Back in the game

Within the last week, I have completed 72 hours of working at Northwestern. I worked Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday. This includes an hour and a half commute each way. Let me tell you, it was exhausting. I stayed with my friend in Chicago the first two days, but then I started taking the CTA. This means that I get up at 5:00am and get back around 9:30pm.

I love my unit! My floor mostly works with patients who have leukemias (blood cancers) and who are receiving stem cell transplants. There are two other cancer floors in my building that work with solid tumors and palliative patients.  If patients are getting stem cell transplants, they are scheduled to come in and then stay for roughly a month without any complications. This means that the patients are there for a long time. This can be a good and a bad thing. Some other time, I'll go into more detail about the transplant process. It's fascinating. We have 33 beds on our unit, and the nurses are assigned 3-4 patients every day.

I've really enjoyed working with my nurse. For blogging purposes we'll call her Cinnabon ( I wanted to stick with the theme of yummy desserts from the summer but wanted to avoid Dilly bar or Turnover). She allows me to be as independent as possible while still feeling supported. I have been able to work with three patients that are "all my own". Hopefully, this week I'll be able to get a full patient load. Cinnabon is really good at explaining things to me, but also challenging me to figure things out on my own. When we work together, we are extremely efficient and sometimes end up finishing our tasks very early.

The first day I worked, I mostly just observed and learned. The second and third day, I worked alongside my nurse and did most of the work, but with her beside me. The next few days, I started to take my own patients. The tricky part about this is that I'm not allowed to give chemo or distribute blood products, and this is very common on my floor. This means that I still have to rely on Cinnabon for a bunch of things, but she's good about making me feel like I'm still doing something :)

Sometime, I'll tell you more about my patients, about my unit, about the chemo and transplant processes, and other such nonsense, but I'm not in a creative mood and straightforward facts are just boring. It's going well, and I'm enjoying it. This week, I'm working three days. I'll see you on the flip side.

Adios!

-C