Back to hospital

Just finished my second day in hospital, I´m exhausted but it´s really interesting and they´re really nice to me! On Tuesday night we all went out to a street party in the centre. It rained and rained but we still had fun, dancing to live music in the middle of the square and trying to avoid the old men who wanted to teach us samba! It was huge group of us from the hostel. I´m glad I went though as I´m too tired after hospital to do anything!

I´m based in the haematology department, but it actually seems to be mostly oncology- basically leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma. I haven´t actually done ether haem or oncology in London yet so I don´t know very much but they seem happy to teach me! It´s actually really interesting, if rather depressing. I spend the morning in the ward and then have clinics in the afternoon. The hospital´s really good. It´s a public hospital, and apparently it´s a nightmare to get in to hospital as there are so many people needing help but they get totally free care there, which is great. Unfortunately lots of the expensive tests which cancer patients need are not available and so the patients have to decide whether to pay laods of money (which they often can´t afford) to go privately. I´m getting more and more pro-NHS! I talked to a nurse today who lived in the Uk a few years ago and she was saying how incredible it is and how jeaous she is. Compared to Peru though the Brazilain system seems good. The hospital is much nicer too, and they have soap and alcohol handwash which makes me happy, the hospital in Iquitos didn´t feel very clean!

The doctors are really friendly and I think I´m a bit of a novelty so they all want to teach me. Today I did half of a bone-marrow aspiration (very exciting, but I won´t do into any more detail as too many people are squeamish!). They keep sending me off to take histories, and the patients are so hard to understand. One of the doctors said today that he sometimes struggles too as they have a very strong local accent, so that made me feel a bit better. It´s so hard in Portuguese, way harder than in Spanish. Today was easier than yesterday though and I didn´t almost fall asleep before lunch like I did yesterday so thinks are getting better! I did think I might not manage 3 weeks without collapsing from exhaustion!