Caton Manor Week 5

During this week, it was pretty simple. The first new patient is a 64 y.o. male with long-term COPD who is O2 dependent and a recovering heroin addict who fell down 15 steps. He is a very nice man and ready to work :-). The other patient is not so much fun...I call him "Mr. Cranky-pants" to my friends, haha. He is a 52 y.o. male s/p L transtibial amputation with a R big toe amputation and a diabetic foot ulcer under the 1st ray. He is also on methadone like the other patient for recovering drug addiction. He is obese and has diabetes. Overall, he has a terrible attitude, difficult, complains continuously and is rude. First, he is sleeping in his room because he stays up all night watching tv because thats when the movies are on....and in the time that I tried to say "well, would you mind if we talk about changing your sleep schedule so you are awake during the daytime and asleep during the nightime", he had already fallen back asleep. And then, when I asked him "are you okay? are you tired?", he yelled at me saying "yeah, I'm fine, I'm not sleeping". Ridiculous! Basically, I have to push back when he pushes me and let him try to do things on his own and then offer help eventually. The problem is that he ends up getting like an hour and a half of my time, when he is only supposed to be treated for 45 minutes. And most of the time is spent with me trying to explain things to him because he is just being difficult.
My CI is still letting me be pretty independent and she is still very busy and disorganized, but things are getting done. I helped with wound rounds this week...not as scary as the first time.
Dr. Birkmeier came on Tuesday for my midterm eval...it went well. My CI said that I am exceeding her expectations and do really well with the patients. Yay!