I'm Up!

Mmk, well it's my turn to do the blog this week! I haven't had one experience that has really stood out more than others, so I'll just talk about what's been going on so far...

Like Mary Kelly, I'm working on the hematology/oncology floor at the UNC Children's Hospital. We get cancer patients, patients with blood disorders, and those with pulmonary diseases. We've been there three weeks, and I've had a precious 2 year old with aplastic anemia, a super friendly 19 year old with cystic fibrosis, and a VERY independent 9 year old, also with cystic fibrosis.

Quick recaps for those girls:
My 2 year old: I was nervous going into that week - it was our first one, and all I could think was, "I've never done an assessment on a 2 year old!" She has aplastic anemia, which means her white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets are all severely depleted. I walked into her room, and she'd graduated from a crib, so she was sleeping in an adult-sized bed, totally horizontal. I took her vitals, and was totally confused as to why she wasn't waking up while I was moving her arms to take her blood pressure and temperature. I found out a few minutes later, that in preparation for the platelets she was to receive that day, they gave her benadryl - and it had knocked her OUT! A good thing too, because she was NPO (couldn't eat) until 12 when she went to have a bone marrow biopsy, and was an UNHAPPY camper when she awoke at 11 and wasn't allowed to eat! She's waiting for a bone marrow transplant. Unfortunately, she was back in this past Tuesday - they thought she had appendicitis and a perforated bowel. I watched them put in a NG (nasogastric) tube so they could give her the contrast they needed to before they did a CT scan. That was definitely the most traumatizing thing I've watched yet...but it had to be done I suppose. It was sad to watch though.
My 19 year old: Because we were so close in age, I went into it thinking, "This could either be really good...or really really bad." Luckily...it was really good! She was a sweetheart and--apart from when I had to be the nurse, and do her assessment, take vitals, give meds, etc--we had a fun time just talking and hanging out, watching food network and talking about boys, makeup, school, and plans for the future. Cystic fibrosis has touched my family, so working with a patient with CF was a special experience. As my patient, staff nurse and I discussed, CF is a disease that sort of flies under the radar. It receives far less awareness than other chronic illness (like cancer), and is one disease that still faces no cure. At the same time, the life expectancy for patients has risen dramatically in the last few decades due to great advancements in treatment/therapy, which is really encouraging.
My 9 year old: Like I said, VERY independent! She wanted to open her own meds, she wanted to push her own IV pole, and wouldn't let me help her tooooo much! She is actually a cancer survivor, and has a complex history, but despite her fairly recent diagnosis of CF, she knew what she was doing! She was very bright, and ready to get out of the hospital - which she did at 12! Which left me a very bored student nurse for the rest of the day :) So what did I do? Various oddjobs that people asked me to - weighed some dirty diapers, took some temperatures, met some new patients, talked with a girl recently diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, played mini-golf on the computer with a 7 year old boy with ALL (a type of leukemia) while he held my hand, witnessed a girl with CF give her number to a boy with CF two rooms down by yelling it out to the secretary standing in the hallway, and tried on some spongebob masks to appease another patient!

Working in peds has been great so far. I love how different each week has turned out to be - from playing with babies, to talking about life with patients practically my own age. We've only got 3 more days left on that unit, but I'm hoping that they'll be just as enlightening!

I've got to agree with MK though - God is good! And one of the benefits of a career that has you in the hospital often is that you can't help but feel acutely blessed for your own personal good health.

So: babies are cute, nursing is fun [albeit challenging], and God is good!