KAREN:  So what was that like, balancing Western medicines that you had learned in training and school with traditional medicines?  Is that common?
 
PAULA:  Yeah.  In fact, I would rather push traditional medicines for the people because sometimes the medicines that you take are or could be harmful to the parts of your body. 

Like I've heard medicines, some medicines, you -- they give you, like, for arthritis, I can't remember that medicine, it's a short name.  I took that for arthritis.  And then they removed it from the pharmacy because it affects your heart. 

Like one doctor had told me that for heart fibrillation -- I mean, my -- like my husband, my husband's heart will be, you know, fluttering.  And if you take Nyquil, that tends to make your heart, doesn't beat right. 

It's the chemical in it, it's very good, and Nyquil, I've tried it when I had really bad cold, you know, you always get -- your nose get clogged up.  And then if you take Nyquil, it just opens up.  It's really good.  But it affects your heart. 

So I'd rather have -- try the traditional medicines for the people, you know. 
And in YK -- YK Delta, some people abuse medicine, you know, which is not good for your body. 

KAREN:  Right. 

PAULA:  Yeah. 

KAREN:  When you first came into Bethel for training, that -- those eight months, how did that work?  What kind of training did you have? 

PAULA:  We covered the whole body, 10 body systems.  Just everything, all the sicknesses and everything about body. 

We even start suturing cuts.  But that was -- we learn how, like in the hospital here, we helped suturing somebody.  But when we went back to the village, doctors didn't allow us to do suturing. 

And other -- other things that we learned how to put cast on people with broken bones, the doctors did not didn't allow us to do that in the -- in the village. 

KAREN:  How did that feel? 

PAULA:  We didn't mind it.  It would have been very handy.  But I didn't mind it, you know.  It's something that you -- you have other alternatives, you know, like the tape, you could close the cut and, you know, tape it.  Or if it's on the head, you could even tie the -- alongside of the cut, you could even tie the hair to close it.  You know. 

KAREN:  It sounds like that schedule when you were here in training was very full.  How did you -- you had children at that time? 

PAULA:  I just had one boy that time.  He was one and two years old, and my mother was still living and took care of him because I let mom come here and -- well, he -- she used to tell me never to have baby-sitters.  And she'd rather watch -- watch him than having somebody else. 

KAREN:  And your husband stayed in Alakanuk? 

PAULA:  Yeah, he stayed in Alakanuk because he was working.  He's a -- he was a social worker and -- and he works with that for 16 years, and then got stressed out when there was some incest going, and changed jobs. 

KAREN:  Well, I think being a health aide would be hard work, and then mixing with the social worker in the family, both of you had hard jobs. 

PAULA:  Yeah.  Working with people all the time.  And -- but I think, you know, each person is gifted in something. 

So I always think that health care, being a health care provider was a good gift for me because I seem to just go -- go in it and just, you know, everything go smoothly. 

Like whenever I have emergencies, I took care of them, seemed to know how to take care of them.  And once they are gone, you know, once we get them to the hospital, that's a relief. 

Sometimes I used to leave in the middle of the night with a charter and come here and go home the same night and nobody knew I had left during the night and come back. 

And then towards the end of my career as a health aide, there was some suicides started.  And that was very stressful.  And because those -- those young people who commit suicide were the people I used to have well child clinic just about every week.  And I knew -- I know those people from the time they were little until they got big.  And I have delivered some of them.  So when they commit suicide, it was tough. 

And we didn't have support groups in those days.  So -- but my husband was the only one that I -- that I can go home and cry on his shoulder. 
But now the health aides have everything.  You know, they have support groups and that goes to the village. 

And we had Village Response Team at home and that helped a lot during the crisis, we would get together and plan on what to do about healing, talking circles.  And YKHC used to let us go to other villages and talk to people and, you know, give them support. 

KAREN:  At that time when there were all those suicides, was that a particular time period that that happened? 

PAULA:  Yeah.  They have, like -- I think in one year, Alakanuk had -- what you call that, oh, chain reaction.  In one year, we had at the very beginning, we had six young people in one year that killed themselves. 

It started out when one student was going to school at St. Mary's, when there was Catholic Mission there, and he hang himself.  And after that, some other boys, girls, either hanged themselves or shoot themselves.  And it was -- it was very hard.  But like I said, you have to be a tough person to continue on, you know. 

KAREN:  Yeah.  I was going to say, how did you get yourself through that hard time? 

PAULA:  And then one other stressful thing like after I became supervising instructor was the health aides, some -- a few health aides having alcohol problems.  And those were the stressful things to take care of.  Besides the emergencies and suicides