I cannot believe this is the last day attending sessions at BCU. I am happy and sad that this trip is almost over, but I need to talk about Chinenye. She is the true star of this trip. From the minute she introduced herself, I knew that I would feel comfortable and inspired. She radiates joy and kindness that is infectious. She reminds me of my Aunties back home. The way she teaches with such passion is admirable. After being a nurse and educator for years, she is still able to inspire others. I want to be Chinenye when I grow up. She took a profession that she did not want and made it a career that she could be proud of. Chinenye will be dearly missed by all of us. Her crying today, almost made me cry because she really did instill so much confidence in us. Nursing school is hard and sometimes you want to give up, but seeing the facilities here helped cement my love of learning. Today was bittersweet and I wish we had just one more lesson.

Our first lesson, was about cardiovascular diseases and how it impacts the world. Our lecturer was from Nigeria and she talked about working in their cardiac unit. She said that their hospitals make patients pay before they get treatment. Can you imagine trying to pay while having a stroke or heart attack?! The statistics we were given were quite low for Nigeria and that is due to citizens not getting care. They cannot afford to go to the hospital or get preventative medicine. Nigeria is ahead in medicine, but lacks the support it needs financially as a developing country. The UK is doing better than we are in the states. Their food is so much better than ours due to a lot of ingredients being illegal. The unnatural dyes and preservatives that we use are so toxic, that people are allergic to them. You would think that in a first-world country that we would have access to healthy food. It does not help that we allow children and ourselves to be sentient. We are so consumed with our phones, iPads and TV that we do not exercise as much as we should. Which increases the risk of a stroke or heart attack because fat is slowly building in overtime in our arteries. It is quite scary how fast it can build up and cause complications. Cardiovascular disease is the #1 silent killer in the US.

Our last lesson for this trip was about Electrocardiograms (ECG or EKG) and how we can interpret the PQRST waves. We briefly learned this at Pitt-Greensburg, so my brain was blanking for some of the questions. Adekola was fantastic and kept us engaged. I did not learn about the 10 electrodes and 12 leads in Anatomy lab. So learning this with him made a lot of sense. We have skills lab in the fall semester and I am excited to show my professors that I know the basics. Understanding a EKG is a bit confusing and I did struggle to identify P waves because they are the smallest wave, but this lesson solved that issue.

The last part of our day was taking a coach bus on a 3 hour ride to London. I did try to stay up for the ride, but was exhausted. The bus had yellow and black leathers, which reminded me of the Steelers colors. It was like a reminder that we are only a few days away from going home. I did wake up in time to see us drive around Westminster. The area is absolutely beautiful. The houses look so posh and pristine. It makes me jealous of how beautiful they are, but I cannot fathom being that close to my next door neighbor. The hotel that we are staying in is a dream stay. I feel so spoiled and the bathroom is gorgeous. When I FaceTime my mom, she wanted to remodel our bathroom at home to like the shower and sink. I am truly fortunate to be on this trip and it has been a pleasure so far. I cannot wait to explore London tomorrow and try High Tea.