What'd you do this week? Here's what I did:
Sunday: work 630-7
- had a patient say to me "I really trust you"
- had a patient go into vtach just raising his head to take a drink because his heart is so weak
Monday: Chemotherapy 9-130
- decided it is very disturbing to watch somebody in a gown and monster gloves hook something up to another human being that can't even be taken out of the bag it is in
Tuesday: Breast Center 9-4
- held a frightened woman's hand while she had a breast biopsy done
Wednesday: work 630-7
- coaxed frightened patients it really was ok to get out of bed, even though their chests had been cut open
- collaborated with my fellow nurses to send a singing-fat-suited-lady birthday telegram to one of the heart surgeons
Thursday: Breast Conference (big meeting with every type of oncology MD) 7-8
- listened to a big group of burly men and a few women talk about how to best preserve and protect women's lives
Radiation 830-12
- entertained the thought that the patients in the radiation department are probably 2nd only to Walter Reed in missing body parts
- concluded that I would have to think long and hard and long about whether I'd personally have radiation or chemo
- was disturbed again by watching a person get shut in a room behind a foot thick gigantic door so they could be torched by a beam
Friday: Home Heath 9-4
- asked for directions at what was called a gas station in Whitwell (pronounced as a one syllable word sounding something like Whutwull) but was hardly able to understand the answer
- walked into some houses where I was more scared to touch anything than in the hospital
- got hugged by a smiling retared girl who had something unmentionable all over her shirt but I just smiled and hugged her right back subconsciously thinking "I'm going to wash this white lab coat as soon as I get home"
* Decided nursing can either be the most rewarding or depressing field depending on your perspective
Last week about this time I was just finishing the prelude at first service at the Collegedale church. I decided while sitting in the bowels of the organ during 2 sermons that church musicians are underappreciated. Out of 19 things on the program, the organ played 10. That's a lot to prepare for if you were doing it every week, all the little calls and responses... Unless you play very simple things all the time, preparation on some songs can take months. And most often SDA musicians never get paid for what they do. Tragic really. I've decided I'm going to thank the church musicians I see more often.
Ryan and I left on Tuesday to head for his house in Charlotte. Wednesday he had surgery on his knee. Its just not quite the same seeing somebody you love on that gourney in a hospital gown with oxygen up their nose as it is my everyday patients. (This is a before picture by the way, but after some wonderful Versed.) Hopefully this will fix his knee pain so he can get back to sports full tilt in... oh... November. I left that evening and am now back at home in Raleigh where I went and watched some physical therapy at my mom's work on some spinal cord injury and stroke patients. Its amazing to see how a person's focus can be riveted on one thing so seemingly simple as moving a foot. I've also had a few shopping sprees at the amazing sales at Kohls (and two grocery stores). We'll see what else this week of vacation at home has in store...
