internship emotional rollercoaster

So today was a mixed day on the healthcare front...bad news first...we lost one of our patients last night. I don't know if I wrote about his situation yet, but originally he had a cerebellar stroke about two weeks ago. From that he had difficulties walking and with depth perception in judging distances, but still was discharged from the hospital to the rehab unit (he had a very good chance of living independently again.) Then, he suffered another stroke last weekend, more massive, and never really woke up. He was transferred back to our acute area of the hospital, and he passed away last night. Sad stuff. The worst part was seeing his family all come in and say their goodbyes. My thought was that he was soooo focused on being able to live alone after the first one that maybe when he had the second one a part of him knew he would never fully recover to living the life he was so used to.
So the up part of the day was two of my patients had amazing breakthroughs! One is a man who had a CVA last December and has been on a wait list for a nursing home ever since (one of the the down parts of socialized medicine...EVERYONE is on a waiting list for something!) He has had absolutely no return of his L arm until today! He suddenly had a small amount of finger movement, and could move his wrist and elbow in gravity eliminated planes! It was amazing, and also strange b/c you would expect the shoulder to come first and recovery to happen proximally to distally not the other way around. He didn't even realize it was so great because to him its still not good enough (he thinks he will drive again if he gets his hand use back!) So hopefully that breakthrough will give him motivation to keep working hard while he's at the hospital. The other good news was one of my patients in the ICU got moved out to a normal ward and is able to have conversations with people! He went from barely being conscious to acting like a new person overnight. That's pretty cool to see.
I don't know if I'm emotionally stable enough to work in an acute setting! So many highs and lows to cope with while having to help others cope as well...but this is definitely a great experience for me to get to be a part of and I think I'm doing a pretty good job (guess we'll see in a few weeks at midterm to be certain!)