Today I learned something...
I know it's been a long time since my last contribution. And I appologize. But I beleve one of the reasons why I havn't written anything might be that I am getting use to the environment and most of the things is not new to me any more. And so I feel there is not much new to share...
But today I have.
I leared something today. And it's not that I don't learn new things every day, because I do. Every day some new knowledge is ment to be learned, and some part of it actually goes in to my long time memory;) With exceptance to psychology...;)
Our clinicals started two weeks ago, and I've been posted on the cancer ward. Ther is not many procedures to do, but you learn a lot just by listening to the doctors discussion about choice of suitable treatments and progress that has been seen in the clients.
The worst case I've seen was a guy with an buccal mucosa carcinoma in 4th stage. It had stared to ulcerate leaving a concave hole about 5cm in diameter. And during a cleaning procedure (I was only washing but wow what I would have want to do the job) four thick, little cute worms appeared in the ulcer of which two of them jumped out on the floor..!!
We did our routinely BP-check today in the morning, and one of the clients was about to start his first chemotherapy. After the staff nurse had started the treatment she asked me to check his BP, and I told her I already had, 20 min ago. But no, I had to check again after the chemo started. And after been checking a lot of BP's already, including a re-checks, you tend to get a bit..um..I don't know...cranky?! Thinking why I should do it again.. Ok you could call me lazy!
And so I did, getting a small incriase from 120/80 to 130/80. Five minutes later the staff nurse asked if I had checked the BP at the same time as she went for the BP apparatus. The clinet was getting into an anaphylactic shock, BP was found at 150/100, and the medication was stoped immediately followed by anti-injection. The client looked exhaused and was seating like crazy,
We nursing students decided to stay back while, in my head, milions of questions were asked to myself - did I get the right BP? Didn't I noticed change of his apperance? Or wasn't there change in his apperande while I was there?
Three things I learned today
1) The importance of monitoring vital signs. Change in any vital sign is the first indication that something is going one in your body.
2) How fast any changes could happen with a person.
3) Even how crusty and moody the staff nurse may be, she still know more than you and is the reason why the client was able to manage the situation. Listen to her, and learn...
A smiiilllee for todays nurse that was handeling the situation exemplary!!!:)