Survived my lab skills test on drug administration this past week...even though I wasn't feeling that well. Glad to have that behind me. Only new material over the next two weeks, then a week long Thanksgiving break (thanks to having no classes on Mondays and Tuesdays)! Then all that's left is 1 lab skill test, 1 lecture test and then final comprehensive lecture exam.
I'm so proud of myself for getting the bulk of my General Assessment done today. All I have left is the three care plans, which I hope to do tomorrow afternoon after church. Monday I'm heading over to my parent's home to stay with my dad as my mom goes to DC area to take care of my niece/nephew for a few weeks while my sister is out of town. Thursday night my dad had a severe nose bleed that even after my mom (retired nurse) packed his nose with gauze, added ice packs and called the 24/7 insurance nurse....they ended up making two trips to the ER that night...three procedures later and now he has a saline-filled balloon type thing up his nose putting pressure on things. My mom will drain the nose balloon thing tomorrow (to reduce risk of sinus infection). So hopefully things have clotted up sufficiently that he won't bleed Sunday into Monday. He's got a ENT appt on Monday. I'm just going over there for a couple days as a precaution and to be an extra hand if he starts bleeding again. His BP was fairly high compared to his normally low baseline. So it's good that I get my Care Plan out of the way this weekend, so that when I'm at my parent's house, I can just focus on readings for lecture/lab skills--which is a lot less to haul around. With CP's I'm using lab diagnostic handbook, drug guide, nursing diagnosis book, medical dictionary and sometimes an old pathophysiology text book, PLUS my laptop. So hopefully I can leave all that stuff behind. Since I have clinical on Wednesday, I don't know if I'll go home Tuesday night so I don't have to drive so far the next morning. Guess it will largely depend on how my dad is fairing. My other sister could conceivably spend the night if needed. And if needed I can spend the rest of the week there, coming and going for classes, if there is continued concern. The interesting hx about this is that back when my parents were first married, they were staying with my dad's parents and my grandfather had a severe nosebleed. Physician said the nosebleed was a good thing because it prevented him from having a stroke! So that's why my dad's elevated BP with this bloody nose is a bit disconcerting.
So for me, as a nursing student, this is interesting and will of course stick in my mind in the future. I'm also curious if the ENT will order blood labs and if there will be anything abnormal. So hopefully I'll be taking my dad's BP several times while I'm there. A little practice for me. Appropriate monitoring for him.
When my mom was first telling me about this (between ER visits on Thursday), I kept thinking...now what would my nursing dx be? What would my nursing interventions be? I didn't get farther than thinking about it...b/c I figured my mom has a good handle on the interventions...but I'm still thinking about the nursing dx.
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