- Sleeping until I wake up naturally- no alarm.
- Drinking coffee with cream in my favorite mug.
- Listening to Adventures in Odyssey.
- Eating Lucky Charms- carefully eating the cheerios and saving all of the marshmallows to be consumed last.
- Preparing for a fun day at a leisurely pace.
- Reading for pleasure.
- Slouching on the couch with my laptop- and enjoying an unknown neighbor's wireless Internet.
- Enjoying no pressing to-do list for these few hours of the day.
Ahh! I love it! (Although, I do thoroughly miss Saturday morning coffee at Happy and Papa's house in Abilene. That was always the highlight of the week!)
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
I am feeling whoozy!
Many people (including myself-at one time) do not know the variety of clientele for whom speech-language pathologists (SLP) are consulted. A large number of individuals are only aware of the SLPs in the schools- oh, those pretty ladies who help children produce "r" and "s" in elementary school. We have fun, educational decor covering the walls and doors of our clean and orderly speech-therapy rooms. We give out stickers and candies to children who work especially hard at placing their tongues on the alveolar ridge of their mouths for a clear and accurate "l".
Well... that is not the SLP I am going to be this semester in the hospital. As I will be walking around in cute blue scrubs and providing exceptional therapy to patients, I will not be dealing solely with speech, language, and cognitive deficits. Nope. I have been assigned to the head/neck cancer rotation, which includes some pretty disturbing sites and several laryngectomies.
My first day at Parkland, I was given the opportunity to clean and replace a tracheoesophageal prosthesis (TEP). A TEP is inserted into the trachea and esophagus to allow an individual with no larynx to eat and breathe safely. This patient's TEP was leaking due to fungal colonization around and within this prosthesis allowing saliva, foods, and liquids to enter the lungs which puts the individual at risk for aspiration pneumonia. The SLP's role is to remove the TEP covered in yeast from the patient's neck, and place a new four-inch long tube into the man's neck. No blood, just secretions, yeast, and a patient's life at your finger tips.
So... I thought that I felt queezy from my professor's secretions flying out of his neck, but that was before I actually delved into a man's neck that had fungus growing inside. I was very proud of myself for the professional manner in which I observed and participated in this procedure... for the first 15 minutes. But then, I began to sweat and get dizzy, and a black shadow began creeping into my line of vision. Not wanting to faint on my first day and with my first patient, I sat down (that's what Dr. and nurse Brantly advised me to do if I found myself feeling this way). Eventually, I quietly left the room leaving my patient supervisor to complete the task alone. I recovered after a few minutes and resumed my place in improving the lives of my patients one tracheoesophageal prosthesis-at-a-time! This should be an interesting semester!
Well... that is not the SLP I am going to be this semester in the hospital. As I will be walking around in cute blue scrubs and providing exceptional therapy to patients, I will not be dealing solely with speech, language, and cognitive deficits. Nope. I have been assigned to the head/neck cancer rotation, which includes some pretty disturbing sites and several laryngectomies.
My first day at Parkland, I was given the opportunity to clean and replace a tracheoesophageal prosthesis (TEP). A TEP is inserted into the trachea and esophagus to allow an individual with no larynx to eat and breathe safely. This patient's TEP was leaking due to fungal colonization around and within this prosthesis allowing saliva, foods, and liquids to enter the lungs which puts the individual at risk for aspiration pneumonia. The SLP's role is to remove the TEP covered in yeast from the patient's neck, and place a new four-inch long tube into the man's neck. No blood, just secretions, yeast, and a patient's life at your finger tips.
So... I thought that I felt queezy from my professor's secretions flying out of his neck, but that was before I actually delved into a man's neck that had fungus growing inside. I was very proud of myself for the professional manner in which I observed and participated in this procedure... for the first 15 minutes. But then, I began to sweat and get dizzy, and a black shadow began creeping into my line of vision. Not wanting to faint on my first day and with my first patient, I sat down (that's what Dr. and nurse Brantly advised me to do if I found myself feeling this way). Eventually, I quietly left the room leaving my patient supervisor to complete the task alone. I recovered after a few minutes and resumed my place in improving the lives of my patients one tracheoesophageal prosthesis-at-a-time! This should be an interesting semester!
