Weekly update

Hi everyone!

 

It has already been a week since my last blog post. I have nothing huge to report but here are several highlights of the week:

 

On Sunday at church the children performed some songs and then played some interactive games with the congregation. One of the games was “See if you are smarter than a Sunday school class.” Four “volunteers” were chosen from the congregation and they faced off against all the children. They were absolutely crushed.

            After games we all went downstairs and enjoyed a potluck lunch together. I brought my bread and it was eaten all up! After wonderful fellowship Edo, Michelle, Tyler, Jonathan, myself and some others went bowling! There are very few bowling alleys in Jakarta so we couldn’t be picky. The lane broke down about 15 times during one game and twice I bumped the monitor and it went blank. But we had so much fun! Tyler and I bought very bright knee socks and wore shorts. Everyone was looking at the bule gila (crazy white people).

 

In order to even more solidify this image of myself in the Indonesian mind, yesterday I bought a hand carved and painted duck call maker. After leaving the mall (with Dion and Milla) we drove through traffic for over an hour and I got bored. So I rolled down the window and every time someone would try to weave past our car on a motorcycle (which happens constantly in the stop and go traffic) I would give them a duck call and then quickly roll up the window. I thought it was hilarious but I don’t know if anyone else did. Then I accidently did it to a very intimidating police man with an automatic weapon. I also did it inside the mall while Dion and I waited (for what seemed like eons) for Mille to finish her shopping. All in all it was an excellent investment of $2.50.

 

But backing up again. Monday and Tuesday were pretty normal. I worked at the hospital and then came home and wrote essay for DPT program applications. I did bake some delicious chocolate chip cookies! But certain other people devoured most of them when I wasn’t around. I did smuggle a few to the hospital and I gave them to Opung, who traded me some French bread that she had made.

 

On Wednesday after work I went with Edo and Michelle to Life Group. We ate dinner and then sang hymns and other songs and prayed for about an hour. It was very refreshing.

 

And now it is Friday!

 

Please continue to pray for me! 1. My walk with the Lord. 2. My applications for DPT programs. 3. My physical health

Baking, Chess and Football

I left you all in suspense! Haven't you all just been DYING to find out how my scones turned out? Fine. I'll tell you. they were edible and to anyone who has never tasted good scones (like most everyone here) they were good. But I couldn't stand them. At first I thought it was because I didn't have any measuring cups and because I substituted vinegar for cream of tartar, but there was a strange taste that I thought came from the butter. My suspicions were realized when I mentioned this to Sebastian and he told me that the butter here in Indonesia has a strange additive that gives it an awful taste. The only way to get around this is to buy expensive imported French butter. And so my first baking experiment is partially exonerated.

That was Tuesday. On Wednesday I went to the hospital and did the usual thing. I stood around a lot, sometimes talked to patients, and practiced on the PTs when they weren’t busy. Halfway through the day Dr. Tetty introduced me to her daughter, who spoke very good English. I asked her where she had gone to school and she said “Glion Switzerland.” “As in the little town on the mountain above Montreaux?” I replied. “Yes!” She said,  “Do you know it?” “I went hiking there earlier this year!” That was a fun little exchange. Here I am at Rochers De Naye, the peak above Glion:



Just as I was leaving for the day Dr. Tetty told me that she had thought of another assignment for me. Every month the medical rehabilitation department is supposed to conduct self-assessments (patient recovery rates, how well charts are filled in, patient complaints, timeliness etc). These assessments haven’t been done since last January. And so now I am going back through all the files and compiling data. And I mean file files. Not computer files. I’ve been working on it for 16 hours and I have plenty more to go.

Soon after getting home on Wednesday I was picked up by Edo and Michelle, a married couple from IES West (my church). We went to the grocery store (called Hypermart) and then drove out to Karawaci, a city sprawl suburb of Jakarta, for Life Group. It was a very refreshing time. There were about 18 people—most of them international teachers—and we chatted, discussed the sermon from the week and sang some worship songs. AND WE ATE MEXICAN TACOS. I think I had six.

