Ready for something good to happen.

The last week or so has been real tough at work. Like I said, things have been picking up. Honestly, things aren't anything like what I was trained for or what I expected they would be like. The night nurses don't change dressings for the burn patients. The neuro(back, neck and head) patients are pretty time consuming. The entire month of November I am working with the same group of people. I have quickly made friends at work. I run on coffee. The people I work with enjoy the nights when I drink coffee. They say I'm pretty entertaining and really talkative when I drink it. Two nights ago I came into work with a mess of patients being given to me. I had a TON of stuff to get done in a 3 hour time period. One of my patients was supposed to be transfered to a different floor. It meant that I needed to assess her, give her medications and call report. The 29 yr old had a few issues, but was medically stable when I assessed her. We transported her to her new floor and that was that. I get a call 15 min after transferring her, that the poor woman had flat lined! REALLY?!! Yeah, really. They managed to bring her back, but it just didn't make sense to me. What did I miss? Last night I had a patient (21 yr old male) who was on his call bell all night long. He asked me to give him a sponge bath. He was constantly asking me for things. One time he called me in there telling the clerk he needed me right away. He wanted me to scratch his back/butt (because he was supposed to lie flat in bed and not turn at all). He had a male PCA assigned to his room. He wanted to be "taken care of by a female" because he "enjoys the touch of a female". It was obnoxious! Guess who gave him the sponge bath? NOT ME! The male PCA :). I clocked out at 8am and excitedly rushed to my car to get to bed. When I got to my car it wouldn't start. There was absolutely no power to it. The battery wasn't even 2 years old yet! I had to get it toed to a shop, only to find out it has about 800$ in repairs it needs but i'm only getting about 400$. I suppose I better start looking into new cars. I always wanted a Toyota 4Runner! Just got home at 9:30 and am trying to wind down to go to sleep and prepare for work tonight.

I spoke too soon

I don't know what I was doing complaining that my life was too boring and that work wasn't much of work at all. I have had some days(nights) where I go to work and I have soo much time on my hands I get bored. The last 2 nights however, have been nothing but exciting and full of action...maybe too much action. Normally when a nurse comes on to her shift she will get report from the nurse getting off of her shift. This should take about 30 minutes, give or take. Thursday, my shift began with a very crazy shift change. It took me an hour and a half just to receive report. During report, one of my patients fell in her room, while unattended, and hit her head. Let's put it this way- she shouldn't have been getting out of bed for ANY reason. Her little accident set me back another 30 minutes. Another issue I ran into was when I couldn't find one of the nurses I needed to get report from. I looked around the whole floor, only to find that she had gone home for the night with out telling me anything about my patient!! I called the nurse to see if she could give me report over the phone, but she couldn't and had to drive back to the hospital to inform me about her patient. AHHHHhh! What else could go wrong? Well, let me just tell you! One of my patients (not the one who fell) was a 101 years old. Yes! Born in 1908! This poor, poor woman was trying very hard to die on my shift and I wasn't about to let that happen. She made it through the night. Last night however, I had the same group of patients for the most part and had another very hectic night. This time the lady who fell and hit her head- she started having issues that turned into an emergency. I am very thankful that I have a great staff around me to help me though my stressful moments. That's not all... Oh no. I made my first med error. I felt like a complete idiot! It was sort of a pretty big mess up. Patient turned out to be just fine. I am so thankful I have the weekend off to recover from such a crappy two days of work. I hope its refreshing and not draining.

So I'm a workin' girl

Wow, who knew that working life could be so monotonous and boring. I never thought it would be like this. Get up at eh, 3pm and start slowly getting ready for work. Pack a "lunch" and some snacks. Head to work by 6:30pm. Work until about 7:30ish am, head home, shower and get ready for bed. Sleep from 8:30 til around 3pm and do it all over again. On my days off I do nothing productive or fun because don't have anything I need to do, or anyone I need to see. On top of that, I sleep all day, and most people are at school or work. So my social life has kind of dwindled down to hanging out with the people I live with. Don't get me wrong, I love my brother and I LOVE my Lyndsey! The dog and I have become quite good friends too. I am excited to go to Busch Gardens with a few of my closest friends for my birthday--that I will be celebrating on the 19th instead of my actual birthday-the 26th. I will be working the 26th and 27th and celebrating Thanksgiving with my patients. Another thing I am looking forward to is our intern reunion! It isn't until new years and I am not quite sure if I can take off yet, but I would love to see all of my intern buddies again! Not to mention see snow and go to the beautiful NC!! Well, back to work..and yes, I am blogging on the clock!