Spending the day in Wound Care

It has been a few weeks now that I have been on the Medical/Surgical floor every Wednesday. I have had some good experiences up there and have learned a lot.  A few weeks ago, I was able to stray away from the normal floor and spend a day down in wound care! ! I saw about 10 different patients that day, but I will only bore you with the ones that I enjoyed...

 

The first patient that I saw had a gaping wound on his elbow. They were having a hard time with the patient not reopening the wound, since it was on a part of the body that could easily be reopened. They decided that they would put this person in a full arm in a cast to prevent him from moving it and opening it back up farther. I had never seen a cast be put on before, so this was interesting to me.  I was able to stand next to the Doctor and hold the bucket of water for him to dip the dressings into. 

The Nurse then asked me to get the vitals for the patient next door. This patient had a quarter size ulcer on their sacrum and 4 small ulcers on the back heels. The Doctor came in and told me that the Nurse was going to prep to give this patient a skin graft. She opened a large package packed with dry ice and pulled out this tiny Ziploc bag. She then proceeded to defrost the dermagraft. After the graft was ready and everything was set up, the Doctor started covering the ulcers with the graft. He told me that this graft cost $1200 just for a small piece that was smaller than a 3x5 card.  Because they could not use the graft again on another patient and he had finished with this patient, he let me look and touch the graft. It was really neat! 

The last patient that I saw that afternoon had necrotizing fasciitis on their right leg. It is a flesh eating bacteria, so this patient basically had no skin on the bottom of his right leg! It was covering everywhere from below the knee, to above the ankle.  This was by far the most interesting thing that I had seen that day! I had never seen anything like it before. The Doctor came in and told me about it. The patient’s wound was healing, but not very fast. The Doctor left and the Nurse started to dress the leg up. He was placing a wound vacuum on the leg, so I stayed to watch. It was really neat to see how this was done.

Although seeing all of these patients was fun, I don't think that being a wound care Nurse is the job for me. I am looking forward to my Operating Room rotation in a few weeks!

Holidays

Okay...so I know that I am totally behind in blogging! So, I thought that I would first start off by telling everyone how our holidays were. 

Shaun and I spent Chirstmas Eve at my family's house. We decorated sugar cookies, ate a wonderful dinner, played a really fun board game, went to a service at church, and did last minute gift wrapping! We ended up just staying the night there and opening gifts the next morning. We really enjoyed spending time with them! 

At about lunch time on Christmas Day we made our way to the other side of Phoenix to Shaun's parent's house. At their house we spent the afternoon and evening opening gifts, playing reindeer games, eating delicious food, and playing with our nephew! It was a lot of fun hanging out with the Palmer family and the new little one! 

Our New Years Eve was nothing really exciting. I definitely watched the ball drop in New York on TV and I was asleep before midnight our time! Shaun had to work and I did not do much. I did receive a wonderful phone call to find out that one of my dear friends was engaged! I am so excited for Kayla and Jared, and I look forward to their wedding next winter! That was the highlight of my New Years Eve.

A few days later was my 22nd birthday! Shaun and I spent the day together. We woke up and went to breakfast in downtown Scottsdale at the Breakfast Club. We had never been there before, but had heard that it was delicious. I enjoyed my chocolate chip pancakes and raspberry cafe moca! :-) After breakfast, Shaun took me shopping at Fashion Square. He bought me some shoes, makeup, clothes and some on-sale chirstmas decorations! I really enjoyed being able to wonder the mall and shop! Later that evening we went out to dinner with my family and then Shaun took me out to get gelato! (It is my new favorite desert!) We have a little gelato shop less than a mile from our house.

As I was taking down the Christmas decorations the other day, I could help but think of how blessed we are! We have 2 sets of wonderful families, a beautiful house and everything that we could possibly need. God has blessed our marriage tremendously. I am so thankful! 

Memories

Two years ago today Shaun proposed to me at the Biltmore Resort! To remember that special day, Shaun and I went out to breakfast at Mimi's Cafe this morning. 

The day after we were engaged, we went out to Mimi's. I remember that day so clearly. It was the morning after he popped the question....we had the biggest grins on our faces...we both couldn't stop saying "I love you" to each other....I kept glancing down at my ring admiring how beautiful it was! 