On Thursday I worked on adding numbers for most of the day. In the afternoon several patients came in whom I have formed special bonds with. There is Opung, (Grandma) the Christian lady with the stroke. There is also a man who had a stroke who told me on Monday that he wanted to play chess. So I brought a chess board and we stood him in the stander and played a game. He enjoyed it so much!



After work on Thursday I played chess with Dion and baked bread! It turned out great! I devoured so much that I couldn’t eat my dinner. After dinner I went with Rocky to play indoor soccer with a lot of the other PTs. I’ve never been good at soccer and I don’t know what happened but halfway through the hour long match something clicked and I scored 12 goals in 40 minutes. And 5 in a row! It felt great! (of course I couldn’t have done most of them without Sadly’s assists). Look how red I am compared to everyone else.



Today (Friday), I crunched numbers again and I shared bread with everyone in the PT department. Rocky said it wasn’t sweet enough. These Indonesians don’t think bread is good unless it tastes like a doughnut. Opung came and I gave her some. Another patient tried it too:







And I have spent all afternoon working on my PT application and writing up this blog post.

Tomorrow I only work from 8 to 12 and then I will Skype the most wonderful girl in the world.

Please keep praying for me! Pray for my health. Pray for my application to PT school. Pray for my mood and for my walk with the Lord. Pray that I don’t worry about the future.

Thank you all of reading my blog!

More pictures

Emergency Endoscopy!

September 11,

I woke this morning at about 4 am with acute pain and unrelenting pain in my stomach. The next few hours of waiting for the sun to rise seemed to last for weeks. I prayed and prayed but it was very difficult not to panic. What if I had a stomach ulcer and it ruptured and I bled out here, thousands of miles away from my friends and family? Before you make fun of me, you think about how you would feel if you were experiencing this kind of pain at 4 am in Indonesia. (With the tell-tale black diarrhea. But perhaps that is TMI).

 

At 7:35 I dragged myself onto my bicycle, wove through the Jakartan traffic to the hospital, and stumbled into Dr. Tetty’s office. Actually first I waited about an hour to get up my nerve because I already feel like I’ve been nothing but trouble here in Siloam. I was so tired that I fell asleep several times. Rocky kept coming over and shaking me awake (I was pretending to read a textbook on Rehabilitation Modalities).

 

Under the pretense of returning the textbook I went into Dr. Tetty’s office and she asked me how I was. “Well not that good actually.” When I told her about my new symptoms and pain she immediately picked up the phone and scheduled another appointment with Dr. Epistale—the Gastrointestinal specialist. He is very kind, speaks wonderful English, and didn’t charge me for either of my visits.

 

Dr. Epistale told me that I needed to have an endoscopy so that he could be certain of what was going on inside of me. It is also the only way that they have of testing for heliobactor Pylori, which is a bacterium that can cause ulcers. However I had eaten some breakfast and I needed to wait 7 hours after eating before the procedure. So I went back to the Rehabilitation department and lay on an examination table for 3 hours.  I hate waiting.

 

At 1 o’clock I went to the Endoscopy room and waited for another hour. Two of the PTs waited with me which was comforting but I was still very worried. I realized that I hadn’t written down emergency contact information for my family anywhere, so I did that. Then the nurse brought in all the paperwork for me to sign. Most of it was in Bahasa Indonesian, but on the bottom it said something like, “The physician has explained to me all the risks of the procedure and I understand everything that it says above.” I understood nothing of it. And I also realized for the first time that they would be administering general anesthesia to me. It was all happening very quickly. But I signed it.

 

Then the nurse started an IV and I fell asleep, at the same time as my friends and family on the other side of the world.

 

When I woke up I felt horrible. My throat burned and my stomach felt as bad as ever. After I had recovered enough to walk I went with Dr. Epistale. He said that it was good news: my entire stomach was mildly inflamed but that there was no ulcer and no sign of bacteria. He prescribed another kind of medicine and gave me strict rules on what I could and could not eat.

 

But the pain persists. And so does the bill (which I sure hope that travel insurance will cover).

