Day Six

26/5/14

Weese is fantastic. This, my eureka moment for an early monday morning. Urine has so many clues to a persons health and often holds the key to revealing invisible problems if you know where to look.
Today was the first day of morning shifts 7am-3.30pm. This requires getting up at 5.45am and I'm not easily roused. The morning was busy and full on, with just that much more to do what with getting people up and showered and fed, then doctors rounds, medication, wound dressings, mobilising patients then lunch. Somehow you have to fit a great deal of people into a relatively small ward. Standing room only doctors, please and thank you. Observed an enema today, used more frequently than you'd think. The combination of anaesthetic, pain relief, hospital diet, and lying in bed all day is a colon's worst nightmare. Happily I was with a lovely nurse again today who decided I should take a one patient load, meaning I was in charge of the full cares of one patient (under direct supervision). Though nerve-wracking it was all just a game of connect the dots between the cares I had been doing last week. Having to plan it out myself showed me how to structure planned nursing care, and just what a juggling match it is.