Friday, June 23, 2006

How fun!!

I forgot to post about 'getting' to perform my first barium enema on a patient. Our hospital doesn't usually do this exam, except for in an emergency. We had an emergency on Tuesday (or wednesday, I can't remember...). I volunteered to do it, because it is one of our mandetory comps, and who knew when another would come in. Plus the patient had been in the hospital for almost a week, and prior to that we had done some xrays on her, so I kinda knew them.

Lucky for me, the pt was really skinny and had already had a few enemas that day. Made my job super easy, but was still difficult none the less. The other student observed and he said that he'd look out at me (from the control booth) and one moment I would appear totally confident, and he'd look again and I'd be really unsure. I didn't feel either extreme really, I just felt so bad for the patient, was such a nice person, and I was focused on avoiding any 'blowouts.'

After it was all over, the Dr who performed the exam (and by perform I mean sat 10 feet away in the control booth taking pictures while I stuck the nozzle up her ass, and did all the work ;) said I did really well, and that was a perfect for patient for the first time. I guess lots of old peeps can hold the shit in, or if the patient is really overweight, you have to literally search for the 'right spot.'

Aren't you glad I share my ass stories with you?!?!

Jake and Clara leave tomorrow with my dad, and I'm trying not to think about it. At all. I'm really nervous.

2 comments:

Kim said...

Richard told me a while back that he wanted to go back to school to be an x-ray tech because it "can't be hard because all they do all day is read x-rays." A friend of mine used to be an x-ray tech and shared some experiences similar to yours. I forwarded the email to Richard. He changed his mind. ;)

Glad that experience was a good one!

Mary said...

YAY for asses!

 

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