positive.

for those that don’t know i am taking a nurse aide course in order to enroll in the nursing programs that i have been applying for.  this past week we finished up our clinical part of the class.  the first week of clinicals i was on the cvimc unit, which is cardiovascular intermediate care, and it was great.  last week i spent one day in a skilled nursing facility and then one day on the neurosciences unit.  the neurosciences unit mostly deals with patients who have experienced strokes, seizures, and other disorders involving the brain and its activity.

last thursday morning we checked in with our care partner to get our assignments for the day.  first thing, vitals.  no sweat.  as our care partner, patricia, informed us of the status on all of our patients she came to the last room, room 4378.  “he is hiv and hepatitis c positive” she said.

it wasn’t what she said but how she said it and the reaction of my two classmates that got my attention.  i don’t know why my reaction was different.  i assume it was my experience from visiting an hiv/aids orphanage in ethiopia and supporting a family in stage 3 and 4 hiv.  i guess just having knowledge about the disease made me more familiar and comfortable around someone infected with these viruses.

to me it was like any other patient i had cared for that week.  it saddened my heart when my classmates were over exaggerating on what they should do to interact with this gentleman.   “should we were a mask?”  “and a gown!”  “oh gosh!  his sheets touched my clothes! what do i do?”  it was like any educational information that they had been taught about infection control left their brains.  it frustrated me to see that this was affecting the kind of care that this man was receiving from what should have been “professionals”.  it wasn’t my classmates that made me mad, just that this gentleman was still like every other human being but he was being treated like an outcast.

jesus cared for the sick and the diseased.  he went out of his way to love these people.  he wasn’t afraid to touch them and show he cared.  he says to love as he loved.  that was my desire for this man.

i never found out why this gentleman was admitted to the hospital or what was his diagnosis.  he checked himself out just a couple hours into my shift.  i really wanted to care for this man and show him that i didn’t see him any different.  i wanted to show him that someone cared about him and loved him.  but i didn’t get the chance.  shows that every opportunity is important.

~ by kareydigh on October 6, 2008.