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| Lapland |
This post is mainly about my placement,
however since it is so nursing topic I thought I would include my trip to
Lapland and add some pictures from my trip to make it more interesting for
both, my friends in nursing and my other friends.
Let’s talk about Lapland first, two weeks
ago my friend Jinny saw an offer on VR website (Finnish Train System). It is
called winter offer, it was only €25 from Helsinki to Rovaniemi. We decide to
go to Levi near Kittilä in the middle of Lapland. The reason this offer was so
cheap because it is the coldest time of the year in Lapland, and there are only
few tourists going there or may be none. It can go down to -37. Luckily it was around -24 when we were
there, sometimes -27! Not too bad at all, after all, it could be worse. So it was an opportunity to go cheaply for
only two days, as we were not planning to spend much money. We managed to stay
in a hostel called the crazy reindeer (Hullu Poro) we booked a private room and
we supposed to share the shower and toilet with another room of two people (It
is an apartment with two bedrooms), again the low season helped us with this.
No one came to the other room we ended having the whole apartment to ourselves!
It was great! We had a cozy living room with TV and fully operating kitchen! We
cooked at night so we didn’t have to go out for food.
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| Pori Train Station |
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| Leaving to Lapland from Pori |
We arrived at Rovaniemi however, since
there was no transport after 17:00 and we arrived at 20:00, we had to hire a
car, and again the low season helped us. We were upgraded! We were so lucky; we
had a brand new big Ford instead of an old mini!!
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| I miss this car so much! |
During this time we managed to do
everything! We did a Husky safari (This was my favorite), reindeer farm (which
was empty only two of us and the locals), we also visited the ice village near
Kittilä and we did also snow mobile trip of 30 km to another reindeer farm
which again it was empty only us and the reindeer and of course our guide and
the lady owner of the farm. In fact all the trips were private and cheaper than
the normal price, again this because it was a low season ;). We did do ice
swimming at night! YES! Ice swimming in -20!! We had the entire sauna on lake
to ourselves, as there were no people there at all. Ice swimming is when you go
swimming after being in the sauna in a frozen lake that means that there is a hole
in the snow that has been dug in the frozen lake. So we went in the 100-degree
sauna (may be more) and then after we went out and swam in the ice-cold water in
a hole!!! Incredible feeling!!! In fact I sent a video of me ice swimming to my
boyfriend, he commented “mentaaaaaal”. I
mean how can you be in Finland or in Lapland and not do ice swimming.
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| This where I swam with Jinny after Sauna |
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| Me and a husky |
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| Reindeer Farm House |
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| Reindeer Farm House from inside |
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| Coffe shop at the huskies farm |
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| Me on a snow mobile |
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| Snow Village |
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| Restaurant in a snow Village |
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| Reindeer Farm House from inside and the owner lady chatting with our lovely guide |
I think the best gift this trip has given
me is the northern lights; sadly Finnish Lapland weather was not the best to
see the northern lights at this time, as it was mostly cloudy and snowing.
However, I was so determined to see them this time, since this is the second
time I go above the artic circle to see them. First time it was Tromsø (I
mentioned this trip in my last post) and sadly I didn’t see them despite the
fact that I have booked a northern light trip and ended up being stock behind
the Norwegian borders over night and missing my flight from Tromsø to London (I
know sad). This time round, I became an expert I have downloaded an application
on my phone to monitor the weather forecast for several places in Lapland
including Tromsø and Skibotn in Norway. Plus I have downloaded an application
to notify me with aurora borealis activities. It was also predicted that on
Saturday 1st of February there will be a solar storm. Interesting enough this time the sky was clear
in Norway. So off I went with Jinny, 4 hours drive (we had am amazing break on
the way, we stopped at the best gift and coffee shop we had ever come across in
Lapland) we arrived in Skibotn, we asked locals and we were advised to go to
another place called Nordkjosbotn, where we found a lovely restaurant, then we
had an lovely meal. One of the lovely friendly waitresses advised us a road on
the map in the middle of the fjords saying that it is the best place to be in
order to see them clearly. Off we went to this place, the sky was amazing
completely dark, it was -18. The stars were so clear; they were so many and so sparkly.
We parked the car and then we stood outside, completely alone among these
immense, huge, beautiful fjords. There was no light, no cars passing by, only
two of us. While we were standing looking anxiously at the sky, suddenly here
it comes the amazing northern lights falling down from the sky like a curtain. It
started faint and I was happy that I saw them even if there were only just faint
and gradually they completely lit the fjords and the entire sky! Dancing around
changing colors! There were coming from every direction. It was incredible no words can describe them.
This has been incredible moment in my life to see something that I have never
seen and I thought I would never see. I was so happy. Sadly our camera couldn’t
catch them, as we didn’t know that we needed a special camera for that takes
picture at night. This time my iPhone let me down but there is a video of them
at the same night somewhere in Sweden close by. Here is the link below.
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| This where we have stopped for food |
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| Jinny happy crossing the Finnish Norwegian Borders |
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| Gift shop on the way to Norway from Finland |
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| This exactly where we say the northern light on the 1st of February 2014 |
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| I love this poster! |
Now here comes the part for my placement
Sadly my placement in accident and
emergency will end next week then I will be going to London to see my boyfriend
and to have sometime to focus on dissertation for a week. I really enjoyed everyday in my placement. I
have enjoyed the working environment and the way the department runs, the kind
staff that taught many nursing skills. Every member of staff that I have worked
with, has be been an excellent tutor. Even those who didn’t speak good English
still manager to teach many things. I have circulated around the divisions of
the emergency department and from each department I have learned great a lot bout
many nursing procedures.
I have enjoyed great level of autonomy in
this placement that I have not experienced before; I have performed many
nursing tasks independently and I had great change to learn more Finnish
language relating to nursing practice. I performed admission to the department
and undertook vital signs, EKGs, patient pain assessment, that was all in
Finnish language. I had a chance to be responsible of patients admitting
patients, performing EKGS, undertaking vital signs and report any abnormality,
order laboratory tests, perform urine analyses and send samples to the lab,
create IV access and administer intravenous medication. I have also performed
several male catheterizations. I have learned how to analyze blood gas and
deliver the results to the doctors (Astro in Finnish) as well as CRP level. I
have assisted in several procedures similar to a creation of a lung drainage,
lumbar puncture and cardioversions procedures. I have had amazing learning
opportunity and this placement has definitely increased my emergency nursing
knowledge and I had a chance to practice skill that I would be able to do as
student in UK.
I have also learned about the care for many
emergency situations, similar to the care for cardiac patients, stroke patient
care, and various types of migraines including post lumbar puncture migraine. I
have also, learned about the care for patient who attempted to suicide as well
as alcoholic patients. All the antidote medications in order to reverse the
effect of the medication they have taken to commit a suicide. I have learned
about the care for patients with trauma similar to car accidents, sever
bleeding, falls and fractures. I have also learned about various types of scans
used for diagnoses, CT scans, X-rays and ultra sounds. I have learned about
emergency medication in Finnish and their name in English similar to cardiac
medication, pain killers, broad-spectrum antibiotics.
I have also been to the ambulance in the
hospital and how they work and what equipment and cars are in use. I had a
great opportunity to work with pediatrics accident and emergency division that
only opens from 4 pm when health centers are closed. I have learned a lot about dealing with
infants and children, communicating with families, taking vitals signs for
infants and administer oxygen therapy and medication.
I will miss this placement so much! I will
miss the staff the hospital, I will miss everything.
