April, 2007 Archive

i’m done with the nausea, vomiting and the headaches. the thermometer was broken, so my fever was just a myth. i would not wish being sick on anyone. not even on people i don’t particularly like, because honestly, being sick sucks. well, there’s still this proverbial nagging frog in my throat, but i am definitely not complaining. again, thanks for your well wishes.

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i’m catching up on blogging and bloggers. i remember reading one of the comments in one of my previous posts, asking me for advise. Lori, let me start by saying i don’t really feel like i have the authority to give advise. but i can say that i was in a nursing student’s shoes once, and that makes me reliable in saying i once felt your pain, so let me tell you what i did that made things a little easier for me.

for me, nursing school was not a breeze. it meant hours of serious studying and clinicals that ate up four and a half years of my life. that, being a full time student. i was single, was in a boarding school, tuition and allowance fully paid by a generous family sponsor. in short, i only had school to focus on, and i had no legitimate excuses to mess it up. that’s why i have tremendous respect for those people who are in nursing school, have families to attend to, and at the same time are working full time. how you guys do it is just beyond me. anyway, i digress.

1. discover your learning style.

     try all kinds of studying first. study with a group. study by yourself. study with the loud music on. study in complete silence. study while exercising. study while in bed. study in the library. study with nature in the background. try all different things a few times and determine which makes you retain informations better. when you find one, use it on major exams. i found out early on that studying in the midst of nature, by myself, in silence, worked best for me. so, everytime there was a major exam, when everybody was cramming in the library or the dormitory hallways, i was sitting under one of the big trees, wind blowing on my face, those heavy books on my lap, sleeping. i mean, studying.

2. be shameless

     when you are doing your clinicals and an RN asks: “who wants to try?” take that as a challenge and go for it. skills are developed and you gain confidence by doing the same things over and over. for example, starting an IV. you don’t read the written instruction now and go get the IV tray next and say you will be sauccessful in all your IV insertions. it takes practice and the more you do it, the better you get. i am saying this because i didn’t take this advise seriously when i was a student. i always shied away from trying. i only started trying when i was already an RN. to say i regret being so passive when it came to trying new skills is an understatement. be assertive, but make sure you don’t monopolize the opportunites too. you know what i mean.

3. master time management

     there is nothing more stressful than rushing a care plan, a case study or whatever it is that your sadistic (just kidding!) clinical instructors are asking you to turn in. start doing it on time, because when you are not doing it stressed, you will do it better. even if you are the kind of person who does things better under pressure, it still pays to do things with plenty of time. i know you have a life outside of nursing school, but that life has to be put on hold for a while if you choose to.

4. it is normal to feel dumb

     the human body/human being  is complex and amazing. there is no way you can learn everything about it in four years. on the contrary, the more you study about it, the more you realize that there is absolutely more you need to know about it. the informations that are out there are endless. you don’t have to feel utterly stupid just because you don’t know everything. it is okay to feel dumb sometimes, but don’t forget the fact that you have already learned so much too. capitalize on what you have learned and if knowing more feels like fun, go on and study more.

well, those are not things you really do not know yet, but that’s basically how i thrived back in nursing scool some million years ago. i know other nurses have more advises. please feel free to add it here. i’m sure Lori, and other nursing students out there will appreciate it. we are all in this together, we want the students to feel empowered, because obviously, we need more nurses.

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my previous post was quoted here. it made me remember where i saw those UFO looking gadgets. not in chili’s, because in chili’s here, they just let you sit on the benches outside. i first saw it at olive gardens. those italian speaking guys give it out with a smile.

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i read Shane’s 90 day challenge and was about to take it. only, with two little ones asking all sorts of things at any time of the day, it would be unrealistic to publicly claim i can do the challenge to the letter. but i love challenges, so i will modify it. (i know, i know…kids and motherhood can get in the way of being a blogaholic, but no, i am not complaining.) i will try to post more often. maybe once a day, maybe even twice (if the sleep fairies will sedate my kids, why not?), or maybe just more regularly, after all, i have been doing this blogging thing for two years, i should be a pro by now. or not. let’s see.

not really for the guaranteed success in blogging, (although that wouldn’t be bad at all) but just because i am addicted to it.

