Busy Busy Busy

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!

I love you All!!