I shadowed in the Trauma ICU today and the patient I was following was in a room next to a room I got familiar with in February of last year. One of my friends got in a motorcycle accident and was rushed to the hospital with a helicopter. He suffered from a hemorrhagic stroke and all his limbs were injured. Going into a coma for a few weeks, we didn’t know if he would ever wake up again. He is now completely back to his normal life, can walk, and just graduated college. I thought that being in the ICU today would trigger some negative feelings and anxiety but instead, I was able to reframe my thinking. Knowing that through God’s glory and the impressive medical team he had given him another chance at life moves me every time I think about it.
I shadowed Sarah who is a nurse and is taking care of a patient with many internal complications. Due to overdrinking and an unhealthy lifestyle, the patient ended up with pancreatitis. This then led to compartment disease, bladder pressure, and kidney and liver failure. He already had surgery two days ago and is going into another one today so his stomach is still open. One thing that impacted me was seeing how helpless the patient was. Not only was he intubated but he also doesn’t speak English. This makes it hard when the patient is conscious because in this case he was getting aggravated and couldn’t answer simple questions like “Are you breathing okay?” or “Are you hurting? He even tried to get out of the bed a few times so Sarah had to tie his arms down.
The trauma ICU is not a place for everyone and is definitely not for me, especially as a nurse. Shadowing nurses this week gave me even more respect for nurses because of how much they do. Nurses are the ones that spend the most time with the patients, they get to expert on that patient’s history. In the ICU specifically, I noticed that the nurse did not get a chance to sit down. Sarah was constantly moving and especially because we had to transport the patient to get a CAT scan. With all the machines the patient was on it was super time-consuming to keep rehooking the patient up whenever they got back to their rooms.
See you tomorrow!!
