A Look Back and Final Thoughts

Disclaimer: As I plan for this to be my last post, it might get rather long-winded. Apologies in advance.

Let's start off by talking about the farewell dinner. On the Wednesday night before I left, there was a banquet for all of the Summer III's and their clinical coaches. It was pretty fancy, and the food was delish. There were some speeches given by Summer III's and the vice president of nursing. After that, they read my story from my last post! I totally didn't realize that they would read it for the dinner, but I was glad I got to share a good experience. Afterwards, my clinical coaches, the other girl on my floor, her clinical coaches, and another nurse met up for a little goodbye party. It's kind of strange to see nurses without their scrubs on. Here's a picture from that night.



Looking back, what did I learn this summer?

1.I learned confidence. So much of learning how to be a nurse is just being a nurse. This summer was a fantastic opportunity to experience real nursing. I feel so much more confident talking to patients, performing assessments, talking to doctors, and thinking through situations.

2.I learned how to prioritize and multitask. A big part of nursing is learning how to handle your day. You have multiple patients who might need things at the same time. I learned how to become more efficient and to get things done in an order that makes sense.

3. I learned about medications. This is by far my biggest weakness, but I have already gotten so much better at recognizing medications.

4. I learned about the heart. I think that I might have just a little too much enthusiasm about EKGs and the workings of the heart. So cool!

5. I learned about teamwork. It was fantastic to see a good model of the healthcare team. The doctors, PAs, NPs, nurses, therapists, social workers, and many others all have a role to play. I learned a lot about how that works and how to be a part of a team.

6. I learned a lot about my patients. I invested a lot of time into those people, and I grew to love them. I still think about them frequently. I know that there will be many days where I think, "I wonder where so-and-so is right now and how they're doing?"

7. I learned a lot of random things. There are things that I saw at Mayo that I highly doubt I'll see anywhere else. There's a reason people go there as a last resort. They know what they're doing.

8. I learned a lot about myself. I know that I love nursing. I love being at the bedside (I do not want to go into surgery). I am pretty good at educating patients. I don't like night shifts very much. Apparently, I like blogging.

Final thoughts. I laughed and I cried. I prayed with patients and I cleaned up poop. I removed IVs and I educated patients. I went to church and I rode the bus to work. I was complimented and I was criticized. I woke up at 5:30am and I stayed up til 8:00am. I had a 15 year old patient and I had a 93 year old patient. I cooked for myself and I fixed the dishwasher. I went from following my nurse around to taking the lead. I had days where I hardly sat down and I had days where I didn't have anything to do. I saw families full of hope and I saw families without any hope at all. I held hands with patients and I held pressure on their bleeding site. I felt powerless and I felt empowered.

I'd say that the themes of the summer were brokenness and healing. Some of the people I saw were broken and that made me feel broken too. Last week, I had a patient whose procedure failed. They weren't able to fix her problem and she was crying all afternoon. I had a few patients who had congenital issues that will never be cured. There was a lady who had two conflicting health problems that each prevented the other from being treated. I saw patients who preferred to be in the hospital because they received more love there than they did at home. I saw patients go home to get ready to die.

However, I also saw a lot of healing. I saw a woman that was nearly comatose who couldn't talk or move on her own. After a few days of treatment, she was able to sit up, eat her dinner, and talk to her family. I saw patients who had been living a low quality life who came in and left feeling so much better. I saw families coming together to support each other. While there were some things that made me feel broken, the healing overcame. I feel like I did make a difference. Don't tell anyone, but I would have worked the whole summer for free. The experience was invaluable.

Here are some nursing quotes that accurately portray how I feel about nursing. I had wanted to slip these into some previous posts, but I forgot.

"Our jobs as nurses is to cushion the sorrow and to celebrate the joy every day while we are just 'doing our jobs.' "    -Christine Belle

"You treat a disease, you win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you that you'll win no matter what." 
- Patch Adams

"They may forget your name, but they'll never forget how you made them feel." -Maya Angelou

"When you are a nurse, you know that every day you will touch a life or a life will touch yours." -Anonymous

So....What next? Oh, I just love that question. I'm not sure. This year, I'm going back to school and will continue to learn as much as I can. After that, I don't have any answers. I guess we'll just have to wait and see where God leads me and what opportunities are presented. It's gonna be pretty great. :)

Thank you all for reading. Thanks for letting me be weird, nerdy, and emotional. Maybe I'll start blogging again once I get a job. Who knows?
Love you all.
Peace out.

P.S. There are just some things that shouldn't go onto the public internet. However, there is a story that still makes me laugh every time I think about it. Next time you see me in person, ask me tell you. I'll know what you're talking about.

On the Last Page

Here I sit in a nearly empty and clean room. The bags are packed and only 23 hours stand between me heading out of Rochester. I'll have an ending post or two with some final thoughts, but right now I'm feeling sentimental so I'd like to make a few shout outs and thank you's.

Thank you the people who organized the program! It was excellently planned and executed. They made the transition to Rochester very easy.

Thanks to Crossroads College who let us stay in their townhomes. This made the experience so much easier without having to worry about finding an apartment.

Thank you to my nurse manager and nursing education specialist who allowed me to work on their floor and were supportive, encouraging, and helpful.

Shout out to my roommates! It still amazes me how 7 girls who are completely different and have never met each other can live together with very little conflict for 10 weeks. I'm excited to see where your nursing careers take you!

Shout out to Fr4C! It has been a privilege to work on such an amazing floor where everyone is so helpful and fun. I'm afraid that I'll be disappointed with other floors I work on because Fr4C is an amazing place to work.

