'New Water'...uh..Falls?

Hi Kabloonas,

Evening my gentle readers, no, I am not Leena, but rather, I am Corey. With permission, Leena has been kind enough to allow me to contribute a wee bit to her blog, which is now close to 5 weeks underway. She's done a lovely job at it so far methinks, but I thought I'd contribute a little bit of much needed 'oh so masculine' flavour. I've wanted to write down some of my own thoughts and adventures earlier than half-way through this program, but adding to Leenas own musings requires far less work on my part, which is appealing!

So I just want to talk about tonight, forget the first four weeks. I have to admit I've felt a little subpar as of late, receiving some sad news from home, and just being a little anxious perhaps to start my next summer chapter of sorts. I'm not entirely sure if this one evening has single handedly recharged my batteries, but it was certainly refreshing. Tonight I ran out to 'New Water Lake', fishing rod and oversized backpack in tow, determined to have some success (the score is currently fishies:7, corey:0). I again failed miserably at the whole fishing thing (few things in life are as depressing as watching ones entire line go flying off the reel due to a poor job of setting up the rod...), however did succeed in stumbling upon a breathtaking set of falls/rapids. I'll shut up at this point and show you folks some pictures. Sweet dreams gentle readers, until next time.

Corey

And We're Back

The internet's finally working so I can finally put up some pics. First I'll give a tour of where I'm staying.

This is the house

This is the view from the left

The view from our front door

And finally, the inside

The green roofed building is where I'm working- Repulse Bay Health Centre

And just to mix things up a bit, take a guess at how much this pineapple and vanilla extract cost me today.
(Clue: the sum = $8.19)

What a Week!

This week we had a lot of people fly into Repulse.
Last Sunday, our upper year classmate Ian came in to dogsit Bill's dogs for 2 weeks, Timmy's donuts in hand. Unfortunately, his flight came in a bit after 1:40, so we missed the beginning of the Brazil vs Ivory Coast game. I also made hummus for the first time that day, which was pretty exciting for me.

On Monday it was National Aboriginal Day and the RCMP had a hot dog lunch to celebrate. Some of the hot dogs got REALLY burnt, so much so that even Maria's dog, Henry, refused to eat them until Shane, the RCMP officer, tore off the burnt part.

Then on Tuesday, Myrna left and I missed the chance to say goodbye, which I was quite disappointed about since I'm leaving the day she comes back. On the bright side, I met the GP, Murray Lee and Sarah Brown, the Occupational Therapist, who came in late the day before. At the end of the day, I also met Annaliese (sp?), the Aussie nurse who is replacing Myrna.
Since Tuesdays are well baby days, I gave an injection to a baby, but I upset the mom because I took too long and I can't remember now, but I must not have been holding the muscle with my other hand because the needle came up when I was trying to withdraw to make sure I didn't hit a vessel instead of muscle, so she got really upset. I won't be making that mistake again...
In the evening, I got a call from Ian, who had gotten bitten by some of the dogs while he was trying to break up a fight to protect Hudson since he's still recovering from his injury. So Corey and I went down to help out so that Ian could go down to the health centre to get his tetanus shot. Oh and I forgot to mention, we had ANOTHER visitor come in that day. Craig, the health inspector had conveniently come that day, so we called him to figure out what's supposed to be done in this situation. Since Ian wasn't sure exactly which dogs had bit him, all of the had to be hooked onto short chains by law in case of rabies even though Ian had given all the dogs rabies shots himself last year when they were newborn pups.
So back to the dog. When we looked at Hudson's thigh, all the sutures had come loose. Luckily, we had the expertise of Annaliese, who has her own sled dogs and told us that her vet recommended for dogs with injuries like Hudson's to just let it heal on its own without cleaning it and continue them on antibiotics. Corey also had to put a "Victorian collar" (those cones they put around their necks) on him again to stop Hudson from licking his wound. To not much surprise, Hudson managed to get it off by morning.

