Thank you card for the PICU for being so very awesome. (Taken with instagram)

Crazy story. And of course the first thing I notice is the babies mottled skin. Damned PICU nursing. 

On the way to the PICU this morning I was greeted by this beautiful drive: 

It was a good way to start the day!

Then at the hospital I had to take my 3 year old patient to MRI, it took awhile, 10 minuets of loud banging sounds. She was doing a good job, but she kept trying to say something, yelling to me over the sounds. After the procedure she continued to say something to me, becoming more and more frustrated when I couldn’t understand what she needed. Finally she leaned forward and touched my shirt. I had Nimo and Dora on my shirt, she wanted to touch the fish to say “Hi”. It was the cutest thing ever. 

Here is me in my awesome scrubs. 

Oh. And we went for a tour of the water treatment plant this week for public health. (I know, don’t get me started on how stupid this is) At the end they showed us the big pipes that are underground in Sacramento. It’s 12 feet across!! 

Well, as of 3 pm, I have 84 hours down, 171 to go. Some days I feel like a real nurse, taking care of my patients, running into an issue and solving it without stutter or help. Then other days I will leave the hospital feeling useless, as though nothing was really accomplished on my own, and I had to lean on my preceptor far too much. Part of me is ecstatic to see the end in sight, anticipating becoming a full fledged nurse. The flip side is feeling completely petrified of being an independent nurse without the backup behind me, catching me when I fall. 

4th semester is full of up’s and downs and all arounds! 

You can’t be sick right now. its just not allowed. I have to take care of very very sick children tomorrow and can’t have anything catching. Please stop being stupid.

Yours truely,

Tara

Today I was taking care of a very sick little girl. She is 7 years old and has cancer. I woke her up in the morning to get her to swallow a pill which she tried to do, for an hour. pudding, apple sause, chocolate milk, we tried it all. Eventually Pudding did the trick!

Later in the day her mother and I are giving her a sponge bath when I notice she is shivering. So I go to the supply room and grab warmed baby blankets. I wrap them around her shivering shoulders and she says, “wow that feels good, I want to stay here forever!” 

Kids are so resilient and impressive. This is why I wanted to be a PICU nurse. 

I got PICU, at Kaiser. I really, really, really didn’t want Kaiser, as they don’t hire new grads, its 30 minuets away, and all of the Kaiser related hoops. But I am trying to be optimistic that it is my unit of choice. I really hope I like my preceptor!! 

Yes I know, I missed week III, but I will recap here. 

Week III was much better than the previous 2 weeks, I only had to do 2 write ups. I got to help my nurse take care of my patients as well as others so I saw lots of interesting cases. It was med surg peds, so nothing too intense; a fractured femur, meningitis rehab, foreign body aspiration, and a CF patient. But that just goes to show what I LOVE about Peds; the variation of the patient type, age, and diagnosis. I love how nurses have to be on their toes, never knowing quite what they will get, and really good at all body systems. 

12 hour shifts no longer seem ridiculously long, but rather just like another shift, with more opportunities, which is awesome. 

As for this week, it was my NICU (neonatal ICU)/ PICU (pediatric ICU) week, which means it starts tuesday off with pediatric surgery. So tuesday at 6 am, I marched to the hospital, and watched a extremely interesting surgery. (cut the maxillary into 3 pieces, moved it forward, removed all 4 molars, and cut and reduced the mandible.) The surgery was VERY long, but worth watching. Then today (wednesday) I go into the PICU and there is my patient from the day before!!! So I got to interact with the family, the patient, and learn the in’s and out’s of taking care of an intubated patient with her jaw wired shut ( I also saw her extubated). I also saw a patient on ECMO (if you don’t know what that is, here is a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracorporeal_membrane_oxygenation) watching ECMO just makes you stare in wonder at what science and good training can do. After today I am so very very sure that PICU is what I want to do. Unfortunately PICU isn’t available at my favorite hospital next semester for precepting, so maybe NICU as a close second? So many decisions and options!!!  

I also had the very interesting experience to watch a shaman bless the wing. PICU is moving to another part of the hospital, so many, many religious officials were gathered to do their piece, and do whatever it is that they do per different religions. However the only person who had the floor, so to speak, and did their own bit publicly, was a shaman.  She had an assistant bang on a drum, and spoke her piece, and did her thing. The whole performance caused a bit of a stir in the unit, and it was amusing and interesting to watch. As an agnostic the whole show made me even more doubtful. And yes, I say show because of the way it was all acted out. With the shaman’s face towards the sky, her eyes closed, and the deep raspy voice, as if she was channeling the ancestors she was talking about and summoning. However every sentence she had to stop, look down, and peek at her paper with her speech on it. Kills the effect a bit. 

So anyway. That was all before lunch. After lunch, which included mid term eval’s, I marched up to NICU to explore the unit. I LOVE THE NICU. I might be biased as one of my favorite people in the world works there, but still its a beautiful unit, with interesting cases, and completely different from any other part of the hospital. I saw every baby on the unit, talked to all the nurses, learned a lot, rocked a little one to sleep, emptied an ostomy bag, saw a baby eat for the first time, and just enjoyed the day. The day ended with a half mile power walk to my car under the stars to some good music.

Yup a pretty good day in the life of a nursing student.