Residency Update

Residency is going fine - I've got a nice preceptor who's got about the same sort of sense of humor I do, so it's a good match. She's making sure I do what I'm supposed to, but keeping back and letting me try and figure things out first, which I appreciate. I'm a hands-on learner, and if I can actually DO a thing, there's a much better chance that I'll remember it, especially if I had to figure out how to do it in the first place. I'm not talking about risky things, but more like how to get the history off of the PCA pump. If I fiddle with it, I'll remember how to do it the next time - if someone says "this is how you do it" and shows me, I'm bound to forget and have to ask for help a second time.

I told her during a shift the other day that I felt like I was always running behind and had this feeling I was forgetting something even though I had double and triple-checked my work. I wondered if it was me or if that was the way nursing on this particular floor feels. She laughed, and said that she still feels like that sometimes, and that it's pretty common. I had no idea this med/surg floor would be so busy! I never worked on a floor like this in clinicals. It's huge too! Some days I'll see a fellow resident at report and then never see them again until it's time to clock out. Now I understand why some people looked at me funny when I told them what unit I would be working on.

I had a patient today who had suffered a stroke a few days ago. He had expressive aphasia, and it was a really interesting experience to take care of him. I spent a lot of time talking with him because of the anger and frustration he expressed when he tried to speak when I first met him in the morning. I wanted to let him know that whatever he had to say, I would wait patiently. I guess I also wanted him to know that it was possible for him to still have a conversation with someone, even if it was very difficult. Maybe I'll have him as a patient tomorrow. He really did seem like he was more at ease by the end of the shift. I think tomorrow he will continue to struggle through finding the words rather than giving up in anger. I guess this was the best part of my day, but something seems very wrong when I have to try and bend the time/space continuum just to find an extra 20 minutes to spend with someone.

I've seen a lot of different and interesting things these past few weeks, but I've been so busy with the rest of my life there hasn't been much time to blog. I have gotten all of my paperwork done for the Red Cross, so it looks like I will be getting to go down to the disaster area in October. I'm still going to do a few more classes so I'll have all of the classes I can possibly do by then. I also worked on moving my daughter to a new school district and arranging after school care, which took up more time than I can imagine. I'm still sort of in that student/mom mindset where I did the laundry, shopping, dishes and cleaning when I wasn't working full time. I've got to let that one go, and make my daughter and husband take up more of the responsibility.

I also wanted to mention that posting stuff about volunteering for the Red Cross wasn't intended to make me look special or anything. I was sort of surprised when people said that they were proud of me. What I really intended was to show people there are ways they can help in their local areas. I think Red Cross is a really neat group of people to work with. I'll tell you who my hero is in the next post. :)