Apparently meth is a rather popular recreational drug here in Santa Rosa. I've seen quite a few and learned some key points: 1) meth messes up your gall bladder (these people were in the hospital for complications of a recent cholecystectomy) 2) people detoxing from meth are mean. I went into a young woman's room to check on her and let her know that the doctor had advanced her diet from liquid to soft foods and she completely freaked out on me and told me to leave her alone. Without giving me a chance to explain what that diet order meant, she assumed that it was another liquid diet and she was apparently very hungry for real food. I was able to explain to her parents outside the room that it was not liquids, and that she would likely advance to a regular diet quickly if she tolerated this well. Later her nurse came up to me and told me that the patient felt very badly and wanted to apologize. I'm not sure what I would have done differently in this type of situation, except maybe not use the word "soft diet" and just described what it was first instead of the other way around. Oh well, she got over it quickly.

This was my GI module, so I saw some interesting things. Lots of bowel obstructions and ileus and I got to do a diet ed on diverticulitis. I'm finding that I kind of like GI stuff so I'm hoping to do more even though my official rotation is over.