Friday, October 10, 2008

School Update

This post may contain graphic content, viewer discretion is advised

For those of you who want a school update here it goes. I am alive and I am finally really enjoying myself ad learning something new every day! As always, the end of the week is brutal, that is why I love Fridays but I love clinical and all of the hands on things that I get to do. Nursing is very fulfilling, I love to see the patients light up when we care for their bare necessities.

My particular patient Thursday, had cellulitis that believe it or not was worse than this picture I googled.


She also had a stoma, so I got to empty her colostomy bag, fun stuff. In addition, it also happened to be her birthday on my DOC so I brought her a present because when I was prepping I noticed in her paperwork that this poor lady had two children who live out of state and whom she never sees and she also happened to be divorced, so she was pretty lonely.

Becasue I am so efficient :) I was able to discharge (d/c) another patients catheter and it was unlike any thing I have ever seen. This man was a parapligic who had previously gotten a catheter accidentally ripped out of him, tearing his penis in half. It looked like it Lorena bobbit got a hold of him, it was awful. He was in isolation so we had to gown up and obviously wear gloves. Before going into the room I had to verbalize what I was supposed to do. Well, normally when a patient has a catheter the urine goes into an enclosed bag that has a drainage bag at the bottom. I was not aware that his bag had a malfunction because I made a huge mistake initially, spilling urine all over the room floor. It was totally not my fault but gross nonetheless. After the d/c we (my instructor and two other student got to watch the RN put in a new catheter. It was a great learning experience and I was the first one in my group to d/c a catheter.

We are also passing meds to patient which is a huge responsibility and next week we start injections. The semester is halfway over and passing by rather quickly.

2 comments:

Alexis said...

I can't believe everything that you are already letting you guys do. I'm glad that there are people out there like you that can handle doing these things, cuz cleaning up my kids vomit & urine, or even poop from the tub is enough for me. And you are too sweet to notice that women's birthday, I am sure that you just made her day.

kirsten and josh said...

girl... i am SO PROUD OF YOU! look at you being a nurse, mother, wife... you never cease to amaze me! seriously, congrats. i love reading your stories and talking with you about school. i wish we were together, but IM SO HAPPY that you are in and doing this. you are amazing. just amazing. love you.