Smoother Head Toe Reflection

Clinical this week went really well, I had my patient both days which was really nice because I was able to see the change in his recovery progress and follow up on concerning issues that my patient had after the first day. I was able to look at his labs and see how his body was adjusting to the medications he was receiving and see how he was recovering two days’ post surgery. I was able to bundle my care better and have a smoother head toe assessment because I had the added bonus of previously taking of him care. Additionally, I also got to know him a little better and not just focus in on his diagnosis and disease states but take a step back and look at him holistically. During the first day, I took care of my patient he was having trouble voiding and still could not pass gas even though he felt cramping pain.

We followed up by doing a bladder ultra sound and finding out that he was retaining 440 ml. The nurse and I discussed our next step and we decided against re-catheterizing him right away since he was able to void a small amount and his catheter had been removed at 11:15 am the same day. Instead we instructed our patient to void in his urinal so we could measure and keep track of the amount of output he was voiding. Within 2 hours he voided 300 ml and by the end of the shift he had voided 550 ml. The other main issue that my client was having trouble with was his inability to pass flatus. On the first day that I took care of him he did not have any bowel tones all through out the shift. However, during the second day he did have active bowel tones in all four quadrants but he still was not able to pass flatus by the end of the shift. Some interventions that we performed were encouraging him to ambulate as well as eat the clear liquid foods that he was allowed to help stimulate and wake up his