Express Recovery

I had a run in with a nurse on the unit I was on for three weeks, so I asked to be moved. Apparently when I turned her in for having 4 infected G-tubes and neglected patients, I shouldn't have done that. Anyway.....my instructor gave me the most awesome of assignments : the Express Recovery unit. I'm the only student down there and it's amazing! Today I did some sterile dressing changes, observed IV fluids being hung, assisted with a G-tube feed, administered medications, did fingersticks (glucose testing) and administered insulin. Among other things. It's amazing and I'm so excited to be down there!!!! I'm already making friends with the CNAs and the nurse is neato. She's hard-nosed but she's good at what she does. I have a feeling I'm gonna learn a lot from her! The CNAs are nicer down there, too. And best of all?? These people are a little sicker and it's more like a hospital....they're also trying to go home, not living there forever. So, it's a lot different.

On a different note, I lost my first patient. He was a little man I'd cared for the first week we were there. He had a rapid decline last week, and Hospice was brought in for palliative care. He began his rather rapid descent on Thursday last week. He passed away very early Monday morning. The family donated his body to science. He had a lot of "interesting" disease processes going on in his body. I suppose that's why...but he also had specified that his remains were to be given to Texas A&M, where he spent his life....graduated from there twice and served on their board. He was a neat man. It was hard to watch him dying, and even harder to watch his family...it brought back so many painful memories. But in a way, it was therapeutic. I imagine I would have felt even stronger emotions had I cared for him much longer. But my life is richer for having met him and for having the priviledge to care for him.