Death, Dying, and Suicide

Today has been a really weird day. It is my clinicals day, so I was at the hospital just going through my routine...

0600 arrive at hospital
0645 stand-up
0700 vitals
0800 assessment on assigned pt, help nurse with her other vitals
0900 med pass, get pt breakfast

You get the idea. I was just going along, minding my own business.

Then, out of nowhere, Country Boy comes and sits down to start charting at the computer next to me! But wait, he's dead. After a double/triple/quadruple check, I noticed it was a doctor that looked just like him! Down to the facial hair, height, and his voice sounded a lot like him too. Not to mention that the way he walked and his personality were so much like CB it was insane.

Needless to say, I nearly had a freakin' heart attack. No joke. My heart was doing all sorts of weird rhythms, I got faint (even though I was already sitting down), I got flushed, nauseous, my ears started ringing, my eyesight went kinda tunnel vision-y, and then all the emotions from when I was first coping all came rushing back. It felt like a train just smashed into me head-on. I nearly lost it and could have started crying if I hadn't been conditioned to not cry in front of others.

Y'all, I thought I was doing well. I go to sleep thinking about him still. I wake up still thinking about him. Throughout the day things randomly remind me of him, so I start remembering him that way too. Still, I haven't been as bad as I was the first few days. After being able to knock myself out with a Tylenol PM and sleep my weekend away, I was beginning to focus on my pain and anger less. I thought that meant I was coping better with the whole situation. Turns out, I was just too busy with school and being embarrassed about my awkwardness with my IT boss to remember how badly this hurts. I got a rude wake-up call today with that doctor/Country Boy impersonator.

1030 a pt goes down for proceedure
1100 more meds
1115 primary starts blood transfusion and has to stay with pt for 15 minutes while I run around watching her rooms because we have 1 CNA for the entire floor (poor lady!)
1215 pt comes back from procedure and I help transfer her from gurney to bed
1245 I finally leave that pt's room to answer call lights and IV alarms going off (they just got brand new IV pumps that nobody knows how to work and they ALL insist on making as much noise as possible all at the same time
1345 I finally get a break and look at my phone... oops

So, I buried my head in my work and my nurse's work all day. I was so busy that I couldn't go to lunch with the rest of my clinical group at 1130 and my professor got upset with me. Well, that's what I've heard from several sources who also sent me multiple texts while they were with her. My phone was in my pocket and I was trying to figure out how to juggle the 8233479085847526458787 things that were all requiring my attention at the precise moment I needed to go to lunch. 2 hours later I finally got a break, checked my phone and... oh man, a billion texts and a missed phone call. Maybe I should have just ditched my primary RN and gone to lunch?

I took a lunch. I sat down, rested, had my food, and drank a bunch of water. It's not like I'm going to pass out from not eating and I'm not going to work too hard somewhere where I am essentially free labor so that I don't get any breaks and cannot get away to pee. My time for that will come when I can write my name with RN following and I have that nice paycheck and all the responsibility to complete all the patient tasks on my own. Why does my professor think I won't take care of myself? I don't even talk during lunch and it's almost harder for me to go to lunch because one of my old roommates (the one that REALLY didn't like me) and I just get nasty comments and dirty looks. That's no way to spend a lunch break. It gives me stress ulcers and heart palpitations just thinking about that torture.

For those future nursing students out there, that is what clinicals sort of looks like. Keep in mind that it was just a full moon a couple of days ago so there were behaviors today and a lot of extra work that has not been present any of the other 3 days that I've had clinicals so far. But, now you might be able to get a better picture of what you do at clinicals.



I just remembered why I titled this post as I did. The subject of suicide, death, and dying keeps coming up today and for the past week since I found out about CB taking his own life. Today, in particular, we talked about it in our clinical post-conference. I am reading about suicide in my developmental psych study guide. And I was again confronted with my mourning for CB. All of this, in addition to my already ridiculously stressful week, has just pushed me under. Guys, it's only Wednesday!

Medical TV Shows

I follow the blog The Days When I'm Not a Nurse and she starts a blog discussion about various topics every month. This month it is about medical TV shows.

