A blog about living life despite battling Cystic Fibrosis.

Staff Pick #1

While I’m in the hospital I just wanted to write about some of the amazing staff that takes such good care of me while I’m here. They can seriously make or break a stay. With being here for a couple of weeks at a time, it is very important to have a good staff. Luckily, many of the nurses on my floor are about the same age as me. I have befriended several of them (even though half of them have left me!). It’s always nice knowing that I’m gonna get to see a friendly face when I get admitted. It makes the stays a little less lonely, especially since most of my friends now live 2 hours away instead of 45 minutes. It was also really cool because a bunch of them came to the CF Walk a couple of weeks ago and walked on my team. If that doesn’t show how supportive this staff is, then I don’t know what does!

So, for my first staff pick, I am going to write about my wonderful nurse Sarah. She has been my nurse for a couple of years now and is now to the point that they know to give me to her when I am admitted. She always stays and chats with me, which may not seem like a lot but it really keeps me sane. It’s good to know there is a friend around to keep me company, even if she can’t be sitting hanging out with me for an hour at a time. A few minute extra in my room here and there is seriously awesome. Sometimes she’ll even play video games with me. My favorite to bring to the hospital is MarioKart because who doesn’t love MarioKart?! Sarah gets super excited when she doesn’t get in last place. Haha. We originally bonded because she went to school up in Oshkosh, which is where I went to school and still live for the time being. Now we talk about all sorts of stuff, like cars, school, pets, boys, and just general life things. I have had some really tough visits the last couple of times. Especially my visit over New Year’s when my car died. It was really nice to have all of the nurses stopping in making sure I was ok, and to offer me support and advice. It’s definitely nice to at least have something to look forward to seeing when I get admitted so that it’s not all bad! I also am really excited for her because she is getting married in a couple days and then going on a honeymoon that I am super jealous of!!! Have a super awesome wedding. 🙂

Having a nurse who is your friend and knows your life makes a huge difference in your care. For example, along with my car dying last visit, I also got a blood clot from my PICC line because my veins are starting to get tired of them. We found it because I was complaining about my shoulder hurting and my arm looking slightly purple. I kind of thought I was seeing things with my arm looking slightly purple because I could really only see it in the bathroom lighting, where there is a lot of florescent lighting. I also don’t like to complain about pain if it’s not really bad, which the shoulder pain was just annoying not actually super painful. Anyways, long story short, I probably wouldn’t have mentioned it except that I was super comfortable talking with Sarah and therefore they were able to do an ultrasound and find that I had the clot before anything bad happened.

Love you, Sarah!!!

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