I'm free / Payback's a bitch

Interesting title you say? Well here's the last three nights at work for ya! (Keep in mind Sunday was not a scheduled day, I picked up the extra time for extra $.....And originally had only picked up 8 hours and they called and asked if I could come in at 7 instead of 11, so I did! That also translated in to making over 48 bucks an hour while I was there and one of the other 2 days was time and a half cause it was a holiday, damn that checks gonna be sweeeeeeeeeeeeetttt).

So, Sunday was my first night off orientation and it was awesome........Ok well not really at first. I get there and the parking lot is fairly empty which is ALWAYS a good sign. I find out that I am taking over A zone, which has 2 trauma and 2 psych rooms, which is usually good, and since it was my first night off orientation I felt good that they were giving me one of the zones with trauma rooms - must trust me on some level, huh?

Anyway, I cant find the girl I need to take report from so I go hunting.......And find her in trauma room 1. I walked in the door and she had this look like are u kidding me? Now I know her, and she's only been a nurse for like 1-2 years, so she's still new also. In any case she says 'This is a one on one patient, you wont be able to leave this room'. And she said r u on your own now? I said yes, she said this is not fair for them to give you this patient - "I've been off orientation a long time and I've been shitting my pants all night". But it didn't matter, she was mine. This pt was older, came in with trouble breathing, just was d/c'ed from the hospital last week for something else, I think maybe a UTI. Anyway, when she came in her heart rate was only like 40 - she was definitely symptomatic because she was going in and out of consciousness. They had to hook her up to the machines and because she was having runs of V-tach (meaning her heart was doing the thing it does just before it decides to stop) on and off, they had to pace her with the machine. Now imagine being awake and alert and having a shock sent through your skin - I'm gonna go with ouch. Well her pressure was too low, so they couldn't give her anything for the pain so this lady is just living through it. Next in order to get her heart rate higher they gave her 3 different doses of Atropine, the drug that is supposed to speed up your heart. It did NOTHING....so next comes Epinephrine, the 'fight or flight' hormone that also makes your heart rate go up. Well that worked, but it also sent her BP through the damn roof. At this point they could finally give her a little something to calm her and had to start her on something for the pressure. Lets just say when it was time to transport her upstairs I was just about needing new underwear for the shear fear that she was gonna code on our way up there, or in the elevator or something......God help me.............And he did. She made it safe and sound, thank the lord. And I headed back to my safety zone! I got back and the charge nurse clapped, I looked at her and said I'm spent, can you take it easy on me the rest of night? Of course I started laughing and she knew I was kidding..............But inside I was really think, no I'm not kidding! But this is my life now, so u suck it up and go one. Bottom line is it was a good learning experience, put me in my place my first night out, and reminded me why I do what I do - cause I can make a difference and so many people don't have that option/ability in their jobs. The rest of the night was CAKE......Actually bring I broke out the book! I did however make over 250 bucks extra that night over my normal. Id have to say it was worth it!

Monday was crazy busy but I cant think of any interesting things that I had other than just plum being BUSY all night long!

Now Tuesday, that's a whole other bag of worms. Got C zone, had 1/2 the psych pod (which I like) and 2 regular rooms. Now I had one really cool pt who was in for chest pain and when I said do u need anything right now, he said "beer and crabs" now that's my kinda man. I told him I didn't know if I would be able to help with that request, however if I was able to (and he finished this sentence not me) "you'll be in my room partaking right? I said u got it! Besides being busy it was craziness.................In the psych pod I got one pt who was soooo drunk the blood alcohol level was 0.36 -where u have to be at/below 0.8 to legally be driving. She was a mess kicking and trying to escape - so after she managed to kick 2 security guards and tried to leave twice, we tied her down. At that point it was for the pts safety as well as our own. I was called everything in the book, not that I haven't heard some of them before! As the night continued I had like NO time to chart just had little notes all over my scrap paper in my pocket (that's how u learn to live in the ER). Another pt in the pod was a pt who has been to our ER like 7 times in the past 2 weeks for ingesting odd items - and he has had surgery each time to remove the items. Well he was in the ER early in the day Tuesday for eating some part f a pen, had it removed and was released back to the psychiatric hospital that he lives in. Well he managed to elope from the people taking him back to the hospital and was wandering on our property..........And decided to eat something else. This time a freaking pop top from a soda can. U know the little part that u actually open the can with? And the round sharp part that goes inside the can after its open, yeah he ate all of that.......We knew he'd be going to the OR but for fear that he would eat the IV we put in him we had to wait till like 640 in order to put one in - that was of course after 4 people had attempted to get blood and get IV access. On top of that at liek 4 am we were busy as all get out heard an overheard page for a CODE BLUE in CCU (critical care) so techs and transporters take off, they have to help wtih compressions and stuff. Wel literally like 3 inutes aftet that annoucement is made, we have our own code in a patient who was just up and out of bed on the bedside commode. She was put back in bed and taken off the one monitor to hook her up to another so she could be transported to the floor, and during those 30 seconds, bam her heart stopped just like that. So in one of the smaller rooms we have in the ER there were like 9 people attempting to rusussitate and save this lady. Thankfully it worked, but had no one been right next to her when it happened, it may not have. Nightmare I tell U........................I didn't leave till EIGHT AM because I had to finish up on my charting.

I'm on this weekend I am sure it will prove to be a bang cause people will be coming back from vacations and end up with all kinds things wrong with them! I'm on Sat, Sun, Monday, Tuesday. U probably wont hear from me at all during that time!