Modern Soapbox

I apologize for being busier than you at times. I have a mastery demo and an exam tomorrow followed by work. Tuesday is another day of work followed by a dinner get-together with the PKP crew which I’ll probably be staying up decently late for. On early Wednesday morning, I’ll be enjoying the pain of not being able to get enough sleep for my clinical at 6:45am but fortunately don’t have to do homework until Monday otherwise I’d die. I’ll get out of clinical hopefully by one to unwind and then go to work at three ’til eleven then on Thursday I’m lucky ’cause clinical was cancelled that day for a teacher work day. I still have to attend work. The clinical is Wednesday this week instead of Friday ’cause the instructor wanted to have Good Friday free. Fortunately, I did, too, so I wouldn’t have to be exhausted before I even made the trek to Corpus. Then Friday thru Sunday, I’ll be in Corpus assisting in filming for PKP and enjoying the holiday weekend which is a form of work in itself. Many miniscule details of how time is spent other than sleeping can be crammed in every other timeframe not listed, but I don’t want to get into it. You might not be able to fully understand my schedule this week, so I just want to summarize and say it’s gonna be busy and I’m sorry about that.

I will not be attending the Crown again on Monday. I think I’ll be cutting my visits to once or twice a month ’cause gasoline is getting expensive again and I need the night to get other tasks done. I need to prioritize everything in my life, because everything’s going haywire in my head and little things are stressing me out.

And now last week’s rewind:

Thursday was a clinical day, and Friday was a learning lab day. I didn’t have to attend the normal floor on Thursday, because I was scheduled to be in the rehabilitation unit (which I’ll also be in this Wednesday).

My patient was an elderly man who was admitted into the medical center after being found on the floor unconscious in his home by his daughter. He had suffered a stroke which disabled his sensation on the left side of his body. The left side of his face drooped. He was having difficulty urinating, and it was becoming more and more painful as time passed.

Eventually, the nurse assigned to him had to administer an in-and-out catheter to relieve the patient’s bladder. The students had just been taught in a previous lab how to administer a catheter, so this was good to see it used in an actual situation. The urine finally flowed, and it was cloudy and pungent. This was a prime example of why it’s very important to drink plenty of water.

That was the most interesting part of being in the rehab unit that day, because the nurses sometimes don’t have a lot to do compared to other units. Another patient was an elderly woman who could only speak Polish, so the communication barrier was an obstacle that had to be conquered. Another patient was an elderly man who had also suffered a stroke. He was a pastor who was going thru hard times and had to take some time to talk to the nurse about what was going on in his life which was very depressing to here. The part he mentioned about after suffering his first stroke and in order to pay the medical bills they had to sell the house and the car and eventually claim bankruptcy was a genuinely sad story. His wife still has to work to make ends meet even though she’s an elder herself.

This is how it can be when everyone gets closer to becoming dust.

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The pharmaceutical industry and the human body have a clash in relation to prescription drug addiction. Many types of medication are effective in treating a disease, but all of them have side effects or even adverse effects. People will have a dependency on drugs after taking them for a long time which will lead them into withdrawal once they are off the medication. This is treatable but can be a difficult process.