#anyway the clinic im waiting at for a consultation is playing really good music so that's nice | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tintoki · 3 years

Text

before I forget, 4/29/21:

[✨~songs i’ve been listening to these days~✨: a thousand miles & ordinary day by vanessa carlton; deja vu & all I want & driver’s license by olivia rodrigo; binibini by zack tabudlo; avid by sawanoHiroyuki; gurenge & homura by LiSA; renegades by ONE OK ROCK]

today is officially may 1st, but on 4/29/21 i had clinicals again. Last day of clinicals for fundamentals N301! almost wrapping up the 1st sem of nursing school here. 📚👩🏻‍💻🩺 it’s a weird feeling.

Anyway, I didn’t really have much sleep the night before clinicals, so I woke up super drowsy 😴 (as always). I left the apartment a little later than I usually do- hit both green and red lights this time, so I was thinking ‘ok, maybe today won’t be as great today. maybe it’ll be half and half.’

Arriving to the parking lot, I walked with shelly down to the facility. today was my med pass day! I was nervous, but I’m happy to say it was a good experience. I’m happy it were only Haley and I left to pass out meds - and we passed out a lot!

Sheila, our wonderful nurse, directed me to take vitals for 1B, and so I did. It’s been a long time since I’ve done vitals on a patient by myself, so I took a super long time getting respirations (ughhh). Afterwards, Kristan gave Haley and I our list of meds to look at. ‘Not too bad...’ I thought, but still nervous. I went first.

I’m so glad Haley was my partner, I wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s so great and smart and knowledgable but also realistic and just so real at the same time. She’s going to be a great future nurse. She helped me do my med check at the bedside while Kristan was passing me my meds 💊. I popped meds from a burst-pack for the first time lol and of course, I had to drop one on the floor. But it’s alright! Discarded that one 🚮. Meds were delivered ✅: right patient, right time, right med, right dose, right route, right documentation, and right reason.

After that, Haley got to pass meds to her patient. I watched her techniques on how she administered them to a drowsy and non-talkative patient (basically just talk at a good volume and guide them through it. offer lots of fluids. give them a choice still).

THEN.... I got to deliver meds into a G-tube patient for the first time (!!!). I was NOT expecting to do that lol. I got to see what it was like to apply a lidocaine patch, see her Fentanyl patch, see her G-tube location and if there’s any abnormalities; give her her nebulizer/breathing treatment.

(Note to self: before administering anything in the G-tube --

ALWAYS note input!

Add syringe 💉 FIRST to port BEFORE opening port. Port to tube feeding is OFF

Flush first (mL) -- w/ water, I guess 🚰

For the meds -- crush, mix with whatever medication (if possible), and dilute a little bit w/ water. Mix with syringe.

Add meds to med port.

Flush again with some more water, noting volume

Turn port OFF. Place back to feeding port?)

Man, I even gave her morphine. That’s some next level stuff for me for a first try lol. For the nebulizer, I got to piece it together and try to give it to her. Only thing to note for that is that it stays on for about 5-15 mins; 10 mins average.⏱

What else happened...

I asked Kristan a crap ton of questions, lol. She laughed at my small sticky note 📒with questions on it. My questions were in regards to the IM injection, ethics committee & who to consult, uhh… fall risk patients and padded floor mats (what counts as a fall?), care plan with health care team members only, union, NSO, and… I can’t remember 😫.

Other things I got to do that day were to change a wound dressing and to help irrigate it (notes: add chuck underneath and re-dress with gauze in an ‘X’ formation). Stage 4 is unknown… I think. That was cool. I also got to do a bladder scan on a patient and that was also cool (bladder scan for urine retention OR if they’re not producing enough urine; seeing how much is left over in the bladder post urination and if that is due to retention or not enough fluid output). Our patient for the bladder scan was Greek and she was sooooo funny. What a savage. You can tell she’s lived a good life and was very satisfied with her way of living.

Hm. I think after that we kind of had a post conference and then I asked more of my questions. We spilled all the tea ☕️ on Renea the devil 👺 and found out that Kristan is classmates with her. Learned from Kristan some life lessons about the healthcare system and nursing bullying. It’s gonna happen, but the best response is to do what you can do. Afterwards, I walked around with some of my group mates, and ultimately it just became Shelly & I trying to figure out what to do next. We went to find Sheila and asked her if we could watch her and she said yes! She asked us to set up another nebulizer and then she showed us a couple of things: wound approximation, insulin pen, med room, crash cart. She was very passionate about showing us these things. I’m glad we met her. There was also a patient who seemed kind of sad and lonesome.. I never got her name, but I wish I spent more time with her during our last day to give her some comfort and take away some of that loneliness. 😢

I think… after that, that was pretty much it? It was a very nice learning opportunity that day and stress free. I wish I could have learned more. Shelly and I said goodbye to the two patients we loved (Greek lady and lonely lady), and we finally found Sheila to say goodbye to. She teared up as we thanked her. “Goodluck to you guys. You’re going to do great.” 🤍

When Shelly and I left, I told her how I wanted to tell Derick “goodbye,” but I was not able to find him. So leaving the facility without saying bye to the friend I made felt really… mmm, idk the word? No closure? Incomplete maybe. “Eh it’s okay. He probably doesn’t care anyway LOL,” Shelly laughed. “That’s true,” I said back. And with that, we went to the parking lot.

Madison and Jazel waited for us while everyone else already left for home. It was probably around 13:50? I got a few missed calls from Frank, who texted me ‘Hi’. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard from that person. Anyway, Shelly suggested the idea of eating out for lunch since it was our last day of clinical and so we decided to carpool in my car and go somewhere nearby (we went to Cava). It was fun to get lunch with them. I just remember laughing a lot about stupid stuff from clinical and random stuff in general). We drove to and back listening to blank space and a thousand miles lol. I felt bad for playing the music too loud.

By the time 14:45 ish came, I drove them back to the clinical facility parking lot, where their cars were. As I was driving out, guess who I saw. It was Derick! He was on his way back to his car I guess, shift finished for the day. I drove up and rolled my window down with a thousand miles playing in the background.

“Thank you for all your help this semester. I really appreciated it. It was nice meeting you!”

“You’re welcome. Take care and good-luck.”

“You too!”

And with that, I drove off smiling. Happy I got my goodbye in with that luck. Bittersweet feeling, I guess.

I drove home but with a headache singing out loud to music in the car and then admiring the skies again😭. Once I got home, I showered and took a nap. Around 19:30, Issac arrived and we watched the demon slayer movie again!

It was a good day.

#prsnl #life of a student RN

0 notes