Clinical Day Five

November 9, 2011

Today I got to help with the same patient I did the day before! I love when this happens because I already have a heads up on what is going on with the diagnosis and plan of care. It helps to not be trying to just figure out what is going on for half of the shift J. Even though it is hard to work two shifts two days in a row, it is worth it for the learning experience. Today the patient was taken off continuous dialysis, so the workload was not quite as hefty. Instead they were put on intermittent dialysis, something called SLEDD, which they are put on for around 4-6 hours at a time. Luckily, the dialysis team takes it over and we nurses don’t have to mess with it! Today was more measurements, and a lot of trying to determine how our patient was doing neurologically. I have seen this often in patient’s in this unit—we are maintaining all other body systems- kidneys, heart, lungs, gut, etc. but the main issue is how their head is doing. If too much brain damage has occurred, there isn’t much point of continuing with care. Today he showed some signs of being responsive, which was encouraging. I also got to help his wife who was in the car accident as well visit with him, which was a good teaching moment