Sierra: USNS Comfort

This last week our team went and volunteered with a ship full of military doctors. The ship has been going to different countries since April and giving the people free medical care. The LDS church donated a lot of money and has been involved every stop they’ve made by helping supply translators for the doctors. Since most of my team is fluent in Spanish they called us and asked if we could go and help! I of course can’t speak Spanish so I had a different job every day.

We started out in a city called La Union which was where the boat was. The first day I filled out paperwork for each patient that came in. This was interesting because I had to still had to speak a little Spanish so I could fill in all the correct information. Luckily I had Alisha, another girl with HELP, to get me through.

The second day I worked in optometry which was really fun! I didn’t do much, just made sure all the people knew where to wait and where to go. The doctors were really nice which made the day awesome; one even took the time to explain to us what was going on with different people’s eyes!

The third day I worked in the pharmacy. I liked this because I stayed really busy and I was able to practice my Spanish. I had to tell the patients what I was giving them and how often to take the meds. Good thing for me it was written on the bag so really I just had to read it to them. The hardest part was calling the names out when their prescriptions were ready. Some people didn’t even realize I had said their name until the fifth time I said it! Oh well, it was good practice!

The forth day was probably the best one; we went to a new town called Pasaquina. I really liked this place because it was set up differently so everything was closer together. Because of this I was able to talk to a lot of new people and get to know who the people were I was working with. I also met a really cute doctor named Andy which defiantly made the day more exciting; to bad I didn’t meet him till the last day I was there. Anyway, that day I helped people in the lines for internal medicine and then observed a doctor talk with his patients.

doctor Andy!

Overall this was a really good experience. I was really nervous going into it because I don’t know Spanish and I thought I wasn’t going to be any help. By the end I really didn’t want to leave (and not just because of the cute doctor J ). This trip made me realize even more that I want to be able to help people like this in the future and that I need to go to nursing school.

Random pictures:

have you ever seen a burger king in a trailer?