Wednesday was my one day to shadow Murray and it was pretty sweet. He's a really good teacher. He talked about how the biggest mistakes doctors make are overestimating the effectiveness of drugs, underestimating the negative effects of drugs, overprescribing in healthy people and underprescribing in unhealthy people.
I also got a refresher on musculoskeletal exams on a patient with knee pain, which made me a bit nostalgic of my time in Sydney learning the McMurray test. We also saw a patient with mitral valve replacement. Her case was a very good example of how important it is to do a proper physical exam. She had a loud murmur, but it kept getting missed because no one would ever get her to remove her bra, which blocked out the murmur. Murray used to get students to listen to her heart before the valve replacement and they would make the same mistake of not getting her to remove her bra. He had to ask them to listen to the mitral valve again, properly and they'd be shocked the loud murmur they suddenly heard. Murray asked me if I could here the new valve. I said no, but I actually did without realizing it. I thought it was the sound of someone's watch ticking. When I realized the ticking was the mechanical valve, it totally blew my mind.

On Thursday, I hung out with Sarah, the OT. I saw a girl with Down Syndrome, who was super cute and really smart. Sarah tested her fine motor skills, getting her to copy her in making vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines, which she aced. Then she tried to get her to copy her in jumping over a piece of paper and standing on one foot. I think by then she got a bit shy with all of us watching her, so she just stood there and watched Sarah.
In the evening, we went to Shane's and watched Gabriel Iglesias' special I'm not Fat, I'm Fluffy, which was HILARIOUS. I definitely need to find more of his stuff. Then I teamed up with Murray and Sarah to play Cranium. At first we were way behind everyone else and Murray thought we had no chance of winning since everyone else was on the fast track. But of course, being the superior team, we ended up winning! Woot woot!

And that's pretty much all the excitement of the week.

Party! Party!

So last Sunday was my birthday and it was a beautiful sunny day. First, I went on a hike to the Thule historical site and took some pics that I will put up once my internet speeds up one of these days.
I saw lots of inukshuks, a cabin and of course the Thule site, which is very isolated, but has beautiful scenery around it. It basically looks like a bunch of big grassy dips in the ground and you can see where they had tunnels for relatives to connect their houses to each other. The English part of the placard got pretty knifed up. Methinks perhaps someone has a grudge against the Southerners? Then we took a shortcut home, up and down the hills of rock. Rubber boots were not the greatest thing to be hiking with, especially because I could feel all the rocks under my feet, but they did end up being useful when one of the paths we were walking down was above my ankles in water and walled up by snow. So I would say 100% waterproof hiking boots would be ideal for Arctic summer hiking.
After our hike we went to Bill's to help him suture up his dog, Hudson. Hudson is the timid one of the pack, so Bill thinks he got picked on by the other dogs when they were fighting under the house. Maria, being a multi-talented nurse and dog-owner came to the rescue to fix up poor Hudson. My job involved holding down Hudson's legs, which was not an easy task. He had a gash down to the muscle on his inner thigh right near his...male part, so unsurprisingly the area was very sensitive. We also had a little helper, Kenny, one of the local kids who was in charge of giving caribou to Hudson to keep him occupied. Once we were done, we had a BBQ in front of Bill's house. We had Arctic char, shish kebabs and caribou ribs with wild rice. For dessert, Maria was sweet enough to make a pumpkin pie from scratch, which was delicious with whipped cream.
In the evening, the literacy students I had met the day before invited us for a game of the Settlers of Catan at Shane's (RCMP officer) place. I had never played it before, but it was lots of fun after I got the hang of it. It was the first time I've been accused of lying by an RCMP officer.

Surprise Party!
Today, we had a surprise retirement dinner for Shirley, one of the nurses whose worked here for 14years. So instead of seeing patients this afternoon, I was cutting cheese (ok that sounds wrong, but whatever) and peeling potatoes in the really tall guest nurse rooms upstairs, as in the ceiling is very high. It was tricky to keep it under wraps. She was confused why we canceled clinic for half the day today and why Maria said we couldn't do a telehealth today. Then Myrna, another nurse, got caught talking about the turkey she was making for the dinner. She covered by saying she was making it for Carole's birthday, which is conveniently this Sunday. But, somehow, even with all the clues we gave her, we were able to surprise her.
And of course I can't end without talking about dessert. Corey made an amazing ice cream sandwich cake that somehow survived staying in the fridge overnight. And Maria, the dessert queen, made a delicious trifle. It was a pretty epic dinner if I do say so myself.