 

Dr. Epistale says that the pain should subside after a few days but I don’t know what to do in the meantime. Should I continue to go to work? And what if it doesn’t stop? It has already been a month. At what point to I give up and go home and spend my last few days with my family?

 

I probably shouldn’t have bicycled home in rush hour just after waking up from anesthesia. But I made it.

 

Pray for me. This is not the kind of adventure or experience that I had hoped for.

 

September 16,

Once again it has been far too long since I have updated my blog, and I have no excuse. Many days I get from the hospital at about 5 PM and watch Battlestar Galactica (which Rachael got me addicted to) or play chess with Dion. So I DO have the time to update my blog, I just don't.

 

Things are going much better now than there were last week. I am being very careful about what I eat and I am faithfully taking the medicine that the doctor gave me. I am learning quite a bit at the clinic! Rocky and Yuri gave me lessons in myofacial release, traction of the ankle, back massage, sling therapy, stretching for relief of pain in the lower back and many other things. I have played around with ultra sound, E-stim and wax baths.
 

But here, as well as in the States, I am not allowed to touch patients and this seriously limits what I am allowed to do. I wonder if three months was too long of a time to come for. I'm waiting to see how things are after a month and a half. 

 

I had a great day on Sunday. I woke up early and watched Battlestar Galactica with my favorite girl. Then I went to church. Well actually, it was a bit more complicated than that. Milla and Sebastian were out of town so I had arranged to be picked up by a couple that I had met last week. Apparently the address I gave them would not show up in google maps, and they drove in circles for about half an hour. I was on the phone with them but I couldn't tell them how to find me because Jakarta is a maze. So I finally just started walking up the road. After walking for about a mile I came to a busy road and started reading the names of the businesses until they recognized one. Then they came and picked me up.

 

Church was such a breath of fresh air. I just love how God and the gospel are the same all over the world! I am going to an international Assemblies of God church. Sure I have doctrinal and theological differences (especially since pastor Lew preached on baptism) but the gospel is preached and the people are wonderful.

 

After church I went out to eat with a group of young adults. There were three other Bules (white people) and we went to eat Bebek Goreng (fried duck). The food was great and the conversation was even better. Most of the others are teachers at various international schools.

 

I got home at about 4:45 and at 5:30 Rocky picked me up. We went to the home of Therinde, one of the other PTs, where we met up with Abdul. Then the four of us rode on two motorcycles the 45 minutes into central Jakarta. It sure is fun to weave through traffic at night.

 

We went to the "old city" which is a western style group of buildings built by the Dutch back when Jakarta was a settlement. The central plaza was packed with people smoking and playing guitars -- obviously this is the place to hang out on Sunday nights. All the side roads were full of people selling cheap clothes and electronics. It was a very festive and fun area with people doing acrobatics and magic tricks. Unfortunately it was also very trashy. Everyone just throws their garbage on the ground. We drove past a river that was PILED with garbage. it reeked.

 

After the Old City we went to Monas which is the national monument of Indonesia. Here we met up with Ida and Yuri, two other PTs. it was the same thing here. Lots of people and sellers and an inconceivable amount of trash. There was an old man with a chess set sitting on the ground and Rocky explained to me that if you paid 5,000 rupiahs you could try to beat him in three moves. if you won, you would win three packs of cigarettes. The board was set up so that he only had two bishops and I had all my pieces, but I still could see that it wasn't easy (but if you paid him 50,000 he would show you how to win). I sat there for about 30 minutes (while everyone else politely waited) and tried about 4 times but I couldn't do it. It was SO hard! 5,000 rupiahs is about 50 cents.

 

The others ate street food but I am being very careful about what I eat so I just went to a store and bought a bunch of pisang (bananas). I ate about 4 and this caused problems the next day.

 

Yesterday (Monday) was a pretty normal day. I went to the hospital and observed for 8 more hours. then I came home and watched some Battlestar Galactica, worked a little on my PT applications, played a game of chess with Dion (only one because he is studying for an exam) and then went to bed at 9:30. I am excited for Wednesday evening when I go to Life Group with the people from Church!

