Journal Nine: Trent Swisher

I did my research on Michelle Alore's profession of being an ICU nurse. I've had sever people in my family who are or were ICU nurses. In this profile, she talks about how she handles families dealing with the loss of a love one and things that make her job challenging. What struck my curiosity about this profile is if other ICU nurses find similar struggles as Michelle and think the deaths are the hardest part about the job. After doing some research, I found on one website that the most challenging aspect for the majority of ICU nurses is taking care of the families rather than the patients which Michelle talked about the importance of that in the profile. On nurse.org it says "For most nurses employed in the ICU, the most challenging aspect is surprisingly not always taking care of patients, but rather taking care of patients' families and making sure that they understand what is happening during a treatment or procedure." I think it's really nice that they spend time to not only worry about the patients but to also worry about the patients families and their well being. 

This is a picture of an ICU nurse. It is important for them to look presentable so that way the patients and families feel more comfortable.

A theme I see a lot through the book is the support of parents with their children. A lot of the time I had my parents try to decide what was best for me but for the most part if they could tell I really wanted something then they would support me. The impact of this made me feel like I can do anything I set my mind to and knowing I will have my parents support makes things a lot easier. 

I found my most interesting vocabulary word early on in the book, the word is "torpor" and it means a state of physical or mental inactivity typically in animals. This is my favorite/best because I find things of this nature, especially of the mind, to be very interesting. I learned that torpor is basically a shorter version of hibernation for animals and they only go into torpor on cool days. Torpor is associated with temperature and food availability while hibernation is hormone changes and day length.