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In the ICU, I washed my hands 32 times.

July 20, 2009

 

I just came from my eight-hour duty in the ICU (intensive care unit, Manny). It was my first time to be exposed to a high-risk area (as in high risk of patients having arrest and dying) and I admit, I was really anxious. I have never experienced having a patient die within my care (clap, clap). But then that may be because I was most often deployed to regular areas such as ward. I only had duty at the ER twice and once in the OR.

 

Anyway, I am worried about my hands. Although I did not perform any vigorous scrubbing (that is, brushing your hands until they were red), the fact remains that I washed my hands 32 times within eight hours. My hands even smell of hospital soap.

 

I guess I was just too careful about my patients and of course, myself. I had to drain my patient’s URINE bag every hour in order to know how much urine is passed. Aside from that, we had to perform bed bath and positioning of clients who have lost their ability to care for themselves.  Handwashing is the single most potent way to stop and decrease the spread of communicable diseases. Believe me.

 

On a more serious note, working in the ICU made me realize some things about being a nurse and about being a human. As a nurse, I learned that even my smallest actions can really affect my client’s life. And as a human, I realized we are truly blessed and lucky.

 

We must be thankful that we are still able to wake up each day and have no pain. That we can still go wherever we want to go without a stretcher. That we can still eat the foods we want. That we still have all the ability and capacity to make our lives as happy and as fun and as rewarding as we want.

 

So let us not take life for granted. Everything we have can be taken from us any moment.

 

Regrets always come in the end. Let us live our life in a way that in our death bed, we will not be crying just because we weren’t able to do what we really wanted. And we won’t be dying without even realizing our dreams.

 

>image courtesy of: http://www.sgrh.com

Posted by kablogg at 2:50 pm | permalink

Previous Comments

Thank you for sharing. I like your passion and you are doing very important work. I also LOVE the title of your blog!

goyestoeverything.com

Posted by Greg at July 25, 2009, 10:11 am

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