Do we have a right to complain?

After taking care of a wonderful patient that I couldn't help but get close to for the past month, it looks like I will finally be able to send her home tomorrow. What makes this patient so great, above others? She's only 21 years old and in her lifetime, battled two different types of cancers. As if battling two different types of cancers alone isn't inspiring enough, it's even more inspiring how she greets me with a smile each time I walk into her room and one of the most polite woman I have met.

So where does this post take me? Last week, I got an e-mail from my grandparents and once again, it highlighted on their medical woes. Don't get me wrong, I love them dearly and appreciate everything they do for me, but I have a hard time feeling bad for them when I have patients that have it worse than they do. There are parents who don't get to live to see their children go off to grade school or graduate high school. There are people who never got to enjoy the privlege of being a grandparent. There are people who haven't gotten to travel the world in their lifetime. And I certainly have a hard time feeling bad for them, knowing this patient I'm taking care of now is only 21 years old and has faced more in a lifetime than they have with medical problems. Yes, I do care if they have chronic back problems or gastric reflux. Yet, the problems are so minor compared to what my patients go through day in and day out. It is definitely nothing to complain about. Cortisone shots are nothing compared to bone marrow biopsies. An overnight stay in the hospital is certainly nothing compared to spending a month in a hospital for chemo and/or transplant. If they were to die tomorrow, I would think they lived a good life still, regardless of these medical problems. At what point, do we accept that life ends eventually, regardless if death is our fear?

Ethical dilemna or not?

Is it wrong to give a 93 year old man with an agressive type of leukemia chemo when he has congestive heart failure and a painful diabetic ulcer and lesions for the past four years that haven't healed?

Happy 4th of July

I made it home from Switzerland in the nick of time to celebrate the birth of our country in our country. While being a new resident of Ellisville this year has me all excited about what this town has to offer, I had to miss the fair in the park to attend Tim McGraw, but he wasn't bad at all. Plus, I got to spend it with 3 pretty good co-workers of mine.



Tonight, I went to my uncle's house in Illinois and spent time with my family at his barbecue and firework display. His fireworks are unique to say the least. Here's my aunt and her son covering their eyes when the fireworks were making them nervous. Tucker is definitely my aunt's son! Whenever the fireworks were going off, he would yell, "FIRE!" It was cracking me up. I am glad I spent some time with the family tonight despite having a million of other things I could get done.

I want to yodel...

I am back from Europe and had an amazing time! We backpacked through Switzerland, landed in a yodel festival, paraglided over the swiss alps, and ate gelato at Lake Geneva. We had belgian chocolates and waffles and beer. Nothing could have made this trip better!

I have moved!

Less than two weeks after finding a new agent, I found a small condo that has everything I wanted with little things I needed to compromise on. It's so cute and while, it's farther from work, I love where it's located. I can literally walk to some stores and especially to my family's favorite bar! I am so excited!



We negotiated back and forth a few times, but eventually settled on a price that works for, not so sure for the previous owners. My realtor was absolutely amazing! My only regret is that I couldn't work with her longer! She listened to every need of mine and when problems arose that I couldn't get to, she worked on it for me. She was one step above me everytime I needed to get something done. I could NEVER have done this without her. She saved me thousands of hours of stress!

So now, it's to unpacking boxes...woohoo!

Off to househunt again...

I heard back from my agent today and found out I didn't get the condo. I'm okay with that though and know there's another one out there for me. So I'm to hunt for another condo that I can fall in love with again. But I might want to find another agent first. :-\

Holding On

I have to share this recent experience at work.

On Monday, I came into work and got report on my patient's. I received a patient who was dying because they found he had some form of bacteria that no antibiotics or antifungals can kill. The worst kind if you ask me. He was already on 6 L of high flow Nasal Cannula, but he was still responding. I was also informed in report that his son is stationed in Alaska in the army and was flying home that day to see his dad, thanks to the Red Cross that was paying for it. He wasn't going to make it home until 9:30 PM that night. I had a situation a few months ago where a patient was dying and her only son was flying back from Seattle. Unfortunately, his flight from Dallas was delayed and he walked in a few minutes after she died. Seeing his face when he discovered she died only a few minutes before he arrived was almost haunting to me. I never want to go through that again.

That morning, the patient was able to swallow his pills for me. By the afternoon, he got frantic and started thrashing around, ripping his nasal cannula off, depriving himself of whatever oxygen we could give him. I had to sit by his bed and hold his arms down to prevent him from pulling onto his oxygen. Since he wasn't doing well with the mask (it would start him up with the thrashing again), we kept him on the nasal cannula and we went as high as we could, but by 3 P.M. his oxygen saturation started plummeting into the 70 percentile. I kept switching the nasal cannula and holding the mask over his face for a few minutes to help him get more oxygen in hopes that his son could make it in time to say bye to him.

He ended up making it through the rest of the afternoon until 7 P.M. at shift change. When I gave report to the R.N. I gave her a mission. She had to keep him alive until 10 P.M. just so his son could see him and say his goodbye before he passed away. I felt so bad putting that pressure on her, but I knew she could do it.

The next morning, I saw that he passed away. When I talked to the R.N. that had him, she said his son made it a few minutes before he passed away and he took his last breath at exactly 10 P.M.

All I can say to that is God works in mysterious ways...