Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Triumph

I don't want this to sound like bragging but I had an awesome thing happen today. I have been working with a patient for a couple weeks now and is particularly difficult because he has many bad diseases, is very underweight, and is only 23. He also is from another country and doesn't speak english so there have been some cultural and language barriers when it comes to getting him to eat. So I have spent a lot of time using a translator phone trying to figure out what food we have that we can bring him and I wrote it all up and left it at his bedside so he could hand it to the person who gets his meals for him. Yesterday was my last day with this patient so I am not working with him anymore but I did get a call from the attending physician telling me she was impressed with the work I did with him and the idea I came up with to get him eating....and attendings never call a lowely dietetic intern....this is kinda a big deal.

And in other good news. I move onto nutrition support tomorrow which means I will be working with patients who are on tube feedings. The cool part though is I will be working in the surgical trauma intensive care unit so will get to see a lot of interesting cases...I love it.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

The Countdown

I get to go home in 4 days! I am so excited I can't sleep!

I dont know if I mentioned yet that I have a job babysitting at the baptist church down the street. Initially I really didn't love it but I have grown to really like the job. For those of you who know me...I am not the best with kids. And I think this anxiety transferred to them and made them not like me as much. Now that I have relaxed a bit we all get along well, even the new ones that come each week. It's fun going from being a grown up at the hospital each day to channeling my inner child.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Love





















































Saturday is probably the best Valentines Day that I have ever had because I got to spend it with my girls! I made us food and lit candles all romantic like and we just sat around and talked for a while and then went out dancing. It was awesome.

But I don't know how to get these pictures so not go all crazy so I am just going to leave them like they are. Top is my roommate Miranda and my intern friend Katie Jo. Middle is the attempt I made at making us delicious food. (Ignore the pretzels...I didn't make those) Fourth down is the precious box of chocolates my mom sent me...and the other two, well you can figure them out.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Page Me

My pager is a blessed present I got once I started at the hospital. At first it was just cool to have it because I look official with it on my hip and because...well who really has pagers anymore? But now I am starting to see the beauty of it.

The number one job of my pager is to figure out when the other interns are going to lunch. And I believe it holds that importance for them as well.

The second reason is to send random pages to my roommate about how frustrated I am with my job that day. And getting the random response back that makes me laugh and usually makes me feel better for about half an hour until I get a new page.

Occasionally we will use our pagers for the real purpose. Communicating with doctors or dietitians or nurses about important patient stuff...but not often does this happen.

And the last reason I like my pager... because on Valentines Day I can give people candy hearts that say "page me" and almost really mean it...

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Oh Happy Day

Today is the first day that I have taken a jog since I hurt my knee on April 12th 2008. It was amazing. I think I only ran about 3/4 of a mile and I limp-ran but it was still awesome. It has been two hours since then and my knee isn't hurting too much so we will see how it goes in the morning.

Today I did my first diet education to patients in the hospital. One was on a Coumadin diet and the other on diabetic diet. My preceptor thought I did a great job even though I kinda rushed through it. It was kind of fun to do it but frustrating when the patients are too out of it to comprehend or just don't care.

This is the second day in a row that the lunch cashier has made me put something back because I went over my spending limit for lunch. It is a little embarrassing when all the people in line see that, yet I keep trying to see how much food I can take from the hospital since I am working for free. I have no shame...

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

For Real This Time...

K I really did fix it so anyone can comment now...

Monday, February 2, 2009

A Sleepless Night

I have not been able to sleep for the past two nights for an unexplainable reason. This used to be the norm for me but I actually sleep pretty well out here in Virginia. Since I hate laying in bed thinking about how much I wanted to sleep I thought I would just fill ya'll in on my weekend.

Friday night we went to a birthday party at Beanie's house for her niece. It was your typical family party-loud conversation, witty banter, junk food, cake, and some sleeping on the couch. The only weird part about it was it wasn't even my family but it felt like it was. After spending years of trying to come up with crazy things to do on the weekend it is nice to relax. Afterward, Miranda and I played with our neighbors cat named Fats for an hour and turned in early....

Saturday I awoke with the anticipation of finally getting a new old couch! We made a big production of getting Beanie and her husband and her niece over with their truck to pick the couch up, to only get laughed at when they saw the size of our hallway compared to the size of the couch. So that means Miranda and I are spending another week squeezing bums onto our single chair when we try to watch episodes of the office on my computer. This is the part where I would sigh and say, "the life of a college student..." only I don't fit into that category anymore.... so I just sigh.

Sunday I went to the singles ward for the first time here in Richmond. It was kinda far away but had more people than I thought it would. There is one person I know there from Utah State and all the rest are friends that I get to know for the next year. It was nice to talk to people outside the hospital.

Illuminated by the glow of my computer in the dark, a box elder bug just flew at my face which is not helping my insomnia because now my heart is beating furiously and I am searching my bed to find out where it landed....