Hedgehog Rambles

Hello!  My name is Poggles.  I'm the beloved hedgehog of the perpetually strange lady that feeds me.

She's very odd.  I spend night after night messing this house up, and what does she do?  She throws away my perfectly scrunched up paper towel, wipes off my perfectly coated wheel, throws away my poop collection, and gives me a horribly clean, hedgehog-scent-free pouch!  Ugh!

... but then she gives me apples... and cat kibble... mmm!  I hear she's growing mealworms for me too!

 Just the thought of that yummy food makes my mouth water *smacks lips*

 So, I guess she's okay.  But, geez, just look how clean this litter is?  How can any hedgehog stand this?

Time to start my poop collection again.  Maybe I should build a tower with it like last time...

(Have a great week!)

Almost Done - Week 10 & 11

The maternity rotation is starting to be fun.  I've learned more in lab, I'm getting assigned two patients at a time (or one complicated one), and I've done my first baby bath.  I also know how to do baby assessments.

Babies

Babies are super fun.  They wave their arms and legs around, make cute noises, and blink with wonder at blank space.  They're also fuzzy.  I think fuzzy babies are awesome.  Newborns have soft downy "fur" all over them called lanugo. After you bathe the newborn, the soft fur goes all fluffy.  It's fantastic! 

One thing that has surprised me is how big newborns are.  I always thought they would be smaller considering the size of the opening they come out of.  Sometimes I look at the baby, look at the mom, and scratch my head.  How did it get out?

Teaching

New moms (and dads) have a huge learning curve.  If they're lucky, they did a ton of reading while mom was pregnant.  If not, they have to learn an encyclopedia amount of information in a very short time frame.  It means that I can rattle off information non-stop and it's likely that mom will get something out of it that she didn't know before. 

I have been impressed at how eager new moms are to learn.  They're like sponges.  I guess when you go through that much trouble to bring a kid into the world, you want to make sure you're doing your best for them.  So I do my best to provide as much info as I can, keeping things as bite-sized as possible.

Less Blood

Thankfully, I haven't had to work with as much blood as last time.  There's still blood, but it's manageable now. I think I won't be as scared if I ever come across the same situation again.  I know a lot more about what I can do about it, and about the resiliency of a mom.  Moms have super powers, in a sense.

This week, I'll get to see a mom give birth.  I'm worried that I'll pass out.  Fingers-crossed that I'll be more useful to mom than as a decorative floor mat.

Have a great week!

Onwards With Maternity

Working in the maternity ward has been increasingly stressful for me.  I know, I know, I should be loving every minute of it, but for many reasons I'm kind of scared of working in Maternity.

So Much Blood

I walked into a new client's room one morning to discover a trail of blood from the bed leading to the bathroom.  In the bathroom was a poor mum lying on the floor.  I felt like I had walked into a scene from a horror movie.  

There were nurses around her taking care of her, but I felt like I was frozen in time.  I looked at the nurses working hard to ensure that the mom was okay and not did not pass out, I saw how pale and sweaty the mom looked, and I saw the look of fear on the husband's face.  He was holding his new baby close, but I don't think that made him feel any less terrified at seeing his wife unwell.  

Postpartum Hemorrhage

Long story short, it was a busy day.  I monitored her health every hour and learned a lot about bleeding in the first few hours after birth.  I learned that a full bladder can push the uterus to the side so that it can't contract as well to stop bleeding, about how inserting a foley catheter can help empty the bladder quickly (if there's risk of passing out on the way to the bathroom), and about drugs that can help the uterus contract in case the bleeding doesn't stop naturally.  

I'm not particularly scared of blood, but something about a lot of blood soaked towels and sheets frightens me. The cleaning staff did a great job of making the blood on the floors disappear quickly (thank you!), but it was up to me to make the blood on the mom disappear.  

Shaken Up

I thought I would see a lot of blood in surgery, but this is really my first experience in seeing and handling so many bloody things.  I think I'll get used to it after a few more experiences, but for now I'm rather shaken up.  It is scary to see someone bleeding a lot.

Thank God For Hospitals
I guess the good thing is that bleeding in the hospital is not such a big deal.  The moms eat food and drink liquids to replace lost fluid and nutrients, and they have IV's hooked up as well.  This means that they can get the proper fluids instantly through their IV, including blood products if they need it.  

While I was feeling jittery and lost, the mom I was taking care of seemed perfectly fine in no time.  It was as if nothing had happened.  The baby was fine too.  In the end, it was just another happy family leaving the hospital with their new baby.

It's amazing how resilient humans are.  

Poggles Likes Baths

Poggles always perks up at the sound of running water.  We weren't sure if it terrified him or whether he liked it, but it became very clear today that Poggles LOVES it.  (What a weirdo.)

I washed the sink, turned on the water to a nice, warm temperature, and Poggles started to fiddle like crazy in his carrying pouch.  I lifted him up to the edge of the sink and he dived into it immediately.  Then he just sat with his back under the running tap... and didn't move.

He REALLY liked the shower.  I could scoop water and pour it over him, even over his face, and he didn't budge an inch.

