Last Clinical of block one!

Today was the last early morning clinical of my first semester of nursing! What a day and way to end things. I think that every crazy, exciting, awful, thing happened to me today and I am having mixed feelings about all of it. I cried, laughed, and got thoroughly confused. I guess I would say that I ended this semesters clinical rotation with a bang.
First of all, I had a patient that was at the end stages and was expected to go at any point. He was first admitted with a broken hip that he had sustained during a previous fall. From that point on his health took a rapid down turn and he has only deteriorated since. As I began my initial assessment he was completely unresponsive. He would mumble yes and no but would not open his eyes. During the assessment I found problem after problem. Pressure ulcers, pitting edema, extreme skin breakdown, UTI, COPD, liver failure, infected surgical site, ingrown toenails, A-fib, ect....and in between labored breathing he managed to tell me that he was having extreme chest pain. It was heart breaking to witness, and even more heart breaking to not be able to directly treat him. As a student, I am at the will of the nurse and Doctor in charge of his care. I gather the information, report it, and then ponder the care plan I would implement. A back rub, therapeutic communication, bed bath, and sympathy was all I could do. It’s hard to feel useless.
Along with caring for my patient I was very busy with all sorts of calls! Every time I would walk out into the hall something crazy was happening.
Now....many of the situations were....hmmm how can I say this to all not desensitized by the medical world... Haha I guess I can’t. I’ll just say (figuratively) I was up to my eyeballs in BM, blood, and C-diff. If you don’t know what all that means....be grateful and don’t ask unless you’re prepared to know. I came as close as ever to throwing up.
I also had the strangest situation today that made me laugh. Between "Code Browns" I passed a room and the patient inside started screaming for me. "NURSE NURSE COME QUICK!" I ran in and his phone was ringing. He said "Hurry! Answer my phone!" thrown off by this I said "Um alright, uh, What is your name?" he told me and so I answered his phone saying
Me-"Hello, this is -----‘s room"
Man on the phone- "WHO ARE YOU!!!??"
Me-"My name is Julie and I am a student nurse who is helping take care of -----"
Man- " Well that’s all fine and dandy but ----- has to pee! He REALLY has to pee!"
...dumbfounded, Me-" I will help him get to the bathroom then,... thank you?"
Man-" Ok, I will be calling back in five minutes to check!" *Click*
Side note- I have never seen or taken care of this particular patient before. I don’t have the slightest clue about him let alone his diagnosis.
So I begin to talk to the patient and I realize that he is not making any sense at all. I was almost certain he had dementia. He said that he needed a urinal and sent me looking all over his room for the hidden urinal. Crystal, one of my fellow student nurses was passing the room at the time and so I asked her if she could try to locate another one for me. I was looking as fast as I could because I knew that the poor guy was straining to hold it and the Pee patrol was going to call back. Minutes later Crystal came back with a large cup, and told me that it was all she could find. Apparently every other urinal was hiding too! I figured oh well, critical thinking at its best. After all this I sit him up, get him ready, and ....He miraculously doesn’t have to go anymore.
Are you freaking kidding me?
Ah the joys of geriatrics :) I didn’t stay long enough to see if indeed the pee patrol called back but it was defiantly a funny experience
Anyway, this is all I have time to write about for now. A lot of other things happened but I don’t really want to get into that now. I am shaken by it for some reason but perhaps I will write about it tomorrow. It was a sad experience and I am still absorbing it. At the end of today I feel like I have learned a ton and I am grateful that I had the opportunities to grow.
Now its back to studying....