 

After work today Ida and Yuri took me to the mall to get ice cream. It was the biggest mall I have ever seen! But maybe that isn't saying much. Before coming to Jakarta the only mall I can remember ever going to was the Tacoma mall.

 

We ate Chinese ice cream, which is much much more than just ice cream. They make little creatures and other creations out of jello and shaved ice and strange foreign candies. I got a teddy bear and it was one of the best desserts I have ever had. Only the nose is ice cream, the rest is chocolate flavored ice. And in the bottom was tapioca-ish stuff and chocolate syrup. MMMMMM

 

Now I am attempting to bake scones but I don't have some of the ingredients and I have no measuring cups. So it is pretty touch and go. They are about to come out so I have my fingers crossed.

Diving into Indonesian Life!

Hello my friends! Greetings from Jakarta Indonesia!

 

I am sorry that it has taken me almost a week to write my first blog post. I’m sure that all of my friends and relations have spent many sleepless nights this week refreshing my blog over and over in anticipation of a post…Or maybe you were sleeping soundly in bed. Either way, I am posting!

 

It took 23 hours of travel and two days for me to get to Jakarta from Seattle. The trip wasn’t pleasant. I was experiencing stomach pain as well an acute case of long-distance relationship heart-ach. I endured the 16 hours of airplaning.

 

It was 11:30 PM when we landed in Jakarta and about 12:45 when I arrived at the place where I am staying. (And the taxi driver got lost several times. We even knocked on the wrong door. Quite embarrassing at that time of night and when you can’t speak the language).

 

I secured my lodging by emailing the pastor of an Assemblies of God church in West Jakarta (where I am) and asking him if any of his congregants would be willing to host me. A very wonderful couple named Milla and Sebastian opened the magnificent home to me. I live like royalty.

 

If I hadn’t experienced live-in servants in India my current situation would have taken more getting used to. I’m not allowed to wash my dishes or my clothes or even fry my eggs. And I have to jump and make my bed first thing unless I want that done for me as well. The living situation for the servants looks awful to us westerners (an tiny room with a cot in a garage-like area separate from the house) but in comparison to the village situations that the servants came from it is posh. Sebastian is French, and he said that he also had to get used to it. To him it looked like slavery. But Milla teaches the servants basic accounting and how to cook as well as paying them, and it is her hope that they will move up in the world as a result. One of their maids recently got married and now is a shopkeeper.

 

Anyway, I arrived early Thursday morning and Milla and Sebastian rolled out the red carpet. They and their son Dion are so welcoming. Thursday I got a haircut and went to the mall to buy some black pants for work.

 

Indonesia is similar to India in some ways, but this lulled me into a false belief that it was similar to India in every way—which it isn’t. But one thing remains the same all over Asia: the traffic is awful. I am one of the very few people here who rides a bicycle, and while it is much faster than driving a car (because you can fit through small spaces) it isn’t very safe. All the little children point and laugh at me when they see me flying by.

 

I wish that I had a GoPro so that I could film by Jakarta Bicycle Antics. All the main roads don’t have 4 way intersections. Instead there are medians and you have to turn left (because you drive on the left side of the road of course) drive for several hundred meters, do a U tern, drive back several hundred meters and then turn left. That is how you cross an major street. Why?

 

It is even worse at night.

 

On Friday I began my internship. I was so worried that I would get lost on the way to Siloam Hospital (a valid concern) that I left 30 minutes before I needed to. After sitting for 30 minutes I met Ibu Grace Imelda—the head of HR at the hospital. For about 2 hours she showed me orientation slideshows, translated paperwork for me to sign, and showed me around the hospital. My orientation at the school in India took about 10 minutes and was wonderfully relaxed—this took much longer and was wonderfully structured and professional. I like both ways.

 

Siloam Hospitals is a Christian chain of about 14 hospitals stretching across Indonesia. They are the most advanced hospitals in the country and the first to be granted international accreditation. Siloam Kebun Jeruk (where I am) has one of the most advanced Urology departments in the nation. They are overtly Christian.

