This Air BnB was with this young engineer (30s) who worked for Boeing. He seemed friendly over chatting via Air BnB and was open to houseguests of a longer duration (hey, I’m sorta kinda bringing my boyfriend…). My boyfriend works from home and I (well, we both) like to run, and he was fine with the working from home thing and he lived literally 400m (track nerd) away from Greenlake, so that was nice.
The hospital/inpatient rehab is totally different than outpatient (ding ding ding). There are so many subsets with inpatient, too – inpatient, subacute, long-term acute care, stroke rehab, cardiac rehab, skilled nursing facility, etc. I knew I didn’t want a skilled nursing facility (I observed once and then had a shorter clinical experience at one and just knew it wasn’t for me), but I also didn’t have any hospital observation experience. So this was entirely new territory. My boyfriend gently reminded me that I’m a student, I’m new, I’m not supposed to know everything, and to just learn as much as I can (this is still being reminded to me today).
The shock of the hospital lasted for maybe 4-6 weeks (aka almost half, ha). I worked with people who had knee replacements, hip replacements, spinal fusions, and otherwise dehydration, kidney disorders, alcoholism, cancer, drug overdose, cardiac issues, dementia, etc. I observed some with a PT who works in the ICU and that is a whole other ballgame, too. I guess I sort of assumed that nursing would make sure a patient got up and moved around a bit during the day, but after being at the hospital, I realized this wasn’t the case. And that PT might be the only legitimate time a patient got out of bed that day. Sad, but true. In any case, some days felt like I was a professional walker. Other days we worked on transfers, simple ADLs, and maybe some light exercises. Function was always the most important and whatever we did reflected that. This hospital wasn’t one where patients stayed a while, either, they wanted them to be seen, get medically stable, then leave. So PT had a seemingly big say in discharge location. That took some time to get the hang of, too (can Ms. Middleschmitz handle 3 hours of therapy a day? Does she need skilled nursing care? What’s her insurance? Etc.)
The hospital did funny things to you, though. I’m sure nurses and doctors get this way, but you start to dissociate from patients a little bit. It was an odd thing – like I could rationally and logically understand the severity of a patient’s illness and impairments and social situation, etc., but I didn’t necessarily feel anything about it. Which I imagine was a protective mechanism, so I did feel all the feels all the time, but it was still odd to realize. I did also learn that I wasn’t going to kill someone with PT (I did have a patient’s heartrate drop insanely low when we stood up, but the patient was talking through it and didn’t realize), which helped my confidence overall. So much of PT is getting a patient to believe in themselves, which is a lot of the battle in a hospital where tensions are high and family members are stressed. Side note: family members in the room during treatment sucks.
I was in Seattle during the winter and then on top of that it was one of the worst winters they’ve had in years. So I may have gotten SAD during this time (seasonal affective disorder…some of my friends gaffed at this, but in hindsight, it may have been true). It was dark from when I left for work to when I came home. So many runs occurred in the dark, it’s not even funny. Seattle didn’t get as much snow as Portland did this winter, and a tiny part of me missed the snow that I was used to getting in New England. Seattle was nice, glad I saw it and stayed there for a bit, but I don’t think it’s for me. The vibe felt business-like and a little bit uppity. People were still nice, though! I swear! So maybe uppity isn’t the right word…too chic for me?
After Seattle it was off to Portland! Tune in (let’s be real, this isn’t a podcast…) soon!