Cancer is a bully

Week two in the hospital complete. Boy, it's been awesome. Awesome in a wow, this is really tiring kind of way, but still awesome. Working with cancer patients has taught me so much already. I have a new understanding of the disease itself, which is that it is horrible, ugly and mean. No one (of course) thinks cancer is a walk in the park by any means, but what I mean is that I have just never really understood the toll it takes on your body. It seriously affects everything. It's rough.

Just for my own memory, this week I learned:

-how to put in an NG tube

-to take out a foley catheter

-how sit with a wife as she cries about her husband with leukemia and not breakdown with her.

-that cancer is really bad

-that some people with sickle cell are so drugged up that they fall asleep standing up (and snore!)

-that a patient grabbing your hand and telling you thank you is one of the best feelings ever.

I'm excited to be a nurse.

Not excited that this weeks paperwork for clinicals took me 9 hours.

It's going to be a long road to May 2011, a fulfilling one though.