Good Day Guys
Let me share with you what happened during my day, the day before my colleague updated me regarding all the patients that we are treating. We still had a lot of patients. When I woke up, I wrote my article and got ready for work. When I left the house I had to pass by my colleague because she asked if she could ride with me. It's such a hassle to bring a car nowadays because parking in our workplace is scarce. I'm just lucky that we have a family friend that's near my workplace and that's where I usually park. After parking, we went through the triage and timed in. We then went to our department.
It was my colleague's day off, we are only 2 therapists who handle the inpatient department so during our rest days we are alone treating. Today was her rest day so I was alone treating her. One of our doctors texted me on who to treat already, we actually had nine patients in total. So I immediately fixed up and went up as soon as I received the text so that I could finish early.
I went to patient 1 and she was for discharge already, I had to teach her some exercises that she can do while she is at home, I also scheduled her for her next treatment session at the OPD. I'm so happy that we have a patient for discharge. I went to patient 2 after. She's an old lady who's deconditioned, I had to make her short sit at the bedside chair. It was easy transferring her to the chair. I was checking her balance and tolerance and she could maintain an upright posture. This person has private duty nurses(PDN) and the PDN was helping me treat her. We tried to do physiologic standing inside a walker but had a difficult time. I told her that we'll try doing it tomorrow when we are 2 treating her already. I had a hard time putting her back in the bed because it was high. A good thing was that there were 2 pdn's who helped me put her back.
I then went to the ICU and treated our oldest patient. He's already in a vegetative state where he has eye-opening but he would not react to anything with it. He also doesn't react to pain. I just did backrest elevation, range exercises and tried stimulating him. From there, I went to some of my stroke patients. They share the same ward. Patient 4 is a stroke patient, I noticed that her mood is really unstable. Her mood changes every day, sometimes it would be agitated, happy, and sleepy. She was really sleepy today, I asked the watcher if she was able to sleep and he said that she slept. We tried making her short sit but I ended up discontinuing it because she could barely hold herself up. I received a text message from our doctor who did the rounds and she endorsed to me all the patients and their management. There was one patient who I had to defer.
I then went to patient 5 who was in the same room. She's also a patient who suffered from a stroke. I was asking what happened to her, she said that when her stroke happened she couldn't move half of her body and she ended up falling. She didn't get rushed to the hospital because the person who was living with her was asleep so she said what happened during the morning. I really think if she was able to go to the hospital earlier her deficits would be less. We were able to do physiologic standing inside a walker for 5 minutes. She really looked happy when she was able to stand after a long time being confined.
I went to the other building to treat our other patients. Patient 6 is a severe COVID-19 patient. One thing that I noticed when he was exercising is that he would get tired easily. We tried doing March in place and he could only do it 5 times per leg and he would get tired so I gave him rest. At least compared to the first time I treated him his SPO2 is >90% because the last time I treated him it would go to 85%. I also taught him exercises that he can do.
I went to patient 7 and she's also a stroke patient. Though she is the strongest stroke patient we have. She could do things on her own but he has only a few deficits on her Right arm which was weak. We are also closely monitoring her Vital signs because there are times where her BP would shoot up. We were only able to do short sitting. I went to patient 8 whose room is across from our department, as I entered I noticed that he was trying to catch up to his breathe. I asked him if he wanted to exercises and he said after lunch. When I got to our department I disinfected, did all the notes, and charged all our patients. We then ate lunch. After lunch, I stayed at the front desk, our doctor was telling me to print a document but the printer wasn't functioning well. My colleague had to be the one to do it. I was also able to update our doctor regarding her patients. She told me that she'll go and see the patient first before I try to treat him. When she got back she told me to defer him and tell the OT's about it.
Our secretary received a phone call and they said that we have a new referral again. I really don't know why but this week has been really toxic with our high patient load. I just can't wait for the weekend because it's a Holiday for us. I was just resting until 5 pm then got out. When I got home I ate dinner and used my computer. I actually slept earlier than usual. Hope you had a wonderful day!
Thanks for reading and Stay safe always!
The photos used in this post are owned by me .
Great line of work to saving lifes, you guys are a national hero. Thumbs up