A True Healthcare Hero
by Tiffany Sanchez, SN
I really enjoyed going to my Peds clinical because I got to experience how to work with kids. I would say my favorite part of all this would be interacting with the kids and seeing how they gain trust from someone that was there to help them get better. I would say that Pediatrics is a beautiful place to learn and work for, but this is also a very serious job to deal with because a life is always at risk and as a nurse we are supposed to help them.
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The experience that stood out to me the most was when I was in the PICU because I got to experience my first code blue on a small baby. This experience explains my drawing. From what I remember, this baby was just admitted for RSV and I remember just seeing her asleep with a lot of tubes. We would go in just to make sure she was okay and that she got her meds on time. I remember there was a point where I was standing and watching them put a tube down her throat. This tube had a camera to see if they were going in the right direction, and personally I thought it was cool to see it because I never really got to see in person how the passageway of the throat seemed. All of the sudden I looked at her monitor and saw how her blood pressure was dropping really fast and also her respiration rate. Everything happened so quickly, that out of nowhere I saw my nurse that I was following taking charge and started CPR on the baby. I stood back and watched how the whole healthcare team started walking into the scene. I couldn’t stay there long because everyone was walking in with carts, yelling out time, etc. Once again, it happened all really fast to take in, but there was a point where there was no pulse for a good few minutes and my heart dropped. I just thought about her family and how her mom already seemed stressed about the whole situation, so I did get sad when I heard that. Out of nowhere she gained a pulse again because I saw that my nurse and the healthcare team did not give up on her. They really gave it their all during this whole situation. I felt relieved at the moment, but it also made me realize that being a nurse is always fighting for your patients and giving it your all.
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This is why in my drawing I drew a nurse holding up the “strong” pose because nurses are really strong human beings. I also drew the hands giving CPR on the heart and the heart is blue because this represents my first code blue and how it all started with CPR. I also liked observing how they work as a team and how they try their best to always be prepared with materials on hand. Once again, working in this field is a beautiful experience to work in and be part of, but it can also get very serious. As a nurse, personally I believe nobody is ready to experience what they might see, but we alway have to work with it and think what we did was the best work we could have done to save or even help feel better towards the child we have taken care of.
We hear his mother yelling his name and the call bell light goes off. When we walked in I saw the boy in front of his mother looking angry and like he might get physical with her. We attempted to calm down the situation and get him to sit down. I could barely imagine the fear his mother was going through. The teenager that was a foot bigger than her was no longer her baby and could hurt her. His mother explained that this sometimes happens after his seizures. Then she followed by saying that she had to take a breather and tears started rolling down her cheek. The preceptor nurse hugged her and reassured her that we were there for anything they needed and that I would be assigned to look over him and make sure he is okay for the day. I took this very seriously and got right to work. I went over to my new friend and started talking to him. Right away he opened up to me and started smiling and laughing. My preceptor nurse told me that he was really fond of me. We talked for hours as I made sure he did not have a seizure, took his vitals, and kept his monitors on. While we kept each other company I used the computer in the room to learn a bit more about my patient. This entire experience moved me to create “The Brain of an Epileptic Pediatric Patient”.
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This drawing represents the brain of a boy who has been dealing with epilepsy since a young age. The seizures are represented by the fireworks in the middle of his brain that are uncontrollable. Since a young age, his family has needed to focus on these seizures pushing aside the things that make him young. For my patient, this included a love for music, video games, his cell phone, football, cars, and movies. In the background of the drawing, we have blackness representing the state after a seizure that might make the patient angry and physical. In a sense, this consumes his brain, but he is still a young teenager that loves to be a kid and express his passions.