I was at the hospital all day today taking care of a patient with sickle cell anemia. I learned that if Edda was to have the spinal fusion done at Children’s, she’d end up on the exact floor that I’m doing my clinical rotation. A helpful nurse said – oh, you should talk to (nurse) Emily! She just got a fresh spinal yesterday. Hmmmm, I did not follow through on that suggestion, because, really, how much do I need to know before I will know? It takes some willpower for me to function at clinical – fumbling with people/paperwork/medications/documentation/machinery I’m not familiar with, and just gathering enough confidence to walk into a patient’s room with the parent by his side with no real purpose except to “check-in”. I really didn’t want to pile my own (or Edda’s own) medical stressors into my day. Maybe next time. Speaking of things to know, I now know the super-secret code to get into the non-ending supply of grape Popsicles on the ortho post-op recovery floor.
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Jeremy and Vince ended up spending the day with my mother. They went to see the Rockville Chinese New Year celebration – complete with Monkey king and the crazy feathers that come out of his head. Jeremy was thoroughly amused. Vince enjoyed hearing my mom try to explain things.
The celebration indicated that there was to be free food after the performance, but my mother found out that it was going to be some lame sandwiches and the line was long – so instead of that, they went to A&Js and celebrated with real Chinese noodles.