OPTIMISM FOR BEGINNERS

I am pretty magnificent these days. The sun is shining and that dreaded could of doubt and doom has lifted itself off of me. I am content where i am (for the moment that is) and i don't know if moving back to the city and switching programs is right for me anymore, I will really dig myself into a financial hole of sorts if I move from here. This is my list of cons:

1. Up rooting myself once again and having to find new room mates and an affordable place to live

2. Another 4 years of schooling and starting a new program.

3. No jobs in the city like out here.

4. I will be an undergrad in just over a year making big bucks. New car yes? If i move back home its another 3 until i can be an undergrad

5. Big bucks for rent

So, I think i will remain here. I really feel like i need to prove it to myself that i can do this. Being out of my element and all. I have made some minor adjustments to my work life..which were really weighing heavily on me and dragging me down. At the time when i was having my crisis and depression i was working on very HEAVY and depressing geriatric units all the time. These units consisted of people who were so far gone, not able to eat or toilet themselves... no quality of life. I decided to avoid these units and now my attitude has changed. I do love psychiatry and i am questioning now if i even want to do my RN? If i could get a job in Brain Injury Rehabilitation in the future with some eating disorders or addiction on the side i think i could be very content. Its a downer that people give psych not enough credit but thats because they are idiots. My first clinical is almost done, one more shift left! And it has been so rewarding. Last week I created a nursing intervention for one of my clients and implemented it, it was so amazing to see it in action and actually improving her quality of life. the unit even adopted it and gave me credit. I later walked into the conference room and over heard them saying that we were the most helpful students that they ever had. Way to rub my ego.

Anyways im lazy and don't feel like sharing any of my recent hospital adventures. im going to europe thanks to my tax returns.

.......

And my internet is flakier than your mothers shoulders.

hard days night.

Work was weird. For the most part good, but a little emotionally draining and had an ethical dilemma or two. I was working in adult psychiatry today on my favorite adult unit. I was on constant with a nice autistic boy, we played with puzzles and he watched me draw pictures of various animals ect ect.. While he was taking his bath i turned around to see about 12 men running onto the unit.. i missed my first 12 person take down aw. There was a new admin. at about 1 am in the morning and i guess she had been giving everyone problems. meeeh... so i put my little friend to bed and i was free to work on the rest of the unit. Around 10 30 or so this tall, skinny, and very distressed looking woman comes walking down the hall yelling to see the person in charge and was threatening to call the police and tell global news about how terribly the hospital was treating her and keeping her against her own will. The first person to get to her was this FAT LAZY OLD AIDE who had been reading a book all fucking night, and of course he wasn't doing her any good just saying that everyone was in report and that he had already taken the phones away. fucking BASTARD. I decided to take over because his fat useless self wasn't doing much good. i calmly told her that we will go to her room and talk. She was on room restriction and put into a side room with only a strong sheet and a mattress, i didn't feel threatened by her because i had managed to some what calm her down and brought her back into her room so i sat down on the mattress with her, i didn't want to be talking to her and looming over her. I introduced myself and i asked her when she was brought into the hospital and what she had done to be brought in...she was calming down at this point and began explaining everything to me when an older man entered the room, he seemed polite and i figured it was the doctor so i got up, there was already all the staff standing at the door with gloves on and ready to give her an injection. I could tell her anxiety level was going through the roof now. I mean how could you blame her? Anyways she lost her cool and so did the doctor and he gave the word and she was forced into lock down. They locked the door and everyone walked off and the FAT BASTARD said something that really pissed me off but i forget now. i couldn't take it. I had her calmed down i had her in her room why the fuck did they do that? i went into the bathroom and cried like a sissy. After i came out and decided to talk to a very nice older nurse on the unit to tell her my concerns about the whole situation. She gave me some good advice and some insight into this patient, I know she isn't stable but i still wanted to give her a chance. Some time later the Doctor actually came up to me and apologized, and said that i was handling the situation. after he left the nurse who i had talked to turned around and said that was a big thing. First year nurse and i already have the doctors telling me they are wrong. I win.

Im still depressed about being here but i did have a very good day last wednesday.

