Nursing school

This is the first semester of Nursing School...It is a lot of work a lot of fun, stress, crying, and laughing. This section we work on the elderly patients who need long term care... I thought I was going to hate every minute of this section of the course, changing diapers, giving baths, dealing with the nurses, but in fact the opposite happened...I enjoyed every minute of it... I guess working in emergency medicine for so long I have seen a lot of bullshit...but these patients were really sick...and I felt like I was helping them...

I worked on the TCU unit at the hospital my first patient was a lady who had dementia. She would be able to eat on her own but she would forget what she was doing by the time she put the spoon down...I had to keep reminding her to eat. She had an adorable personality, always saying please and thank you. smiling at me when i would help her

 My next patient was a woman who was admitted for A-Fib...she had a valve replacement and had been in the hospital for 3 weeks. she had good days and bad days, she put up with me as a student and i could tell she was trying so hard to be patient with me while i was asking her questions she had been asked a million times....

The third patient was a gentleman who had a lot of problems, CHF, COPD,and Pnuemona for part of them...Every morning he had to have a breathing treatment...He loved having me around it seemed...His family didn't come to visit, no one did...He said they were too busy for him....He mentioned his son had promised to bring him a pair of slippers a few weeks back....the slippers never arrived...I sat and talked to him for a while he had an interesting life and loved talking about it, Military service WWI, delivering Ice Cream to the White House, Having Coffee with the president, How he met his wife....

Next week will be my last week on the Unit...then I transfer hospitals and begin Med Surg....which will be a lot busier and have less opportunities to actually get to know my patients as people....