My exploits as a Student Nurse in the first few weeks didn't really get a lot better to be honest. I tried so hard, maybe too hard looking back. I meant well with very good intention, but it was not to be. For example, I made the dreadful error of telling a patient my name when this was severely frowned upon by the ward Sister. So, this one shift, I was going round on the walk round ward report when suddenly I heard, 'Kath, please can you' . . . but I never heard the rest because I was whisked away into the office and reprimanded for having told a patient my first name; for goodness sake! Soon after I accidentally left a catheter bag valve open and no surprises really, came back to note an amber trail of wee running under the bed and into the ward... could have been mopped up and discounted had it not been for the fact, said patient was on a 24 hour urine collection save, but not any longer thanks to me. The whole collection had to be started again and I had to once again apologise.
For some inexplicable reason, I decided to ditch glasses for my first pair of contact lenses. I thought that starting nurse training would be the perfect time to change my image. Gas permeable lenses, with a pronounced astigmatism, was not a good combination; the lens would have the habit of slipping down onto my lower lid and popping out. Or, the heat of the ward was apt to dry up the lenses and make them pop out. This happened one memorable early shift when I was helping a very nice looking young chap to have an assisted wash/bed-bath. As I was about to wash his back, one lens decided that now was the time to fall out! It did, right into this patients bed. I was groping about in the bed for it as the senior staff nurse decided to check up on her charge; "I'm just looking for my contact lens" I don't know to this day whether she believed me, but hey! It was fun finding it.
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