pediatrics has come and gone

today was my last day of clinical for the term. at last! i really did enjoy it, but now that i'm done, all i have left this semester are exams!! and so now i feel i must reflect on my experience:

i love having little babies as patients!! i learned a lot of little tricks to get them to settle down - bundle him really tight, rock him side-to-side as he lies in his crib, and stroke his forehead.... wow, it's amazing how quickly you can get a sick baby who can't breathe to settle down and even fall asleep just by stroking his head!

i learned so much about giving IV meds (which med can go how fast and which port in the line to put it into and how to reconstitute powder meds to liquid so they can go in the IV), GT meds and feeds (gastrostomy tube - goes right through the tummy into the stomach), and NG meds and feeds (nasogastric tube -through the nose to stomach), checking blood glucose levels, bathing babies, checking oxygen saturation levels, calling pharmacy to clarify med orders, making my own judgement calls (one day i asked the charge nurse to ask the docs to write a order to discontinue a medicated cream that i felt was unnecessary, and she agreed), changing poopy diapers (who knew that sick babies on all sorts of meds could have such foul poop!), good ways to wrap a baby up so she can't get out when i'm suctioning the snot out of her nose/throat, charting, discharging patients, how to check if the balloon on the end of the GT that's in the stomach is filled all the way, weighing screaming babies, listening in to the docs while they're doing their morning rounds, decorating christmas trees (okay, it was a little slow today...), etc. etc. etc.
-youngest patient: 9 days old
-oldest patient: 15 years
-grossest case: an infected GT site that leaked out gastric juices every time the little guy coughed or cried, all over his belly. yes, i would cry too if my stomach acid was dripping on my skin.
-weirdest case: a 5 year old, being breastfed. yes, i saw it. (if you're old enough to verbally ask for the breast, you're too old for the breast)
-best moments: comforting a baby who is crying..... holding and cuddling him until he falls asleep, and looking at the clock and realizing that i have nothing to do for the next hour, so i just sit down and cuddle.... he wakes up, i feed him, he falls back to sleep in my arms... i watch a whole episode on sue thomas FBI (okay, the tv was already on)...

you know, sometimes all they really need is a little cuddling. i'm not looking forward to working with adults again. when adults are tired and hurting, they get whiny and demanding. you can't cuddle them to sleep, you can't just change their diaper (well, maybe...) and wrap them up tight and rock them till they settle. kids are supposed to be whiny when they're sick. adults.... hmmm. oh dear, i sound like a pediatric nurse. (this does not include labouring women! they can make all the noise they want)
see, even after all of this, i still want to be a maternity nurse.

and then to finish the day off, on the way home, rae and i stopped off at price chopper to buy milk. but the farmer sausage and grapes were super cheap. and bananas..... i bought a huge bag, 26 actually. i hope R is hungry for banana muffins and bread and smoothies.
26 bananas! and the best part, the whole bag of bananas was only 75 cents!!