ben catch-a-dog: spontaneity at it's best

Amazing day at clinicals with a bittersweet end.

I loved the ICU today. I want to go back to ICU and stay there. STAY THERE. It was such an amazing experience, being able to have a mentor that wanted me there. Even though I only HELPED my nurse, I felt as if though I was doing a lot of things crammed into a small period of time. I think having a nursing mentor that actually wants you there and also being incredibly proactive is what facilitates a great learning environment and therefore help in the learning process. Today really really helped me learn everything and DO everything to the best of my ability. 

Today had a lot of pt drama, but I won’t get into that. And I’m too lazy to explain every little part of what happened today so here’s my list of accomplishments!

• Changed dressings on a man with 5+ superficial, raw, round, open wounds in the peri-area, sacral area, and dorsal dorsal r/t a past allergic rxn to doxycycline 
• Helped with PICC Line Care Dressings
• Assisted in a central line placement 
• Changed more dressings using flexiderm(?); I forget what it was called
• Trach care, removal and replacement of disposable ETs; cleaned around; dressed it up
• Trach suctioning
• Anal lavage (? i have NO IDEA WHAT it was called, but the nurse and I were just rinsing what looked to me like an anal catheter…)
• Pyxis machine/IV machine/Continuous tube feeding machine —  still getting used to them at this facility… so different… -__-
• NG tube care 
• PEG tube care
• PEG/NG tube med admin - so much funn!
• Blood cultures from the PICC line
• Blood cultures from a periphery 

I’m pretty sure I’m missing some things! But you have a general idea! It was a good day to practice some nursing skills… but I still need to work on analyzing the data and my assessments and formulating Nx Diagnoses, using the information to report, and synthesizing the information to do useful and meaningful intervention, as well as being an advocate. 

A lot to work on. And the end was bittersweet because I got a text that our test scores were up. The whole drive home I was dreading to check my score. Last night I had a NIGHTMARE that I would have to drop out of nursing school because I had a low score… well in the dream it was a daunting 60 percent. So I woke up with my heart beating fast, and I was saying to myself, “did i just really just dream that?!” Someone get me some Ativan or some Valium STAT!

But I got home. And lets just say that this amazing day at clinicals had a bittersweet SWEET end. 

THANK YOU TO ALL THAT answered my question about prioritization this past week! That insight really helped me on my test ! :)