I know it is just one day after my last post but I am sitting here in my little apartment feeling a little melancholy ( I don't know if that is the right word or not) that I am going home tomorrow!! Go figure!Mind you - I am not giving up going home!!! I am glad I am feeling this way tho as it won't be hard to come back up in 5 weeks time.We had a great day today with a pre school immunization blitz for the 4 yr olds starting kindergarten.We gave 15 kids "quadracel" injections this afternoon and saw a whole bunch of other patients too! The day just flew by - it was great! A new young nurse came up today to replace me - another Norma - and she seems really great.I sort of wish I was going to be working with her. Maybe another time.
I am going to get together with my NIC (nurse in charge) Marie and she is going to show me what I need to bring up to do some quilting. She has done some beautiful work and I am looking forward to learning more from her when I come back up. She has a 2 bedroom apartment as she is here full time and her 2nd bedroom is full of all her quilting projects.Hopefully when I come back up in October we can quilt together!
Looking forward to seeing everyone back home.
Norm

So much has happened since the last post!!! All good!I am now in Webequie and loving it. I was delayed a day because of the weather and had another little melt down and then once I did get out I was the only passenger in a 6 seater plane with 2 young pilots -1 from Newmarket and the other from Shanty Bay just north of Barrie. It was pretty funny. I figured this must be a good omen for the future!!The other nurse here has worked in this village for the past 9 years and knows everyone.There is a big Whitehead family here as well with the cleaning lady at the nursing station being a Whitehead. She is quite young so I call her my long lost daughter.The other nurse Marie is very helpful and has just finished her nurse practitioner course so she knows alot too. I aspire to be like that one day!!! Again we have had alot of Medivacs but no overdoses here yet. Last night we had a 23 yr old guy try to hang himself -wasn't very successful at all thank goodness-so we had to medivac him out this morning. One of the pilots was the same guy who was up here on saturday night so I'm guessing you get to know everyone eventually! I took a walk around the community and there was not one rusted out car or truck on anyones front lawn which was a lovely difference - and alot of lawns were cut. The first night here I heard a lawn mower which has been unusual for anywhere other than the nursing station.
There is an overgrown garden in our backyard with a wooden picket fence around it that is not high enough to keep out a husky who jumps over it everyday and has a snooze on our back porch.Don't worry - I haven't started feeding him-yet! I definitely have plans for the garden starting with some tulip and daffodil bulbs to plant in October when I come back. I will have to do some research on Zone 1 gardening.
There is a really nice big school and an outdoor arena with boards and penalty boxes that I am looking forward to teaching some synchro skating on!! I am going to be in charge of school programs which will be fun to teach the kids healthy eating, handwashing , and probably doing the school immunizations as well.I'll have to ask Sarah for some ideas!!
I have a lovely 1 bedroom apartment with satellite Tv and the internet. It is attached to the clinic which is nice when you are "on call" and you have to see someone in the clinic in the middle of the night. There is a security guard who works nights and is an amazing artist.He has been painting on a couple of hand drums since I have been here and they are quite amazing. The whole native support staff at the clinic are very good and helpful. I am really very happy here.
I am home in 2 days which makes me really , really happy!Looking forward to seeing my family and friends.It has been a very long time to be away and it is nice to know that I won't ever be away for this long again!
Looking forward to seeing everyone soon.
Norma

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17884344
This is the site for a picture of the community I am in. There is a dentist in town (working at our clinic) for the 2 weeks I am here ,a lovely young man, and he and I went for a long walk after work yesterday. We walked across the boardwalk bridge that is at the front of this picture and found an old cemetery on the island. Evan (the dentist) wanted to read names and dates but there were just simple white wooden crosses, some with wreaths hanging over them. On our walk we also found a moose skull (huge!) just outside someones back door but obviously garbage so Evan picked it up and I think he is going to try and take it home to Toronto. He was admiring the size of the teeth!! Go figure!
http://www.flora.org/nancy/photos/Sachigo-Lake/index.html Here are some more pictures of Sachigo Lake. I am working and living in the clinic which is probably the nicest building and well cared for property in the community! There is a new airport building now but the building on the right side(in the picture) is still the security building where they check everyone's bags when they arrive in the community. They are looking for street drugs and alcohol (both banned in these native communities). When I came in they checked the bags of the young couple who got off the plane with me but he waved me through. I guess I don't have the face of a drug dealer or smuggler! The school is just across the road from the clinic and there is a literacy camp going on now so I sometimes here voices of kids playing which is rather nice. Makes me think of home! which I am missing terribly!
I will post again soon. Bye for now.

I am presently in a little community of 500-600 people called Sachigo Lake. I was suppose to be in my own community for the month of August (Webequie) but then found out at the last minute that I would be here for 2 weeks and then the last 2 weeks in Webequie(due to a brutal nursing shortage up here). I was not a happy camper about the change but when I got to this nursing station there was a beautiful garden with peonies and delphiniums and roses and the grass was cut and it looked beautiful compared to the last place I was at!The nurse in charge here is very supportive and told me to ask her any questions which is very helpful. She doesn't smile much and is fairly negative so I've got 2 weeks to turn that frown upside down.That is a quote from Amber who was also a nurse at this station until I took her to the airport and she flew home this am. She was young and happy and so helpful. She works with an agency ( tons of agency nurses up here -no specific commitment!) and is going back to Queens in the fall to finish her Masters.She was on call on Saturday night and called me at midnight to see if I wanted to help her with a 17 yr old girl who had taken 60 Tylenol pills. Amber was so helpful and calm and showed me everything to do until the air ambulance came at 4 am to take her to the hospital.She tried to teach me how to start an IV on the patient , but she was pretty upset and I didn't get it the first time so Amber put 2 in her. We gave her some IV medication, did an ECG, I took blood from her and just monitored her until she left. Amber came to my apartment the next day and taught me how to start an IV on her. Talk about going above and beyond the call of duty!!!!!. So I made a strawberry /rhubarb crumble and we had tea and crumble. Tons of wild strawberries behind the clinic and rhubarb in the garden so I think I might make another one maybe next weekend for the other nurse( to help put a smile on her face). Amber reminded me alot of my girls and I had a little tear in my eye when her plane took off this morning. I find the weekends hard as I have a bit of free time. When you are busy you don't have so much time to think about home! I love getting emails. I hope everyone had a great long weekend! Norma

I ran out of room on my last post so here I am back again. This is the first place I have had internet in my living space which makes it alot easier to email and post. The living spaces I hace been in have ranged from a very small but well set up bachelor apartment in Sioux Lookout (where a mother black bear and her 2 small cubs came to visit the dumpster just across the street from me every few nights - kind of neat watching her!)to a lovely 2 bedroom raised bungalow semi all to myself in Fort Hope. Very nice and well equipped. I went shopping when I first got here and bought a 2 litre carton of milk for $7.56!! To those of you who know me well you know I really wanted that milk to pay that much for it!!!

I did bring alot of food from home and Sioux Lookout which I am still eating so I haven't had to buy much. I am finding tho that it is no fun to eat alone! and yes - when I am not busy ( like now on the weekend) I do get a little homesick.This is the longest I have every been away from my family and friends and I am missing you all and would love to hear from everyone.

All the apartments have Star Choice satellite TV so I have been watching my fav's Law and Order and HGTV which makes it feel a little more like home.

I will sign off now but repost again soon. You will all be sick and tired of me by the end. 

Love Norma