However, once a year they open up the hospital to the entire crew for an open house and a night of fun. The nurses advertise during the day (some coming to lunch dressed up in bandages or as conjoined twins), and then the evening proves to be a night of fun and games on deck three to familiarize us with what goes on down there. Here’s a look:
The eye team had us do mazes blindfolded to see what it is like to be without sight.
Here the girls are thrilled to learn that they can blindfold their buddy John (“johnny john john joe joe” as they call him) to do the maze for them
!
Seth does the tying of the mask
Kylie and Savannah do the treacherous leading
After they’ve made it to the “waiting room,” then the girls get to do a cataract removal surgery on this giant model of an eyeball.
First Kylie gets a go at it,
Then Savannah.
Down the hall we go to the Bloody Mess room (not the official ward name!)
In this room we learned all about drawing blood, finding good veins, and what it’s like to be a nurse. Kylie is being practiced on- to see what the tourniquet does to help your veins be evident.
This is a model of finding a vein with an iv- they have foam on top of three tubes filled with liquid- Savannah is practicing a “good stick,” and seeing if she can draw out “blood” from the vein through the foam (“skin'”).
This room was in the Post-Op ward of the ship. The title was something about Oozing, and that’s all you really need to know. Here you could rinse out a fresh wound in the mouth. Elliot would fill his mouth with a red like substance (ketchup maybe??), then you could practice squirting it with a syringe, and he’d spit out all the residue.
If you look closely you might see some of the sputum. Yuck.
Here is the “Gotta Go” Race – a relay where you fill up cups with urine (lemonade, we hope), and race them to the other side of the room,
Where you have to fill a urinal to the black line. Kylie won this one by a few seconds.
In this ward the nurses had some fun with us, as we became “Nurse For A Day.” Our tasks? Get our patient to take their medicine…,
(Savannah had a nice, friendly, cooperative patient)
Help them go to the bathroom (in a bed pan, of course)….,
(Ew! They would have to be cheeky and use coffee grounds and water and such)
And change their dressings.
Savannah wins this one (having a nice patient helps!).
Next we looked at an eyeball through the microscope and saw the size of needle and thread used if it does require stitching (however, the procedure that Dr. Glen developed for the cataract surgery typically requires no stitching because the eye heals itself). We also watched actual footage of the surgery on a dvd.
Kylie loved this station where you can learn how to do actual sutures. It was a little complicated teaching her since she’s left handed, but she got the hang of it.
Foam makes for a really good practicing tool!
In the next Operating Room the girls gowned up so they could perform their own surgery.
The patient?
Mr. Monkey.
The case?
Brain surgery
(Kylie’s decision).
Here Jenny assists as Kylie and Savannah slice, dice, extract and suction.
The victim patient
Kylie getting her blood type identified
And lastly, they had adults sign up for blood donations. With this many patients, times arise when they need a blood bank. What better blood bank is there, than the 300 crew members already on board. So, I filled out the paperwork in a different room, and this is where we could get our blood typed. Kylie was very interested in doing this, despite the finger prick it cost, and she was happy to learn she is A positive, like her good buddy, Jess. Savannah shied away from this activity, but did help herself to a candy in the jar.
That concluded our evening of fun in the hospital!
I think there may be a medical career in Kylie’s future – she was very keen on all these activities so it will be interesting to see what the future holds for her.
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