So this week was busy busy busy as we ALL are these days!
3 exams back to back on Thursday which means Wednesday I did
nothing but study all day. Stayed up Wednesday night till around 12 am then
woke up on Thursday morning around 4am. Went through classes from 8am – 5pm and
then Friday I got up at 5am and went to a little community health/business fair
that I had signed up to volunteer at. I took blood pressures with my
sphygmomanometer all morning. Probably took over 200 blood pressure readings. I
feel confident with that skill now! =)
Anyway, I met so many cool people. One old man came to get
his BP taken and his eyes were crazy!!! One eye was looking straight at me and
one was looking to the left. It was the craziest thing I had even seen. So of
course I said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but what’s up with your eyes?” lol he
was happy to share that when he was a kid he had had a surgery done to fix his
double vision and things went wrong. Now he has trained his brain to be able to
use either eye he wants; so he could look at me or the vending machine to our
left without turning his head!!! Crazy! That was an awesome experience.
There also were a lot of really high blood pressures. We’re
talking hypertension readings. All I could do was ask if they had seen their
doctor recently and encourage them to make an appointment because there blood
pressure was high.
Since it was a health fair they had a company called
mountain heart that was doing free 12 lead EKG’s. I got in on that and had a
perfectly normal heart scan. But it was crazy because out of 50 people that
they tested only TWO had normal EKG readings…and I was one of them… it was
crazy how many people had health problems and had no idea and lived like all
the rest of us. Everything was free so we had people coming from off the
streets and stuff.
They were also doing free blood tests to check for HIV and
STDs and stuff. They had all sorts of health tests and health tips. It was way
cool! Wish you could have been there.
Anyway that got over with at around 1pm and I went home and
got some lunch, changed my scrubs into my school outfit, and then went to the
hospital for my clinical at 2:30pm. Boy did I see some crazy stuff!! Absolutely
crazy! We had one lady come in
because her neck and jaw was hurting, not because her ear was hanging by a
thread! Her ear was actually infected causing her neck and jaw to hurt but she
didn’t even come in for stitches or anything like that! I guess she had been in
a fight with some other girl and, trust me, the other girl own! She had bite
marks all over her arms, but her ear was really going to fall off if she hadn’t
of come in.
Another pt had been drinking for the past two days and then
decided to do some car work. He jacked up his truck and some how left it in
neutral and it rolled on top of him. His family found him 3 hours later and
they took him to the emergency room. The truck was running so he had burns all
up and down his body, he had some broken bones, and he was a mess!
There were so many crazy pt’s that evening. And I could go
on and on!
Another pt had tried to commit suicide and drank draino. The
stuff that unclogged your plumbing… yeah… he drank a whole bottle and it burned
all of his insides. Just the stuff that he threw up burned his arms pretty bad.
I can’t even imagine the pain he must have been in with all his insides on
fire. He was vomiting black insides the whole time I was there. Poor guy. That
was sad.
Anther pt had esophageal varices, which means that he’s
arteries in his esophagus were going to burst any time and he was going to
bleed out and die. There was nothing the doctors could do except for transfuse
more blood into him. Which was not what anyone wanted to do because I guess the
hospital was short on blood.. and he was going to die no matter what, but then
you can’t just explain that to the family and not do anything. There are so
many ethical dilemmas in the hospital.
Another pt I took care was an old lady. Everyone was
thinking that she was abused…which made me feel so much worse for her. She had
come in with a broken hip, had surgery, and had gone home. Then she came back
again with another broken hip on the opposite side. They said she slipped in
the shower but when the ambulance got there she was comply dressed…so they were
looking into that. This poor lady though; anything you did hurt her. We had to
turn her every 15 minutes so she didn’t develop bed sores (pressure ulcers) and
that caused her so much pain. It’s heart wrenching! In just that one
afternoon/evening I spent caring for her I loved her. Fed her dinner, helped
with an IV insertion, gave her pills, checked her wounds, did an assessment on
her; did a lot with her!
We finally got done on the floors at 9:30pm and went to have
our post conference. That’s when everyone says how their experience went and
what they learned. It took almost an hour and when it was my turn to share. I
guess my emotions were running really high…or because of the lack of sleep… I
don’t know, but I was laughing and tears were falling and I KNOW my face was
bright red because I could feel it. It was so embarrassing. The thing was that
I was telling a funny story about how I was trying to get dentures in for one
pt before dinner came and I could not for the life of me get them to fit in. I
guess one other nursing student walked by the room as I was doing this and
thought it was pretty funny which I’m sure it was for her. Anyway, I had said
how at the beginning of clinicals it was hard because even things I knew I
could do like feed a pt went totally wrong. Then jesses says, “You should have
seen her!” “Her face was like this close to the pt’s face and …bla bla bla”.
Anyway that’s what started me laughing and that cracked me. I couldn’t stop and
I was a mess. But we finished up and I got myself home safe. Took a shower
(…nasty germs get all over you at clinicals…or that’s how I fell at least). And
then I went to bed! Crazy huh?
Saturday I did absolutely NO schoolwork! Mauahaha. I have
all a’s thus far and I only have 4 more weeks till finals…so unless I really
screw up I’ll pass all my classes no problem; even if I don’t study on
Saturday…right? I hope So!
Anyway, life is good here; in all aspects! Social, spiritual,
physical, everything is just working out. Time is flying, and I couldn’t be
more happy!
