Good Morning Mr Smith!
I have 2 favourite patients from my team in the Respiratory Ward whom I always see first thing as an opening routine to my morning ward round. They're the few long term patients we predicted will always be on our list until the longstay ward in the other part of the hospital agrees to take them under their care, which won't be in any near future.
One of them is Mr Smith in his mid-80s. He was already an in-patient when I started working 1 month ago, came to the hospital with spontaneous pneumothorax secondary to COPD, complicated by bronchofistula formation. I remember when I was first asked to resite an IV cannula in his arm, I found him sitting on the chair by the bed site with a chest tube coming out from his right chest attached to the continuous wall-suction. He was listening to the music on the earphones while singing along with the tunes in a moderate tone.
He greeted me with the sweetest smile I have ever gotten from a sick patient. Very cute old guy (not in a flirtatious manner, this is really cute cute). He chatted me through about his chest symptoms while I was putting the IV line. Then he spoke about his Parkinson's Disease and chronic leg pains. Later when I finished and passed by his bed I could hear him singing again. What a pleasant old man I thought.
Then it became a habit to go and see him first thing in the morning. It really made my day by just talking to him. Always smiling though in pain which mostly came from his legs, and always that nice voice singing from the corridor. One morning the patient next to him answered my routine question of "How did the night go?" with "It's well for him, but certainly not for us when he's up and singing at 3 in the morning!" I got to learn that when he couldn't sleep from the leg pain at night he just spent the night awake and singing! Well, the cool Mr Smith answered his friends with "Are you certain that was me singing and not something else? I'm pretty sure I wasn't!!" Cute old man I know..
Today the team made a decision to send him for a mini-rehabilitation in another hospital to help him getting back on his two feet soon, after deconditioning from the chest presentations and Parkinson's. I broke the news to him and was surprised that he wasn't too happy about it. He told me about his wife who used to be there for rehab as well not long time ago. Then talked more about the wife, who has Alzheimer's dementia. Poor lady. I was more surprised when he suddenly fell into silence and there were tears coming down from his eyes. He told me how his wife changed from the lovely one who baked nice cakes to someone who switched on the stove and left it burnt. I feel sorry for him. He then broke the sappy mood by saying "Oh well if I was sent for rehab there I will escape!!" He he like you can walk very fast Mr Smith..
Part of me was sad that in a week's time I'll lose one of my favourite patients, the other part was just happy knowing that he's heading to the good end of this healing process. I will surely miss him..
One of them is Mr Smith in his mid-80s. He was already an in-patient when I started working 1 month ago, came to the hospital with spontaneous pneumothorax secondary to COPD, complicated by bronchofistula formation. I remember when I was first asked to resite an IV cannula in his arm, I found him sitting on the chair by the bed site with a chest tube coming out from his right chest attached to the continuous wall-suction. He was listening to the music on the earphones while singing along with the tunes in a moderate tone.
He greeted me with the sweetest smile I have ever gotten from a sick patient. Very cute old guy (not in a flirtatious manner, this is really cute cute). He chatted me through about his chest symptoms while I was putting the IV line. Then he spoke about his Parkinson's Disease and chronic leg pains. Later when I finished and passed by his bed I could hear him singing again. What a pleasant old man I thought.
Then it became a habit to go and see him first thing in the morning. It really made my day by just talking to him. Always smiling though in pain which mostly came from his legs, and always that nice voice singing from the corridor. One morning the patient next to him answered my routine question of "How did the night go?" with "It's well for him, but certainly not for us when he's up and singing at 3 in the morning!" I got to learn that when he couldn't sleep from the leg pain at night he just spent the night awake and singing! Well, the cool Mr Smith answered his friends with "Are you certain that was me singing and not something else? I'm pretty sure I wasn't!!" Cute old man I know..
Today the team made a decision to send him for a mini-rehabilitation in another hospital to help him getting back on his two feet soon, after deconditioning from the chest presentations and Parkinson's. I broke the news to him and was surprised that he wasn't too happy about it. He told me about his wife who used to be there for rehab as well not long time ago. Then talked more about the wife, who has Alzheimer's dementia. Poor lady. I was more surprised when he suddenly fell into silence and there were tears coming down from his eyes. He told me how his wife changed from the lovely one who baked nice cakes to someone who switched on the stove and left it burnt. I feel sorry for him. He then broke the sappy mood by saying "Oh well if I was sent for rehab there I will escape!!" He he like you can walk very fast Mr Smith..
Part of me was sad that in a week's time I'll lose one of my favourite patients, the other part was just happy knowing that he's heading to the good end of this healing process. I will surely miss him..
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