Variety

In the past 3 days, I've worked 36 hours. A lot of people don't really understand what my job entails, as a nurse. One of the reasons I like it so much is because of the variety. Here is a little snapshot of the patients under my direct care in the past three days:
1. A cranky 83 year old woman with a DVT (blood clot in her leg), used to live at Days Inn, extremely particular about med times and not taking any medications together, argues with me about blood thinners dosage.
2. A pleasant woman with sickle cell crisis, needing a blood transfusion and pain medicine
3. A woman who speaks Hindi with lymphoma that has spread throughout her body. She is not wanting to eat, is on nutrition through her veins, her sons are constantly at her bedside asking questions and increasing or decreasing her medications as they see fit. She has been in the hospital for more than a month.
4. A woman with multiple abdominal surgeries, has adhesions in her intestines and can't eat or she is bloated and nauseous. She is on continuous pain medicine, nutrition through her vein, and getting nausea medicine frequently.
5. A woman on a court hold for chemical dependency and diabetes, she is a "flight risk" so has a nursing assistant at her door 24/7 to make sure she doesn't leave the hospital. She is waiting for a bed at a chemical dependency program.
6. A woman who speaks Amharic and has B cell lymphoma, she has a little nausea, her daughter is a nurse and very nice and helpful.
7. A man who speaks Oromo with pancreatitis and diabetes, his wife and large family are visiting, he has no pain but his blood sugar is low.
8. A man who speaks Laotian with acute kidney failure and pulmonary edema. He keeps getting short of breath, and wheezy, he has way too much fluid in his body, but his kidneys aren't working very well, we keep increasing the medicine to make him pee off the extra fluid. He speaks minimal English, so we rely on basic words like "poop" "pain" and sign language. His family was there once to help translate.
One patient was Caucasian, the cranky 83 year old!

So, that is a little taste of the people we care for and the diagnoses that they have. If you ever think that Minnesota isn't multicultural, come down to HCMC and follow me around for a day! While it does make it challenging to care for people from different cultures, languages, and a multitude of social issues, it is very rewarding. And variety is the spice of life, eh?