MAN. I just worked 5 out of 6 days. Soon to be 6 out of 8 days. Which, is a LOT. I'm not entirely sure how I made it. By the end of yesterday I just felt incompetent and sloppy. Some of that was related to working so many shifts, and some of it was related to my patient that I'm worried about.
Let's see... I worked Wednesday and Thursday. Those days weren't fun. I had high maintenance patients, on pain meds, in restraints, on isolation.
Some of the "highlights":
Wednesday-
8- super cute little stroke patient who you could hardly understand... partially due to the stroke, and partly because she had no teeth haha. She wanted so badly to take care of herself, even though she moved a little slower, and had to repeat herself for me to understand, and she just took everything in stride. And then I spilled ice all over her table and floor and she thought it was the funniest thing and just sat there and cracked up.
15- confused alcohol withdrawal guy in FIVE point restraints (4 limb holders and the belt thing). His first IV was bad when I walked in (he was supposed to be getting potassium and it was leaking out of his arm. GREAT.) so i tried twice to get an IV in, and then it took Keisha SIX tries to get one in. and two hours later he snagged it on his restraints and it came out. I have never seen Keisha take more than a second try at an iv. she is like IV queen around our floor.
18- liver failure guy. with a habit of just being a complete asshole. and has a habit of shitting everywhere and putting his hand in it, taking off all his clothes and laying there naked. he also snagged his IV on something in the midst of the second or third time he did that. Atoya tried but couldn't get anything on him.
23- gross creepy mother daughter combo. the mom was the pt. left above the knee amputation, butt and underside of her legs covered in pressure ulcers. colostomy. contact isolation. constantly needing pain meds. periodically screaming profanities. and that was just the mom. They like took over that room. the daughter did all the colostomy and wound care, and has probably complained about every staff person they've come in contact with at every hospital in atlanta. the mom's emotional state was just infantile. sometimes smiley and loving and trying (VERY unsuccessfully) to be cute, sometimes crying, sometimes throwing a complete tantrum.
Atoya came in at 11pm, praise the lord. I don't remember who else I had that night, who I gave her, or who I must have admitted. By the morning though, three of my patients had no IV access, which is never good haha. The actual good part of the night: the probably 20 minutes of impressions of patients, nurses, monitor techs, etc etc mostly performed by Marie (a tech who is pretty good, although sometimes has a bit of an attitude and dear god repeats herself 8 thousand times). Either way, the impressions were hilarious. Kara was in tears, I was nearly there myself. Kara also did an exceptional Joe the monitor tech impression. we all went through miss emily stories (the patient who calls me carrie, and yes i'm not supposed to use her name but i am sure she wouldn't mind). You see, miss emily's blood pressure bottomed out at the beginning of the shift and she had to move to the ICU for the night. We all knew she was really sick because she let Keisha draw blood from her. And Keisha, is on her shit list because she went through her stuff last week after miss emily was found in the bathroom with a dusty old cigarette (unlit, mind you). She was having one of her "i'm not leaving the bathroom nights" until she heard Keisha going through her stuff, at which point she leapt up, slammed the door, yelling, "get the fuck outta my room!!" as Marie tore down the hallway, completely abandoning Keisha. Miss Emily spent the rest of the day scowling in the direction of anyone who walked past her room. The miss emily stories are what got us to talking about Onenitha, who emily calls Lootie. Now, onenitha is the tech who is about a hundred years old, shuffles, mumbles, and sings to herself. she is always in like a scrubs skirt and stockings. apparently there was one day her bra strap was caught in her hair or something that keisha was talking about, Kelli was yelling about how she was scared onenitha's false teeth were going to jump out of her mouth and bite her shirt, and atoya was having all kinds of revelations because she thought onenitha was just always chewing gum when she was actually clicking her dentures. The highlight was when Marie walked away saying "Who said she looks like James Brown?" at which point Kara nearly fell out of her chair laughing.
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