Patient, Nurse, and Technology Advocate.
Stay Connected |
Being a patient is a difficult task for me.
I’m used to being the leader, the provider, the organizer, the nurse, but never the patient.
But when the diagnosis of a brain tumor stops you dead in your tracks, you have no choice but to become a patient. Then again, I should know better. As Six Until Me and Chronic Babe have already taught me, We Are All Patients.
The intention was to return to work on Tuesday following my appointment on Monday. I was supposed to go in and get a release, but instead I got admitted to the hospital.. again… So that makes for 3 admissions for this particular ailment. Then again, I guess a brain tumor isn’t just a routine illness.
Considering the fact that I had been sleeping 16 hours a day, all day, staying up all night, having absolutely no energy, and drinking nearly my weight in water every day, it probably was the most appropriate choice. Needless to say, I was a bit upset about it at the time. I really just want to get my life back in order,and frequent hospital admissions aren’t exactly the routine in my life.
Nurses week is celebrated every year from May 6th until May 12th, which is also Florence Nightingale’s birthday. This static celebration has been in place since 1993 in order to facilitate better planning. This weeks serves as an opportunity to take special notice of the contributions that nurses make to the community. For a brief history on nurses week you can visit the American Nurses Association.
Although it’s generally never been uncommon for many to enter into the profession of nursing after receiving post-secondary educations and degrees in other fields, the number of middle-age nursing students appears to be on the significant rise lately. In fact, the number of people pursuing later careers in life sciences in general today appears to be increasing. But as a direct case in point for nursing, the next graduating class of 40 from Heartland Community College’s two-year nursing program in Normal, Illinois, has zero “traditional” students scheduled to become RNs on May 18th.
Recently I received an Exergen TemporalScanner Thermometer to review and was pleasently surprised with just how simple and efficient it is. It’s so easy to use that even my toddler had it mastered in a matter of seconds and was going around the house attempting to get the temperature of everyone in sight.
In my opinion temporal artery scanning is the most efficient and therefore the best way to take the temperature of your child. In my experiences both as a nurse and a patient, temporal artery scanning caused the least discomfort and inconvenience for both the healthcare provider and the patient as well as providing and accurate temperature.
In my years of bedside care I often had to go outside of the 30 minute window for timed medications for the benefit of the patient. Most of the times these times are arbitrary anyhow. If a medication is ordered once per day it doesn’t really matter what time of day the patient gets it. It should fit within their normal routine not within what the pharmacy schedules it. I never once received any sort of reprimand for my medication timing. I often had to request the scheduled times for medications be changed by the pharmacy, but many times I had to give the medication at a different time and documented the reason why.
Recently I was hospitalized for a week in a large university hospital. In those 7 days only one of my nurses spoke English as a first language. The rest of the nurses had thick accents. I couldn’t pinpoint where exactly, but Haitian if I had to guess. Their accents made it difficult for me to understand them. I also noticed they often seemed to have difficulty understanding me. It was no uncommon for me to have to rephrase my questions or requests in order to get a response from them that was appropriate. Even after rephrasing my questions, their most common answer was “I’ll have to ask to doctor.”
It would seem that if you are performing surgery specifically to remove a brain tumor, and when you get inside there is no brain tumor, you’d stop, right?
You wouldn’t dig around for your own satisfaction. You already knew it wasn’t cancerous, so you don’t need to look for anything else.
He extra time in my head lead to the CSF leak which made for the most miserable 7 days of my life.
I had to have a lumbar drain inserted to relieve the pressure of the CSF. If I wanted to lift my head off the bed at all I had to call a nurse to clamp the drain or else my brain my squeeze through the holes in my skull. (And that lovely gem came straight from the mouth of one of my nurses to another nurse… that really comforted me. Let me tell ya)
All kinds of people become nurses, but those with a technical mind and an eye for technology can really make the best kind of nurse. In addition, being a science geek certainly pays off, particularly if you enjoy chemistry, since you’ll have to take about two years of chemistry to get a bachelor’s of science in nursing. The best nurses have a bit of nerd and a lot of good communication skills. Since you have to work in a team, it’s good if you can talk to other people, including patients and doctors. So what other things do nerds have those typical nursing students don’t? Read on.
One of the primary pitfalls of nursing is the strong likelihood that you will have to work on holidays. While we all understand the need and importance of having to work holidays as a nurse, it does not take away from the fact that sometimes it’s just frustrating to be away from your family at these times.
| ||||||||||||||||
Recent Comments