I cried at work today. Within an hour of being there. It was my "third twelve" in a row. I was averaging 5 hours of sleep each night. Yesterday I was there 14 hours. And I walked in today to have the nurse I was getting report from tell me, "I had a night from hell. They are a horrible team [of patients]. They should have split up your assignment." Well, then why didn't you ask the charge nurse to split them up? I had some of the team yesterday and was swamped. I was already exhausted, which means I'm usually emotional. By 7:45 I'd already been approached 3 times for things my patients wanted. I could barely keep it together and when one of the aides came up and hugged me I had to excuse myself to cry for a minute in the bathroom. It felt good. And then I was ready to better face the chaos.
By 8:15 one of my patients was in respiratory distress. I spent two hours in the room getting her stabilized.
I finally saw my last patient at 11am. I had been there 4 hours already. Thank goodness he was stable.
And the madness continued for 8 more hours...
The silver lining is that today was my last day for two weeks! And I'll be enjoying this in 4 days:
Happy Birthday to me.
4 comments:
You need to stay in the USA and hang out with me! I don't even remember what you look like!
I had so many days like that at ARUP...especially towards the end. You are in need of a good vacation. See you soon! I'm so excited!
Yay for well deserved breaks!
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