The long awaited update….

Alright, this time I have no excuse for not having updated my blog in …how many weeks?

I think my problem is that I try too hard to make my posts perfect. I don’t know how many times I sat down and started a few sentences and deleted them and wrote them over again only to get frustrated and make a cup of tea and forget about what I intended to do for the morning… So far it has always taken me hours, if not days to write a single post!

There are so many things I want to write about. So much has happened. But I cannot think of where to start. *looks at keyboard…looks at screen…stares at wall in front…thinks of tea*.

Enough with my diluted humour. On another note, I never thought I could have so much fun as a nurse, and My life has changed so much since I started this programme. Here are a few examples (that are also commonly reported on internet nursing forums):

• I have learnt to be able to eat my lunch starting from when I have just put a bedpan under a patient, until the said patient is ready and rings the bell.
• I can discuss ANYTHING while eating (except when hanging out with ordinary folk).
• My bladder can hold several cups of tea, two glasses of water, yoghurt, energy drink, lemonade, coffee…for an entire 8 hour shift and I can still hold it without any problems until I get home…(ok maybe that is a bit exaggerated, but there is some truth in it)
• My immune system is so hard core that all the seasonal influenza bugs run away from me (…and infect everyone else around me…).
• I can tell from the smell what type of diarrhoea or UTI a patient has (no seriously, I think my sense of smell is abnormally highly developed)
• I can fasten a ‘magneettivyö’(restraining belt?) before a drunk/delirious/disorientated patient is able to leave the bed, and have his hands restrained within minutes (with a second nurse, of course).
• I check out my friend’s veins.
• I plan my free weekends a year in advance.
• Chocolate is an essential nutrient/food group. Full stop.
• I can’t help laughing during dramatical medical scenes in TV where a doctor tries to shock asystole…
• I use paper towels to close the tap after washing my hands.
• When and IF I do get sick…I refuse to see a doctor, and my friends usually are more worried about my health that I am. But I’m still alive, so I was right. Just like a nurse is supposed to be

Maybe that’ll do for now.

Here is a picture that baffled me when I saw it posted on the profiles of many a colleague on facebook

(I edited the pic to make it suitable for all ages)…and I though to myself, ‘Right, explain to an 80 year alzheimer’s patient who had hip replacement surgery the previous day that their pain is nothing to be concerned about and that they should stop screaming and yelling and being difficult’. And I have actually witnessed this. I have seen this vicious circle, and it only destroys an already fragile nurse-patient relationship. And the nurse who stomps around wearing proudly this banner across her chest wonders bitterly why the patients don’t co-operate or confide in her.

I am off to bed soon as the ticking clock is reprimanding me (its 2am). I just want to add lastly that I love my job, I love my studies (most of the time) and the fact that I can touch some one’s life with simple caring and yes, I’ll say it: Love…makes everything else bearable. I made a young guy with a brain tumour smile today. That just made my day!

Health tip: Facebook is detrimental to your reputational health. Reports have been made of the addictive nature, and high dependency of the site, as well as tolerance to observing the time (at night). Oh yes…and playing with kerosene and blow torches is not a good idea. You will end up doing this:

That is me demonstrating to the firemen how to take out a burning puppet in style This was on one rainy autumn day when the student firemen from Kuopio were showcasing their stuff at our school in Helsinki.

Photo courtesy of Gema Fova

Drug management = Pain

I failed my drug calculations. Again.

Normally I would never admit to this publicly (due to hard core genetic German pride), but I do feel I learnt something, and maybe I could share a helpful hint to aspiring nurses.

Now the reason why I failed the first exam was because of a misunderstanding. Had I known prior to the exam that Lidocaine 1% = 1g/100ml= 10mg/ml, was to be known off by heart I would not have failed. In reality one would not have to guess how many mg are in 1% Lidocaine because it will always indicate so on the bottle. My teacher decided to be mean. Argh.

And then, when I took the re-exam I wrote with full assurance and total stupidity: 1µg = 0,01mg and I happily in all ignorance continued my murderous calculation for a 5kg baby receiving anaesthetic drugs.

I immediately knew what I had done when in dismay checked the conversion tables that 1µg = 0,001mg. Five minutes after handing my paper in, I already knew that I had failed. If this had happened in reality, I think the baby would have received ten times the ordered dose. That would have been the end of ‘Nurse Anja’. I complained bitterly about this to my class mate, who said ‘why don’t you use your hands?’

‘Oh like this little piggy is a big fat zero, this little piggy went to the comma….and this little piggy went all the way to??’

‘Yes, exactly’

So I felt compelled to photograph myself yet again. Now when I ask myself ‘How many milligrams is one microgram?’ I just have to look at my lovely right hand, which will reveal its secret:

I dedicate this masterpiece of photoshopping to my class mate, G. Now before everybody starts pointing and laughing at my childish measures, I first need to point out that I am dyslexic (which would explain my terrible spelling), so maths is pure gibberish to me.

Alas, I am a student of simple means. Anything weird and creative can make me happy.

Take a look how these crazy English doctors chose to deal with pharmacology:

Health tip: Paracetamol, in the right amounts, is TOXIC. Please do not take more than the recommended dosage (1g/4-6 hours, max 4g/24 hours). Hepatic coma is nasty and not recommended.

UPDATE-15.04.2008 : I passed all my drug calculations with flying colours! (higher possibility of Nurse Anja continuing to exist)