Injured Finger!

Ah! I injured my finger! Ouch! Like it's so hard to encode right now... huhuhu but I'm still trying to function normally.

I won't allow this impairment to hinder me from doing my ADL's or activities of daily living huhuhu.

It does really hurt. I can rate the pain with a 2 out of 10 pain scale with 10 as the highest. I already applied ice to prevent further hematoma and inflammation and also to desensitize the pain fibers.

I won't drink Mefenamic acid or any analgesics for that matter because I fear that my body would adapt to it and it wouldn't be effective when I really need pain killers.

I do hope that my finger heals soon. Oh yeah my finger got injured because it got stuck in a folding chair as I was about to get of the van. Darn it, what bad luck!

The Student Nurse is Sick

Ok, I can't believe that I'm sick again. I was just in the hospital last December 30 to January 2 and now I'm fearing that I might be admitted in the hospital for the same reason: tonsillitis or pharyngitis.

It's either one of the two because my doctor really didn't inform me of my medical diagnosis but I'm sure that it's either of the two. I have a long history of tonsillitis so I'm not anymore surprised if I get Rheumatoid Heart Disease.

For those who don't know what tonsillitis or pharyngitis is here's a quick overview:

Pharyngitis and tonsillitis are infections in the throat that cause inflammation. If the tonsils are primarily affected, it is called tonsillitis. If the throat is primarily affected, it is called pharyngitis. A person might even have inflammation and infection of both the tonsils and the throat. This would be called pharyngotonsillitis. These infections are spread by close contact with other individuals. Bacterial infections are more common during the winter. Viral infections are more common in summer and fall.

I'm not sure though if my sore (yeah I have one near my uvula and it's painful) is caused by a virus or bacteria. Either way my doctor gave me this medical management:

• Clindamycin (300 mg BID PO) - is a lincosamide antibiotic that is used to treat the infection causing my pharyngitis/tonsillitis
• Mefenamic Acid (500 mg TID PO) - an analgesic that is prescribed for the pain

And for my nursing management (I added this one ):

• Warm saline gargle BID (that's twice a day)
• Good oral care
• Increase fluid intake and rest

I would like to add a pathophysiology of my disease condition but I guess that it would be over-doing it right? I have a few ideas though why I got infected:

• There are times that I fall asleep with out brushing my teeth
• I have a tooth decay near the tonsils
• I'm genetically predisposed to tonsillitis/pharyngitis - a very unlikely reason hahaha

Medical-Surgical Nursing Book as a Sleeping Aid

Moving at the speed of Nursing... This slogan seems so ironic in my case. I am guilty of sometimes using my medical-surgical (MS) book as a sleeping aid. I can't help it sometimes, I realized that reading MS could stimulate me to sleep.

I know that this is a bad habit so I'm trying to break it. I really should pull myself together because there's only a few weeks left before finals and I'm still unprepared and my quizzes are very low.

It would be a miracle if I passed MS at all. But I would make up for my wasted time by studying more: this is my promise.

Practicing Clinical Instructors

For me, Practicing Clinical Instructors (PCI's) are just students. They aren't really clinical instructors. They are still learning to be one. They should admit that they aren't fit enough to be called a nurse yet because they still are student nurses.

But it really annoys me when some PCI's think that they are far more superior than us and that they are equals with our clinical instructor. But I beg to differ. They still have a lot to learn before they can be a CI.

There are PCI's thought that are very approachable and respectful. They treat us as equals rather than subordinates and they never say side comments that are not only useless but degrading too.

That is why I'm never happy when PCI's are around because they are just there to nag us around to do our jobs.

Wheezing In the Abdomen?!

I was really frustrated when I heard from my duty mate that a student nurse from another school interrupted their assessment.

It would have been ok if he just stopped with what he said, "Excuse me what are you doing here, that's my patient (in Cebuano)". If I were only there I would have replied, "I never knew that you were the patient's owner." We already asked permission from the nursing station if we could re-asses our patient for our case presentation and we were not on duty so we weren't "stealing" his patient.

Anyway I really got pissed of when my duty mate told me that he just grabbed the stethoscope and insisted that he takes the bowel sounds instead implying that we were dumb and didn't had the needed skills to auscultate the bowel sounds.

But look who's dumber now Mr. SN of "Fun"? I was on the verge of looking for this guy and giving him a piece of my mind when my duty mate verbalized what he said, "The patient has wheezing in the abdomen!"

I immediately had fits of laughter. Like what?! Come again? Wheezing in the stomach? Oh really? Because if we would review our respiratory system wheezing would be a high-pitched whistling sound associated with labored breathing. Wheezing occurs when a child or adult tries to breathe deeply through air passages that are narrowed or filled with mucus.

I wonder if Mr. Wheezing really auscultated the stomach or the lungs because as I know wheezing is a breath sound, how on earth would it become a bowel sound?

So MORAL LESSON Mr. Wheezing from "Fun": Don't ever think that you are better than us in skills or whatsoever because we all are still learning and XU Nursing students have the skills and KNOWLEDGE to match whatever your school might boast of. And, don't underestimate us if you can't even differentiate that wheezing is a respiratory sound and not a bowel sound!