It's Jenner & my 5th wedding anniversary today. We didn't really plan anything special for today, just because I had clinical almost all day and Jenner had to work. I think the only thing we did plan was to have dinner somewhere with the kids. Thanks to our little family business that I started with my sister and cousin (joannemichelletreats.blogspot.com) we've been able to take the kids out a couple times a month. It's nothing extravagant, but it's good to get the kids, well, all of us out of the house all together once in a while. The kids are at the age where they can feed themselves well, plus they're so curious about everything around them, we might as well use this time as a learning experience so that they can learn some social skills as well.
Like I said, I had clinicals almost all day today. I woke up at the crack of dawn hoping the day would go by quickly. Don't get me wrong, I like being able to experience new things in clinical, but this time around isn't really any different from our past clinicals. Welllll, we all got to the clinical site early to research our patient, but hit a road block because it seemed that the charge nurse was not aware we were coming early. There was a little mix up and no communication. Long story short, we needed to pick patients, but didn't know which ones we weren't allowed to get or which one had precautions. Finally we met our instructor for our morning meeting and he said 1 of us would be able to go to the ER and another would be able to go to Ambulatory (which is basically pre-op). We all put our names on a piece of paper and our instructor picked 2 randomly. Luckily, I was one of the people picked! The other was a friend of mine from past semesters. Guys usually like to go to the ER, so not knowing what was in store I chose Ambulatory. My instructor took me up to meet the charge nurse and she suggested for me to stand in on a surgery!!! I was soooo excited!!! When I was younger I saw a total knee replacement surgery on PBS and was so enthralled by it! I thought, wow! wouldn't it be cool to see one of these in person!? Back then I didn't even consider a health care profession, but now, today, I got to witness a total knee replacement!!!! Talk about crazy! I got to shadow the pre-op nurse and watch her prep the patient about what was gonna happen and she let me prep the IV bag (of course, I didn't put the actual IV in) and I got to use a doppler to try to find the patients pulse. Then after a couple hours, I helped her take the patient to the operating room! I even got to change into surgical scrubs...booties, hat, mask, face shield. I didn't go near the sterile field, but I was close enough to see everything! Everyone was so welcoming and the nurse in pre-op was a great teacher! It was my best clinical experience yet! Can't wait for more days like this! :D
Now I just gotta wait for the kids to wake up from their nap and for Jenner to get off work so we can have family time! What a perfect Anniversary/Friday/Clinical/Family Day all in one!!!
