RT Student Blog

I figured I would come here one last time. This semester has been really tough but its over now. I had my pinning ceremony the other day. My graduation is Thursday night. I am no longer a Respiratory Therapy Student. I have 2 jobs lined up so I might not be writing a lot this summer. I am studying now for my CRT exam which should be in a week or so. My new blog will be at http://rt-blog.com (don't go there yet cause I haven't started it yet).

I know I haven't posted in a really long while. You wouldn't believe how busy I have been. In less than a month I will no longer be an RT student. I took my Pediatric Advanced Life Support class today. I am now PALS certified. Some of the other things I have been up to to get prepared. I had to do 25 clinical simulations on a computer in the computer lab. I did them.. I had to do a community service project. I went to the local high school and talked to the health occupations class about Respiratory Therapy. I had to write a case study on a neonatal patient. I am almost done with that. I have Kettering which is a 4-day board prep class this weekend. I also have my final checkoff at the hospital with my instructor tomorrow.

I have my PRN job at the hospital I love. I'll remain there when I graduate and pass the boards. I also applied to another hospital PRN. I hope I get it cause I love the people there and will miss them when I graduate.

I'm gonna come here to complain about work because I'm not gonna do it at work. I love the hospital I work at and for the most part like the Respiratory department I work in. There are a few people that are tarnishing that for me. These people find it necessary to complain and talk ab out people. I try to find good qualities in people. They like to talk bad about people when they aren't around. Actually, it's mainly one person who apparently feels like they are the best RT there and like to trash others. It's really starting to annoy me. Then, theres another who is also complaning a lot. This is mainly about the doctors and the way they write orders. This is going to be a really long year as I bide my time between graduation and my last house payment. I am so moving to a bigger city and a bigger hospital when that day comes in 2010. It's starting to look like I may want to work at Duke to work with CFers.

*Let me preface this post by saying that I hate my camera and plan to replace it soon* You'll see by the pictures

Tonight I went to the local kickoff event for the Great Strides walk. I have really gotten caught up with this great organization and a lot of the bloggers dealing with CF, but this is the first time I actually met someone living with the disease. I met The House family and Christian who has CF. They started the Great Strides walk in Fayetteville last year, Go check out their Caring Bridge site to see how Christian is doing.

I look forward to get to know all of these brave people in this area as the walk gets closer. Don't forget to check out my team page to see how you can help.

Last night (or early this morning) I sat in my car and updated my Twitteer/Facebook status from my Peek in the hospital parking lot. After an update like that I figured I should come here and tell you about the day I had. I did get home over 21 hours after I left but I didn't spend that whole time at the hospital. I did get a break.

I got to the hospital at about 6:30 AM for clinicals. I paired up with the RT who was assigned the ICU and we got report from the night shift therapist who was getting off. Before we could get to the unit, a rapid response was called. We rushed to the room where it was and saw a crowd of people. The patient was gasping for air with gurgling sounds and SpO2 ("SATS") in the 70's and 80's. The RT handed me a Non-Rebreathing mask and told me to get in there. The patient was on isolation but I had no time for the gown. I quickly donned the mask and gloves and began to weave my way through the nurses that were in there. I hooked up the NRB and replaced his Nasal Cannula with it. Another therapist opened up an NTS kit and thrust the sterilepackage at me to put on the gloves. I did and lubed up the catheter. The nurses held the patient's head becaause he knew what was imminent and began to thrash his head about. I suctioned him out 2 or 3 times and his Sats came up. We then got out of the room and moved him to the ICU.

The rest of the day was uneventful and filled with ventilator monitoring and breathing treatments. I did get to NTS this patient again and another patient once (that's 3 times total for the day). The evening shift came in and we gave report about 3:30. I had to be at work at 7:00 and didn't feel like going home between. I live about 12 miles away so I probably could've gone and taken a nap but I didn't.

