Psych ward next...

I'm due at the psych ward in just 3 hours - as part of my training as a nurse, of course, what were you thinking! It is quite interesting to see, it is not like any other hospital ward I've seen. For one, all the patients use their own personal clothes. I understand why, it's just so unusual and quite striking when you first walk through the doors. Second, everything is locked - but then again, I expected that. Can't have suicidal patients with full access to shower hoses, belts or bath towels! Third - the staff wear long sleeves, rings, watches and fancy nails; a big no-no in the somatic care wards, here not so much. Do psych patients have better immune systems than other patients as a general? I think the rules should be the same no matter what part of a hospital you work in!

In other news, I've now aquired a summer job as a nurse assistant at an old folk's home back in Norway - it's a lot better paid than here in Sweden, so I'll just have to suck it up and miss little H and big S for a month this summer. H will then be joining me for a couple of weeks and spend time with her grandparents while I'm at work, and then we go home again. I have plans to ride my bike to work as well, so I might even get a little fitter as a bonus. I've got a mix between good and bad feelings about this - I know I'll miss them both a lot when I'm there on my own, but at the same time I can forget about the constant bad conscience for leaving H at school for such long hours - I'll actually be having more "free" time than I've had in a long time! And of course, it also means that I'll be having a proper summer vacation before school starts again, to do whatever we want :)

I took H with me to Norway this past weekend when I had my job interview, and we had the best spring weather ever - the sun was shining, there was no wind, the birds were singing and the barbecue got fired up. I've even got a teeny bit of a tint on my cheeks! It felt good - relaxed, sunny, warm in our hearts... And then we drove home, and we both got flat and numb butts from sitting in the car seats for so long - and we did stop for a break. If anyone knows how to avoid that, please let me know. I fear my butt will otherwise be completely flattened out this summer, and a flat but wide butt isn't exactly what I had in mind.

Alas, I've let my blog slide

It's been too long this time - but as always, I have a great excuse. Being out in the real world, meeting real patients, really did get the best of me. But now I'm back again for a quick visit, before heading out to a psych ward for 3 weeks!

The huge amounts of snow around the house have disappeared - there is a little left, but not enough to cover the complete mess the builders left behind them. We've already spent several hours picking up nails and screws - about 6 litres so far - and there's still the snuff boxes, the bits of board everywhere, pieces of scaffolding, left over roofing tiles, plastic covers and the occasional tool knife to pick up and dispose of. Granted, there were several days of blizzards when the builders were here, so lots of this stuff was very quickly buried in snow if they didn't pick it up immediately. I'm thinking of making a warning sign: "Do not walk on the dirt - it might contain pointy stuff!"

Inside - we're almost done. Big S and his dad will be hammering all of Easter week to create a floor on the attic, and then there's a shelving thing to put shoes at the back entrance to be built. My office is complete - floss, shelves and all - and I've even managed to clutter it up a bit already. It looks great! :D

I loved almost every second of working at the hospital these 7 weeks - the only thing I wasn't too fond of, were the calici virus. It's a feisty stomach bug, once one patient had it, it took just a few hours before everyone had it. Thank G we didn't have any patients who needed critical care! Most of our patients were on top of it, even if the calici left them a lot weaker than before. Apparently, this was some new strain, because I usually don't get affected, but this time I was down and out for 5 whole days. I was so weak I could only drink blueberry soup and watch daytime tv in between my naps, but on the 5th day I woke up hungry and fit as a fiddle again. Weird...

Today is waffle day here in Sweden, and tomorrow's my birthday, so I'm having two friends over for lunch and cake before picking up H from school. I have to get her by car even now when we live so close to school, because ALL of her clothes are usually wet in the afternoon - I can't carry it all... How I long for all the snow to be gone and to have dry weather!

All my love,

Once again I have survived an exam and apparently come out of it alive - we were tested on acute and long term disorders and complications between the lungs and the knees, with the addition of anything to do with nerves this saturday. Quite the span, don't you think? This time I think it went OK - TG for that!

New term, new class - as of tomorrow I will once again be "out there" and trying not to harm people - and this time I will be in a hospital for seven (yes, 7!) weeks. I've been assigned to a department that works mainly with bowel diseases and syndroms, so I have NO IDEA what kind of sick people (har har - ill should be the right word, right?) I will be trying to keep alive.

At least I now, as of yesterday, know that at least I know how to administer infusions and drugs - I had a practical exam on that, which actually went great - despite the fact that I was nauxious, dizzy and my hands were trembling because I was so nervous. Somehow it all went away when I started working my way through it all, and I even managed to keep everything clean as well as calculating at what rate the infusion should be given. I have no idea what happened, but apparently I am rather good at this stuff...

I've been knitting like crazy to keep the worrybugs out of my head, but with days being short and dark here, I haven't had the chance to get any good pics of it all. I will be knitting some more (had to get me some yarn once I got into the local yarn shop and fondled the stuff some), but I haven't quite decided what yet. Another hat, maybe?

The house is supposedly done next friday, but neither of us really believe it until we see it... We haven't even started packing yet, even though MIL has started collecting boxes for us to pack in - we've just placed them in the shed and tried to avoid the thought. At least we've ordered the new sofa, a new coffee table, a new dining table and chairs, so we'll have plenty of furniture; noone's been interested in buying the old furniture yet, despite our ads in the local paper. I guess we'll end up donating it to the local Red Cross or something? Oh well, we have all of february to move and clean houses, so we'll get there in due time!

Now I've got some yarn to fondle - lots of love!