Seeing as I have watched almost everything that has anything to do with medicine since I was a ripe old age of 5, I would say that I have a little to say about the subject.

First, I would like to say that my favorites include (but are not limited to): Scrubs, House, Birth Story, Teen Mom (has little to do with medicine except for the delivery part of the show, but I like seeing the babies), Emily Owens M.D., and Mystery Diagnosis. Also, Call the Midwife is probably my favorite because it is so stinkin' cute in all ways!!!

With that said, I do find most of the shows highly unrealistic but fairly fascinating. I really like Mystery Diagnosis because it a real-life account of some House quality mysteries. I like House because he is cynical, sarcastic, and ridiculously smart. Plus, they have really cool, weird diseases/symptoms. Emily Owens is so cute and awkward that it brings me comfort because I am much like her, just less pretty. Scrubs reminds me of my dorky guy friends so that helps me with home-sickness, and one of the main characters is a NURSE! Ya, that never happens. We need more shows about nurses, folks, because they have so many funny and interesting stories. Call the Midwife, Teen Mom, and Birth Story are also so interesting to me because I am obsessed with birth, pregnancy, babies, and all related information to the labor and delivery process. I have been since before I ever started preschool and my fascination continues to grow each year.

So, we need more nursing shows that are fictional, but that bring in the hilarious encounters that nurses actually face. I have read many stories that had me bawling and hiccuping from laughing so hard. Guys, that is my favorite Saturday night entertainment. Then there are the stories of how nurses touched families and helped them through difficult times in their life. Unfortunately these stories hardly get shared even though they happen all the time. That is what nurses do and I think it would help the general population understand just a tiny bit of what nurses bear and go through for their patients.

Do you have any shows you would like to add? I'm sure I missed a bunch of shows and points. Ultimately, these shows are just for vegging, not for learning or for portraying reality. They are some of my guilty pleasures...






P.S.
        I got a 92% on my BHA test today!

Syringes!!!

Guys, we got to play with syringes and injections today!!! Oh man, you have no idea how excited I am especially because we didn't even know that we would get to do that today. We didn't really get to give any injections, we just practiced reconstituting a powdered injection. I worked with my 2 best gals who will be named N and E for now. E was one of the pre-nursing students that I met last year because they lived in the dorm room next to my guy friends. N is a girl that I met the first day of class and the three of us just kinda stick together now, it's perfect! I just wish N was in our lab group for BHA, but she is in the same lab room at the same time so I'm sure we can all work together anyway.

Back to the subject: they were trying to get the liquid out of one vial to put it into the vial containing the powdered "medicine" (it was fake just to help us practice) but they didn't know how to get the liquid out because you can't just pull it out with the syringe due to the lack of pressure because the vial is completely sealed. Long story short, I talked them through putting air into the syringe and then into the vial to get the liquid moved. Then, I talked them through the safety cap when they handed me the original cap. I proceeded to explain why you don't put the original cap on and 30 seconds later the teacher explained it to the class (he hadn't heard me). They both looked at me and started laughing because I knew all this stuff. Folks, I felt so smart being able to talk them through that simple little task. With this fun little exercise and actually beginning assessment lab yesterday, I am on cloud 9 right now with nursing school and as the knowledge increases, I get more and more excited for what comes next. I know it gets harder, but it will get more fun and exciting too.

I hope you guys like getting the updates about all of these silly little things that happen during nursing school because I looked through so many blogs looking for info like this but I didn't find anything. I know I am not so great at telling stories, but hey, it just reinforces that I need to be a nurse and not a writer, right? Give me feedback please about if you like what I'm writing or if you want me to go over other things. I appreciate any help anyone is willing to give me. :)

Found Some New Blogs

These new ones I stumbled upon are fantastically witty and slightly sarcastic. I love them! I wish I wrote more like these people, but perhaps I can learn to write how I talk instead of writing like a 4 year old... perhaps. Until then, look them up and enjoy. One of them reminds me of Dr. Cox from Scrubs. I love his sarcastic remarks and rants. Check them out!