Oh the things that nursing has taught me!

I think back to what I thought nurses did when I was in middle school. I thought it was getting people on and off bed pans and putting on band aids. When I was in high school, I unfortunately got an inside view of what it was like to have a loved one in the ICU, when my brother was involved in a serious car accident. Fortunately, I have repressed most of the memories of him being in the hospital, though I do remember thinking it would be cool to be one of those nurses. I vaguely remember seeing him on the ventilator and remember him having two chest tubes, as I vividly remember sitting on the chest tubes. Oops! He got really upset about that.

Now, I know that to be a nurse you get A LOT of people on and off bedpans; that is if you are lucky enough that they tell you in time, never put on band aids, and sterile gauze and lots of tape can really cover almost any wound. You must learn to have the patience of Job. You are a part time therapist and full time rule enforcer. "Don't use your arms to pull yourself up, they just cut your chest open. Please keep your arm down, that arm has an IV in it that is monitoring your blood pressure. Nope, sorry you can't sleep on your side like you normally would, because you have too many lines and tubes coming out of you."One must also understand the balance of wetting a patient's mouth enough that they don't feel as though they are in the Sahara Desert but not so much that you exceed your fluid restriction goal for the day in 12 hours. The fluid restriction goal if just post-op because cardiac patient's get a lot of fluid in the OR. It is not uncommon for them to come out of surgery 10-15 pounds heavier than they went into surgery. We remove most or all of that weight post-op with diuretics. You must also be persistent enough that when your patient says to leave them alone, you will return the next hour smiling and pretending that the prior rudeness never occurred.

I started thinking of all of this because the other night I took care of a gentleman that reminded me of an angry George Jefferson. I am not kidding this man looked just like him. I was walking around like George did and yelling "Weezy!' as this is what he called his wife Louise. Then my bubble was very quickly popped when a young lady said, "Who is George Jefferson?" My heart sank, as I can remember being her age and asking someone of my grand ole age a similar question. "Oh no! I am old to these 20 somethings." Where has the time gone? I am going to pick myself up now and continue on here.

Let me preface this conversation with, I believe this gentleman had some underlying dementia that the family has refused to admit for sometime. Then you put him in an ICU where the lights are always on, there is constantly someone in his room, strip him of all modesty that he ever thought he had, and give him a lot of different medications that are not usually in his medicinal regimen. This my friends is the perfect storm.

I walked into this gentleman's room smiled and introduced myself as I always do and then asked him if it would be okay if I listened to his chest and belly. His words "Nope, not today lady! Move on. I am very sick and tomorrow I am hoping to be better." This was a gentleman that had open heart surgery two days prior and was still in the ICU because he was on an IV medication to keep his blood pressure down. I explained to him that he was in the hospital because he had open heart surgery and that it was my job to take care of him for the night because he was still very sick. His words "Woman, I know I am sick. I am the one that told you! Now do me a favor and leave me alone!" Some people are a bit confused but you can act like you are doing one thing and actually perform most of your assessment. I pretended to be fixing an IV on his arm and tried to slip a thermometer under his arm. That went over like a lead balloon! Here came the fist flying at my head. Luckily, I spent a lot of years reenacting the karate kid wax on and wax off and I was able to deflect the left hook. I am persistent but not stupid. So I updated the charge nurse and provider for the evening and they said to just leave him alone as more stimulation would make him worse. Later he started pulling on his IV's and Foley catheter, so he bought himself some mittens. These are not restraints but look like Mickey Mouse gloves and just prevent him from pulling anything out. Those mittens took 3/4 of his fight out of him. He looked similar to a dog that has to wear "the cone" after surgery to keep them from licking
 their incisions. It made my night go so much smoother. The second night, while he was more agreeable to what I needed to do, he was still quite grumpy. I ended my two nights with him with him yelling "Woman! Just leave me alone!" I told him the pleasure was mine. :-)

But it got me thinking of the time a patient fired me as his nurse. The time I was kicked. I have been spit on. That ended quickly as I just put a mask on him. That really made him mad. He was restrained so he couldn't get the mask off. Don't get me wrong the good patients far outnumber the bad. Patients like this gentleman really makes me appreciate the good ones.

Nursing has only honed the skills that I have mentioned above. I still love my job and am loving traveling. Patients like this gentleman just make for good conversation. It would just be boring to talk about the normal and nice people that I have met. I have a select number of patient's that I still keep in touch with and I really enjoy that they choose to keep me in their lives.