 I had to move him aside so that I could plug the sink.  Then I added a little Aveeno body wash to the water to make his mini bubble bath.  I took a soft, clean toothbrush and brushed his back, feet, and belly.  He didn't like his head and face brushed much, but I did it anyways.  I was just extra gentle, so he resumed his statue pose.

After a nice little soak, I drained the water, rinsed him under the tap (much to his content), filled up the tub again, and rinsed all the body wash away.

He hated being dried with a towel last time, so I experimented with a blow dryer.  I put it on a low power, warm setting.

He was a little surprised by the air at first, but then he just hunched over and let me dry him.  I kept my hand in front of the blow dryer to make sure that the temperature never got too hot, and I always kept the blow dryer moving.  Once in a while, I'd brush the quills to make sure they separated and got properly dried.  Towards the end, I pushed him over to his side so that I dry under him too.

His nose got a little dry and I was worried about him getting dehydrated so I gave him a tiny spoon of yogurt.  I vaguely remember that hedgehogs are lactose intolerant, but Poggles eats yogurt readily in tiny quantities without any problems.  You can see how little I gave him in the picture.

After all that excitement, I wrapped him loosely in one of his fleece liners and placed him under my desk lamp where it's warm.  I gave him a couple "cookies" (round cat kibbles), and he settled down for a nap.  This ensures that he will dry thoroughly at a warm temperature.

Bath time with hedgies is fun  :)

Week 8 of Nursing School, 2nd Year

I'm finally in the long-awaited Maternity rotation. This was supposed to be the ward that would change my life.  I'm supposed to find my calling and feel tugging in my heart strings.  Ironically, I haven't really felt that yet.

Instead, I've been slightly bored.

Quiet Maternity
The maternity ward is very quiet compared to the surgical ward.  The mothers are generally in good health and I won't be assigned more complicated cases until later in this term.  My first patient was very sweet, content with her new baby, and tired.  I only had to check her vital signs once, and she was mostly sleeping, feeding the baby, or gazing contentedly at her baby most of the time.

Pain
The main concern of the new mothers is pain from childbirth.  After a woman gives birth, her insides have to stop the bleeding and start changing back to pre-baby status.  This is a normal process and it is very important. Unfortunately, it doesn't feel very good.  Also, some of the moms have wounds from the baby coming out and tearing her nether parts (ouch!) from being too big or too fast.

Here's some traumatic information for you.  The tearing can be just skin (first degree), skin and muscle (second degree), skin and muscle all the way to the anus (third degree), or all the way through the anus to the other side of your anus (fourth degree).

I find this to be very frightening.  I keep wondering whether these women knew what they were getting themselves into and why they choose to have more kids.  I watch them hunched over, walking slowly and gingerly to and from the bathrooms.  I'm still in shock-phase, but I'm sure I'll soon appreciate my mom a lot for what she went through to give birth to me.

Teaching Opportunities
There's a lot of teaching to do as a nurse in the maternity ward.  Many moms are new to this stage in life, and they don't really know what to expect.  I enjoy racking my brain for information to share, and I can see how valuable this is for the mothers.  For instance, I can teach the moms about how they will produce a special milk called Colostrum for the first few days.  She won't produce a great deal of it, but this special milk is low-fat, high in protein, and contains natural antibodies from the mom that will help the baby to fight infection.

So it's important to encourage the moms to start breastfeeding right away so that the babies can take advantage of this special milk.  Some moms don't really know how to breastfeed yet, so the nurses can teach them some tips and tricks on how to hold the baby and to get a good "latch".  I also get to teach the moms about how the milk is based on a supply-and-demand system.  The more she breastfeeds, the more milk she will produce.

Stressed Out Moms
Many moms feel stressed out for the first few days because they don't produce much milk and the baby starts to lose weight.  What they don't always realize is that a) the baby will naturally lose a little weight from extra water being lost and b) the baby's stomach is about the size of a chickpea for the first few days.  The mom doesn't really need to feed it that much milk at one time.  However, she does need to feed it a little every three hours.  As long as she does this, she'll notice her regular milk come in around 3-5 days later and everyone will be happier.

Some moms want to switch to formula as fast as possible because they think that their baby isn't getting enough food, but it's important for me to teach them that human milk is much better for the baby than formula.  Formula's main ingredient is whey from cow's milk.  My teacher has noticed that babies eating formula are more gassy, more poopy, and more irritable.  Also, if the mom starts switching to formula, or using it to supplement her milk, she'll start to produce less milk.  It becomes a cycle where the mom becomes more and more dependent on using formula, and the baby is missing out on the awesome benefits of mom's milk.

Lots of New Info
I find the maternity rotation to be very interesting in terms of all the new vocabulary that I'm learning and all the information that is so specific to childbirth.  I think that I'll enjoy it a lot more once I have more knowledge from my classes on this area of nursing.  For now, I feel a little bit useless because I can't help the moms more.  I know bits and pieces of information, but not the whole picture yet.

I'm looking forward to getting more experience in clinical this week.  Maybe I'll get to bathe a baby!  That would be cool  :)

Have a great week!