Quick update on something that actually matters: Raj is doing ok we think. Ann had some friend who works at Gwinnett check on her, and they talked to her on the phone yesterday. Her husband said she still may be able to go to India.
Last night I got to work and had 4 of my patients from yesterday, one brand new admit, and one who'd been admitted that afternoon. Two were still in dialysis, all of them had blood pressure issues. Misty gave her admission some clonidine right before she left and was like, make sure to recheck the blood pressure in an hour, and if it isn't below 160, call the doctor, the patient needs to go to the ICU. So after the first set of vitals, I tell Faheemah, my least favorite tech who is on light duty and generally sucks, that I need a second set of vitals in 30 minutes to an hour. She seems to be fine with that, and then she came back to me after a while and she'd rechecked the wrong patients blood pressure. I happened to actually need a second one on that patient too, but not as direly as the one I'd asked for. So I told her that I needed one for 414, and she didn't argue, but an hour later when I asked her if she'd done it, she said that her arm hurt and she couldn't do it and I'd have to wait. Keisha was then like, "is this the blood pressure you needed an hour ago?" and I was like "yeah." Then I was like, "do you have your phone on you?" (she didn't) so I said, "well i need to be able to get in touch with you if walking back and forth is causing problems then i need to be able to call you and not wait til you get back to the desk" she said it wasn't the walking that was the issue, it was her arm, she was taking a break and relaxing because she wasn't going to injure herself anymore, or something. Keisha snapped that if she couldn't work that she just should go home, and I said "Faheemah, I don't have an issue with the fact that your arm hurts, I have an issue with the fact that you didn't let me know. I am trying to keep track of eight thousand things and I don't have time to track you down to see if you've done what I asked. I need you to come to me. And if you can't get the task done, I need to know that ahead of time, not an hour later." Then Ann volunteered to go get the blood pressure (she is the secretary, who knows ALL the gossip), but as she was headed down there, a patient fell, which caused mayhem because he was still tied to the bed, his condom catheter came off so he's sitting in a puddle of piss, and he's totally out of it. So while we all dealt with that, Faheemah called either the nursing supervisor or someone and was like, "I have to leave, my arm hurts, I'm going home, I can't deal with this crap" And then she just left. This was all by like... 10pm. I mean seriously, if you can't do your job for 3 hours without taking a break to "relax," you shouldn't come in.
Wonderfully, Latasha was able to come in by 11. Not only was that such a help, but I actually like Latasha. Things were so nuts last night. Trying to figure out who was getting what blood pressure medications, and how many, if to hold some or all of them, was such a pain. I finally finished nine o'clock meds at 11:30. I felt like I was drowning for quite some time. Then, at maybe 2 am, I walk up the the nursing station, and no one is at the front, but around the corner Keisha, Keisha, and Ann are all back there eating mini bags of Funyuns and drinking Mtn. Dew. Then Ann hands me my bag of Funyuns, and we had a little party, Atoya even came back from the ICU and got to join in the fun :). We all decided Ann is like Google. If you ever need to get some information, ask her. It was really the best pick me up for the middle of the shift. Not so much for the nutritional quality but whatever haha.
My complicated patient was still alive and on our unit. Luckily he wasn't still on heparin, and the blanket warmer went missing so I just didn't deal with it. I hung TPN by myself, which was new for me. I also discovered a pressure ulcer on his ankle, like the size of a half dollar... so I put in a wound consult. My poor patient. He was still in restraints, which he hated, his mouth is just getting disgusting, and his breathing... it starts and stops. He makes me nervous. Drawing labs was difficult, all night. His central line just wouldn't give me good blood return. Also the other two patients I tried to draw blood on, I missed!! Grrrr. I am blaming it on them having renal failure skin. I swear it looked like I should have been in the veins, but I dunno what happened. But since I also had issues with the line draw, I decided it was just fate against me, not my skills.
I didn't get to leave til 9am. That kinda sucked, but oh well. Last night, Veronica came up to ask me if I'd signed up for extra shifts, to which i told her I still needed to check my schedule. Then after she rubbed my shoulder and walked away, I looked at Misty and just shook my head to say "uh hell no i'm not signing up for more shifts." Sherese saw me from afar and burst out laughing, which was funny.
I am liking my coworkers more and more. Silver linings, folks, silver linings.
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