Day 8

Today was the longest shift that I will ever have in the hospital, at least this quarter. I was there for 6 hours and 20 minutes. It was a pretty pleasant six hours and twenty minutes, I have to say. The thing I don't like about these long shifts is that I don't remember what happened the whole time. People either loved me or hated me this morning though. One patient called me an angel, another called me an asshole, and there were very few in between. There were a lot of crazy people at the hospital during my shift too. There was this one girl there who was convinced that she was going to die in the hospital, so she kept trying to get out of there. She looked like she was just a little older than me. I'm not sure why she was there to begin with, but she was bawling because she thought someone was going to just let her die. She didn't even look sick; not physically, anyway. They gave her some psych meds after awhile and she was fine. Every time I walked by her area she asked me for a couple of blankets. She must've had like 8 blankets on her by the time I left.

When I got there, there was an old sardar man in one of the rooms. I went in and said fateh to him. He asked how I was doing and if I was working there, I said I was fine and yes, I was working there. Then I instinctively asked how he was doing, and he said he was doing great. I looked on the chart and he was there for chest pain, so he obviously wasn't doing great. I had to step out of his room to check in with the nurse, and after I was done with that I wanted to go back to see if he wanted any blankets or anything. He was asleep every time I went by, and then I got busy in x-ray and when I got back he was gone. Hopefully he went home, not admitted into the hospital.

There was another patient, a mental health case. He was found standing in the rain with a t shirt and shorts on and didn't think it was at all weird. He kept talking to himself and trying to get out of his restraints. He also kept complaining about not being able to answer his phone calls because he was restrained in his gurney. The phone rings a lot in the hospital, and this guy just thought it was for him. He was talking to people who weren't there too. Quite the subtle spectacle.

There were a couple of prisoner patients today too. One of them was nice and quiet, the other one was pretty rambunctious. There were like 8 police men with them. The prisoners were just around the corner from emergency pediatrics, and the rambunctious one wouldn't stop yelling and swearing. One of the nurses went over there and asked him (very sweetly) to tone it down because there were children just around the corner, and he swore at her too. So rude. I had some downtime a little after three. At that point the nice one had left the hospital and the other one was there with two officers. I talked to the officers a bit, they were both very nice gentlemen. They asked about my career goals and one of them told me like his life story. We talked about college life in Davis, how the Grad isn't the cool place to go anymore and so on. They were both a little sad to hear that. The prisoner told me how he's been writing to some "female" in Guyana and wants to bring her to the US as his girlfriend. I wished him luck and the officers laughed and said I was too polite. Both of their shifts were extended to like 18 hours because of that prisoner, poor guys.

I walked by one patient and she asked for some wet towels so that she could clean the blood off of her hands. I brought her some wet ones and some dry ones, and a tray to put the used ones in. Then I offered to clean her hands for her. I figured, if my mom was in the hospital and I couldn't be there with her, how would I want the staff to treat her? And so I responded to this woman accordingly. As I was cleaning her hands and face, I asked what happened to her. She really had blood all over. She told me she either had a seizure or she had just collapsed, and it's likely that it happened because she was just too busy. She wakes up at five each morning, works to take care of her daughter and granddaughter and just has no time for herself unless she's up at 5. We talked a little about how life gets too stressful and people are too involved with their schedules to enjoy anything at all. Cleaning her hands and face were possibly the most rewarding things I've done at the hospital so far. The nurses and tech's were a little surprised at what I was doing, but they appreciated it all the same. One of the techs joked with me afterwards saying he had a little bit of blood on his hands and would appreciate it if I'd clean it off for him.

After that, I was in the hallway and a patient was wailing for some water. I'm not authorized to give patients anything without talking to the nurse first, so after awhile the nurse told me to go ahead and give him some water. I brought him water, and then he asked for juice. I told him we had no juice, he'd have to drink the water if he was thirsty. And then he asked for cold water, and I told him that what I gave him is all we had. So he finished his water and threw his cup at me, called me an asshole and asked for juice. I threw away his cup and walked away. This man was seriously like 60 years old.