Sunday, August 23, 2009
a new semester
My fourth semester (of five) began this past Thursday. The next few months I will be learning about craniofacial disorders (cleft lip and palate), autism, and language development. Also, I have been assigned to Inpatient Acute Care Neurosurgery and Head/Neck Cancer at Parkland Memorial Hospital.
The first meeting of the craniofacial class was canceled (due to illness of the professor). The reputation of this professor leads me to believe that this is only the first of many "walks" for this semester (which has its pros and cons).
For the class discussing autism spectrum disorders there are two professors. The primary professor was unable to attend the first class (due to a family emergency, I think), so we were taught by her colleague who had a laryngectomy. A laryngectomy is a removal of the larynx; a hole is surgically created to provide a "safe" air passageway for respiration... and speaking. Laryngectomies, tracheotomies, and the-like have been frequently alluded to in my coursework; however, I had not yet witnessed a quarter-size, unveiled, stoma in a man's neck. Nor had I yet observed the unintentional projection of body fluids via a quarter-size, unveiled stoma in a man's neck... until my class on Friday. Despite my tremendous effort to not allow the projected booger-like substance to bother me, I did indeed get a little queezy. I just hope that this uneasiness in my stomach does not return tomorrow morning during my first shift in the hospital setting when more gruesome body fluids come flying my direction.
The first meeting of the craniofacial class was canceled (due to illness of the professor). The reputation of this professor leads me to believe that this is only the first of many "walks" for this semester (which has its pros and cons).
For the class discussing autism spectrum disorders there are two professors. The primary professor was unable to attend the first class (due to a family emergency, I think), so we were taught by her colleague who had a laryngectomy. A laryngectomy is a removal of the larynx; a hole is surgically created to provide a "safe" air passageway for respiration... and speaking. Laryngectomies, tracheotomies, and the-like have been frequently alluded to in my coursework; however, I had not yet witnessed a quarter-size, unveiled, stoma in a man's neck. Nor had I yet observed the unintentional projection of body fluids via a quarter-size, unveiled stoma in a man's neck... until my class on Friday. Despite my tremendous effort to not allow the projected booger-like substance to bother me, I did indeed get a little queezy. I just hope that this uneasiness in my stomach does not return tomorrow morning during my first shift in the hospital setting when more gruesome body fluids come flying my direction.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Summer Sunday
My last Sunday of the summer break...
- church
- lunch with church friends
- nap
- swimming
- reading
- playing Catan
- figuring out how to get everything done that has to be done in the final three days of summer. Hmm... perhaps I should have had a more productive day today. My to-do list is slightly overwhelming.
- church
- lunch with church friends
- nap
- swimming
- reading
- playing Catan
- figuring out how to get everything done that has to be done in the final three days of summer. Hmm... perhaps I should have had a more productive day today. My to-do list is slightly overwhelming.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Internet Binge
We don't have internet. It's hard to be a student and survive without internet, but I've managed (but my blog has suffered- sorry). Yesterday as I sat on my couch, opened my laptop, and began working on a research assignment, my eyes glanced over to the bottom right hand corner of the screen... and what did my eyes stumble upon? Instead of four grey bars and a red X on the mini computer icon, there were three light yellow bars signifying an internet connection... low... but a connection none the less! I spent all day on the internet, looking up everything that I want and need to check into... email, library hours, location of Parkland, amazon, facebook, drive-in theater, AsoBrain, and everything else! My day was not too productive, but I definitely enjoyed the "high life" with internet! And, here I am again, sitting on my couch, open laptop, research project for work, and internet. Holla!
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