weLLness
MISSIOn TO SERVE A married couple reflect on their recent volunteer work providing medical services in Ukraine B Y MELISSA B AB B AN D MITCH B AB B
I
see a billowing plume of smoke outside the third-story window as the sun rises on my fifth consecutive night shift in the pediatric cardiac intensive care unit of a Lviv, Ukraine, hospital. A Russian bomb just exploded 6 kilometers from where I stood. Air raid sirens blared. I only had a minute to internalize my shock and disbelief. There are four children in the ICU, three on a single oxygen tank and one on life support. How do I keep these critically ill children safe? I’m a nurse, not a soldier. I’m trained to care for sick children, not war! Is there a bomb shelter in the hospital? Will there be more bombs? How far away from the window is safe from glass blast? The Ukrainian nurse I'm working with tells me not to worry – the bomb is far away. This is their world, their everyday life. It’s normal to be bombed and have air raid sirens go off day and night. A missile is no big deal unless it hits your home. One week ago, I was safe, sitting on my comfortable couch, scrolling social media. 50
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durhammag.com
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M ELI SSA B AB B
I S A PEDI ATR I C NU R SE
PR ACTI TI ONER F OR DU KE
U R GENT CAR E.
I was mesmerized by a post from Novick Cardiac Alliance pleading for nurses willing to travel into a war zone in three days to perform cardiac surgeries on Ukrainian children. My husband and I had been searching for opportunities to help Ukraine. I had the skill set for this mission. Within five minutes of seeing the post, I had complete support from my husband and my job. I was on the team. Russia had spared Lviv from war – it was a place of refuge for fleeing Ukrainians. I felt a little fearful, but mostly excited to serve. While I was flying over the Atlantic, Russia bombed a military base on the outskirts of Lviv. Landing in Poland, I realized this was war, and no place is safe. One nurse traveling from Los Angeles landed and decided to board a plane back home. After praying and speaking with my husband, I felt
december 2022 / january 2023
a wave of peace. I boarded a bus with 12 international team members and crossed Poland’s border into Ukraine. We drove past hundreds of Ukrainian refugees crossing the border at 2 a.m. with small children and only what they could carry. One of the nurses on our team was Serbian. Ukrainians often consider Serbians as enemies. After a heated altercation at the border crossing, she was thankfully allowed into Ukraine. Our interpreter was Belarusian, also a Ukrainian enemy, and thus not allowed into Ukraine and had to remain in Poland. I communicated with families, patients and local providers using Google Translate. The photo function on the app helped me navigate medications and dosages, IV pumps and monitors that were all in Russian. Due to safety concerns, we lived in the hospital. Air raid sirens were constantly alarming, making sleep difficult and mentally paralyzing, wondering if there was an inbound missile. Monitors and IV pumps would spontaneously shut off, stopping lifesaving medications. I functioned as the pharmacist, calculating dosages and mixing medicine to appropriate concentrations and doses. I worked with an international team of health care providers with different backgrounds, perspectives and methods of providing patient care. Our third case, a 17-day-old, came back from the operating room very sick. We called the Ukrainian interventional cardiologist at 2 a.m., requesting he come to the hospital immediately to image the baby’s heart so we could figure out why she was so ill. He was recently displaced from the Kharkiv area, where he awoke one morning to see a Russian missile shooting through the sky from his back window. He could not travel until 8 a.m. due to a governmentmandated curfew. If he were caught traveling during curfew, he said he would be sent to the border to fight for Ukraine. We miraculously kept that baby alive until he could assist the next morning. She is now home with her mother. – Melissa Babb