I finished up my last shift of volunteering at the VA Hospital today so that I can focus on the MCAT. There are aspects I will miss and aspects I will not. But I definitely made some great friends with the nursing staff there and I’m sure it will be nice to stop by and say hi once in a while.
Total Hours Volunteered = 265
My comfort level is slowly on the rise. I actually fed a patient today. He was a lot easier than the other disabled patients in the fact that he could chew very well. I was really nervous at first, but as time went on it got easier. The nurses checked in on me a couple of times
Then I sat in on a patient class about bladder management. It’s kind of overwhelming what catheter procedures spinal cord injury and paralyzed patients have to go through on a daily basis. It got me thinking about what it would be like if I were injured in a similar fashion while on duty or deployed. Would I want to continue living like that? Would that cause me to have suicidal tendencies? Hypothetical food for thought.
These VA nurses know nothing about the military. It’s kinda sad. There so much to be said about knowing military culture when you interact with veterans. The humor is especially unique. It’s hard to describe, but if I had to I would sum it up as a combination of understatements and euphemisms.
Another one of our patients tested positive for MRSA today, so we had to move him away from the other patients. I still don’t fully understand MRSA, I mean I get it but don’t really get it in the full molecular biology sense, and the nurse I asked today really didn’t understand my question. Guess I just need to do more personal research. I’m starting a notebook with all the medical knowledge I’m running into. Ha ha this is turning out to be like a class.
I had to buy some clothes for work here. I grabbed a couple of polo shirts and sweaters, but I still need some more slacks. I still have apprehensions about getting my nice clothes all covered with contagion. *sigh*
I took some time off this morning to catch up on Christmas shopping and shipping. So by the time I got in at the VA it was lunch time and there was a lot of catching up to do. So there I was rushing around the dining room getting all the patients set up, attaching prosthetics, and getting food trays. I bent down to pick up a food tray and as I rose, my face lifted straight into a short blue sparkly skirt, then 2 skirts, then 5! The Chargers cheer leading team had randomly busted through the door with candy canes and posters to autograph. It was the most random thing that has happened to me in weeks, and it took me a minute to register what was going
I helped a patient read though his spinal cord injury orientation packet. Everything from sexual issues to nutrition and home safety.
I never really considered how many different aspects of life you need to change to accommodate a spinal cord injury. It makes me never want to get into motorcycling.
So today was my first day on at the Spinal Cord Injury unit. And the one most important thing I took away from it today was very unexpected: I’m somewhat afraid of patients…
Now hold your horses it’s not as serious as it seems. At first that should be a bad sign to me that I shouldn’t be working in the medical field, but I feel like it’s an acclimation process that I will get settled into. The thing I’m most apprehensive about is patients with MRSA, C. diff, or other contagious and resistant chronic infections. It really is scary stuff to me, but after talking to my mother she says it’s very common. I still don’t know what to think of it.
I think I must have washed my hands a dozen times and used a gallon of antibacterial gel and probably a pallet of gloves.
The charge nurse wanted me to feed a patient today, but I didn’t think I was ready for that just yet. I really don’t want to choke someone on my first day.
As I had expected, the majority of nurses here are very practical but not theoretically knowledgeable. I watched a nurse take a blood sugar reading of a patient, and I asked her how the machine she was using works. All I got was a deer in the headlights look. *Sigh* After a little research I found out it works in a very similar fashion to Karl Fischer water content testing I did as a Pharm Dev assistant .
Warning Science Content: When blood enters the capillary it comes into contact with a glucose oxidizing agent. Then an electric probe attached catalyst reduces the oxidized compound. The amount of electricity required to convert it all back is used to calculate a concentration.
The highlight of the day was when these two plastic surgeons were doing rounds in our unit. One is was a tall guy, I’m assuming the attending and the other……. Oh man. She’s a tall with jet black hair to at about chin length with a perfect tan. I think she’s Hispanic or Cuban. Amazing and my type, only problem is that considering she’s an surgery intern, she’s probably 6 to 10 years older than me and 5 leagues out of mine. 1 or 2 I can deal with but….man. *whew* Let’s just say I hope she hangs out at our nurses station more often.
Overall an interesting day.
