Oncology at Cape Fear

So this week has been a little slower than the past few weeks have been. I was at the outpatient oncology center on Monday and today and was up on the oncology floor on Tuesday. I shadowed the outpatient RD, and most of her patient interactions occurred in the chemo and radiation waiting rooms, so it seemed like she did a lot of running around trying to find the patients. She had just given a presentation last week about different chemo drugs, so that was helpful for me during the rotation.

Also, I requested to spend some time in the diet office because I felt a little lost when patients asked me about their diet/meals, what they were supposed to be having, what they could have, alternative selections, etc. So today I spent 3 hours in the diet office learning about how everything is managed, and I also went up on the floors and took patients' lunch orders and put their preferences into a little palm pilot. Very helpful I might add. I should've done this the first week. Maybe not all week like Carolyn... but one day perhaps.

And I've been gathering more info about my case study. Turns out, the reason for her massive bowel resection was that she tried to commit suicide by ingesting 156 pills that included clonidine, atenolol, and glipizide, which caused severe ischemia in her bowels and multiorgan failure. That was her initial hospital admission. Now she's in for chronic nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain, and no one has any clue what is specifically wrong with her. A gastric emptying study came back normal, but they keep suctioning massive amounts of fluids through her NG tube and she can't tolerate PO intake. Who knows.