Clinic Coolness

Per usual around here, I’m still loving my clinic placement. I think I’m going to be more than just a little bummed when this semester is over and I have to move to a different placement. We saw fifteen patients last Tuesday… had a full schedule and the day just flew by! Besides the fact that it just flew by, I got to see some super cool things as well.

The office that I work in is in an ENT office in a hospital so I get to see the ENT doctors now and then. One of them is super cool about allowing students to watch interesting procedures which I think it totally awesome.

So, many of you (whoever besides me ends up reading this) probably know that putting tubes in babies/young children’s ears can help can prevent further recurrent ear infections. It took me until grad school to really realize what the actual tube was and how this was done. Ayden didn’t need tubes and because of that I really had no reason to learn anything further than, kids have to be put under for the procedure. Call me dumb, but I thought the procedure was a lot more complicated than it actually is. Honestly, I think the whole putting the kid under is probably the worst part of getting it done. Call me dumb again, but I failed to realize that the only reason for putting kids under is because they don’t have the ability to sit still to get the procedure done.

On Tuesday, we had a patient with fluid in both ears and the ENT doctor was going to put tubes in both ears IN THE OFFICE, right there… and HE ASKED IF I WANTED TO WATCH! The patient was totally okay with it, after all, I had just finished testing his hearing ten minutes prior and he was a cool guy.

The doctor literally just sliced the ear drum open a bit, sucked out the fluid, and placed the tube in. Of course, he did put a numbing medication on part of the ear drum so the patient wouldn’t feel the majority of it (I can’t imagine that it felt great, but definitely tolerable as an adult.) and went about his business. It literally took him probably ten minutes to put both tubes in, and that is with stopping to tell me what he was doing and then letting me take a look. SO cool!

Thursday was a big change of pace for us after Tuesday… we had a total of three patients ALL day long! It was SO boring! Good thing that I had brought along my computer and homework to work on while we had some down time. I had packed everything in the morning thinking that if I had planned on getting anything done, we would suddenly get really busy. Alas, that wasn’t what happened. Oh well, I needed the slow day, although not THAT slow. I think tomorrow will be busier which is good. Somewhere between 5 and 15 patients works for me. Makes the day go a lot faster.

The weather allowed us to make it ‘home’ this past weekend. We were going to celebrate my mom’s birthday. Ayden had a date night with my mom and sister and spent the night at my mom’s house. They all went to go see Rango, while Jay and I went out for a Friday night fish fry which was SO yummy and then got to sleep in on Saturday. Well, actually Jay didn’t get to sleep in because he had to get up early for the little kids wrestling tournament that he helps in yearly. I slept in and then headed over to my mom’s house for the day. Everyone (myself, my sister, brother, Ayden, and my mom) hung out at my mom’s house until lunch time when we all went to Hu Hot. Yum-O! Delicious as usual, and it tasted even better since I didn’t have to pay for any of it either!

After lunch, it was back to my mom’s house for the rest of the afternoon. At one point, my mom, sister, brother, Ayden, and myself were all sitting around the dining room table coloring with Ayden and talking. I don’t know that that has happened in like FOREVER, especially since my brother graced us with his presence for more than just a few minutes. Craziness, but it was good. We all don’t get together like that very often anymore.

Then Saturday night, my mom, brother, and I watched Paranormal State 2. Definitely not as scary as I thought it was going to be since I saw the first one and couldn’t sleep the night I saw it. It was okay though… Sunday was a lazy day where I got a whole lot of nothing done except an online test and a little bit of my homework. I didn’t get any laundry done yesterday, so I got ambitious tonight after I got home from class and did three loads. Will definitely help for this upcoming weekend so I don’t have to do like six or seven loads.

There is another winter storm (or two) on the way for us this week. Jay heard on the news that we could get anywhere from four to ten inches of snow. ICK! We do NOT need that much more snow, especially when yours truly has to drive in it! That, and Jay is getting his wisdom teeth out on Friday and I really don’t want to have to drive to Appleton on snow covered roads, or rather that, drive back from Appleton on snowy roads because I’m sure Jay will be able to drive ourselves to the dentist.

I’ll leave you with the two ‘children’ my mom has replaced my sister and I with since we moved out. I’m thinking, she’ll probably get another one once my brother moves out, hehe!

Meet Katie and Rizzo!

 

CIAO! LOVE ME!