Half way done with clinicals...crazy...

Well – hello again :) I think my last post was right before I began my clinical experience…and an “experience” it has been! Yikes! We start off with a week at a nursing home, one week off, then a week at a hospital. It probably would have been helpful for me to write and vent at the time all the craziness was happening – but honestly I was trying my best to find a way to put the experiences behind me. I’m finally now at a place where I can sort of laugh about things…so…here goes the rundown…

Nursing Home…we’re paired up with a partner (one “main caregiver” and one the “assistant”) and assigned one resident for the day…

Day 1 – My first patient ever was a sweet lady (5'9 but only 76lbs) – and hospice – meaning she’s REALLY sick. You aren’t labeled hospice until you have 6months or less to live. She’d been there 3 months already and talked about how it would be long. Her daughter was visiting her and NOT happy that we were taking a while to get our stuff done. You see, we have to get an instructor to watch and evaluate us the first time we do ANY procedure (we even had to have someone see us wash our hands and introduce ourselves to the patient…ugh). That means, with a class of 22 and only 4 instructors, we are always having to get ready and then wait to start a procedure until our instructor gets around to us. So, I have this really upset family member breathing down my neck and it’s the first time I’m trying anything on a real live person – freaky. Anyways, at one point my instructor was watching me do something and the patient all of a sudden stopped breathing – she was bent in half trying to find a position she could get some air – just gasping but making almost no noise – freaky- my partner backed up to the wall with her hands up …some help she was (actually she’s great – neither of us knew what to do) I told my instructor that she was turning blue and she just looked at me like “so what? What ya gonna do about it?” Now, I know she was a “do not resuscitate” patient – but there HAD to be something we could do…something to comfort her, something to assure her or me, at least treating her like a person. I know she’s dying – but she’s still alive now! It made me so upset. After about a minute or two she started breathing again. I was so relieved – but sort of shaken. The instructor had the nerve of asking me if I was ready to check off on the sort of exercises we do. I didn’t really give an answer except saying that I thought she needed a break. We wore her out – were probably a part of the reason she had a breathing crisis – I couldn’t do anything more to her even if it meant my grade. I ended up sneaking over to the dinning room and getting her tray for lunch. I put it in front of her before the instructor got back (she said she’d give her a 15min break – how kind of her…ugh) so when she got back I said “sorry, she’s eating. Guess we can’t do anything more to her today” I felt kinda good about it because I knew we’d be hurting more than helping…but the instructor wasn’t happy. Anyways – I cried about it all later. Our job mainly involves hygiene and transport – not medicine – there’s something very hard about simply standing by while someone gasps for air and starts to suffocate – it’s crazy – I’m not hardened or able to distance myself like the instructors. It makes me really consider whether I can do this job….moving on….

Day 2 – this time was supposed to be easier since I was the “assistant” – not the one being tested. However, we got a patient who growled like an animal and cussed us out for the whole 6 hours. The CNA told us the wrong injured side (meaning we did procedures wrong the first half of the day) and he was really difficult too. He tried to make us mess up. We’d put him in position for a procedure and he’d, for example, hide his hand under his back when you looked away. SO frustrating! And it’s hard enough to start out new with out someone saying over and over “you’re not going to be able to do it – cause you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.” He grabbed my shirt and started to gather more and more of it in his first and pulled me off balance. He scared my partner and I wasn’t too comfortable around his either. At one point my instructor told us to hurry up and get done before he hit us. Ugh.

Day 3 – Sweet lady with Alzheimers – Also a hospice patient (this means both my first 2 patients were hospice) no one else ever had to deal with hospice – it’s hard…didn’t feel like it was fair…but what can ya do? She fluxed from happy oblivious to angry/scared from minute to minute – she’s forget what we were in the middle of doing and get upset – Not her fault…just tough. The CNA yelled at us that day too – not really our fault but we still just had to take it (after all – she didn’t tell us our patient had Alzheimer’s – the would have been helpful – better than having to find out ourselves). That day I had to test off on feeding people – a different instructor was with me than the day before – so she ended up assigning me to feel yesterday’s angry patient. I told her I couldn’t because he hated me – she said “o, I’m sure that’s not true – besides, maybe he won’t remember you.” I walked over to the table and he growled at me – I leaned over to her and said “ummm, I think he remembers” – still had to help him. He’d wait til I got my hands close to his mouth and then he’d spit on me – so gross!! Anyways – you can imagine the rest…

Day 4 – Lady who had regressed back to being about 4 years old. Tough day – she was scared a lot – had lots of equipment keeping her going. Assigned to a new patient for the last half of the day – stroke caused her left side to be paralyzed. I helped with a bunch of procedures – but she couldn’t help us move her at all. She was SO MUCH dead weight – I had to hold her up for a few minutes and thought I was going to drop her – I ended up hurting my shoulder and back…that night all I could do was lay on the hard floor…blah.

There it was – the beginning of Clinicals hell…
Not sure what I think of nursing anymore. Maybe I had a bad experience. Maybe nursing homes are just not my thing. I don’t know…but yesterday we toured the hospital and I felt more comfortable there already. We start our week there on Monday. It’s going to be tougher there – lots of different problems, procedures, nurses and doctors. But maybe the atmosphere will be better – and people who are there for just an illness/injury (short time) might be better about being taken care of then people in a long term facility – guess I’ll find out soon…..

Guess that’s enough for now – have a lot more to talk about but I’m going to a softball game – I’m trying to support our middle school girls from the youth group – I think one tangible way is showing up to their games…so that’s where I’m starting :)

Next topic – love…what a mess!