with them so we don’t catch what they have or give it to the other patients. there was also 2 psychiatric cases, one had schizophrenia and attempted suiced, the other has a borderline personality disorder and tried to kill herself too, she’s 15. she’s actually a little shit, she’s manipulative and she has freak outs all of the time. she’s allowed to take walks and i have to go with her, but she wanted to go home so i said no, and i didn’t let her smoke another cigarette when she had already had her 3 that’s allowed so she tried to escape. i was like who the fuck do you think you are (in my head anyway). but yeah so much stuff going on, some of the nurses are nice, some of them only care about partying but as one of the inuits said, life is life en esti ahaha.

before i go fishing i’m supposed to go dog sleding sunday with a racing team, and this old guy that’s a pro at it. but that’s if the weather does’t get to warm, we don’t want the snow to melt yet!!the fishing wil be later on, we have to go with an inuit guide.  there are so many dogs up here, that they have these dog hunters that go around shooting the dogs that aren’t on a leash. its soo sad!.

but i’ve been here three days and it’s been non stop. i have so many stories from the hospital alreay, i mostly work with the elderly and the mentally and physically handicaped, there are 5 patients that stay there all of the time. we  bathed them, feed them, change them and clean the beds. i’ve lost my appetite most of the time when i go home to eat because i think about all of the thingsi saw that day, and i’m no longer hungry:p

they have big drug problems and alcohol problems here. 70% of the population smokes weed. the men that i will be working with part time at a supervised house have mental diseases or schizophrenia, so when they do drugs they get pretty ridiculous. they are harmless, but the stuff they say is ridiculous. 

i’m supposed to start a class that teaches how to make traditional slippers and mittens, every monday, and there are so many things to do around here i doubt i will ever get bored, even tonight i’m going to go see some kind of kids circus. i’m not too sure what it’s going to be like but it’s something to do!