I finally got a shift on a brain injury unit, and it just so happened to be the unit i had orientated on so i had an idea of what goes on and who the patients are. I love the brain injury units because it is more of a general hospital setting with call bells and all that jazz. It was a much needed break from the depressing geriatric units where you wish you can just end the suffering yourself. Anyways it was so good be there, patients who i haven't seen since october have improved greatly. Many were walking again! They really have some amazing tools and people in the hospital. It was nice to work with people more my age, i felt i had more i can relate to with them. The nurses were so kind as well, answering all my questions and giving me so much info on the patients treatment plans and how their medications work. Some things are sad though. There is one boy who is beyond being able to walk again and his dad is so delusional saying things like how he will go back to work again..ect ect.. i guess i dont have much to say but i loved it. i feel good about nursing again. I work another brian injury unit this weekend and it should be magnificent.

hard times

In the back of my brain for the last few months I ve been toying with the idea of transferring right away into the regular nursing program. It hit me hard yesterday working with a 4th year RN student. i KNOW im good at psych, but fuck, do i want to be pushing pills? FUCK. im throwing an application in on Feb first. you will not be hearing about it until i am accepted. and if i am rejected. well. you won't hear anything. I am so conflicted. The passionless nurses i see here shoving pills into the mouths of clients... i know if it weren't for the hospital that they would be on the streets. But after working as an aide and being a student nurse on the unit i feel as if as a nurse all you do is chart, give drugs and..well where the fuck are the counseling skills that i learned going to be used?!?!? i know this hospital is different than those in the city but... i don't know. my head hurts from crying to my mom. I don't know if can do this forever, it wasn't my original plan but if i can leave this town and the hospital that runs this town..id be okay with that.

another day at the office

I was called in last minute for an evening shift on an adult psych unit that I have never worked before so I was eager to take it. I have heard a lot of good things about this particular unit. The only things I knew about it was that it was basically a long term unit, technically its called a rehabilitation unit but the patients who are there never really leave. One client has been there since he was about 13, and he is now 38. When I walked onto the unit the staff was very pleasant and willing to show me around and tell me about the clients before I got working. I was told that this unit is actually quite active and violent, after reading a few of the patents charts I noticed that most, if not all are either Schizo affective or bipolar affective, affective meaning mood and Im sure that most know the vague details of bipolar and schizophrenia disorder. But these clients don’t quite fit the criteria for these disorders and only have a few select behaviors. But yes they are quite erratic and can quickly change their mood. So I experienced my first close call this evening with one particular elderly female whom I was warned about. One of the male nurses had grabbed a unit phone and rushed out ( I later found out he was rushing out to grab a hospital van to pick up a patient on our unit who had decided to walk off hospital grounds towards the highway in the rain while he was out on privileges, he was spotted by several hospital staff) and she was being nosey, asking what he was doing and where he was going, I suppose I could have said something else but I replied back with “oh im not sure, but he is a grown man and is probably going out to do what ever” and she snapped! “YOU SNOT NOSED LITTLE SHIT, I AM OLD ENOUGH TO BE YOUR MOTHER BLAH BLAH BLAH…!!!!” She was getting up close right into my face I kept my cool and told her that I meant nothing by it and was preparing to dodge a fist to my mouth but thankfully the well seasoned and bad ass nurse told her to back off. Another bullet dodged.  After that my shift ran smoothly, not a whole lot going on, another aide came up to me and asked if I would like to play Wii with a client, she had played a few games and her arms were already hurting so I jumped to the opportunity to be paid $20 an hour to play games. This patient was one I saw around the hospital often so I felt comfortable being alone and in close quarters with him.  Game was going well, he is quite good at bowling and was calling me a lucky duck every time I got a strike, but soon those duck comments got a little weird. He started talking about ducks in a bath and how we are both ducks, and he would “wash my body” then I would “then wash his body” I immediately said “absolutely not” and the comments stopped, I quickly finished up the game and left the room (to make it even a little more awkward I unfortunately walked in on him pleasuring himself while doing rounds). I brought this up during report and one nurse immediately replied “Its that bath scene in the video”. I was a little confused but they explained that his brother had given him a pornography and odd enough the doctor said that it was acceptable as long as no bad behaviors occurred, looks like I got the video taken away. Opps!  I mean, I try to empathize with him, he is a young man with blood in his veins and he is going to need to express those feelings, but I think a playboy or more preferably the underwear section of a sears catalogue and some Vaseline would do. But his mind is no more mature than a 9 year old boy, so the pornography on his video would seem acceptable to him, and I could definitely see something terrible happen. Anyways other than those two characters there was only one other patient who had stuck out to me, not so much by their actions but by their history.  Right from the get go her life hadn’t been easy, she has experienced incest, physical abuse, drug abuse, living on the streets, schizophrenia, pregnancy and almost no normalcy in her life. She most definitely was predisposed, almost every female in her family has some sort of psychological issue.  But the way life has treated her I don’t blame her for breaking down.  She is catatonic most of the time, I hear she is quite violent, but I feel for her. And I wish that it was as easy as supporting her and telling her that everything will be okay, but she is too far gone.  I was told that this unit is the dumping grounds for all the patients that no one else can handle, but I was so impressed with how organized and well handled everything was. Over all it was a great shift and I really am loving my job. And as I sit here in the comfort of my own home I  am thankful for my supports and healthy mind.  GOOD NIGHT.

