My whinge

The following is my whinge for the month so if you don't to read about my complaints and venting, you should stop reading now.

I consider myself an extremely patient person and have all the time in the world for anyone who requires help, but I've realized that I'm not a very forgiving or forgetting person. I'm not sure if I've always been like this but this is something that has become quite evident to me recently. I know you're suppose to forgive and forget because everyone has faults and far from perfect. There's a lot of things I can brush off but I can't understand or find the will inside of me to forgive people who show such little respect for other people. When I say other people, I don't mean strangers. These are people who are, at the very least, close acquaintances that you have to see every single day.

If you don't like someone you don't have to hang out with them but because we have to work together everyday, you would think that people would try not to screw others over. It takes me a very long time to forgive someone, especially a friend who does not help out another friend. Since being here, I've been witnessing and experiencing this over and over again. Maybe I'm just more sensitive to it now but I've never felt such disgust and negativity towards certain people before. People do surprise you and unfortunately, it's been bad surprises. Seriously, have some morals and stop being so selfish. Remember, what goes around comes around.

I also hate people who are fake and pretend to be all nice and polite in front of you but inside have negative thoughts of that same person. Don't talk to me and pretend we're friends in one class and then snap and show your true colours in another class. After almost two years, there's no point to keep up with the facade. Aren't you tired of these stupid superficial discussions? You and I both know that neither of us care so don't initiate it. Don't waste either of our time. There's so many people like that. People can exist in the same vicinity and not be fake. A simple acknowledgement here and there is all that is required, nothing more. I know, I know there's a lot of hate. I don't and am not a hateful person but I can't help it when people around me are immoral. I just hope that I can get away before it changes me permanently.

Final Evaluation

My final evaluation at my gerontology placement was anything but routine. My school supervisor is pretty full on and stated from the beginning that she expects us to be on the ball every time she sees us. It's only a three week placement so there's no time to waste. My final evaluation was on my last day of prac and I decided to choose one of my favourite patients for this evaluation. She has Parkinson's Disease and is a very sweet and lovely person but she does get some medication side effects that the doctors find questionable. I've seen her from the day she was admitted and saw her everyday since. I thought she would be the perfect patient, as I knew the most about her.

My supervisor comes in and I give her a verbal handover and progress to give her an elborate plan for treatment. So far, so good...We go into the patient's room and the nurse happens to be there to check her obs. I'm thinking to myself: this is perfect, my timing could not be any better. She's stable and everything seems to be going in my favour.

So I wheelchair her into the small Physio gym and get her on the plinth. I start with some easy rhythmic movements to decrease her tone. Then I quickly progess to sit her up over the edge of the bed and ensuring her feet are flat on the ground. I'm explaining that I want to do some sit to stands as a strengthening exercise. She's nodding and understanding everything I'm saying and even begins to initiate the movement when suddenly...she collapsed backwards and onto the plinth.

Damn, is she having a seizure? Her eyes and cheeks are tremoring and is not responsive to voice or pain stimulus. I go to press the call buttom but of course, there is no call bell in there. What we thought was a call bell, turned out to be the security bell. Good thing there were two of us in there because I had to run and grab the nurse, who then told me to also get the doctors. When I was gone, she came back around and was alert but felt unwell and was stuttering her speech. If that wasn't bad enough, two other nurses came and it got quite crowded in that small Physio gym.

The nurses took her stats and they were normal. I was then told by my supervisor to do a front on transfer to get my patient on the wheelchair and back into her room. That was exciting, having all the medical staff watch me and the nurses constantly asking if I needed help. They usually require two people to tranfser someone who needs maximal assistance and looked a little confused as to how I was going to be able to handle this on my own.

After all the excitement, I was not able to complete my treatment but at least the doctors are now going to conduct more tests to determine what, if anything, else is wrong with my patient. I just hope she gets through her problems, which goes beyond just her Parkinson's. She still was one of my favourites.

It's just one of those days that I will probably never forget and neither will my supervisor. That's never happened before during an evaluation and neither of us saw it coming. Reflecting back, it almost feels fitting to end my placement with such a memorable ending.

P.S. remember the security bell?? Well nobody ever came...That's some dodgy system in there. Good thing I was not in there by myself or I would've been screwed.

Always excitement in the Geronotoly ward

I was in the weekly hospital ward meeting in which all the doctors and at least one person from each health profession is represented to discuss the status of each patient. We got to this one patient and one of the nurses spoke about how he asks everyday where the doors are and tells everyone that he wants to escape. The patient has some memory problem and dementia.

There soon after, another nurse interrupts the meeting and reports that that same patient have been missing for the past hour and the police have been called. We now had a missing patient on our hands. The doctor and nurse's reply? "How far can he possibly go, he's wearing a red shirt and he'll be alright, he was a hunter and use to surviving in the wild"...Not even a hint of concern.

An hour later, when it was time for me to leave for the day the patient was still missing. The next day I was told that the patient actually convinced a complete stranger that he forgot where he had parked his car and got that guy to drive him all over the neighbourhood for 2 hours, looking for his car. Hahaha...that's gold, gotta love the drama that comes with aged care.

Growing and changing

I've been on prac for the past 3 weeks and it's gone by so fast. This was my gerontology placement and was nothing like I ever expected. When I thought about gerontology I thought I would be dealing with people with dementia all day and the only thing I would do was walk them and give out the same boring bed exercises. The location of my placement was quite far and even further considering I don't have a car.

It took me 1hr 50mins, one way, and sometimes longer on the way back. It sounds ridiculous but the morning journey wasn't bad. The journey back was, at times, unbearable. Thank goodness one of the 4th years was also there doing her rural prac and offered to give me rides. I rode to her house so it was good that I got my exercise in for the day because there was no way I was going to the gym at night. I got up at 5:30am everyday.

It's quite a small hospital and they were forced to give me difficult cases that they usually would not give to students. The supervisors challenged everything I did and that really changed my learning curve exponentially. It got tiring and frustrating, at times, having to be on the ball at all times but great in hindsight.

On my last day of prac, I recieved my evaluation from my school supervisor as well as my hospital supervisor. Now that I've had time to reflect on their comments, I'm starting to realize how much I've changed since I started this program. They all said that my biggest strength was my ability to tactfully to approach differences of opinion extremely well. Even one of the 4th years said that they can see me as someone who is more aggressive and outspoken to get my point across. That's really funny because I was never like that before. Before coming here, I would have happily kept my mouth shut and not question my supervisors. I remember as a child, teachers always commented on how quiet and shy I was. Who would've guessed that I'm now the complete opposite. I don't know how this happened, considering this program has a reputation of killing people's confidence.