Boy, was it ever!!! And to make matters worse, it was dead silence throughout the unit. No action, no codes, no glucose readings, very little talking, and...I forgot to take a book with me! So, I was stuck reading the online journals and the medical dictionaries. Yep, that makes me an even bigger nerd!
I guess I earned it after a night like the night before. One of our patients coded three times in a matter of an hour. And as the saying goes, three times is a charm. It was a tragic case: sepsis, end stage renal failure, CHF, and a recent MI. The prognosis was poor from the beginning, but her two sons requested that everything be done for her. So, we coded, and coded...and coded again, to no avail.
The whole night I felt a sense of urgency. Even in the cafeteria on my lunch break, I was scarfing food down my throat trying to get back to the unit. I kept telling myself that I didn't want to miss out on anything. Sure enough, when I turned the corner to enter the unit, the nurse yells, "Call a code!" She and I were the only two there! As I ran to the adjacent unit to get the code box, 4 nurses ran in the opposite direction to offer their help. Within seconds respiratory, the time keeper, and the ER docs were there. It was a circus. To make the night even more interesting, we had a non-compliant NIDDM/HTN patient with an intracranial hemorrhage right nextdoor. It's unfortunate that we had to put her through all of that. The prognosis was so poor, and she had even mentioned to one of her family members weeks prior that she was tired of fighting. I left work so drained that I skipped the gym, went home and got right into bed. As for the NIDDM patient, she passed away a few hours after shift change.
In comparison to yesterday, tonight was an absolute bust. Just mind-numbing silence, and no responsibilities whatsoever. Well, at least I earned it honestly! What's certain is that there is another hectic night just around the corner! I can't wait!
No comments:
Post a Comment