Out in front of the lab, late OctoberishWell, I've just finished my first evening working with an actual patient. Kind of amazing, really. I had a very sweet lady in her mid-90's to work with. She was brilliantly patient with me, though I'm not sure she ever really understood why exactly I was there in her room, poking and prodding her. Well, there really wasn't any poking or prodding - it was just taking vital signs - but still. She was a real trouper. It was... hmm. Touching another human being, one who trusts you to help them, to do no harm? It's pretty wonderful. It was an honor to be able to hold her arm, to touch her skin, to listen to her chest, to watch as she showed me the scar from where her new pacemaker was placed. I don't mean to sound all fuzzy about the experience - it's a small thing, really, and people in the health professions do this and much more every hour of every day. It's just pretty awe-inspiring to be entering into this profession, that's all.
I guess I don't have much else to say. It was a decent night. There were issues (brachial pulses are still hard for me to find.... I couldn't get the machine to register a temperature.... etc.), but that's ok. It's all a part of the learning process, right?
Bed baths next week.
Until the morrow, ta.
4 comments:
I love how much you love nursing!
Yay Anne! Sounds like a great start. I imagine the woman felt lucky to have such a caring nurse. You have the most important thing figured out in nursing- touch. People who are scared and sick need that tender touch, and obviously you get that. Lucky patients.
I'm thinking about you Anne. When you wrote earlier about wanting to write about something you couldn't made me think of something I read at school yesterday. Nora Zeal Hurston wrote a great book when she was in the grips of a huge heartbreak. She had just left a lover and was desperate to contact him, but she knew she shouldn't, so she poured herself into writing "Their Eyes were Watching God." I've beem thinking about doing more of that kind of writing, pouring myself into something that keeps me searching within by stepping outside of myself--Maybe some fiction that can give me some new perspectives.
When I went running today, I thought of you, hoping your knee is feeling better, hoping you'll be able to run, or even take some great hikes without pain soon.
Love.
That's great for you! Sounds like a real calling and that's important especially in that field. A couple of the nurses I had when I was in the hospital were so heartless and frankly mean-like they were sick of it all. I was probably an annoying patient, anyway.
I love that picture.
I can still remember the first patient I had. I was supposed to do a head to toe assessment on her. I told her what I was there for, she was a little confused. I pulled back the covers to do my head to toe assessment and she had no legs. Freaked me out! Poor lady. She swore at me.
That was my introduction to nursing. I got better, slowly. Now I hardly ever freak out my patients.
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