{"id":3245,"date":"2008-12-05T05:35:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-05T05:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eaumaison.wordpress.com\/2008\/12\/05\/christmas-in-the-air"},"modified":"2008-12-05T05:35:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-05T05:35:00","slug":"christmas-in-the-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/2008\/12\/05\/christmas-in-the-air\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas in the air"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thanksgiving post and pics to come, I promise.  Been a crazy busy but good week at school  I don&#8217;t want to write much, but don&#8217;t want to forget my experiences.  Thus bullets!<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Leadership is over and I think I got 100% in the class.  woot.  Also didn&#8217;t pass their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.atitesting.com\/\">ATI practice test<\/a> &#8211; the first time this whole program.  What does that tell us about the class?<\/li>\n<li>Tuesday in outpatient dialysis.  Pretty boring on the whole, but I have a better understanding of renal function and got to help set-up dialysis, blood draws, and talked about transplants.<\/li>\n<li>Wed\/Thur two GREAT clinical days.  Cared for two kiddos both days.<\/li>\n<li>First an 11 month old, hepatoblastoma, here for fever and neutropenia (FN).  Tiny kid, was twin-twin transfusion in utero (both survived, he&#8217;s the small one).  Had necrotizing enterocolitis, has a J-tube in place.  Been vomiting up all his feeds until today, when he kept down a lot of PO as well as gavage overnight.  Yea!<\/li>\n<li>Second a 19 year old guy with ALL (a leukemia) also in for FN.  Really skinny and malnourished as well.  Had him eating more by the second day and doing a lot better<\/li>\n<li>Basic care for both: give antibiotics, pain meds (dronabinol for one, or as my nurse said &#8220;the ganja pill&#8221;), get food down, measure pee and poop, vitals, and gown-up every entrance since both were on droplet isolation.<\/li>\n<li>Also got to see a lumbar puncture &#8211; it&#8217;s like maple syrup dripping out of a tree!<\/li>\n<li>Worked with the same great nurse as last time.  She and my instructor are so encouraging and I had many chances to shine.  I feel like I got the adult equivelent of gold star stickers all day.<\/li>\n<li>It snowed today!  White out conditions made my preceptor late &#8211; she lives in the mtns and it took her 3.5 hours to get here.<\/li>\n<li>I got to work with a non-floor nurse for a couple hours (more gold stars) and do more independent care.  I felt like I took the lead!  <\/li>\n<li>Kids get the coolest stuff.  Marshmallow shooters that act as incentive spirometers.  &#8220;Beads of Courage&#8221; that they collect for a necklace &#8211; a different colored bead for each type of procedure like transfusions, chemo treatment, etc.  My nurse said while I was in my clinical conference she went in the OR to help place a broviac in a teddy bear!  They let the little girl scrub-in and help the surgeon place a central line in the teddy&#8217;s chest along with a bag of fluid so she can flush and draw blood from her own toy.  I told my preceptor that if the do one next week to make sure I get to assist.<\/li>\n<li>The snow was swirly outside the windows.  When I walked out to my car at the end of my shift I could see it was the perfect picture-book crystals that sparkle like glitter in the parking lights.<\/li>\n<li>There are Christmas decorations all over the hospital and I love it!  We gave one of our kids a stocking of cherry candy canes because he hates peppermint ones.  A singer came to the floor and serenaded us with carols.  <\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;m dead tired after three shifts in a row (8, 12, 12) but I&#8217;m on a high from it going so well.  My back is pinched and I have so much homework that tomorrow won&#8217;t be a day off <a href=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3195\/3082960417_baf16ae49d_d.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3195\/3082960417_baf16ae49d_d.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>at all.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>But I came home to this:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ben is so fantastic.  He had  decorations up, dinner hot on the stove, and Christmas swing music playing when I walked in the door.  I love my man.  I&#8217;m getting so excited for break and for the holiday.  One week to go!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanksgiving post and pics to come, I promise. Been a crazy busy but good week at school I don&#8217;t want to write much, but don&#8217;t want to forget my experiences. Thus bullets! Leadership is over and I think I got 100% in the class. woot. Also didn&#8217;t pass their ATI practice test &#8211; the first [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}