I just hung around town. I walked around Wal-Mart, and Office Depot. I bought a mouse for my laptop. I love this mouse in case you were interested. I ate dinner at Zaxby's. Visited my grandmother before she ate dinner then went back to the hospital. The rest of the night was unexciting because as a student I can basically just take a patient list and give breathing treatments. Then I got off at 3 AM.

As you guys know I am in my last semester of RT school. What this semester entails is one class a week and many hours of clinicals. During clinicals we have 220 adult checkoffs (130 general care and 90 critical care) and 20 neonatal checkoffs. I have now completed 219 of the adult checkoffs. I need to do spontaneous pulmonary mechanics one more time. That is when you use a couple of hand held meters to decide when a patient is ready to be extubated and come off of mechanical ventilation. I was so close to that final checkoff on Thursday too. It's frustrating to be that close.

I also need 5 neonatal checkoffs too. I have to try and get back to the NICU for those.

In school when we went over airway clearance we learned about the vest. I didn't think much about it until I started talking to all of you, my new friends, living with Cystic Fibrosis. Now I know that the vest has cut mortality rates in half, I also know that it costs over $15,000. Now I have some questions. Do you have one? Is it easy to get and get covered by insurance, medicaid, or whatever you use? Do you know of kids with cf in families that cannot afford one? Is the company that makes it receptive to this and willing to help you get one, even if you can't afford it? I don't mean to pry but I have plans and ideas and the answers to these questions will help me. Please leave a comment or if you'd rather it remain private please email me at marcus.williford(at)gmail(dot)com. Thank you.

Oh, before I go I wanted to tell you guys about a new blog I found. Her name is Salty (I'm sure thats not her real name) and she seems to be living with CF and diabetes. Her blog is Salty and Sweet. She's a hottie too(sorry,I just had to throw that in there. I am a guy after all). Here is what she says in the "about me" section

"Other Cystic Fibrosis warriors must be out there. I believe we must band together, share with each other, and fight these horrendous diseases together. Knowledge is power. The more we know the stronger, and healthier, we each will be.

I have dedicated many hours of my life reaching out to help my doctors find a cure and new treatments for Cystic Fibrosis. Now I want reach out and connect with others who have CF, those who have CFRD, friends, family and anyone else who knows what it is like to live with health issues, and those wonderful people who support them."

Let's get to know her too.

I was at clinicals this weekend and someone was selling raffle tickets for their Relay for Life team. That got me thinking. I should have thought of it before because wedo raffles all the time at school. I want to raffle something for my Great Strides team. I set a personal goal of 500 bucks and am at 180 now. I haven't donated any personally yet but I will. I figured I would donatelast when I got closer to the goal. That leaves me at something like 380 left to raise.

I don't what to raffle. I thought about a blu-ray player. Those are about 200 bucks so I would need to sell about 300-400 tickets to make a substantial donation.Thats a lot of selling and I just don'tknow if I am up th it. The lady for Relay for Life was raffling a gas card. Those are always good. I could get a 50 dollar one. Then I would only need to sell 100-200 tickets to make a good donation.

What do you think. I know I have a lot of awesome readers who have a lot more experience raising money for Great Strides than I do. Please chime in with comments on what to raffle. Thanks.

A while back I submitted a post to a Respiratory Blog Carnival that a fellow RT student is hosting. It's called a Source of Inspiration and it's up now. Go check it out. I would post a longer entry telling you about it but it's 3:20 AM and I'm up for Clinicals. Actually, I'm barely up. Go check it out and tell them I said hello.

I was sitting here alternating between studying and surfing the internet. I've gotten to the point where my time spent here is alternating between facebook and twitter. I decided I'd tell you about my new little buddy. It's my Acer Aspire One and my friend the domestic diva first introduced me to it. After reading about her experiences I decided I wanted one. It's got a built in webcam and I used it to take this picture. I may start video blogging too.


This is me on my couch. Anyway, back to the AAO. It's a little computer with Windows XP and a 160 GB hard drive. It's perfect for what I need. Plus, I graduate in May and plan to do some traveling so this will be perfect for travel blogging. The keyboard is small and sometimes I mean to hit the space bar and don't actually get a space. That's my only drawback. Look for videos too. I also shouldbe shutting this blog down in a few months to start 2 new ones. One about me and my life (personal blog) and one about my work life. I already have a domain name for the second one.