 

At about 10 I finished my orientation and went to the Rehabilitation department. I entered a world that I knew and loved. Everyone was wearing tennis shoes and there were balls and treadmills and colorful equipment. Oh how I want to be a Physical Therapist. Ibu Grace introduced me to Dr. Tetty, who is my supervisor. She is a very kind an smart woman and made me feel right at home.

 

There are about 23 PTs in the Rehab center, and they take two shifts. Some speak better English than others but they are all eager to show me how to do things. So sometimes it is really difficult when they are attempting to explain processes or modalities which include lots of medical terminology. Do I want to be polite and nod or understand and have them repeat it 5 times and/or ask for someone to come over and translate?

 

I eat lunch in the Hospital café where I get treated to Indonesian cuisine.

 

The first two days I mostly stood around and observed. I felt very useless—everyone else was so busy. Then Dr. Tetty started having me record the wait time of every patient. At the end of the month I will add up and average the wait times and we can see how the department is doing. This job keeps me on my toes.

 

Today (Monday) I learned was introduced to many machines. The E-stim, Micro-Thermy, and Ultrasound machines. There is also a system of chords (called RedCord) which the PTs used to help in exercising the patients. I haven’t seen it in the states but it is highly effective.

 

After work on Friday and Saturday I went back to the house and sat in my room and worked on applications for PT schools. I was afraid that if I left I would get lost and would have to pay for a taxi to show me the way home. I admit that I was also very lonely and homesick—(I still am, but I know more people now).

 

Things got a lot better when I went to Church on Sunday with Milla and Sebastian. It is an international English-speaking church (not like in India where I didn’t understand the sermons) and the people were so welcoming! There were several Americans who teach at international schools here and they immediately invited me to join their Life Group, which is just like Community Groups at Mars Hill. The Life Group meets at 7 PM on Wednesdays and I am SO looking forward to it!

 

After church and chatting Milla and Sebastian took me and Pastor Lew and his wife Monica out for lunch. As an American who has lived in Indonesia for 15 years Pastor Lew was able to give me lots of helpful advice. He is a really swell guy.

 

Then, while Milla went grocery shopping, Sebastian and I dropped in at ACE Hardware to look at manly things. Haha tools are so different (and wimpy) here.

 

I’ve been having a difficult time so far because my stomach has been hurting almost non-stop. Today I caved and went to see a Doctor. This was complicated in itself because the appointment desk people didn’t speak English and the paperwork was in Bahasa Indonesian. But Dr. Tetty and Yuri (one of the PTs) helped me.

 

The stomach Dr. spoke very good English and told me that I most likely had gastritis caused by too regularly taking Ibuprofen. It wasn’t too satisfying since I already had come to that conclusion. It just seems to me that after a month of not taking Ibuprofen I should see some healing. But I will take the medicine that he prescribed and pray. Please pray for my healing. I would find it much easier to thrive in this foreign place if I wasn’t constantly clutching my gut in pain.

 

Today I spent almost 12 hours at the hospital. I stayed late because Rocky, another of the PTs, offered to begin teaching me a technique called Myofascial release, which is all the rage, both in Indonesia and America. As an Intern I am not allowed to touch patients, but if the PTs have gaps where they are not treating anyone they let me practice on them. I learned a whole lot today from Rocky. He is a great guy. We have also gone out the last few days at lunch time and tried different Indonesian foods.

 

So there you are! I can’t believe how disjointed this blog post is. I also apologize for not taking pictures. You know what the inside of an airplane looks like and I am not supposed to take pictures inside the clinic without Dr. Tetty’s permission. I guess I could take pictures of the road as I bicycle to work…. But only one picture for now:

 

 

Me, Pastor Lew, Monica, Milla, Sebastian

 

 

Please pray for me!

 

1.      That my body would heal

2.      That I would be cheerful and thrive here (I miss home a lot and am tempted to wallow in loneliness)

3.      That I would make lots of friends at work and church and be a witness