“this is the worst hospital in the whole fu*%#ng planet!”

for the record, i personally think that i work in one of the best hospitals in california, or even in the whole united states. on the matter of the guy screaming last night though, i cannot agree more, except of course for the unnecessary profanities.  when he was presenting his arguments to prove why he made such declaration, he hit the nails on the head dead on.

his father was taken to the OR at 3 PM. he was given that UFO looking gadget that was supposed to vibrate and sound when he can go up the recovery room and see his dad. he was told the gadget costs x amount of dollars, so he was supposed to “guard it with his life”. the surgery will take about 3 hours, and then he will find out where his dad will be taken.

at 6 PM, he was constantly looking at the gadget. nothing. just before 7 PM, he went to see the person who gave him the gadget, and he was told after a phone call that the surgery went fine, but he cannot see him yet, so he just had to wait till the thing vibrates.

at 9 PM, the person who gave him the gadget was gone. the gadget? very quiet.

at 1015 PM, he went to our unit, where his father was admitted before the surgery. it was in our unit that he lost it. i mean, what kind of normal person won’t lose it? over 6 hours after a supposed 3 hours surgery, holding an expensive gadget that didn’t go off, he was completely clueless about what happened to his dad. you have to be dead not to worry.

apologies from people in the OR, the recovery room, our charge nurse, and one of the doctors who assisted in the surgery were in vain. he was mad, and he wanted the world to know.

his angry words echoed in every patient’s room, and it made everybody feel uncomfortable.

but no, that was not the reason why i went home at 11 PM. i was not feeling very well. which reminds me…thanks for your get well thoughts. anyway, the larger than life headache turned out to be a full flu like thing that made me feel like i was going to drop on the floor unconscious, everytime i move. i felt sorry for passing on the responsibility of endless apologizing to the charge nurse, considering that i was supposed to be the nurse of his dad, but i felt too weird to stay. i looked at him with all the empathy i can muster, and then, i walked away.

next time, i am calling off if i need to. going to work because i am too guilty to stay home and be sick in peace like normal persons, is something i need to get over with. i need to know how to seriously do that. pseudoguilt is a killer.

i have this larger than life headache, but it is not huge enough to make me call in sick. so, i am working tonight and wednesday night, crossing my fingers.

crossing my fingers that i will not be told: 
     “uh, i don’t want an asian nurse.”
     “i hate to do this May, but you have three isolated patients.”
     “sorry May, but you have three patients in restraints.”

usually, i don’t really mind or turn these things into a big deal. after all, it’s just part of the job i love.

thing is, when i have a headache like this, and i am told these things, it is like somebody maniacally drilled a hole through my skull, placed a miniature vacuum inside my head and slowly sucked my brains out. i would then end up picking up bits and pieces of my brains from the floor, and go to the restroom and cry my lungs out.*

that is not pretty at all.

*definitely a hyperbolic statement.
(resulting from this disturbing headache of course, so be kind and pardon the exaggeration, then be nice and just ignore this selfish, senseless post. thanks.)
    

he was in his late 40s when i knew him. he worked at the Central Supplies department. nothing particularly special about him except his upbeat personality. he always had this smile on his face. the kind of smile that makes you believel he truly loved his job, even if it was obviously boring to others.

i don’t have the exact details but i am pretty sure they have been married for more than 20 years, considering their two kids were already out of college. i don’t remember where his wife worked, but i knew she worked the same days as him, in a different department. nothing specifically special about them, except that they always looked happy when they were together.

she had asthma, and one severe attack took her life. it wouldn’t have happened if they didn’t lived in this remote little place where they had to ride a  boat to cross the lake to be able to reach the hospital. it was almost midnight and it took a long time before they found a willing boatman to take them. she laid her head on his lap, and was gasping for air at every stroke of the paddles in the water. he prayed between sobs that they will reach the other side of the lake on time, but they didn’t. she was barely alive when she was wheeled to the emergency room.

