Bonjour, y’all!

I’ve survived my first two days of placements. I’m combining the first two days in this post because there’s not much to report on my first day. Surprisingly enough, it was a breeze! Time flew, it was an afternoon shift (1:15pm – 9:45pm), I didn’t have to do anything too invasive or distressing, every single nurse around me was absolutely lovely and had all the time in the world for me and my preceptor (buddy nurse) was a joy! Before I tell you about her, let me just paint a picture of what it’s like to be a student nurse on placements. You know when you play Bond and you get to a level where you have to get a scientist to follow you around to unlock something or access something and you have to protect him from bad guys and put up with him getting trapped in the room behind you because he sometimes just stops following you and starts looking around, not paying attention? Well, that’s what we are. A hindrence. But, being Bond (the buddy nurse) you have to protect us and put up with us and keep us alive, no matter how slow we are, no matter how mindless. And super awesome buddy nurse did just that! She looked after me, she told me where things were, she constantly asked if I’d like to do this, do that, she was happy and was super duper informative. Thumbs up for super awesome buddy nurse!

Now, as for day two … not so good.

I have a habit of sleeping through my phone alarm. Mostly because my phone switches itself off when it gets bored. So I bought this new alarm clock, one of those old timey ones with the two bells on top? And clearly didn’t set it properly as it went off at 3:25am. And it scared the living s outta me. So much so I didn’t get back to sleep ’til 5:20am, despite all my good get-back-to-sleep efforts. I had to be up at 6am for an early shift (7am – 3:30pm) and went to sleep the night before at midnight.

However, I got to the hospital on time and sat in on handover (that’s when the head nurse of night shift goes through patient by patient to the next lot of nurses coming in and updates them on any changes, etc). And after handover, the other three student nurses got buddied up with thier preceptors (which is prearranged) and I was left alone. A shadow of things to come, thought I? Surely not! But I was wrong. I was well wrong. I have this theory, see, that any nurse that’s super obese is absolute hell to work with. And so far that’s 100% true. Can you believe my buddy nurse today was super obese? For starters, she didn’t even know she was supposed to be looking after me, so that’s always a good start! Secondly, she’s super obese. And you know my theory. Thirdly, everything to her was a stitch. Even bad news. I wish I was jolly.

It was a crap day today because my buddy nurse had no time for me, she assumed I knew where everything was, ignored my questions, and constantly had me doing mediocre tasks. All with a smile and a laugh.

However, I got to experience some interesting things today:

I got to do a wound dressing on old Greek man.

I got to give 2 clexane injections (not one to old Greek man, but one to old English man. And another to young motor vehicle accident man).

I got to give old Greek man a bed bath.

He asked whilst I was washing him “what if wife come in?”, I told him not to worry. Two hours later, old Greek man well and truly cleaned and clothed was greeted by wife. I walked in and met wife. Old Greek man looked at wife, pointed at me and said “that’s her” and I looked at wife with wide eyes not quite knowing what to say “Yes, wife. I’ve cleaned your husband.” – I thought me and old Greek man had an understanding.

What else?

Here’s an interesting thought for all you men who read this blog. When you become an octogenarian, your willy shrivels up to about the same size as the top half of your thumb. Enjoy it now, I say. Even if you think it’s not big enough. Surely, it’s not as small as what I’ve seen. Maybe it’s a case of “if you don’t use it, you lose it”. So … stay busy, but not too busy. If you use it too much you’ll go blind. You need a happy medium.

I got to know one really cool patient today, he made the morning bearable. This is the type of patient that makes nursing fun. He was in his late forties, so, fairly young, and sadly, sent home at 12 noon, but all morning I got to hang out with him. These patients, that are young and generally quite well, shower themselves, feed themselves, dress themselves, generally cause no trouble and are always up for a laugh and a chat. I’m glad he’s in the comfort of his own home now but I’ll miss him. He was in good spirits! Let’s call him Superdude.

Sometimes, when a patient is super sick (like old Greek man) a met call needs to be made. A met call is when a nurse realises something’s askew and they call over the loudspeakers “met call to Heath Wing 6, met call to Heath Wing  6″ and before you know it, 10 doctors have come outta nowhere and are assessing old Greek man to see what’s wrong. When that happens, if it’s in a hospital room where there are other patients, they usually pull curtains around old Greek man’s bed to assure privacy. Today however, there were so many staff surrounding old Greek man, they pulled the curtains around every other patient’s bed so they could not be confined. Superdude’s curtains were pulled around him and since I didn’t want to be in the way, I snuck into Superdude’s quarters. I put my finger up to my lips to single the “shhhh!” since I didn’t want to get in the way of important doctors and such, being the annoying Bond-game-like-scientist that I am. I started up a conversation with Superdude and before long, super obese buddy nurse heard my voice and called out through the curtain “Suzy, you gonna come see what’s going on out here?” to which I stormed out of Superdude’s quarters and yelled back to him, with anger in my tone,  “thanks a lot, Superdude, now I’m in trouble!” to which he laughed and laughed! Those moments make nursing worthwhile.

I got to look after old English lady yesterday who, within minutes of meeting me, gave me a big hug and a kiss as she thought I had summoned Man-Who-Wheels-Patients-to-Theatre, the very same man she’d been anxiously waiting to arrive all day long (it was mostly just a good coincidence, which I did tell her, but she seemed adament in believeing that I’d done something about it … which … I kind of did but mostly … coincidence). God bless you, old English lady (if it wasn’t against the privacy act, I’d totally tell you her name because it’s absolutely adorable!). Again, another moment that makes nursing worthwhile.

Anyhoo, that’s it from me today, folks, will update tomorrow if all goes to plan! Now it’s time for yoga. My back and feet are in incredible pain …

Hope y’all are being treated very well!

Take care,

Suzy J.