Washing Hair!

I had been doing dressing changes to my patient for the last 4 weeks. Because of where she had the surgery she had a bandage on her head, this meant she could not wash her hair as it was alsways covered by the bandage and also we did not want to get the surgery site wet.



 I had tried to wash her hair before as if I did it I could be careful with her wound and be able to rebandage her after. Through one of the interpreters we realise she would not let me wash her hair as culturaly this was not acceptable. I had a lot to learn about cultures! Only her or her husband could do it. So we compromised and I put a wet cloth on her hair to get rid of some of the dried blood which had been there since the surgery.

Unfortunetly her husband had been involved in an accident when traveling form the ship to their home to see their daughter. This meant he could not come and be with her.

She was desperate to go home and see her family but her wound was not healing as fast as we had hoped so she had to stay on the ship until it was all healed.

A few weeks went by and we decided to ask her again about the hairwashing, this time we went through our patient life workers, they are the one that come and do worship time and prayer time on the wards, they come and speak to the patients and encourage them. Through them she agreed to let me wash her hair!

I got everything ready for her, got the bowls, towels, shampoo and conditioner, one the patient life crew let me borrow some of her cream to put on my patients hair post hair washing. I brought her into the room and realised she had nothing with her to brush her hair, so I quickly went upto the ship shop (good thing it was open!) and got some combs!

We were ready, she laid down and I started to wash her hair, after weeks of not washing it and after the suregery and all the dressing changes the hair was pretty dirty but by the time I had finished it was clean and smelt lovely. She was very relaxed and closed her eyes a few times enjoying it!



One of the many dressing changes!

 At the end the she thank me in English!!!! This lady had not spoken any english or french before coming to the ship. She somehow managed to say 'Thank you very much'. I nearly cried with happiness. This lady had hardly said anything to me in the weeks I had changed her dressing and would not hug only shake your hand. That day was different she gave me a hug and said Thank you, wow. I felt very priviliged to be able to do her hair and see her smile.