Today was a Friday, and that meant both dental offices I have been attending were closed, but I know I need hours. My godmother, Becky, works as at home nurse and she invited me to shadow her on Fridays to see a different side of the medical field. Today we saw 4 patients, and three of them were similar. The first three were just weekly check in, it started with checking their vitals and blood pressure. Next, she would use her stethoscope to listen to the patients breathing and stomach to make sure every was moving slowly. I learned that your stomach is always making noise you can just never necessarily hear it, but she uses the stethoscope to make sure she can. Next she makes sure their bowel movements are normal as well. Then she would fill their medication planner for them, because it makes it easier on them to be able to take them, and she makes sure there are not any new ones. The asked about their weight, which one patient we then had to discuss how to get more calories into her because she was very underweight. Lastly, made sure their was no new current pain anywhere throughout the body. The last patient we saw was a little bit different than others, he has a blood disease that makes Becky have to check his INR levels and send them to a lab to see if he currently has thin or thick blood. With thick blood, he could develop lots of clots, and with thin he could potentially bleed out with a small cut or bigger. Depending on what the lab results said, that determined how she would prepare the certain medication for the week because some were for when he has thick and some were for when he has thin blood. Lastly, with this patient, blood was trying to be taken but Becky was unable to get a vein to get the blood, so the test was unsuccessful and he needed to go to the lab himself for him to get blood drawn. That was all I got to do today because I had to go to KUA for a softball game, and I worked 7-2 with no lunch until after so I got 7 hours today!
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