A Day With LYLA

So, yesterday I brought home the first dog I have ever owned. Her name is Lyla, and this lovely girl is more than just a cute face! She is a fully trained medical alert and response dog. A black german shepherd, she has been trained to detect changes in the body that indicate certain processes, and alert her person to those changes. In my case, this means alerting when I am hypertensive or hypotensive and need to lie down and rest or take my medication. She can open doors, get drinks out of the refridgerator, bring the phone to get help, pick things up when they are dropped (great for those orthostatic moments), push elevator buttons, and all sorts of handy things. She is also great company! I mention this because I want disabled nurses to consider both the possibility of using a service dog, even for things other than seeing and hearing impairments. I also want other nurses to think about the use of service dogs in the hospital and offices. How would you feel if you came to work and your co-worker had a 70lb dog with them all day? Or if you entered a patient room and saw the dog there in bed with the patient. Would you know what to do? For instance, nobody but the dog's owner should touch a service dog. That means no petting, no offering treats, and no sweet talk (because this leads to petting). Why? The smell of too many people can confuse the dog from the scent they are waiting to smell on their person and alert with. It is also because the dog MUST be focused on their person and only on their person. Think of it like a heart monitor. You would not want your patient sharing their heart monitor with their friends, family, and caregivers! Same thing. Only my heart monitor has the sweetest brown eyes.

What is dysautonomia?

Dysautonomia is a category of disorders of the autonomic nervous system. For those unfamiliar with the ANS, it is the system that regulates all basic life functions in the body (think of it as the automatic part). It controls heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, digestion, sleep, and a thousand other minute functions. The ANS has two branches, the sympathetic (think flight or fight) and the parasympathetic (like the great big off button in our brains). In my case, my disorder is characterized by excessive sympathetic response with some parasympathetic involvement.
As stimuli in sensed by the brain, be it physical or emotional, the hypothalamus and limbic system categorize that stimuli and order a response by the body. For example, the person is cold, and the brain recieves the message "cold", the ANS recognizes this sign, and tells the body to shiver. This is the appropriate response. In people with dysautonomia, the body may fail to recognize it, or my over respond. The person may then run a fever in response, or their body temperature may drop as no response occurs. The same thing happens with the heart rate and blood pressure. When we stand, the body does not get the message "standing" and fails to constrict the peripheral blood vessels to compensate. The blood pressure plummets, the heart rate increases (but again instead of increasing enough to compensate, it goes wildly high), and the person loses consciousness. Every basic function of the body is confused and inappropriate.
That is the most basic explination. In a later post I will describe the types of dysautonomias, including my own disorder, Hyperadrenegeric Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. This is complicated by Mast Cell Activation Disorder and Orthostatic Hypotension.

Welcome!

This being my first blog I think it is simply polite to say hello and welcome to the site! I graduated from a community college in 1999 with my Associate Degree of Science in Nursing (ADN). I had such high hopes for a great career, and started with a critical care internship at a local hospital. Upon completing six months of classes, including ACLS, and three clinical rotations in critical care areas, I took a full time position in PACU. It was a great fit, and over the next few years I worked in several PACU's, and later, as an agency nurse in adult ICU. An unfortunate shoulder injury led me to the NICU, where I worked in both a level 3 and 4 facility. It was during a shift in the NICU that I collapsed. That evening in the ER, I went into SVT and became profoundly hypotensive. When I left work that day and went down to the ER, I had no idea that it would be last time I would work in nursing.

So, after 8 years I have obtained my BSN and am part of the way through my MSN at Kaplan University Online. I am on the Nursing Educator track and hope to be able to teach nursing online when I am done. Nurses who are disabled are a unique source of knowledge that is being wasted, as hospitals often demand a certain degree of physical (for good reason). By seeking an MSN and a career in teaching, I can make the most of the education and experience I already have. So, I hope that those who read this blog can share in the journey to completion of my MSN, and then as I enter the career I have chosen. But moreover, I hope they can learn what life with a dysautonomia is like, and how being a nurse has allowed me wonderful opportunities to help others.