Not all there!

Wuz good world?!

Okay people, as I told yall in the last post ya boy is a nurse in the NW. What I did not disclose is that ya boy specializes in the field of cardiology. For those who do not know, cardiology is focused on all things related to the heart. As I mentioned, my aim for the blog is to breakdown the jargon of the medical field and make it more understandable for the average cat from the hood. So, each week I’m gonna give ya’ll a break down some of the things I may run into. Because of things like HIPAA, a law created by the U.S. Department of Health And Human Services to protect the privacy of people’s health information, I will never divulge any personal information about the patients that I work with. That being said, I will describe general issues that I may run into on a night to night basis. Oh yeah, I work at night too.

So, this week I ran into atrial fibrillation.

• Atrial Fibrillation – Okay, if you search the web there is gonna be a bunch of folx sayin that this is an irregular heart rhythm that can lead to clots and strokes. While all this is true, lets break this down a lil bit. Atrial fibrillation or Afib happens because there is an electrical current that runs thru the heart that aint workin right.  Normally, the electric current originates in a place near the top of the heart called the SA node. The SA node sends the electric current through the rest of the top part of the heart called the “Atria”. The top part of the heart then squeezes and pushes blood from the atria to the “ventricles”, the bottom part of the heart where all the real muscle is! During Afib there are a grip of other places in the top of the heart that are tryin to take the SA nodes job. Movin in on that SA node territory.  So these areas let off electrical impulses when ever they want causing the top part of the heart to shake like a bowl of jello, or “fibrillate”. Because the blood in our bodies has to keep movin or it clumps up, the top of the heart just shakin instead of pumpin causes the bloob to clump up and cause “clots”. Clots get caught up in small arteries or veins in the brain and cut off the blood supply causing a stroke. Bad news yall!

So here is the story! I get to the job and find that one of my “people” has Afib is confused and trying to climb out the bed; on top of the fact that there was a language barrier with this person, they where also quite agitated and ready to strike. I made a bunch of attempts to help this person, but this day they was not havin it. This person was hitting and pinching me and also hitting me in the knees wit a walker. Oh how I love my job! But for real I do though, just not this part! Because as a nurse I cannot really do anything but call security when people start trippin, that is what I did. But, somtimes I get to thinkin in my head “why I ought to…”, but I must restrain my hood tendencies.

I really do care about helpin people and assisting them to get well, so if you ever have to come to the hospital be nice to your nurse (if they are cool)! I do the best that I can to make sure that my people are well taken care of. It makes my job worth all the trouble to know that I am helping to give people a better life. I did wind up getting a different assignment later that night which made things go much better later. The lesson I took from the week was ‘be patient everything will work out fine.’

Have a great week ya’ll and I’ll holla!

PEACE,

MaddHadda