long long over due

 

I have finally finished my orientation so I have begun working in the psychiatric hospital and I realize that this is exactly what I want to be doing. Its eye opening, I feel that the diagnosis of a psychiatric illness is far more devastating than the diagnosis of a physical ailment. If you think about it, which illness is more easily accepted and understood, being told that you have cancer or being told that you have schizophrenia?  Which disease will your family and friends understand and be able to give you the support that you need?  At first going into the hospital especially when working in geriatrics I felt that if one was admitted to the hospital at that age it was basically a death sentence of sorts, but I have definitely witnessed some amazing things. I feel ignorant calling geriatric psychiatric a “death sentence” because I have talked to clients who are most definitely functional and have improved. It was heart warming working with a client who I was able to have a conversation with and they were thanking me and knew that what I was doing was beneficial to them. She was admitted to the hospital with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and within 2 months her hallucinations had stopped. So there is hope out there.  But still if I was ever diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer’s I know for a fact that after working with these clients, I would rather die before everything fades away. Now working in adult psychiatry is a lot more interesting, the variety of psychological issues blows my mind, I am sure that all of us can be diagnosed with something and be put on a drug for it.  That’s part of the reason why I don’t think I can just stay with psychiatry. The mechanics of the drugs and how they work on the neurons of the brain are not entirely known and that kind of bothers me.  I had a great shift the other day working adult psychiatry. I was on constant with an autistic boy, I have a soft spot for autistic children due to my past experience, I feel comfortable and that once I know the individual and their quirks I will be able to have them open up to me. It was fun I took him to the gym and he rode his bike for 2 hours while I looked on and played basketball. I think one of the most mind blowing things about autism is that the individual could be having the time of their lives but you could never tell, sometimes though if they are really excited it will come through.  While in the gym a client from a unit that my roommate works on came in to ride the bike, I suspected he may have had some form of downs syndrome. I was talking to my roommate and I was very surprised by his diagnosis. He is a 28 year old male and before he came into the hospital he was a completely normal healthy individual. He had been in a bar fight and had been knocked out for literally a few seconds, he got up and everything seemed okay. Within a few weeks the family had noticed some changes in him. He was taken into the doctor, tests were done and the diagnosis was a degenerative brain disease. And with time he will become a complete vegetable. Who knows if the fight had anything to do with it, but in my mind it didn’t and these changes would have occurred with or with out the fight. Oh the mysteries of the brain. Well that is all for now. I have my first clinical tomorrow! Pray that this damn head cold goes away!

Blurrrggggggggg

These last 2 weeks have been nice.

Last weekend I went to Edmonton with a few of my Ponoka pals to see Chad Vangaalen play at the Myer Horowitz  theater, it was a magnificent show. The opener though i have to say was really terrible. It was a single woman act named Castle Music i stuck around for about 3 songs then i sat outside with Brennan Heeks until she was done. Ponoka isn't so bad these days now that I ve found a group of individuals who share the same interests. Anyways Chad was magnificent, this time around he had a band and they played most of my favorites. But i dont think he will ever play anything from infiniheart ever again which is too bad because that is one of my favorite albums. Its been nice getting to know these individuals. then on Friday Laura and Cole are picking me up on their way to Calgary where we will celebrate Halloween together!