Today See's a nice day. Take a look at the above photo, that was taken all of 3 minutes ago from my bedroom window with my digital camera. I'm a tad annoyed at that, mainly because all of June and July was rained off, which also coincidental was when I was off. Of course, tomorrow I am going to have to start working in a placement area so you lucky ones who are off have the nice weather (thus of course nicely proving that, yet again, I was right in saying that the weather would pick up in August when I go back to work).
But, for the serious part. Tomorrow See's the return of student Nurse to the wards. That by itself is normally nothing that would attract a great deal of attention. I have had some time away from the wards seeing as the second year training results in there not really being wards worked on (though that in itself boils down to practicalities of training. There are sometimes the slight drawbacks with the course, though the only problem I have with the lack of ward experience for over a year is that it will take some more settling in then may be expected. I know this to be a worry shared by many of the others within my cohort). I admit there are a number of things all vying for my attention. What to expect in terms of the patients and the staff, what will happen on the ground on the day to day running of the bay where I am to manage, will I get on with the staff OK, am I going to have a pleasant student from first year to work with, will I mange not to make a total fcuk-up of the ward on the first morning, and will I be able to not be totally knacked from a lack of sleep.
Then of course, there is the problem with the heat. Yes, it's warm and I think today's temperature while not exactly at the "Heat wave setting" is just as warm as I like it (I like many others find it hard to sleep at night if it's too hot). Of course, I have been told that while the ward is down as being infectious diseases, but it is not 100% used for this purpose. The reason being is simple: there are not many people in the county where student nurse lives who have a horribly disfiguring disease, nor do the good denizens decide to visit the far flung corners of the world and come back with something nasty. Avian flu is tossed around like a ping pong ball on speed, though to days news worries more on the foot and mouth outbreak. Bovine patient rarely happen in acute medical wards, and even if Daisy should decide to be admitted, its not communicable to humans (a Zooanosis for the medical term), so I'm ok there. Ebola is always a risk, though is the most deadly disease since the last killer virus was isolated in a lab, killing nobody. I know there are those who will know that Ebola potentially is dangerous. The thing really is nasty- Firstly, the immune system of the host is attacked. Whereas something like HIV will happily stop at shooting the immune system to smithereens then allow something else to finish the host off, Ebola ploughs on till there is nothing left. The blood beings to clot, damaging the liver and kidneys, the collagen fibers are destroyed and the hosts organs liquefy. Save for the stomach which is vomited up. Though BBC news has nothing about a man walking out from the jungle with bloody eye's and his stomach in a bag so panic over.
Thus, as you can guess, there are a few other patients show horned in. These are the diabetics. Yes, diabetes is a very bad thing, the leading cause of blindness, and limb amputation in the population of working age. It will be these same people who will be on the ward. The same ones who may well be kept laying in bed awake at night, slowly using up their prescribed insulin, and letting that glucose level go down, down, down instead of sleeping. I know 99.999% of people will be fine, though the potential is there (and just my luck it will happen, so if I write it down I may be proved wrong).
So, in someways, therein lies the situation. As there is no immediate threat of there being some sort of widespread pandemic, we take on diabetic patients. So, that means then I actually have good chance of getting to grips with working with patients to practice good nursing care. Nice!
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