Well, you guys know that I am a Respiratory Therapy student who has recently developed a passion for doing my part to raise awareness for cystic fibrosis. Since I've started this blog I've met other RT students throughout the country. My buddy the Trauma Junkie wrote me today and said that he decided to sign up for his local Great Strides walk in Texas.

"Hey, just found out there is a Great Strides walk here in April. Will be going..inspired by your efforts."

I am so excited to have inspired someone to get involved with a cause that has come to mean so much to me. Go visit his blog, My RT Life, and tell him how proud you are too.

Well, I'm up at 5 am for clinicals today and I'm just killing a little time before I leave. I thought I would share something about me. I think I am opposite from all RT students. You see, with the normal student General care is something to be tolerated until you get to critical care. Everyone wants to get to the ICU to take care of the ventilator patients. Not me though.

I love general care. I love getting to know a patient, even for the brief time I am in their room. Now, I do hate having 10-12 patients on a list for one hours round. Then I have to shovel out the meds. You know the drill. Introduce self, slap pulse ox on finger, listen to breath sounds, put meds in nebulizer and slap the mask on their face, only to move on to the next patient. Even then I try to talk to them while I am doing this. You can learn a lot about a person in 2 minutes.

I'm still a student so I am by no means an expert. Just enjoy your time in General Care with your patients. There will plenty of Critical Care clinicals to go around. Now I am heading out to a hospital that MAY have one ventilatr patient (but probably will not).

Ok, not my first post but this is my first one on my new computer. It's a netbook called the Acer Aspire one.It's very tine and portable.I am getting used to the keyboard which is a little smaller. I definitely love it. It's got a gig of RAM which I may upgrade a little later. It also has a 160 gb hard drive. I'm in the process of doing all of the updates and stuff. I'm switching all of my files over. It doesn't have a cd drive so I've installed open office instead of microsoft office. I do think I'm gonna love this little netbook

They changed the date of my Great Strides walk to June 27th. I'll still be able to do the walk. I am so excited. Next Monday night the 16th there's a Meet and Greet so I'll get to meet some others who are walking.

Unfortunately it looks like my team will only have 3 members because thats all that has signed up. Thats ok though, because this is my first year. I will also be walking at another event in NC with a friend I met on here. I may start fundraising with her after my walk is over in June. I'll take pics of the meet and greet next week. I am so excited.

Well, I just got home from day 3 (of 4) in the NICU. It further solidified my beliefs that that is where I want to work. I just wish that the one we do our clinicals is at were a little closer. It's about an hour and a half drive from here.

The day started ok. I got there and found out that the night shift had a patient airlifted to a bigger hospital. One of the therapists had to go with them. We also had a patient on the ventilator. Remember, last week we had no vent babies so I was kind of excited to go see. I got to actually suction out the ET tube which is more difficult than you'd imagine with the isolette, circuit, and cables all in the way.

After lunch we got called to the delivery room for a 36 week meconium baby. When we arrived the patient was intubated and the umbilical cord was really green. They said he had been swimming in the meconium for a while it seemed. We got the baby down to the unit and the NNP and doctor struggled to place a umbilical artery catheter and umbilical venous catheter. It looked like I was going to give surfactant (which is like the holy grail for RT students in the NICU here. It's so very rarely done). The chest x-ray came back and there was a pneumothorax. The doctor was preparing to place a chest tube when I left. It's looking like the baby will be on the oscillator (wait til you learn about that one) in the morning. Maybe I'll get to give surfactant then. I'm really feeling like there's no doubt the NICU is where I belong.

My friend Katey over at My CF Journey with God tagged me with the Enlightenment Tag. It's basically a post that I have to tell you ten things about me. Now I just have to figure out 10 things.

1.) I love animals but am more of a cat person than a dog person. I know thats rare but I feel cats have more personality and are easier pets to take care of.

