Yesterday was a fantastic day! I really mean that, it was wonderful. I had a dream that Old Greek Man died and I had to shock paddle him back to life, so I did. He opened his eyes, groaned and died again, my preceptor yelled “Quick, quick! Shock him again!” so I did but this time he didn’t come back to life. I spent the rest of the dream consoling Old Greek Man’s wife. Can you believe that when I got to my shift, Old Greek Man actually died in the night, around 3am? I’ll forever wonder what time my dream was had …

But aside from the loss of O.G.Man, the day was great and I left feeling euphoric. It was a morning shift. The following are the four patients I got to look after today: Old Polish Man, Old Adorable Man, Young Krohn’s Disease Man and Middle-Aged Chest Pain Man. I had the best preceptor I’ve ever had, EVER! Let’s call her Mrs. Awesome. She knew her stuff, encouraged me to do everything, and picked up on every little significant detail to do with me and my interaction with staff and patients. She was also wonderfully happy and had a great rapport with the patients and staff. And she was flabberghasted when I took the initiative to ask Old Polish Man if he knew the difference between an opened catheter leg bag and a closed one (see, if it’s open, urine will automatically poor out the bottom all down your legs and feet which is why it’s imperative to know the difference, particularly since Old Polish Man was soon to be discharged and would no longer have nurses emptying out his piss bag). Furthermore, Mrs. Awesome was amazed at when I suggested a way to make catheter leg bags more accessible to the visually impaired, which Old Polish Man was/is. I’m not going to explain how here in case someone steals my idea. I’m going to look into patenting the idea and seeing if I can get rich off the royalties once I sell it to the leading catheter leg bag makers. Yeah. YEAH! Unfortunately, I don’t get to work with Mrs. Awesome again this placement, she’s going on holidays this week-end for the next two weeks. That makes me a sad panda.

Anyway, I not only honed in on some good nursing skills yesterday, I also got to meet some of the most interesting patients to date. As you can imagine, Old Adorable man was adorable. Not only looking, but in nature. Mrs. Awesome even joked that she hoped he’d get some sort of nosocomial infection so he’d be forced to stay in hospital longer. I got to assist Old Adorable Man in the shower and even though he didn’t need much assistance once he was sitting in the shower chair, I opted to clean his feet for him since he couldn’t reach too well. And boy did he giggle! He told me he was ticklish and I couldn’t resist tickling his feet further. Man! He was a cutey. He showed me two massive scares/brusies on his shins that he’d gotten many decades ago that had become visible in his old age, one was from one of the Clydesdales his father raised, another was from when a POW kicked him. He’s also the type of patient you always wanna be looking after. I got to take him for a walk around the hallways after his shower. We stopped at a window and looked out at the view of St. Mary’s and Ceres Look Out. He told me stories of old and when we finally got back to his room, Mrs. Awesome said “I was wondering where you two got to!” but she wasn’t mad, she was happy that he’d gotten to go for a good walk.

Another interesting fellow I got to know was Old Polish Man. I sat with him in the sun room for half an hour whilst we waited for his daughter to arrive to take him home. He worked in a forced labour camp in Poland during WW2. He wasn’t Jewish, he said you just got picked up off the street, along with his father. He never saw his mother or brother again after that fateful day. He worked in a China factory for the most part. He made plates, bowls and vases. He also spent months digging trenches for the Germans. Day in, day out, in the snow. He said the worst thing about the whole time he was there was the hunger. All he could think about all the time was how hungry he was. For lunch every day they were fed 3 small potatoes with some sort of sauce. There’d always be leftovers, but the two German women that served the food, instead of feeding the people, would take the leftovers to a sty, throw them on the ground and let two pigs devour it. Once Old Polish Man realised this was going on, he snuck around behind the two German women and once they were gone, he’d race into the sty, kick the pigs away and stuff his pockets with as many potatos as he could afford. Then he’d share them with his starving friends. Interesting dude, Old Polish Man was, I hope to see him again soon, there’s a possibility he’ll be coming back in a week or two for an operation or something.

And then there was  Young Krohn’s Disease Man. He’s also another ideal patient as he can shower himself, feed himself and have a good laugh with you. After Old Polish Man got picked up by his daughter, I decided to wheel his wheely chair back to his room (I wasn’t sure where it was supposed to go but so long as it was in the hospital, I could do no wrong). Now, this particular wheely walker had four wheels and a seat in the middle, it doubles as a chair when walking impaired people realise they’ve gone too far and need a rest. I couldn’t resist holding the frame, putting one knee on the seat, and gathering speed with my other leg and then raising that leg so I’d glide freely down those massive, empty hospital hallways. I cornered it into the patient’s room, expecting only to find Young Krohn’s Disease Man there but as it turns out, Middle-Aged Chest Pain Man was there too … wife in tow … I couldn’t've looked more unproffesional. But Young Krohn’s Disease man had a good laugh. He was discharged from the hospital about an hour later, which left only Old Adorable Man and Middle-Aged Chest Pain Man.

I spent the last hour of my shift talking with Middle-Aged Chest Pain Man. I won’t go into details with that one, but, he’s still in my thoughts. I was hoping that I could look after him again today but … alas, no. Middle-Aged Chest Pain Man was grateful that I’d come to visit him, he really needed someone to talk to yesterday. I would’ve like to have gotten to talk to him again today but the two times I swung by his room, he was occupied. Once was with a doctor, another time with his wife and kids.

Today was a quiet afternoon shift. I got to look after 3 patients; Old Sleepy Morbo (morbidly obese) Woman, Super Old Sick Man and Big Sick Bikie Guy. My preceptor was absolutely lovely. And very generous too, she let me leave at 8:30pm. I much appreciated her genuine care for her patients. It wasn’t that phoney, condescending crap either. She was the real deal. She was very sweet. I liked her but I won’t get to work with her again because she doesn’t have another shift on whilst I’m there

Old Sleepy Morbo … not much to say there. She literally slept the day away. She was awake for 6 minutes whilst I was there, 4 for when I did her obs at 2:30pm, 2 for when I gave her some antibiotics through her IV at 8pm.

Super Old Sick Man, is just that. Super old and sick. I got to remove a drainage tube from his belly today that was secured by tegaderm (that’s a clear, sticky, large, square-shaped bandaid) and a single stitch. That’s right folks, I removed my very first stitch on a human today! And I didn’t accidentally stab him or make his wound worse or anything! I say that now, but I BET I’ll walk into my afternoon shift tomorrow and hear in handover that he died overnight from sepsis, no doubt caused by the clumsy removal of his abdo. stitch. To which I’ll be all “luwl luwl luwl luwl luwl” with my index finger in my collar, pulling it out, over and over again.

And lastly, Big Sick Bikie Guy. I don’t actually know if he’s a bikie but he looks like one. And he’s got more bags with drain tubes coming out of him than … … … uh … … … some sort of thing that’s got loads of bags and drain tubes. Big Sick Bikie Guy also doesn’t have a penis. It got cut off because he had cancer there. I feel really sorry for Big Sick Bikie Guy. As if having a stomer* isn’t enough. He was feeling pretty low, as you can imagine.

stomer: a hole in your tummy where your poo comes out. There isn’t a spincter there, so it just comes out whenever it wants to. You can be in the supermarket, or by the pool! Stomer poo won’t wait for you!

Anyway folks, that’s it from me now. Time to have some me time!

’til next time, take care of yourselves … aaand eachother.