Really Crazy Side

We added someone to our family. Meet Morris. He is a forlorn 13 year old cat that we took home from the shelter. I'm already in love with him, Ken hates it when I say that (you can't love something you own!). But he's so sweet tempered, and so skinny and in need of good lovin' and a hot meal. When we first brought him home, he was vomiting and eating poorly and was incontinent. So we spent a lot of money at the vet to find out that a) he's not in kidney failure, and b) he doesn't have cancer. They ended up scratching their heads and giving him a whopping antibiotic shot and IV fluids over 2 days. And it worked. He's so much bettter, we think he'll make it. By the way, Crabby hates him. Really. Turns out she's not a meek, mild little girl after all. Why doesn't she hate Mitt, my sister's big ole boy kitty? I don't get it.

I've worked a lot the last month, it's been been mostly routine. As much as a psych ward is routine. Very few emergency injections, I think I gave only two, and one of those was a big learning experience. We had a young 21 year old woman, very slight, she weighed about 90 lbs. and she had a little freak-out that involved pounding on walls and screaming. She clearly needed sedation. One of the docs (not her assigned doc) was there, so we quickly got an order and did it. Within minutes, we put her to bed. But later, she stumbles out and almost falls. She's very pale, we take her blood pressure and it's scary-low. We force her to sit up and drink fluids, she's able to respond to questions although she keeps asking to be put back in bed. We call the doc and he says to force more fluids and assign a watcher so she doesn't fall. And he was mad -- the thorazine dose was much too large for someone so small. We repeated this little event a few hours later. Important lesson-- dosing is important, and ask about the patient if you don't know them. Overall, this is a lesson I'm familiar with: Don't be in too much of a hurry. Check it out. We've had a lot of younger patients, many college students, who got in trouble with drugs. That stuff they're selling called Bath Salts or Spice (synthetic marijuana) is really lousy crap that needs to be illegal. You should see how kids behave after ODing on it. And how long it takes (ever?) to return to normal. I think they've permanently damaged their brains. Makes me mad.

Conversation overheard between two patients starting to make an acquaintance: "How long have you been here?" "Oh, three days, they just moved me over from the other side (meaning the PICU)" "Oh! Isn't that the really crazy side?"

Class is almost over, it ends July 5th and it feels like I just started. It's been shockingly easy, basically show up, do a little reading, write a few paragraphs each week and do one group project. That's it. Wish I could've knocked out two nursing classes like this. I start Human Sexuality after that. If that's not a fun-o-rama, I'm going to feel cheated.

My class is on Healthcare Policy, and it's actually quite interesting and I've learned a lot. It's inspired me to become politically active, so much about healthcare needs to change. I'm going to attend my first PAPNA meeting on Wednesday, that's the Psychiatric Advanced Practice Nurses of Austin. So next time, I'll talk a little about that.