Mondays are the WORST

So going back and thinking, I don’t really remember much about this day specifically, unfortunately. I know I got to site at 12 and stayed until after 6. Wait, I lied. I remember it. We had to interview our patients to get our patient cases for presentations at the end of the week. So with an interpreter, we interviewed who was to be picked as my patient. She was an older woman who spoke primarily Spanish and had nerve pain in the face, along with a bunch of other chronic diseases. We interviewed other patients that day as well, but this was who I got for my case. It wasn’t a hard patient, so I was honestly glad. The preceptor said we were to stop early to get all the info we would need for our patient cases so we could have a project day the following day to work on the presentations. Which I of course took advantage of and picked up an afternoon shift for some extra money.

While my colleague had to leave early to get her son, I stayed with my preceptor to interview one more patient. It was a relatively young (<50) man who had diabetes and his A1c was trending up and down, but still above 10%, which in referring to the guidelines, suggests the initiation of insulin. During the interview, he stated that a medication he had been prescribed to take twice daily, he had only been taking once daily. This wasn’t the main contributor to the high A1c though. When digging in to get more info on his diet, that’s when the shit hitteth the fan. His diet was so poor. Lots of burgers and fries, pizza, sugary juice, etc. Man, when I see patients like this not taking care of themselves it really breaks my heart. I’m sure it’s hard for these patients to take advice from someone who looks like me, but I am hoping to make some lifestyle changes that I won’t be a “do as I say, not as I do” type of practitioner. Anyway, after this patient, I went to go get my patient case info so I could keep the project day on Tuesday, after I told the preceptor it took me almost an hour and a half each way to get there. I sit down to do it and then she starts asking around how long we can stay, and it wasn’t long enough for me to get all the info I needed (which I could have done, actually, but more info on that in the next post). So it sucked, but I left knowing I would have to wake up super early to make it there by 9am the next day. More Mad Men when I got home, and then I went to bed.