a few weeks after she was buried, he was admitted to the hospital. he hasn’t been eating, was unable to sleep, had lost a lot of weight, had no interest in life, and was oblivious to other people (even his children) and events around him, except for the fact that he just lost his wife. he was diagnosed with clinical depression. he was discharged after a couple of days, was given a few days supply of sleeping pills, and was transferred to help the chaplain for the meantime until he felt better. the last thing i knew, he stayed with the chaplains and did very good at comforting the other patients, forgetting his own pains in the process.

i am telling his story because he was the very first person and patient i have known in the philippines who was diagnosed with depression. i lived there for 32 years and have never known or met somebody on antidepressant or on therapy, except for people who came from other countries for holidays.

what does that mean? is depression something really unknown to filipinos? or is it something that is ignored because it is something that requires an expensive treatment?

this has always boggled my mind. having been exposed to others’ way of life through syndicated TV shows, it has always amazed me that depression, and therapy to cope with depression was/is something as common as the common colds in developed countries.

i knew the shows only reflect a portion of the real life situations. when i got here, it was a shock to see that those primetime comedy and drama shows accurately portrayed the issues of depression. i was not prepared for the reality of it all.  when i started working here, i always had a hard time giving meds and seeing antidepressant on the meds list of patients from practically every age group. i would recheck the orders over and over, because i can’t get over the fact that a 19 year old male patient, or an 80 year old female patient was on some sort of antidepressant. it was something very foreign to me. five years later, here i am, giving almost all my patients all sorts of antidepressants. ironically, i would recheck their meds list over and over, if the antidepressant is missing.

when do you cross the line? when you feel sad because you have this thoughts of being a bad, ugly  person, and you begin to hate yourself for the negative changes that you embraced, does that bout of self loathing mean you are getting depressed? if those thoughts occupy your mind often and you find hating yourself more everyday to the point of losing your self worth, does that mean you are beginning to step into depression and should go to therapy?

i am not aware of the questions asked in a simple depression screening test, but i assume they are pretty basic and most probably includes the question : “have you ever thought of killing yourself ?” or “did you ever wish you were dead?” or something like that. well, if at one time in your self loathing moments those thoughts did pass your mind and you wondered if it would have been easier if you were dead, does that mean you are definitely depressed?

i do not have the statistics to prove it, but in my personal observation, there is just a very small number of filipinos who are taking antidepressant, as opposed to the large number of americans who are on it.

i do not have the answer as to why this is so, but i’m sure it is not because filipinos are less depressed than the americans. i have some theories, but i don’t know if they make sense. first, it could be because in the philippines, nobody really sees a doctor if they feel chronically sad. majority cannot afford to see a doctor, getting that antidepressant prescription is out of the question. secondly, it could be because in the philippines, a lot of people have a lot of time to just be another person’s nonprofessional therapist. every single filipino has a long list of relatives and friends who are genuinely (or otherwise) always breathing over your shoulder trying to help you get out of trouble, even just by listening to your woes.

on the other hand, here in the land of plenty, there is a budget for every single pain one experinces. secondly, everyone is in a hurry. nobody has time to listen to somebody else’s pain, except of course when you lie on that couch and you write that check after that  session.

are depressed filipinos undiagnosed because they never go or never tell their doctors about their feelings? or are americans overdiagnosed because they always tell their doctors everything they are feeling?

both of these scenarios are sad and disturbing in certain ways. although it does not clearly define the  seriousness of depression, it still screams for answers.

dr. anonymous raised his concern about a study that suggested that america is overmedicating. he is obviously happy with the way things are moving forward in this area, and is worried a study like this can negatively affect the progress he sees. although i agree with dr. A at some point, i can’t ignore the thought that the said study makes some sense too.

what are your thoughts? are americans coping better because they are being medicated? or are my fellow filipinos really spiraling downhill for being deprived of the miracle of prozac?

this is the thing, i have very little knowledge about depression. i have a lot of questions, but i do not have the answers. this post was not meant to be informative, because i do not claim to know all the issues. all i know is that depression is real and it should be addressed appropriately. how and when, i don’t know. i may have wasted your time in expressing my thoughts about this out here, that was not my intention, and  i apologize…

i was just thinking out loud…if it happens that i am personally fighting the demons of either normal loneliness or depression, which would be better for me? to be here and be diagnosed with and treated for depression after answering a one page depression screening checklist; or to be back home and not even know that depression is real?