To the other Summer III's! Thank you for all of the conversations, trading patient stories, and fun times. There are going to be some great nurses coming out of this bunch. Good luck senior year!

Thank you to the Recharge group from Autumn Ridge Church! You guys were so welcoming from the very beginning. I loved getting to know you and having some great discussions. I've had a really hard time finding a small group at school, so becoming connected so easily this summer was a blessing. I'll miss you!

To those who have kept reading this silly blog. Thanks for all of the encouraging words. It was a lot of fun :)

Finally, thank you to my clinical coaches, Frosty and McFlurry. You both made my summer an unforgettable experience. I loved learning from you. Thanks for answering all of my silly questions and letting me fumble my way through. I've gained so much confidence by working with you. I'll miss you!

One Story

All of the Summer III's were given the opportunity to write about an experience they had this summer. To be honest, I don't know where it's actually going, but I wanted to contribute. This is what I wrote.

   It was a quiet morning on Fr4C. My clinical coach and I had been very productive all morning. We were all caught up on orders, assessments, charting, and medications. We had just sat down to look up some notes on our patients and my coach had brought along an EKG book for me to browse because I had some questions about bundle branch blocks.

     As we were sitting at the nurse’s station, we noticed that the O2 levels on one of our patients had dropped a bit. My coach went into the room to make sure the monitor was on correctly. After a minute, I went in to make sure everything was ok. The patient’s oxygen levels were still dropping, and he wasn’t responding to us. We put oxygen on, got a blood pressure, tried to wake him up, and kept watching the monitor. As we were watching, his heart rate and O2 levels kept dropping rapidly. We called the doctors and then the Rapid Response Team. Nurses from our floor had noticed and had come in to help us out. Within one minute of calling the RRT, we had to call a Code because there was no pulse.

   What happened next will stick in my mind forever. Almost instantly, there were 20 people in the room. They each took a job and performed it expertly. Within seconds, they had started CPR, attached the AED, were administering breaths, had begun to intubate the patient, and were giving medications. Everyone was calm and collected. They were working as a single unit, as a team, to try and save this patient.

    During this time, I was able to sit with the wife of the patient. She was holding a pamphlet in her hands with some Bible verses on it. I asked her if she would like me to pray with her. She said yes, and as twenty people were attempting to save her husband’s life, I was able to pray with her. I then escorted her out to the waiting room where a chaplain met with her.   

     Going back to the room, I was able to watch the amazing teamwork and precision that the healthcare team had. In the end, they were able to reestablish the patient’s pulse. I was the one who was able to go tell the wife that her husband was still alive and was moving to the ICU. I don’t know a lot of what happened to him after that day, but the memory of that experience will be burned into my memory.

     It was the single most terrifying moment of my life, and yet it was one of the most powerful. The nurses from my floor who ran into the room saved a patient’s life that day. I was able to be with a family member during a very terrifying and vulnerable moment.  The respect and admiration that I had for the nursing profession grew exponentially after that day. I had a glimpse of what nursing really is- a collaboration of people with expert training who truly care about patients working together to improve lives. 

If I was limited to sharing one story that summarized my summer, this would be it. 

One More Week

I was going to try to be clever by entitling this post 'One Week More' and then making up my own lyrics to the song from Les Mis. But I'm lazy. Sorry people.

Instead, we'll arrange today's points by having a countdown.

7. One week left in Rochester. It's hard to believe the summer is nearly over. I have to start thinking about school things again. Bleh.

6.  As a person gets older, their heart starts to create additional small arteries in the heart called collateral arteries. These supply extra blood to the heart when the main ones are blocked or narrow. Collateral arteries in and of themselves are amazing! This explains why people are more likely to have greater damage if they have a heart attack when they're young. You haven't built those collateral arteries yet, so if the artery is blocked, there's no other way around it. Anyway, cool thing I learned on Friday. There's this really random procedure that is done for patients with chronic angina (chest pain) that can't be cured by the normal treatments of angiograms, ballooning, and stenting. These people usually would need a heart transplant. Either the vessels are too far down in the heart, or they are too diseased. They are extremely limited with activity because their hearts are sick. This treatment helps build collateral arteries in the heart. Here's a video because it's nearly impossible to explain.
http://youtu.be/vjU29pxyTlM 
It basically promotes the formation of collateral arteries in the heart. It looks like gigantic blood pressure cuffs that inflate and deflate really quickly. You get it done for one hour, five days a week, for seven weeks.  I saw a guy who had been going to this process for about four weeks. When he started, he was wheeled in with a wheelchair and got short of breath getting onto the table. Now, he can walk in without hardly any issues. It's so cool! Right now, they're doing research on it to see if it could possibly help with peripheral vascular disease. It's not widely used though- the lady who taught me about it told me that a lot of doctors either don't know that it exists or they think it's not reliable. I thought it was fascinating.

5. Some of the nurses on my floor brought in cake, pop, chips, and subs for me and the other girl on my floor. It was the last day that the two of us were working at the same time, but it was really sweet of them. I felt very special.

4. I worked 5 days in a row this week and had two of the same patients for four of those days and one of them for five. This meant that I got to know these patients very well. Getting report in the morning lasted about 20 seconds. I've never had a patient more than three days, so this was really cool to see how they progressed through the week. It also makes taking care of them much easier. You don't have nearly as much stuff to figure out.

3. Some of my roommates went skydiving yesterday. I'm jealous. Someday.

2. It's four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. I haven't done anything productive and it feels amazing.

1. Maybe it's a good thing that there's only a week left cause I've run out of interesting things to say. See you soon!