In the home stretch

I am so excited knowing that I have less than 2 weeks left of my first year of nursing school. My last day of clinicals was on Friday. I had 3 clinical days back to back. It was the best week of clinicals by far. I continued caring for 2 patients and I felt really good about the whole experience, except for those few times I had to wipe one of my patients butt. Other than that stinky experience, I really enjoyed it. I was organized with my meds, assessments, labs, feeding, discharging, I&O's, charting & documenting. I was on FIRE!!! Yeah baby!

On Friday I had another "almost passing out" experience. Bear in mind, I ate at 5:30am, and it was 10am when I was asked to go into another patients room to watch a chest tube insertion. I really didn't know where the chest tube went and what it went into. Well, I soon found out. The surgeon cut a 1-inch incision between the 8th & 9th rib. She moved the tissue apart and then clamped a tube and inserted the tube into the left lower lobe. When she punctured the lung, I heard a loud burst of air come out of the lung. That's when it hit me. I started to feel funny and kind-of nauseous. I stepped out of the room heading straight for the break room. I downed a granola bar and a cup of orange juice. After 2-3 minutes I was fine and went back into the room. At that time the surgeon was taping and securing the tube and the procedure was just about done. The pt. was giving me a hard time for feeling woozy while he was awake for the entire thing! Next time I'll try to eat something before I watch something of that caliber.