There was another old man in the hospital who refused any treatment. He had a seizure, so they wanted to put an IV line in him and he seriously barked at them. This man was pretty old too, in his late 60s at the youngest. He was seriously barking and growling at the staff, and squirming like crazy every time they tried doing anything to him. They had to poke his arm at least 8 times before they could get it in the right place because he wouldn't stop moving. Apparently he was a regular at the hospital, most of the staff knew him. Not in a good way, though.

The last patient I will mention is an overdose patient who came in. She came with like 8 empty pill bottles. Most of them contained vicoden, though she had also taken tylenol and cliazepam. On her stomach someone had written "DNR: Pain Relief ONLY!" It was kinda weird.

On the way home from the hospital I was pretty tired. I didn't really pay attention to where I was going, and I ended up driving 10 miles in the wrong direction before I realized that I was farther from home than I wanted to be. Silly me. Anyway, two more shifts left at the hospital. For next quarter, I have the same shift.. same day, same time. Should be fun.

Day 7

So today I spent 6 hours in the hospital in an effort to start making up the time I missed the past two weeks. It was a pretty slow six hours. I followed around a med student for a little while, and I learned how to put stitches on a patient. A stab wound patient was in the ER for a little bit of the time that I was there. He had some stabs on his face so he needed stitches. This guy was so lucky, his major blood vessels were just barely missed by the knife and he had no puncture that went all the way to the skull, though it was still pretty deep.

Day 6

No day 6 either. I'm really sick, I would've been more hurtful to the patients than helpful.

Day 5

There is no Day 5. I didn't go to the hospital today. On Monday I twisted my knee a little bit at practice so I experienced discomfort walking all day long, and additionally on Monday night I just didn't sleep well. I woke up at 5 AM on Tuesday totally randomly. I didn't want to be awake, but I couldn't fall back asleep either. Then on top of that I was on campus for 12 hours with no break - any break I had I spent in the library really studying. So my next few shifts will probably be an hour or so longer than usual so that I can make up the time I missed. The good side, in addition to the rest I get to have, is that I don't have to see that paramedic guy for another week. Hopefully by that time he'll just do his job and save people's lives, and let me do my job and work towards making more money than he'll ever see. HA.

Day 4

The hospital folk remember me now. Some of them know me by name, others recognize my face, which is fine too for now. The day was slow again. I got there 15 minutes early in an effort to start making up the time I missed when I left early last week. I cleaned like a million gurneys... I'm pretty good at that. Today was the first day I actually spent stocking shelves and drawers. That entertained me for about an hour of my time. I have a pretty decent idea of where things are in terms of supplies and what not.

It's nice being there now that people recognize me. The first day was nice because I was the new kid so they were patient in showing me around, and my 2nd and 3rd day they knew that I was supposed to be there but didn't really know who I was, and now it's like they're happy to see me and really appreciate that I'm there. Very warm feeling.

Towards the end of my shift I encountered the most awkward of awkward situations. It was about 3:55 and I was transporting a patient on his gurney from CT back to 1. The paramedic intern, the same one who I mentioned in Day 2 whose attitude I don't like, was passing by and our conversation was as follows:

"So, you gettin' outta here in a bit?"

"Yea, like 5 or 10 more minutes I think."

"Wanna get dinner sometime?"

Brief silence... "I'll have to get back to you on that one I'm exhausted."

This whole time we were walking in opposite directions and when I answered him I neither stopped walking nor turned around. This guy is like short, chubby and balding, and I really have no desire to mix my extracurricular activities with my personal life in any way. Awkward, awkward, awkward. I wonder if the patient knew what was going on. He looked like he was beaten up pretty badly. I decided that if this paramedic intern asks me anything of the sort again I'll let him know that my "boyfriend" wouldn't approve.. I figure it's the least painless thing - he won't persist or be offended, I won't have to deal with him.. very nice.