Third week of Clinicals at LNRMC

Another great week of Med -Surg. My patient this week was a 37 year old man who was in for a surgical removal of a "Huge left flank hernia." According to the surgeon the hernia was the size of a basketball and protruded between the 10th and 11th rib. The incision was as if he had donated a kidney; he was cut almost in half. There was a JP drain and an on-que medication pump deep in the wound as well as a PCA and until Wednesday at 1130 hours he was on IVF at 100cc/hr. He had a great attitude even though he never rated his pain less than a 5 and his family was wonderful and extremely supportive. In his history it mentioned that he had suffered a gunshot wound to the eye at the age of 12. He was not completely blind but the eye did not/could not follow motion. I was able to change his dressing twice, administer meds and since I knew the doctor had D/C'd the IV I was waiting for the nurse to give me the okay before I left the floor. I was also able to start an IV!! YEAH!!!! Very cool stuff. The group of students at LN was also great this week. We all shared our experiences and offered to help each other out, of course we all had really interesting clients, so that made it all the better. Looking forward to the next round this up coming week.

Teresa