Connecting the dots

So every weekend that I go home it seems that the blog gets neglected (you either get me or the blog update, Mother). So here's what you missed: Last week in theory we spent all week talking about diabetes. We have literally talked about diabetes in every science class we have taken in the past four years of college. If I don't understand it by now, honestly, just throw me out of nursing school. But needless to say, we still spent four hours of theory talking about it some more. I did learn maybe a few things that I didn't know and that were specifically useful in the Med. Surg setting.

In lab we worked more on how to hang IV bags and IV piggybacks, spike the bags, prime the tubing, etc. This was kind of cool since this is something we actually do almost everyday in clinical. However, our lab instructors tend to make every lab take about an hour longer than it really needs to. We also did a lab on positioning and transfer, which was a little bit useful, but honestly we have all been transferring patients for months and pretty much already have it figured out. Our lab on Tuesday was on the peri-operative experience, which means the entire surgery experience from pre-op to PACU. We did a simulation for this where we did stations at pre-op, admission, post-op, and discharge. This was somewhat useful because we got to at least get some hands on experience. Again it took way longer than it needed to.

On Wednesday and Thursday I had clinical. My patient on Wednesday was an older man (my clinical instructor had me on an "old man" streak for a few days). He had lung cancer and was being sent home with hospice care and was very nice. It was a pretty good day but I didn't really feel like I connected with him very much since he was going home later in the day and I didn't really get hit it off with my nurse either. Not that she wasn't helpful, she just wasn't overly willing to teach me.

My patient on Thursday was AMAZING. And I had two nurses, one was the main RN and one was an RN intern, and both of them were great. They were super nice and helpful and answered any of my questions and helped me out when I needed it. My patient was a woman in her 50's who had been newly diagnosed with lung cancer (I also have been on a lung cancer streak lately). She was such a bright and positive person, even with her new diagnoses and the uncertainty of what her prognosis was going to be. We spent a lot of time walking and talking throughout the day, and I even washed her hair for her before I left for the afternoon. This was definitely the first patient that I really felt connected with and I found myself really thinking about after I left clinical. I found myself really hoping that her prognosis would be good and that she would recover. It makes me realize how hard it is going to be for me to separate myself from my patients, which I knew, but it's becoming all too real lately (not in bad way). I had a similar experience with my patient today, but I will write about that later!

The picture is of a concept map that I had to do on a patient, making connections between all of my patients health problems. It's kind of cool to see how all of the conditions that patients have all fit together and relate to each other. It's interesting to make the connections. I feel like I'm learning SOOO much in this rotation. It's crazy.