This afternoon, I finished my second week of clinicals.

What a week.

Thursday night my patient was a very sweet 11-yr old girl who had an appendectomy earlier that morning. Her parents were great, she was great. I spent a lot of my time talking with her parents about what their daughter needed to do before they would let her go home - eat, drink, take oral painkillers, walk around. My favorite part of the night? Getting the questions from the parents and knowing what the answers were. It was another step in my feeling like a bonafide nurse.

Friday night was an entirely different story. When I arrived at the unit, I discovered my patient from the night before had already discharged during the day. So I had to pick a new patient on the spot. I opted to go with my previous patient's roommate, who I had met the night before briefly. If I had only known....

She was a 12-yr old who has been there for 3 months due to being traction after an auto accident. Her parents don't visit often. And she has been isolating herself. So I figured my night would involve just hanging out and keeping her company, trying to get her out of her room to socialize some. If it had only been that easy! This 12-yr old girl tried my patience all night - and she knew she was. She did everything in her power to get me to leave her alone. I knew she was testing me, seeing how much I would take before abandoning her. So I persevered. When we ended up playing cards for a couple hours before I went to dinner, I figured I'd won her over. But when I returned she was back to her behavior from the start of my night. (I now realize it may have been that I decided to leave her for dinner..but that's life). When I went to take her vitals and do an assessment at the end of my shift, she did all she could to avoid it, to interfere. I had to take her blood pressure twice (when she complained about a mark from the cuff, my response was. "Well, if you had let me do it right the first time instead of playing with it, that woudn't have happened"). I had to demand she place the temp probe under her tongue. When I asked her to put the prescribed lotion on her foot, and she refused, my response to her was, "It's ordered by your doctor for now. You can do it, or I can do it. But either way, it's going to get done. You decide".

Yes, my patience (which the mother of the girl in the bed next to my patient complemented me on) had worn out. And the inner parent I didn't know existed emerged. It was a great learning experience, if not a tad exhausting.

The highlight though was my day today. I got to follow a nurse (who is also an instructor) for the day in the Pediatric ICU. I was basically there for an entire shift - 7am to 3pm. And I got to do a lot more than just observe - I gave meds, changed diapers, took vitals, changed IV tubing and fluids, charted, and followed the head ICU doc and residents on their rounds around the unit. I LOVED IT!!! The nurses get only 1 or 2 patients. The kids all have differeing diagnoses (both of the ones I helped with were in for post-cardiac surgery issues). My favorite of the day was the 3-month old with Down's who had just had surgery to correct a coarctation of his aorta. He was adorable. Oh, and he loved me! Every time I approached him, he's turn to stare at me. My nurse and his mother both commented on it. At one point we were all trying to get him to stop crying,the mom rubbing is back, the nurse holding is hand, and me rubbing his head. The two of them stopped and I kept rubbing...and the kid stopped crying. :-)

It's days like today that prove to me that I have made the right choice in career. And, as I have done before, I came home declaring that I had found where I wanted to work. But today it was more obvious for me than other days. Not only did I have a great day on the unit, but I also got a chance to spend time talking with different nurses about their experiences on the unit and at the hospital. I chatted with a nurse who started in Pediatric Oncology (where I will be observing this coming Friday), and nurses who have been there for 3 years as well as 25 years. And I got along great with all of them. It just felt so comfortable being there. I also learned that the nurses at CHO all have to float among all the units (except the ED), no matter which one they work in.

Driving home today from the hospital, the sun shining on me, I thought to myself, "Hmmm. If I was working there, this is the drive home I'd be making each day." and then, "Wow. This is what it's like to find what you were meant to do. Lucky me!".

Now to make sure that for my preceptorship next Spring, I get PICU or NICU.