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The craziness
Mar. 26th, 2007 10:41 amIt was one of those nights that had me sitting in the nurse's lounge afterward staring at nothing. One of those nights that just knocked me down and then yanked my arm up at an uncomfortable angle, forcing me to ask for another. I went to IHOP on the way home and bought a stack of pancakes, slathered those jammies in butter, drowned 'em in syrup, and slurped 'em down without giving a good gorram because, dammit, I'm allowed.
The odd part? I'd had the same area the night before ("area" being room assignments) and it was heaven: not a single patient called me during the night and everyone's vitals were stable. Last night? I had a transfer come over from telemetry with a crazy high BP, had another transfer from tele cancel on me at the last minute, an EtOH patient on Ativan taper with a heart rate of 137 and a slowly rising BP (when I left his heart rate had made its way to 113 but his BP had jumped to 170/100), a former tele patient present with elevated BP, complaint of persistent headache, and the dreaded "shoulder/chest pain" (envision this patient rubbing her left upper chest and grimacing, then imagine me quietly freaking the fuck out)...precipitating two stat EGKs, numerous calls to physicians, stat cardiac enzyme labwork, and one![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fredericks falling behind in all her paperwork while praying to On High that I wouldn't have to deal with a code situation. THEN came the admit from the ER who was MRSA (a nice bit of information the ER forgot to tell me) but placed in a non-isolation room, unclear orders from said patients admitting personnel (was it a PA or an MD who wrote the orders? does it matter, because the person was an IDIOT), a mad scramble to take follow-up BPs at 6AM, and THEN (THEN) getting chewed out by the bitch of a nurse I gave report to for not getting the late admit's paperwork clarified (hey, bitch, I didn't get to pick up the orders until 5AM or so, and even then I was so goddamn busy I had to ask another nurse to transcribe them for me), along with getting bugged by the IV nurse about placing a patient on the board for a new IV lock (I actually lied and said I'd attempted to stick the patient twice unsuccessfully, and then ran and hid from the nurse before I could see whether he confirmed my story with the patient or not).
Deep effin' breath
Okay. I'm okay. I've had my flapjacks, I'm horizontal with some great fic in a couple of collapsed windows of my taskbar, a cranberry-scented candle is burning on my bookshelf, The Price is Right just wrapped up, and I don't have to go back to work tonight. I don't have to go back to work tonight. I can go to the gym and work off my aggression (and those sweet sweet pancakes), I can stay in and play with my Wii (that phrasing never stops amusing me), I can pull out my eyemask, chug some NyQuil, and force my hyped-up ass to sleep because I don't have to go back to work tonight. Halleluia and Amen.
An interesting moment from work: there's a new subintern on the floor. I kept looking at the guy and thinking that I knew him from somewhere, possibly HS. Of course, being my anti-social self I chose to ignore the situation and play dumb. Today we actually interacted and he balled up enough to ask me if I'd gone to Science too. So, ta-da!, turns out we were in the same class. I found that slightly depressing, truth be told. I'm not sure I can articulate why at the moment, so let me move on to
An "eww!" or effin' hilarious moment at work (and I'm as surprised there was one as anyone else whose made his/her way through all the crap above): a discussion on patients who decide to "take things in hand". ( Cut for the more delicate among us )
/mortification
I'm off tonight, work two days in a row (waaah!), then I'm off for a week. Freeeeeeeedom, indeed. A trip to Dave and Busters is being planned, and the Ground Zero that is my room requires federal aid of some sort, fo' serious.
This post was so cathartic. I need to do this more often.
The odd part? I'd had the same area the night before ("area" being room assignments) and it was heaven: not a single patient called me during the night and everyone's vitals were stable. Last night? I had a transfer come over from telemetry with a crazy high BP, had another transfer from tele cancel on me at the last minute, an EtOH patient on Ativan taper with a heart rate of 137 and a slowly rising BP (when I left his heart rate had made its way to 113 but his BP had jumped to 170/100), a former tele patient present with elevated BP, complaint of persistent headache, and the dreaded "shoulder/chest pain" (envision this patient rubbing her left upper chest and grimacing, then imagine me quietly freaking the fuck out)...precipitating two stat EGKs, numerous calls to physicians, stat cardiac enzyme labwork, and one
fredericks falling behind in all her paperwork while praying to On High that I wouldn't have to deal with a code situation. THEN came the admit from the ER who was MRSA (a nice bit of information the ER forgot to tell me) but placed in a non-isolation room, unclear orders from said patients admitting personnel (was it a PA or an MD who wrote the orders? does it matter, because the person was an IDIOT), a mad scramble to take follow-up BPs at 6AM, and THEN (THEN) getting chewed out by the bitch of a nurse I gave report to for not getting the late admit's paperwork clarified (hey, bitch, I didn't get to pick up the orders until 5AM or so, and even then I was so goddamn busy I had to ask another nurse to transcribe them for me), along with getting bugged by the IV nurse about placing a patient on the board for a new IV lock (I actually lied and said I'd attempted to stick the patient twice unsuccessfully, and then ran and hid from the nurse before I could see whether he confirmed my story with the patient or not). Deep effin' breath
Okay. I'm okay. I've had my flapjacks, I'm horizontal with some great fic in a couple of collapsed windows of my taskbar, a cranberry-scented candle is burning on my bookshelf, The Price is Right just wrapped up, and I don't have to go back to work tonight. I don't have to go back to work tonight. I can go to the gym and work off my aggression (and those sweet sweet pancakes), I can stay in and play with my Wii (that phrasing never stops amusing me), I can pull out my eyemask, chug some NyQuil, and force my hyped-up ass to sleep because I don't have to go back to work tonight. Halleluia and Amen.
An interesting moment from work: there's a new subintern on the floor. I kept looking at the guy and thinking that I knew him from somewhere, possibly HS. Of course, being my anti-social self I chose to ignore the situation and play dumb. Today we actually interacted and he balled up enough to ask me if I'd gone to Science too. So, ta-da!, turns out we were in the same class. I found that slightly depressing, truth be told. I'm not sure I can articulate why at the moment, so let me move on to
An "eww!" or effin' hilarious moment at work (and I'm as surprised there was one as anyone else whose made his/her way through all the crap above): a discussion on patients who decide to "take things in hand". ( Cut for the more delicate among us )
/mortification
I'm off tonight, work two days in a row (waaah!), then I'm off for a week. Freeeeeeeedom, indeed. A trip to Dave and Busters is being planned, and the Ground Zero that is my room requires federal aid of some sort, fo' serious.
This post was so cathartic. I need to do this more often.