As we were sitting at breakfast this morning, I couldn't believe that after 2 years I am more in love with him then I was on that special day! 

Here are some photos from our engagement....

My first couple of Clinical Days.

Clinicals have officially started at the hospital. Nine of us students and my Professor are on a Medical Surgery floor at Phoenix St. Luke's on Wednesdays.  I have had two shifts there now.

Last week, My clinical instructor paired us up. Sheri and I had a pneumonia patient. We were not really allowed to do much because we have not been checked off for much yet (we have to be checked off in lab before we can perform any skills at clinicals). We were assigned to get a heath history from our patient. We had a whole list of questions to ask him. It took Sheri and I an hour and a half to ask him 30 questions! Every time we would ask him something he would chat on about a story about his cats or working out. I think he was just lonely and liked having company to talk to! Somehow we were able to finally get out of his room. I enjoyed our first week there and learned a lot about where everything is! 

On Wednesday, we had our second day at the hospital. Again, we were paired up and Sheri was my partner. I was given the chance to perform my first bed bath on a patient...It was so much fun (not!).  This time we had a 63 year old female. She was living in a Nursing home and was admitted the night before. She wasn't doing to well. We took care of her for a few hours, but at the end of our time there, her condition got worse and she was moved down to the ICU. 

At the end of the day we were given a tour of the Operating Room. I have to say it was pretty awesome! We were able to get all gowned up in OR attire and get to see where they do all of their operations. This was my first time ever seeing an OR! It was so cool! :-)

I will keep you all informed of the crazy adventures I'll have there in the weeks to come! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here are a few things that I am thankful for:

-My husband!  I love him so much! I love all of the time that we spend together.

-All of my wonderful family....my parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, Shaun's parents, and Shaun's brother and sister-in law

-My wonderful Savior

-All of my wonderful friends

-A school to go to where I can learn something that I am going to love doing

-Our cute home and all of the wonderful things inside

-My Car that gets me everywhere I need to go

I am so blessed! 

Happy Thanksgiving

Our Weekend

Shaun and I had a fun weekend. We went to a wedding on Friday night over in Fountain Hills. It was gorgeous outside and the location made it a beautiful wedding. I had fun getting to know his school buddies and their wives better. 

On Saturday we went up to my parents house to have their Thanksgiving meal. My grandparents were in town from Arkansas for the weekend, so they decided to do Thanksgiving early. It was a lot of fun. We got up there at about 10am and hung out until lunch. We ate a wonderful turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, vegetable casserole, salad, and butternut squash. Yum Yum! It was delicious! 

After the meal we did our Thanksgiving tradition of playing a game to decide the order of who says their thanks first. We have played this since the little kids brought it home from school in kindergarten. After we all said what we were thankful for this year, we then ate pie! I had my favorite, coconut cream pie. 

We then collapsed on the couch for some rest time...It wouldn't be thanksgiving without a nap after the big meal! The boys (Shaun and my brother) proceeded to play outside. Later, Shaun and I took out my brother Philip's car. It is a '74 CJ Jeep. We don't really know how to drive a stick shift car, so we thought it would be fun to learn. Shaun does pretty well with it.... on the other hand, I am not so good. I have to say I am getting better, but it is still a pretty jerky ride! 

Here is the Family picture that we took this weekend. Aren't they all growing up so fast?  This year Philip and Michael officially passed Jessica and I in height! They think that it is pretty funny now that they are taller! 

Here is Shaun and I:

My Nursing adventures continue...

I started my 3rd semester of Nursing this week! There is one word that describes my feelings of this week: OVERWHELMED! We had so much information thrown at us that I am not really sure what to think. So far, I am extremely excited to actually be learning Nursing skills and not just taking prerequisite classes. On the other hand, I am terrified that I won't be able to handle everything. I just hope that as the weeks go on I will start to feel more comfortable with classes and learn a routine that will help me to achieve good grades. 

In this semester I have 3 major classes:

-Student Success

-Fundamentals of Nursing / Medical Surgical Nursing

-Pharmacology

I also have a Skills Lab at school and Clinicals at the hospital. 

What scares me the most about these classes is the fact that I HAVE SO MANY BOOKS! All of those books in the picture are for ONE semester. Only 16 weeks! Help me!