Late greetings

I had planned this great post to celebrate my blogoversary: What my blog means to me, what blogland and everyone inhabiting it means to me and so on - and then I completely forgot all about it. I'd even planned on writing the post early this week and scheduling it because i KNEW I wouldn't have the time to post on the day, and what happened? The procrastinating ghost and the green-eyed stress monster ganged up on me and nothing got posted.

I'd like to thank Teena in Toronto for popping by and congratulating me anyway, thus reminding me what terrible monsters inhabit my territory here in blogland.

Instead of writing that perfect post which would bring lots of people by my blog for a party, I spent Monday making some small stuff for Barbies, Tuesday making two penny-pouches and Wednesday watching people getting blue/red/purple (depending on difficulty) in their faces trying to test their lung capacity - Wednesday evening our house seller came by, and we finally agreed on the price for the foundations and the preparations for our patio and parking space in front of the new house. Yay! A few drawings to be shipped off to the building council and the builders can actually get some work done on our land!

As of today, the only thing that has happened to our plot since this is that the local farmer has harvested his oatmeal and left 5 cms of the stems on the plot, and a sign has come up saying there's a house to be built there. Not much to see - I'll post a pic when they start digging.

Today I've been poking needles in people all day, and I am very happy to report that the nurses at my practice are now using gloves and are a lot more aware of the fact that they need to worry a bit more about the hygiene side of things. Seems my little pointer to their boss upon leaving (I had an inquiry form to fill out then, and I simply stated that it didn't look too good) the last time made them address the issue.
Tomorrow - I don't know. Probably some more needle-poking, vaccines, some wounds to clean, and it will be my last day at that health care center. I sure have learnt some, and I'm quite sad to think I will never be working with them again - they've been great. I fully intend on getting my own vaccine for the swine flu (A (H1N1)) before leaving, but that depends on wether they have any spare doses in the afternoon before we go home - once prepared, the bottle only keeps for 24 hours.

Until next time, lots of love

Loose in the real world again!

So, we've been let out of school and they've set us loose in the real world this week! This time I've actually been allowed to punch a needle into someone and see if they have blood in them! And yes, I was successful. We've been trained in how to draw capillary blood before, but this time we actually set the needle to skin and got entire blood samples! It wasn't half as scary as I thought, probably because I've mostly been angry that I haven't been ALLOWED to even try on another nurse, so when it finally happened, I was so stunned I didn't think too much - and hit the motherload on the first try. :)

On the microbiology side of things - I'm a bit shocked at how experienced nurses, with the wealth of knowledge they have on bacteriae, viruses and diseases, don't even use gloves when poking holes in people and drawing blood! Lots of the time, they don't even disinfect their hands between patients - and who knows what that patient had on his/her hands after their visit to the bathroom?!?! I admit that I might be a little overly cautious and too aware of the dangers in this world now, but I firmly believe that if you're working in a health facility you need to get real and see that you're not dealing with healthy people who can take minor infections without even noticing them, you're dealing with people who already have something to struggle with and who don't need more germs in their systems!

Shoot me at will if I'm wrong (I know I'm not), but it's a question of common curtesy to keep your hands clean - whether you work with sick people or not! Would YOU want to have poo on your hands after shaking someone else's hand??? Same thing with sneezing - snot - or picking your nose... Sure, do it if you want, but clean your hands before touching ANYTHING else! What's on your hands right now will in four seconds be in your eyes, mouth, food...
Ok, so that was this week's rant - do let me know if I have made ANYONE better at washing their hands after this ;)

Have you made a difference in someone's life today?

- I have! :)

I'm out doing my 3-week "internship" now, and after one week I have made a difference! There's this woman, who hasn't been allowed to have her food orally for three months (she has a feeding tube right into her stomach)- and noone's wondered why or if she could try having "real" food until I came along. I went digging through her file, and after consulting the resident nurse, we gave it a try. She had yoghurt, a banana and water - all different consistencies, and it worked wonderfully! No problems swallowing, no coughing or alike - so now she will be getting at least two small meals a day orally! She was so happy after that first meal - she loves food, and now she can enjoy the taste of it again.

I'm doing my first happy dance as a nurse! (Albeit still student nurse, but none the less...)I actually feel like I mattered - and it's a great feeling, I can assure you!

WIL-week

Time flies! I guess the school-thing is taking a lot more pondering than I thought - my head is sore...

This week I'll be on WIL - "work-integrated learning" on a local health care center. Well, it's not that local, I have to drive half an hour north of here to get there, but compared to most of my student colleagues I've got a really close one. Some of them have to travel for over an hour to get to their WIL... I'll be studying how the nurses (and other medical staff) greet the patients, what kind of language they use, how they explain things, what they do and how and so on - basic communication. It will be interesting to see the hcc from the other point of view, usually I go there because H is sick or something...
I've even got a badge with my name on it! :D It says "student nurse from x school" and is to be worn at all times so people know who I am and why. *Gee, I didn't know that was why medical staff always wear name badges...* o_O

I've actually got a bit of stitching done - I started the 12 houses sampler from The Drawn Thread when we were in Dalarna, but put it away when I 'suddenly' discovered that I had signed for two exchanges that needed prioritizing ;) Now when I've finished those two, I've started my sampler again. It's working up quite fast, although there are some speciality stitches - it's a lot easier when you can say "today I finished two houses and a tree".

Picture time!
Yup, this is the 12 days sampler - I've actually finished three trees, one house and two rooftops since this pic was taken :)







And then the initial scissor fob exchange over EMS - I got Jeanie from Singapore, so this little one had to go halfway across the globe to find her home! H helped me choose the blue beads on the edge ;)

I've got another exchange item to post as well, but I'll wait until I've heard from Lynne in Scotland that it's arrived. Don't want to spoil the surprise!