Manning up

I don't know when I got so terrible at updating this every week. Geeze. This week I think we will just move past the mundane update about what we learned in theory (acute pain and respiratory alterations if you really want to know). Clinical was much more of an experience last week though and I guess it's important that I talk about that. So last week was the first time we were able to start taking two patients on our own. We have only been taking one until we really got the feel of the floor and learned how to do everything and chart all of the things we do on our own. Now that we have that done, it's much easier for us to take two patients on our own, and it also gives us a better idea of what it's like to be a real nurse, since obviously a real nurse wouldn't only have one patient per day.

So Wednesday was my first day of having two patients. I also had two different nurses which was a little confusing just because I had to try to get report with both of them and then find each of them to keep them updated or ask a question. It was fine though. My one patient was a woman not much older than my mom, but she looked like she was probably 75. I also had this patient on Thursday and she really was the only patient I connected with enough to remember from last week. My other two patients were both fairly simple post-op patients. Anyway, this patient had been a heavy smoker and was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. She was an amazing lady and I loved getting to know her over the two days that I was with her. She was another patient though that made me realize that I am going to need to toughen up as a nurse.

I have never denied knowing that my biggest problem with nursing was going to be getting too emotional with patients or getting too attached. As a side note: the hospital has therapy dogs that come in on Thursdays and visit with the patients and families. So when the dogs came into my patients room she just started crying because she loved them so much. I got really teary about it and realized that I definitely do get too emotional. She also got upset earlier in the day when her blood pressure was too low and it broke my heart that she was so upset. I came back into the conference room and told Lisa that I need to MAN UP. Ahhh I know it's okay to be emotional, but I worry that I'm going to be too much of a baby sometimes. Lol. I guess it's all just part of the learning experience :)