Heard on the unit...

Yes, I haven't had an installment of this in a while, so here goes...

"I'm so happy to see your smiling face." Mr. J.

Some people love to see you come back to work. Others...well, they aren't exactly thrilled. Mr. J. is a riot and he's always got a funny perspective on things. I think some of that has to do with his previous job--police detective.

"It really smells down here." Nursing supervisor last night when he was on the unit.
"That's the smell of success." Yours truly (RehabRN)

Yes, it's not really a secret, but to all of you nursing students going to rehab, especially with SCI patients, evening shifts tend to be...shall we say, aromatic. Many patients who do active rehab have bowel programs in the evenings, usually immediately (30-60 minutes) following dinner. The reason? This allows the patients to get the most out of therapy, particularly, in terms of time, since while nurses work 24/7, therapists do not. Most of them work the day shift Monday through Friday and usually they rotate the weekends, where they work a max of four to eight hours, depending on the rules of the unit, etc.

If you smell something, that means we have people with good, working bowels. If they're consistent, this also means that they won't have accidents in between, either and will get the most out of therapy. We start everyone on bowel routines daily, and then after two weeks, they will move to qod (or every other day). Some people do well like that, and if that doesn't work, they stay on a daily schedule.

"I don't know what her (MD's) rationale is, but I'm getting out of here on Monday." Mr. R.

I admitted this guy on Tuesday. Sure he's in for a short trip, but for some reason, we get a lot of patients who get sick once they arrive and then they have to stay with us. Mr. R. is very impatient to leave, which is pretty unusual for most of our patients. We tend to keep people a long time.