Introduction to acute long-term care... and secretions.

When I started this major, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Last semester of my senior year of high school someone told me that I would be a good speech pathologist. I had no idea what a speech pathologist was. Minimal research showed me that they worked with special needs children and had great job placement. Practicality won out and I abandoned my dream of English education and politics to pursue a degree in a field that would justify my mutual fund being washed down the tube of education.

In my first college course I was told I needed a master’s degree. I was shocked. But I could handle it.

Next I learned that we worked with people who couldn’t swallow. “Dysphagia” requires an up-close and personal look at saliva (an irrational phobia of mine). I was disturbed, but I could handle it.

Neuroanatomy was an area I had never even dabbled in. But my major requires a cursory knowledge, and I picked up a minor in psychology through a variety of neural courses. I was surprised, but I could handle it.

Grad school application, anatomy/physiology, stressful labs, sheep brains, biology petrie dishes, the GRE, babies, geriatrics, cleft palates, acoustic analysis, and piles of paperwork. I was continually surprised. But I could handle it. In fact, I grew to enjoy the sciences, the neuroanatomy, the biology, reveling in the pursuit of “hard fact,” dicing up research articles, pointing out their inadequacies and constructing their practical purpose. I was, in short, a nerd. But I could handle it.

Nothing prepared me for today.

My supervisor, who is conducting me soothingly through the world of special needs toddlers and adorable babies, is on vacation. I don’t get a vacation. (Of course not. I’m the unpaid student. Why would I need a break?) So I have acquired a new supervisor for this week. This supervisor works on floors in long-term acute care. The patients on these floors are on trachs or vents, severely disabled, and definitely NOT pediatric.

I have never had to control my facial muscles to such a degree for so long. Do you know how many secretions can ooze from the human body? I thought I did. I didn’t! Things wheezed, goop bubbled, and I had to chart these things with words like “thick, yellow, viscous, and copious.” As I watched my supervisor work, all I could think was that I needed to shower, and could never work in this place.

Then came a tiny, frail little lady. Her pain had been uncontrolled and dose after dose of medications were not helping. I went to the bathroom, dampened a washcloth, and sat down beside her. As I gently wiped her face, her tired eyes, her wrinkled forehead, she sighed contentedly. Some of her tension dissolved. The woman was so incapacitated by the medications, that no therapy was even practical. But after those few minutes, I didn't have to control my gag quite so much.

Because hurting people are hurting people, no matter what kind of gunk they may be oozing.