Saturday 17 March 2012

Excited Exhaustion

I thought I'd do a quick post about what's going on in my life at the moment. I can't believe the massive change in my life. I went from being your typical student, spending a few hours a day sitting in a lecture, to watching open heart surgery in the space of one week.

I spent Monday morning of my first ever day on the hospital ward watching two different people having life saving lung surgery, one to remove a lobe of the lung to get rid of lung cancer and one having a massive blood clot removed from the lung to be able to breath again.

I got to talk to those patients afterwards and see how they were doing, and see the happiness that they were getting better, even though they were in pain.

I talked to many patients on the ward who had gone through similar things, listening to their story. I also talked a patient before he went into surgery to have two heart valves replaced and a bypass graft. I then went to see him afterwards, and got to follow his story.

It really has reaffirmed that this is what I want to do with my life, I want to be the person that makes a difference in their patient's lives, be it big, doing life saving surgery, or small, taking bloods to make sure they're continuing to get healthy (which I also did this week for the first time).

I actual knitting news, I finally got my Valentine's day present from the boy:

It's watermelon self striping sock yarn from knitpurlgurl on etsy, which I have been coveting for a long time. It also came with a really cute watermelon stitch marker. This picture gives you a better idea of the bright colours
I've also "read" a couple of books. To be honest, these were both audiobooks, which I've been listening to on the way to placement, since reading on the bus makes me feel ill.

These are the first two book in the Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy. The audiobooks are read by  Rupert Degas, who has the most amazing Irish accent, which makes me grin each time I hear it. I'm really enjoying them, and have just started listening to the third book. They are a children's series, with magic and a skeleton detective. They're very easy listening but well written and captivating, as well as being relatively original. I can recommend them as something to listen to at a time you don't really want to think about the book (so great for lace knitting!)

6 comments:

  1. As someone who has spent a fair amount of time on a hospital ward I can tell you how lovely it is when someone treats you like an individual rather than a set of symptoms and medical charts. It is wonderful that you are interested in the patient's story and how they are feeling, it will make your patients love you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for the book rec...I can hardly keep my boys in books. I'll look for these next library trip.

    When I had my third child--a scheduled c-section due to issues with the second birth--I was asked if a student could be in the surgery to observe. I said sure! Honestly, by that point, who has any modesty, plus there were so many people in the room for the emergency c-section for my second child... you kind of get over caring. Anyway, he was SO excited to be allowed to observe a c-section. I gathered that wasn't a routine occurrence. He happened to be a nursing student at the university I'd attended, too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You clearly have the right stuff to be in the medical profession: a warm heart, an inquisitive mind, and an incredible amount of empathy. My daughter had major surgery 18 months ago and I'm forever grateful for people like you! As for your new yarn, your feet will be smiling when those socks are done!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm always amazed and awed by people who go into surgery as a profession, it's an incredible thing to do, especially if you also care about the patients as people :)

    Love the yarn, fab colours!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wow, your week sounds like it was exciting and exhilarating! What an opportunity to be able to watch those surgeries and get to meet with the patients. I wish you the best journey along your path!

    And that watermelon yarn is precious!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great to find another SP fan! wooo!!!

    ReplyDelete