June Snow

Yesterday, I woke up to see it was snowing, which isn't even normal for Repulse at this time of year. Apparently this summer has been colder than usual, which makes it very difficult to motivate myself to go out hence I am here writing on this blog instead of exploring.

On Friday, we saw our fellow classmates, Eryn and Nicole in Sanikiluaq through Telehealth (videoconference) and got to talk to them for a bit before getting cut off. It was nice to see some familiar faces.

In the afternoon, I attended a funeral. It was very moving watching the community come together in prayer and song. Since the ground is permafrost, the coffin was above ground and buried in rocks. Everyone put a rock on top of the coffin and then the men finished up by burying it with the big ones.

In the evening, I got a chance to go on a dog cart, similar to a dog sled except we ride on the frame of an old ATV instead of a sled and the dogs run along the road since there's not enough snow for sledding right now. I'd show you pictures, but the internet has gone wack for the past few days, so I'll leave it to your imagination.
Afterwards, Bill, the gym teacher who took me out on his dog cart, invited us over for dinner.
For dinner, I tried Arctic Char for the first time, which was delicious. It was also amazing to have ice cream after having no dessert since we first got here. He even put blueberries on top of the vanilla ice cream, which I thought was quite brilliant. It was interesting to get his perspective on life in the Arctic. I think I'm better getting to appreciate that it's really like being in a different world here because the people in Repulse are quite isolated from the rest of Canada even with TV and the internet. It's not that uncommon for people to get homesick after being away for even just a day, especially when they go to places like Winnipeg that are so different from home. I really appreciated Bill's hospitality, going so far as to lend me his wife's rubber boots and his copy of Invictus. He made us feel right at home.

Pictures!

So, I have to apologize beforehand. All I have right now is a 32MB memory card, which is VERY small, so I'm mostly relying on Corey for pictures. Enjoy!

pussy willows

sled dogs!

This is an example of a hole that sealers would wait to harpoon at

sleds and skidoos just off the coast

These are the pilots who took us from Rankin to Repulse

snow underwater

inukshuks (I think)

Land of the Midnight Sun

Friday
On Friday after work, we went on a seal hunt with Charlene. We rode on a skidoo drawn sled, which made for a fun, bumpy ride across the frozen blue ice of Hudson's Bay. The scenery was breathtaking.

Unfortunately I was not nearly as prepared for the weather as I thought I was. Even though it was only about 0 degrees outside, it was wet. My boots were soaked through to my socks from the melting snow, so I got a bit scared of getting frost bite or chilblains or something, but Charlene and her brother Patrick were amazing hosts and made sure I was comfortable. First Charlene offered me the boots off her feet, which I obviously refused. Then Patrick gave me a poncho-type jacket with a fur hood, which warmed me right up, but they still weren't convinced I was warm, maybe because I didn't want to get out of the sled anymore. They warmed up some tea on a portable gas stove using snow for the water, which I found pretty ingenious. They also had soup in pouches that they threw into the leftover tea. I had chicken breast soup, which to my surprise actually had a piece of chicken breast in it. Later on, Patrick took out a sleeping bag for me, allowing me to take off my boots and socks, so my feet could actually warm up. Finally, he even went so far as putting a tarp over the sled and turning on the gas stove to help me warm up. I felt really bad for wasting their gas just to keep me warm, but Corey was smart enough to think of warming up another kettle for tea, which made me feel a bit less guilty.
So back to the seal hunting. The way seal hunting works I learned, is that you find a hole in the ice that the seals use to take a breath and cover it with snow so the seal won't see you. Then you stand still with a harpoon listening for their breaths. This part takes a lot of patience or luck. The first hole we waited at, I scared away a seal when I was walking toward Charlene to get a closer look. But after a few hours and trying a few different holes, Charlene finally caught a small ringed seal, which is the most common type of seal.


