Clinical Week V - MCA II - Props to Trudy!

Wow, how quickly 5 weeks comes and goes. We are officially second semester nursing students! Tonight, Trudy had a pancreatic patient that she did an awesome job with. She was able to insert her first NG tube & I was able to function in the capacity as her first assistant, which essentially means, I hold stuff, prop the patient's head forward and get him to sip water while she runs the line down to his stomach. The placement was so quick, the patient hardly gagged. It went smooth as silk. I was very impressed with Trudy. Gold star moment, red letter day. Yeah, I had to explain red letter to her. LOL!

Tonight was my night for sub-cutaneous (SQ) injections. Heparin and Insulin. I also learned the nuances of using a Lantus pen. The clown who invented the Lantus pen, is obviously not a nurse. It's one of the most difficult things to maneuver when you have to administer a SQ injection. The pen itself is too long and the distance between your fingers and thumb makes it difficult to manuever with one hand. You need someone to hold the patient's skin/tissue, while you work with this dial up pen/needle system. Hate it. Very glad to have the practice with the different syringes on real people, instead of lemons and oranges. No one hollered and one patient thanked me.

My patient this weekend is status post total abdominal hysterectomy. She is doing well and will probably go home tomorrow. I was able to work with my 84 year old patient that I had last weekend. He was talking up a storm and telling me about his big plans for going to the gym after discharge. He was the one that said thanks for the injection. After one week, I am fully convinced that Halidol should be outlawed for the elderly. What a cop out to give something so strong to someone so weak.

Another patient I worked with tonight was having a bad night and was calling out for his wife. It touches my heart to see the aging process, the ups and downs. One of the older gents on oncology was up on a chair, drinking a special cocktail I made for him with 7-up and apple juice and reading vogue magazine like it was the NY Times. He was another patient I could have adopted. Maybe, I am being called to geriatric nursing. It just feels so natural to me. On the other hand, I haven't had my ICU or peds/maternity rotations yet. I really like the older folks. Always have.

Trudy took our practice NG tube to post conference. After one of our classmates gathered all her stuff up for her and brought it to the front lobby, he remarked, "hey, here's your coffee...and your straw!" What a great shift.