Day six- second clinic day

For Our second clinic day we were in the school in San Felipe. The little artist boy from yesterday, Freddy, came by and we all bought some of his drawings. I got a cute drawing of a fairy. They're all simple tracings but we want to encourage him; he seemed so proud! 

Later I met a boy named Joel who was so loving. He hugged all of us and just loved us talking to him and making him feel special. He was sitting at a table with the other kids coloring. When school is in session the kids eat lunch at that table. Huge rusty nails are sticking out all over the table and one of the boys said sometimes the kids scratch themselves on them. Sara and one of the other girls had rocks as hammers and were trying to flatten the nails out. I covered them with medical tape after to keep them covered. 

I spent the whole day assessing patients and taking their history. I got to work with Sara and she is SO good at catching things and observing things that I just don't think of. She's very quick and will be a great nurse. 

One of our patients was a hilarious old lady with awful arthritis. She has been taking prednisone for twelve years!!! The doctor forbade her from taking any more prednisone causes osteoporosis and she has already had one hip replacement an is waiting in the other. She has dislocated her shoulder three times. These are all from the prednisone. Unfortunately it is the only thing that she takes that relieve the stiffness enough that she can get out of bed in the morning. I felt so bad for her. The doctor prescribed her calcium supplements and naproxen. 

She also had hands straight from a textbook. She has boutannieres deformity, which is from arthritis. I identified it ;)

So I also discovered I'm not as good of a team player as I thought. I'm kind of competitive and I keep being in this mind set of wanting to impress and be the one who is always right. That's something I need to work on now. I think I like to show off a little as well. 

I did get taken down a notch when we had our suture class tonight. I thought I would be great at suturing because I like to sew. There was basically no crossover between sewing and suturing though. I struggled a lot and Dr Riverol is even left handed so it should have been easier for me. Leah took to it so easily, she definitely should have been a surgeon. She showed me how and then I used a horizontal mattress stitch to close up my "patient." 

Tomorrow we get to work in the hospital here. Apparently this is the first time for this so we aren't sure what will go on. I signed up for the AM shift in the mother-child unit. I'm wondering if I should have taken the Trauma and Emergency shift though. Too late to change now! I still always worry I'm terrible in pediatrics but its the place I've done best in as a nurse.