We Survived

The 8 days of overlap from when Nick left and Jenn and Amy returned, leaving me as the only long term staff here to run the place, has come and gone.  I'm happy to say that the place is still standing, the over all health of the children is relatively high, the nannies never seemed to want to kill me, and most surprisingly, I'm still sane!!

Of course they had to leave at the end of the month which is our busiest time.  I not only had to do the normal day to day tasks, but also go to the bank (which took 2 trips cause I forgot the bank book and a several hours to complete), stuff envelopes and pay our 80 staff members, count all the money, etc.

We admitted 6 new kids during the three weeks that Jenn and Amy were gone.  Three of these babies are all 5 lbs and under.  Out of the three "bigger" admits, we had to remove three stitches from one, take another to the hospital for hernia surgery, and unfortunately the last passed away a few days ago.

Although Carla and I enjoyed being nurses for 3 weeks, we are glad we don't have to be the ones in charge of making medical decisions for a while!  No more filling prescriptions, drawing up and distributing meds, deciding when to and not to take kids to the hospital, no more removing stitches, no collecting stool samples, or taking urine tests for UTI's, or checking for Malaria, no giving breathing treatments, and no more checking childrens oxygen stats.  There will still be plenty of temperature checking, fontenal checking, serum making, and diaper changing for us though, so don't worry, we'll continue to stay busy!

I'm glad that these ladies returned when they did, because Eventz has reached the limit of how much time he can spend with a nanny.  Yesterday, every time Eventz even thought I was going to leave, he would hold on to my shorts for dear life, start crying a depressing cry I've never heard before, and try his hardest not to let me go.  With Nick still being gone for another week I still have some additional responsibilities, but I am trying my best to stay in the apartment as much as I can now and try to make up on the attention they didn't get the last few weeks.  Spending so much time with a nanny really affects Eventz and he starts throwing huge fits, especially around meal time.  He did this same thing when I went to the States for 2 weeks, but with lots of extra love and attention, he quickly returned to normal.  He is such a Momma's boy that he never wants me to leave!  The hardest part is that since I "work from home" it's not like I can actually separate the two, so even though I am working, I still have to come upstairs a ton to get stuff.  Each time I come and go it really upsets Eventz.

*Just had to take a break from writing cause we lost power.  One quick phone call to Nick and I fixed the auto-start/shut off for our whole power system on my own!!

One of my biggest fears about being the only long term staff member here was all of the extra decisions. I knew I could handle the normal day to day stuff, but I hate deciding who to help and when.  Knowing which decisions to make, when to loan the truck out, when to admit a child to a program, when to turn people away, when to give out community aid, etc is always hard to decipher as there normally isn't a right or wrong approach.  I prayed before that I would be able to make these decisions, and I'm thankful to say that I have had complete peace with all of the decisions I made

It's been a busy summer and we are all looking forward to it slowing down a bit.  In addition, Eventz, Wedly, and I (and of course Rikerns and Wilson who ask about Nick several times a day) are all excited to have Nick back in a few more days!

Thanks to everyone who prayed for COTP during this time!