Part IV
First, thank you everyone for your warm thoughts! And I've emailed a few folks and it seems that my chartermi.net account is ending up in people's spam email for some reason--so if you were expecting an email from me--check your spam--I could be there!
In January, I started my last semester. It felt really, really strange: While one of my best friends was in the class, it wasn't the people with whom I'd spent the last 3 years. The dynamic was very different. The class was overall younger and there were NO guys. AND the last semester covers areas that frankly aren't my forte: Leadership and Community Nursing, give me blood and guts over making budgets ANY day! I did have an awesome Community clinical--I was working with people who were living independently but who had serious mental illness. I was actually supervising other nursing students who were developing classes for them on various topics from nutrition and exercise to STIs.
On the Craig front, he'd had an MRI in December that showed some residual fluid, but they weren't too worried as they felt it would reabsorb naturally...besides, subdural hematomas only become chronic in less than 20% of the cases.
I noticed that his right side instead of getting stronger, was actually getting weaker, so when we went into the neurosurgeon's for a check up, I was not terribly surprised to hear that his hematoma was not getting smaller but was actually getting bigger again. At this point we had to make a choice: what kind of surgery are we going to do? Are we going to do the full crani again? (craniotomy) Do we do a burr hole and drainage? (Basically drill a hole in his skull and put some drains in for a couple days) or put a permanent shut? I opted for burr hole and drainage. So I'm feeling a little overwhelmed: I have finals, final papers, and try to get all Craig's pre-surgery tests and doctor's appointments. (I had to miss a final and take it later in the day because of a appointment that couldn't be moved.) So we make it through, with Craig scheduled for surgery the Tuesday following my Friday pinning.
What the heck is pinning? In the old days, nurses had a capping ceremony, but now that we know caps can harbor all sorts of crud and germs, we have a pinning where we get pins with our nursing school name and the school crest.
The morning of pinning comes and Craig has a seizure at about 5 AM. He had gotten up to to to the bathroom and I heard the rhythmic "thud thud thud" of someone hitting his or her arm and leg against the wall--In this case, arm, leg and head. I get into the bathroom and quickly protect his head against the floor. It passes and we manage to get him back to bed. Since he is scheduled for surgery, having a seizure isn't that surprising--but when he has another seizure at 8:30, I call the ambulance.
So we take him to the hospital.
(More as I get time)
In January, I started my last semester. It felt really, really strange: While one of my best friends was in the class, it wasn't the people with whom I'd spent the last 3 years. The dynamic was very different. The class was overall younger and there were NO guys. AND the last semester covers areas that frankly aren't my forte: Leadership and Community Nursing, give me blood and guts over making budgets ANY day! I did have an awesome Community clinical--I was working with people who were living independently but who had serious mental illness. I was actually supervising other nursing students who were developing classes for them on various topics from nutrition and exercise to STIs.
On the Craig front, he'd had an MRI in December that showed some residual fluid, but they weren't too worried as they felt it would reabsorb naturally...besides, subdural hematomas only become chronic in less than 20% of the cases.
I noticed that his right side instead of getting stronger, was actually getting weaker, so when we went into the neurosurgeon's for a check up, I was not terribly surprised to hear that his hematoma was not getting smaller but was actually getting bigger again. At this point we had to make a choice: what kind of surgery are we going to do? Are we going to do the full crani again? (craniotomy) Do we do a burr hole and drainage? (Basically drill a hole in his skull and put some drains in for a couple days) or put a permanent shut? I opted for burr hole and drainage. So I'm feeling a little overwhelmed: I have finals, final papers, and try to get all Craig's pre-surgery tests and doctor's appointments. (I had to miss a final and take it later in the day because of a appointment that couldn't be moved.) So we make it through, with Craig scheduled for surgery the Tuesday following my Friday pinning.
What the heck is pinning? In the old days, nurses had a capping ceremony, but now that we know caps can harbor all sorts of crud and germs, we have a pinning where we get pins with our nursing school name and the school crest.
The morning of pinning comes and Craig has a seizure at about 5 AM. He had gotten up to to to the bathroom and I heard the rhythmic "thud thud thud" of someone hitting his or her arm and leg against the wall--In this case, arm, leg and head. I get into the bathroom and quickly protect his head against the floor. It passes and we manage to get him back to bed. Since he is scheduled for surgery, having a seizure isn't that surprising--but when he has another seizure at 8:30, I call the ambulance.
So we take him to the hospital.
(More as I get time)