3rd Week of Long Term Care

Tomorrow brings the last 2 days of clinicals at long term care... which I'm pretty excited about! I love the instructors in this rotation, but just not the work. Anyways, just wanted to share a story from last week...  

I was caring for a resident who was mostly independent. She suffered a stroke about 10 years ago, and has been living with its consequences ever since. Like I said before, she is mostly dependent, which means she can do activities of daily life mostly on her own (in the long term care setting - not at a house) so I found myself spending most of my time with her just talking to her and her husband, whom she shared a room with.  Besides that I was so thrilled to see this couple still in love and caring for each other so strongly after so many years of life, it was great getting to watch their interactions. Because of her stroke, my resident was

 unable to speak well - she could say some things, and her husband seemed to understand her quite well. A favorite phrase of hers when she was not understood was "oh piss" so as you can imagine, the days were filled with quite a few laughs :)  She also liked to make humming and clicking noises when I was listening to her lungs... Oh and moaned when I gave her insulin shots!  It was funny, but not as funny to my instructor since I didn't get all my assessments done!  Haha, anyways.... 

The BEST part of this story was last Thursday, my last day with her, when it happened to be "Oktoberfest" during lunch at the facility... The tables had beer mugs on them, they served brats, and even tastes of O'Douls beer!  They also had an accordion player singing and playing sauerkraut traditional German music... Now remember how I mentioned above that my resident could not speak very well?   

WELL when I visited her at the lunch table, imagine my surprise to hear her SINGING ALONG with the music.  She knew/said a lot of the words, not to mention was clapping her hands, and had the biggest smile on her face!   Her husband even told me that she had previously

 been standing in front of her wheelchair "dancing"!  I wish I would have seen it - but still, this really touched me and hit home for me the damage a stroke can do.  In her case, the stroke had damaged the speech part of her brain (Left) and because the right side was still intact, she was able to sing almost perfectly!    

I am amazed at what the body can do and can not wait to see what else I will learn from my patients throughout the rest of this 8 months of nursing school!! 

P.S.

LoTs of new pictures up on my shutterfly site! 

      State fair, August trip to Oregon, Scrub pics, ANC Cocktail Party, etc. etc.!

Medical Humor

Maybe its the long hours in lectures, staring at computer screens, memorizing endless terminology or a little bit of everything but these clips from YouTube are funny to us nursing students. Today on our lunch hour, I was shown these two clips so I had to pass them on....!

This first one is called "Bringing Nursing Back"... the beginning is long and boring, so skip ahead about a minute....  The second is self-explanatory, and shorter.... Sorry if you think these are not funny at all :)

Bringing Nursing Back

Anesthesiologist Hymn

First Time

Second week of clinicals started today, still long term care, but today I got to care for a patient who needs blood glucose checks before meals so I got to do that a couple times, and then give insulin injections twice as well! It was actually a lot easier then I expected, but the needle wasn't too big or anything :)  It just slid into the skin nice and easy, no .... haha thats about all the description I can give without freaking people out (like Jeremy!) so I'll stop.   Today I also got to pass meds, which was pretty cool as well.  My patient was on quite a few (24) so it took a few minutes!  It helped me start to realize more what the role of a nurse is versus a nursing assistant in the long term care setting.   

Enough about me for now -- I keep trying to get Jeremy to blog, he's not quite convinced yet though, so I'll do it for him... He is starting  a new job tonight, well, today he is observing the group of students he will be teaching starting next week (I think thats when).   I think the job sounds perfect for him, its an anatomy/physiology class for personal trainers going to this tech-school type college for their Personal Fitness Trainer Diploma.  So basically he teaches basic level anatomy and also a "lab" where he gets to teach them about how to personal train!   We'll see how it goes - maybe in a week or two he'll be typing here and telling us all how it went :)

First Days of Clinical Rotations...

Well I survived my first 2 days of clinicals!  I was placed into long-term care for the first four weeks, and man will I be happy to get them over with and out of the way!   Without violating HIPPA I'll keep it simple and say that the resident I was to take care of was essentially okay besides having severe dementia and impaired short and long term memory.. I did have to change a few briefs which is well, NOT very fun.     Although some students got to pass meds this week, I did not, which was disappointing. Next week though!  That means hopefully I will be giving  insulin and or other injection based drugs... no I have not done this yet, but I'm excited/nervous to try :) 

First Day of School!

Well as most of you know, Monday was my first day of nursing school.... It went well... Despite having several minor heart attacks worrying about traffic, I made it there in only 30 mins and was plenty early enough :)  Most of the day was spent listening to different faculty members introduce themselves and tell us about different aspects of the school and program.  We had a long lunch hour which I spent wondering around campus with a group of classmates. It was a very hot and sunny day, so it was nice to be outside for a bit. 

Tomorrow our first real class/lab happens, its from 8-noon and 1-5.  We'll see how it goes!  

Time to find my stethoscope and watch with a second hand (we're doing vital signs tomorrow)

Oh and if you couldn't figure it out, the picture is of me on my first day of school, couldn't let my mom down who was sad to not see me off on this adventure - you got to watch me leave for almost all my other first days though!   

A Month Later

July was a fun month - it flew by though!   August has been flying by as well - I can not believe it is already the 20th... I start school in like 4 days on Monday the 25th!   I am sooo nervous, and excited at the same time.  As I have mentioned to some of you, it is already a tough program, I already took two mini quizzes online and have another two due the first week of school!   I guess thats what I get for doing a full BSN/RN program in a year :) 

So, what have we been up to lately?   Just trying to make the most of our days, most days. Sometimes its best just to be lazy and hang out by the pool, or at the apartment watching the Olympics....

*We definitely have Olympic fever!  I have stayed up almost every night until midnight watching the coverage -- my favorite being the girl gymnasts and my swimming phenom. Michael Phelps!  He was amazing!  We actually were at a bar right down the road (trying to watch the Seahawks vs. Bears preseason NFL game - which was NOT on any channels here in the midwest) when Phelps won #8.  It was great, everyone in the whole place, including the cooks who were NOT in the kitchen, was cheering the relay on... Very cool atmosphere! 

We also took a quick trip back to Forest Grove, Oregon thanks to Jeremy's parents (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU AGAIN).  The first part of the trip we spent camping near Bend.  Despite a little bit of resistance (and a tiny tiny bit of crankiness) I managed to reach the summit of South Sister... what a hike!   Actually, more like climbing a mountain!  It was both a physical and emotional challenge.  Jeremy, his younger brother Matt, his parents, and myself, were climbing for about 9 hours - it was around 6.5 miles up.  Needless to say, I was VERY sore then next two days!   Jeremy was a little sore, his mom got a bit sunburnt, his dad broke his hiking shoes,

 and well, Matt didn't even notice we had done a hike!   Ah well, I got some good pictures so check them out on Shutterfly soon....    

After the couple days of camping, we got to spend the rest of the vacation just relaxing at the house in Forest Grove.  I finally got to meet some good friends of Jeremys that he grew up with it at a little BBQ we held at his parents. Lynn and Geoff came down from Redmond, THANK YOU AGAIN AS WELL, it was great to see you both!   Congrats on the baby bump being a girl ;)     

One disappointment was that we did not get to visit my family (and parents) who were in Boston while we were in Oregon. I was, and am, thinking of you all and miss you lots! 

Okay well, that about sums up the last month or so. I hope that everyone is well.... Here in the midwest everyone is heading back to school now - back home you all have a little while, so enjoy the rest of summer!     Lots of love!