Week 7 as a Level 1 Nursing Student

This week was pretty low-key. We finally went back to the hospital on Tuesday! I was super nervous on Monday night because I found out that my patient was legally blind. I was so scared because I haven't had much exposure to ppl who are legally blind, much less provide care for them. When I went to the hospital, I found out that he was also hard of hearing! So my initial plans of verbalizing everything was put in jeopardy cuz I thought I'd have to be shouting everything as well, so it was pretty nerve wracking. When I talked to my nurse, she said it wasn't that bad and that he only had central vision loss but was still able to see silhouettes and whatnot, so I was a bit more reassured.

The more I talked to him, the more fond I grew of him. He was the sweetest man ever. When I was saying goodbye to him, he grabbed my hand and was telling the care aide how I was a sweetheart and a dear. Then he asked if I was going to be there the day after and when I said no, he asked if I would be back over the next few days. I hope and don't hope at the same time that he will be there next week.

The lesson I learned this week is the value in being proactive about learning something if you want to know it. Take the time to ensure that you get a chance to do it, if you don't, you have noone to blame but yourself.