Home Sweet Bittersweet

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

~Maya Angelou

Oh, how sweet it was to be home again in Cincinnati to see friends and many that I consider family. I knew I missed everyone, but I had no idea how much. I am loving traveling, but it was good to be back where people know me. I love that quote because the people of NKY give me a warm fuzzy feeling and that is "home" to me.

I cannot thank my friends and family enough for giving me the courage to start traveling. That first step was a doozy, though the experiences I have had have greatly enriched my life and made me a better person. A friend said to me while home in Cincy, "had you not left you wouldn't have known this feeling of how good it feels to be home." How right she was! They say, you don't know what you have til it is gone. I knew how good I had it back home in NKY though. I had and still have rich friendships that I know will last a lifetime!

I underestimated how busy I would be during my two week stint there. First on my list was to dine at Skyline Chili. It took 24 hours to get there, but I was able to get my fix before the shakes set in. Skyline is not something that I ever thought I would crave, but it is true. I am an addict. I dabbled in a bit of culture and went to see the musical South Pacific. It was very well done; though only two of the songs rang a bell with me. I believe the friends I went with were lip synching all of the songs as they were performed. Culture is something that I can always use though. 

My eyes were also opened to a few of the funny television shows that are airing right now. I had no idea. This time of year I have to limit my tv watching and make myself stay active, as it is easy to lie around and watch a lot of TV. That being said, the individuals that exposed me to these funny shows; they wake up and after finishing their morning exercise they then wake up the rooster to perform his morning crow. Half of their day was finished by the time I awoke at 8:30-9:00. Who really wants to see the sunrise that many times? :-)

In celebration of my birthday, several of my biking buddies gathered and we had a very nice ride in southern Kenton county. The weather was perfect in the mid 50's and the fall foliage was still in peak color. We did encounter a hearty headwind though. A great ride followed by homemade pizza and homemade apple pie. Can it get any better than that? Best quotes of the day: "It's just not fair when you have to pedal down a hill! That really goes against everything I learned in physics." Another good one was made by a woman new to bicycling but an awesome athlete, as she passes me about 3/4 the way up the hill as if I was sitting still, her words "Oh, is this where the climb starts?" As she is new to clipping in on a bike, I seriously contemplated nudging her just a bit to see if she would be quick enough to clip out to stay upright. I was the bigger person though and continued to focus on my heart rate of 170 and my goal of getting over the hill. :-)

I then moved onto my next gracious friend opening her house up to me. Wow, three kids keep you busy! Six, almost four, and almost two are so cute though! I had the pleasure of getting ready while playing hide and go seek, I got the hand snaking under the door of the bathroom while showering, and even was walked in on while dressing by a 3 1/2 yr old! I got the "full experience." I proudly or stupidly took all three kids and a dog to the park sans mom, while she showered. I was proud that we all survived and even made it back with no tears. I laughed because at one point I was carrying the toddler, holding the dog leash, two coats, had a pocket filled with pine cones, and was pushing a bike. It was then that I started delegating and putting those cute kids to work and I unloaded a few of the pine cones in my pocket. Haha! What a great time though.

Next I got to see some NKU basketball while in town, as well. I traveled to Purdue and watched our men put on a very nice show and almost beat Purdue University. What a nice arena. The next day was followed by a few more visits with good friends and then a basketball game at the Bank of Kentucky Center, watching our women play the University of Cincinnati. They played very well and won. I think we are going to see good things from those ladies this year. The atmosphere of the home basketball games was something that I was really looking forward to. I think watching basketball games from the sidelines brings back some of the good memories that I had watching the basketball games from the sideline when I got free tickets and even a free uniform. :-) When there is basketball on NKU's campus, the gym is filled with a portion of my favorite people that give me that feeling that Maya Angelou was referring to. While I loved the game and atmosphere it also made me a bit nostalgic because that is an atmosphere that for 18 years has been a large part of my life. This will be my first year out of that element. So, while I was very happy to see the Norse win, I was sad to see the game end. That was followed by a couple of almost teary goodbyes. I am hoping to get home for a couple more games this year.

So that is the abbreviated version of my awesome trip home. As I mentioned it was very bittersweet. It was so good to be home for two weeks, though this girl left almost kicking and screaming. My last stop was at my dear friend Rachel's because she has the knack to say, "I love you and we miss, but you have to get your behind back to Baltimore!" That was about the only way I was going to drive out of NKY. Til next time my friends! 

I apologize it has been so long since my last entry. I have been playing very hard. Next on my agenda is a game tomorrow November 15th at the University of Maryland against the number 1 women's team Uconn. I am so excited!

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