After catching the seal, they cut a small hole in it to let air out and keep it fresh. Then they put it on the sled right behind me. I was a bit surprised it didn't give off any smell.
We also saw caribou twice while we were out on the ice. It was unreal to watch them running across the ice. Patrick took us almost within arm's reach of one. It was very cool.

By 1am it was clear that it never gets dark here anymore since I was pretty sure the sun was rising again without it getting dark. We ended up staying out til after 2 and I managed to avoid answering nature's call on the ice if you know what I mean...

Saturday
In the afternoon, Maria called me asking me if I wanted to come to help out with a medivac (air ambulance) for a baby I had seen the day before. Of course, I said yes and came right away. The patient was a baby with a ventricular septal defect and a patent foramen ovale (which are both holes between the chambers of the heart) that I had heard with my stethoscope yesterday. I wasn't of much help, but it was pretty cool seeing how the process works. The baby was going into respiratory distress, which was pretty obvious. You could hear him wheezing from the other room. It was really sweet to see his brothers keeping him entertained and giving mum a break. At the airport, we met the flight nurse, Phillip, who came in from Rankin Inlet. He was really cool and told us that we were welcome to ride a medivac to Rankin Inlet if the opportunity arises. Baby had to be taken to Churchill for treatment, which apparently costs about $25k...ouch.

Sunday
Everyone here is really friendly, especially the many kids passing by on their bikes. They'll say hi and sometimes ask me my name. The kids here have a lot of freedom. You can see them on the road without any parents in sight, playing on the land. Today while I came back from wandering, I met Andy and Floyd:
They showed me their moves on their bikes and Andy even let me ride his for a bit. By the end of it they were saying "I love you", probably because I gave them each a mini orange. We had lots of fun together.

Welcome

Hi everyone!
I'm starting this blog to share my experiences in the hamlet of Repulse Bay aka Naujaat (Seagull's Nesting Place in Inuktitut, hence the name).
So I guess I'll start from the beginning.
We left on Monday and, with a bit of a delay in Rankin Inlet, arrived in Repulse Bay on a Turboprop plane (definitely the smallest plane I've ever been on, I think there was 15 seats on it max) without any idea of where to go when we got there. Lucky for us, Joe and Charlene who work at the health centre were at the airport waiting to pick us up. Right outside they pointed out an arch of stones that marks the location of the Arctic Circle:
First, we got to check out our house, which faaaaar exceeded my expectations. Apparently a couple of teachers (as in they're a couple and they're both teachers) were kind enough to lend us their house for the summer. They have a flat screen TV, a bowflex and even a treadmill! Sadly, once we read the fine print we learned that we are not allowed to use the treadmill, but on the bright side we can use the Xbox360.
After dropping off our luggage, we met Maria, the Nurse in Charge, who was waiting for us after all the other staff had left. She made us a mandarin cake with almonds on top which was amazing despite the fact that I'm not usually a fan of citrus flavoured cakes (I can hear the cake jokes coming already-you know who you are).
And what trip would be complete without me forgetting or losing something? Within less than an hour of getting there, Maria asks me if I've lost something. At first I was like "What? What is she talking about?" She actually had to tell me to look for a certain slightly important piece of government issued ID for it to click. Yes, I dropped my passport on the plane and with my ridiculously crazy luck, the pilots found it and called the Health Centre, somehow knowing I was working there. Gotta love small towns, well actually it's a hamlet, which is apparently too small to even be considered a village, yup I think I came to the right place.
Yesterday, we wandered around the area and found some inukshuks, sled dogs that were chained up to the rocks and random bones like vertebrae, I'm guessing from a narwhal or some other big sea creature.
As for clinical stuff, so far I've learned how to use the thermometer that looks kinda like a gun, learned from a patient how to take a blood glucose (- -;) , given an intramuscular injection and today was probably the most exciting. I got to help out with a pregnant woman with abdominal pain, who thankfully, didn't end up having any contractions.

Well that's all for now.

Leena