2.) Can be very political with views that are very liberal.

3.) As Katey said and as I commented in her post, I don't eat vegetables. I do like corn, potatoes, lima beans, and sweet peas.

4.) I love sports but mainly football and basketball. My favorite teams are the Carolina Panthers and UNC Tarheels

5.) I've been laid off from 2 jobs that I thought were careers I would retire from. That is why I'm going to Respiratory Therapy school. For the job security

6.) Since 10th grade I've wanted to be a writer. That is probably why I maintain a blog and have already started making preparations for closing this one and starting a new one (On May 20 I will no longer be a RT student :)

7.) I love to travel and love Austin, Texas. It's my favorite city. I am going to Pittsburgh for the first time.

8.) I'm sorry Katey, I can only think of 7 things. I will post a picture for # 8 since I don't know if a lot of you know what I look like. This is me about to leave for clinicals one morning.


I will tag 2 people like she did. Carolyn over at A Thousand Pictures and Cindy at Cure CF for Reilly.

I just read the saddest story at a blog that is new to me. Go read the story and pray for little Tuesday and her family.

Well, I made it through day 2 of 4 in the NICU. I go back next Wednesday and Thursday. Today we had more twins and I even got to set up a baby on a Nasal CPAP. It actually looked a lot like this.

I then got home to find this nice comment "I'm a CF Mom and I got your blog from some of my CF friends out in blog land. I think it's great that you are getting to know new families and that you are getting the word out about CF. Good luck in school. If you have time stop by and check out our family. Melissa is 19 months old and has CF. She is doing really well. Her lungs are clear at this time. She never had to spend any extra time in the hostpial when she was born. She is only on enzymes and vitimens at this time."

Of course I had to go check out The Liberto Blog. I added them to blogs I follow but if you haven't met them, you definitely need to go meet Melissa. She's one of the cutest little girls I've ever met. I look forward to getting to know them and I'm sure you will too.

I usually don't come here after a really long day but today was different. So many of my readers have spent time in NICU's I thought I would check in. First off I must tell you that this unit was huge. It has about 40 rooms.

The day started slow. We had no patients on ventilators and only 2 on nasal CPAP. We went and did the CPAP settings check and entered our stuff in the computer. It was pretty slow. Most of the kids were on a Nasal Cannula so it was no big deal. We had a patient going to the OR to get a bowel resection. Not real sure what that is but me and one of the RT's went to the OR hoping to see something cool. With such a tiny baby the doc, surgical tech, nurse anaeshetist, and anesthesiologist were crowded around so I couldn't see anything. We were there about an hour and a half.

When we returned to the unit the nurse told us that the other RT had gone to a delivery. Twins at 28 weeks. It was about to get exciting. They came in and as is usually the norm the first twin (twin A) was in better shape than twin B. We had ventilators on stand by and a nasal CPAP in each room. I think they weighed about 1200 grams each. We got twin A settled first and focused on B. It (I hate referring to the babies as "it" but I don't want to give away any more personal information because of HIPAA) was grunting and had very noticeable retractions. The baby was in respiratory distress. We got it on a CPAP but the grunting was still present. They decided to give the baby surfactant. That is where you push this liquid straight into the baby's lungs. It helps decrease the surface tension of the alveoli in the lungs so they will not collapse when the baby exhales. The RT intubated the baby and instilled the surfactant. It was an amazing experience to see that.

The rest of the day was relatively quiet. We just basically kept an eye on the babies from then on out. I was a little nervous at first because the babies are so tiny. I had never seen anything like it. You definitely get a satisfied feeling when the babies condition improves. I think this might be somewhere I'd like to work. I still have 3 more clinical days so that opinion could change. I'll definitely tell you more about it.

I just looked at the schedule and I have my NICU rotation tomorrow. In case you don't know, that is the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. It is where the premies go. I've dealt with kids before but this is a whole different story. I will let you know on twitter how it went on my way home tomorrow. Wish me luck.