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Saturday, May 2, 2009

Can I sleep for a day straight?

On Thursday when I was working, the charge nurse was trying to get nurse to come in and work the night shift as they were down a nurse and we were full. No one would/could come in. I told her I'd come in 4 hours early the next morning (at 3am). She decided to work till 3am and then I'd work from 3am to 3pm. So I left work at 7:40pm, fell asleep around 9pm and woke up at 2am to get ready for work.
As a side note, my patients were at the far end of one hallway. All 5 of my patients wanted pain meds every 4-6 hours. We carry the pain meds up at the nurses station, so each time they wanted some, I had to walk up to the station and back again. And you have to reassess how the pain meds work within an hour of giving them.
Anyway, here is a list in chronological order of how the day went:
  • Get to work at 3am.
  • Sit around looking up labs/test for 2 or so hours to pass the time (boring)
  • Start passing 6am meds
  • Patient collapses and unresponsive (not mine), crash cart rushed to the end of the hall
  • Give out pain meds
  • Day shift begins (hooray, only 8 more hours)
  • Chart
  • Help with complete bed bath to paraplegic patient
  • More pain meds given
  • Go to my patients room for the 3rd time to tell him to quit taking off his heart monitor and argue with with him why he has to keep it on (apparently having a heart attack isn't a good enough reason for him)
  • Discharge one patient
  • Lunch
  • Admit new patient
  • More pain meds given
  • Start feeling guilty about leaving work after 12 hours when all our beds are full and agree to stay for 4 more hours
  • Nurse yelling "we need help in here!"-patient having seizure
  • Pain med time
  • Ice cream break
  • Get chewed out by paraplegic patient's girlfriend who is mad he is being discharged today instead of tomorrow (as if she gets the choice-she wanted to go out to the bar friday night)
  • Patient's family bring in pizza for the floor
  • Code Grey called-tornado warning. All patients moved out into the hallways
  • Help move (along with 8 others) 500lb man from one bed to the next. After we roll him to his side to put the slide board under him, he yells "I'm having gas" to which we all jump back in fear. False alarm.
  • Get chewed out again by patient's girlfriend. "If he had fancy insurance, you'd let him stay as long as we like." Um, this isn't a hotel, no one gets special treatment, and who wants to stay in the hospital as long as they like?
  • Tornado warning cleared-move patients back into their rooms
  • Leave work 7:20pm. Awesome.
This wasn't the worst day I've ever had. I know people have had a lot worse. It was just the longest (and most interesting) day I've had in awhile. And I did it with only have a Coke at lunch (they don't carry DP). I only slept 7 hours. I think I'll go take a nap. Or watch Lost.

2 comments:

Heather said...

Wow your a trooper man...I don't know that I could have done that!

Anonymous said...

That is so amazing and so are you. Holy cow!