yesterday was hellish, but here’s two neat experiences that made all the other hellishness from yesterday 100% worth it:
background info: unlike heart transplants who tend to bounce back fairly quickly, the road to recovery for lung transplants is DIFFICULT and LONG. people are often on tube feeds and aren’t allowed to swallow anything for weeks to months. there is unbelievable amounts of swelling. patients often get trach’d and have to be on oxygen post transplant for a long time. chest tubes everywhere. skin breakdown. mucous plugs. bouncing back and forth to the icu. anxiety up the wazoo because doctors cold turkey them on benzos post transplant. etc. etc.
1) there is this patient whom i’ve had on my assignment every time i’ve worked for the last month, so i’ve seen all the shit she’s gone through and gotten to know her fairly well. she’s been taken off tube feeds and allowed to eat, had uncontrollable vomiting, put back on tube feeds, taken off again, aspirated, put back on, etc. not to mention all the other complications like episodes of not being able to breath due to mucous plugs and needing emergency bedside bronchs (a very invasive and highly uncomfortable procedure), infection, poorly managed pain, pressure ulcers, urinary incontinence, post-op necrotic bowel leading to her needed a colostomy bag which has, on at least one occassion, exploded and covered her and her bed sheets in her own diarrhea, so on and so forth. she’s the cutest lady i’ve ever seen and she’s never once complained or been negative which i find absolutely astounding.
anyway having gone through unbelievable amounts of shit (sometimes quite literally) and having a ‘one step forward two steps back’ with this whole transplant experience, yesterday we finally capped her trach (i.e. closed off that additional airway entirely) and took her off of oxygen altogether. in the spirit of monitoring her closely, i was hanging out in her room for awhile, to make sure her oxygen levels were maintaining themselves and that she didn’t become short of breath/distressed and anxious (which, as you can imagine, leads to shortness of breath pretty darn quickly) because as you might imagine this is a highly vulnerable time for LTx’s who desat very quickly and/or tend to freak themselves out over the whole thing. she was doing amazingly well. we got to chatting and she shared with me that this is the first time in 13 years that she hasn’t needed to be on oxygen.
and seriously, every time someone would come in and comment that ‘wow hey you’re off of oxygen!’ you could just see her entire face light up! it was wonderful and i might have had to excuse myself to go cry in the supply room.
2) a gentleman who had been on tube fees/not allowed to eat anything for 3 weeks, passed his swallow test yesterday. the first thing he did was have his husband run down to starbucks and get him a caramel macchiato. i asked him how it was and his eyes literally rolled back in his head as he was drinking it. he didn’t say anything cuz i don’t know that he had anything else to say on the matter and also he probably didn’t want to stop drinking to answer me.
you haven’t seen the face of bliss until you’ve seen someone getting to indulge in their favorite treat first thing after being unable to eat ANYTHING for an extended period of time.
anyway it was a hard day but i seriously love my job and all the highly intimate and personal little melodramas that i get the privilege of being a part of
THANK YOU GODS OF TUMBLR.
So here's the story. I didn't wanna go to class and made a post to tumblr about this, but I had to and I knew this. Before I went, I checked the course outline and it said "Short story - Desiree's Baby", so I figured we were reading it in class. I get there while the class if filling up and wait for the teacher. She comes in with scantron sheets and says "Alright, write the name "Desiree's Baby" on the title and put your name.
No one knew what she was talking about. She claims that we have no excuse because the stories can be found online, but doesn't take into account that she either never said we had a quiz on the story, or that no one heard her. When she realizes no one has read it, she laughs and says "Well, looks like you'll be guessing a lot."
Apparently she didn't realize that only 2 people had read it, because afterwards while saying the answers, only 2 people could answer the questions. She gets irritated because of this.
"Well, because only two of you read the story we can't continue with the lesson plan for today. Read the story and I'll see you all on Wednesday, no excuses."
With that, she walks out of the classroom. Class has now been canceled 10 minutes in.
Aw. Yiss.
