1-2-11

Phew. Day 3 of 4. and I'ma tired. I didn't even write anything in a journal yesterday, which is unfortunate considering that makes it look like my new years resolution didn't even last 1 day. but I won't get hung up on small details like that. I feel like my patients have completely exhausted my energy these past few shifts. last night i ended up with 6 patients, 3 on each hall. no admissions, just a transfer and i picked up 2 from Engrid when they sent her home. The ones I got from her and the other guy on that hall were all easy. The other hall, however, was a bit of a trainwreck. I had one discharge before my shift even got underway. I had one crazy guy who pulled his IV out who has terrible skin and a history of a kidney transplant from his sister. My transfer was easy enough but still required work and meds scattered throughout the night. My other patient. Lord. Pancreatitis with a history of a whipple in 2006. Pain meds and benadryl allll night long. The last three I mentioned I have tonight as well. Crazy guy pulled his IV out and won't let us put another one in, even though he needs antibiotics because his hand is probably infected. But at least tonight he slept and didn't call to the desk eight hundred times to say things like, "my hand is burnin," "I think my sugar's low, I need a snack," or "my sugar is high and i need someone to check it. I know because my fingers are tingling." Transfer guy has been fine tonight, and Yoshie put in an IV for me today since his 3 working ones were all old. Plus last night he couldn't sleep so he kept calling up to the desk for random stuff. Pancreatitis man got morphine at 8 pm. By 8:30 he was yelling and nearlly crying he was hurting so bad. This went on for over an hour. He was like rocking back and forth in a fetal position, intermittanly spitting up bile. And yelling things like "something's wrong, something's wrong," and "yall don't understand. Help me Lord!" Even after the 4 mg of dilaudid it took a while for him to calm down and the pain to subside. Really in the beginning it just made him drowsy but you could see he was still in pain, just much quieter about it. After a couple hours he got his scheduled meds and some additional pain medicine and that set him cozy. I've just had to go in there to change his IV fluid a couple times, and he has been a-ok. Dr. Syed came to check on him as well, which I appreciated because he was really making me nervous in the beginning of the shift. My two new patients tonight included an old lady in restraints who mostly needs IV fluid and tube feedings, and a guy with super low blood pressure. Low blood pressure guy's iv went bad at the beginning of the shift as well, but after being stuck twice he said no more. So when his midnight blood pressure was 68/31, we repaged the MD, put him in trendelenburg, made him drink some water, and got the bp up to 96/48. So yeah, I've had plenty of issues this evening. And I still have one night left. Unfortunately, my brain is running on half capacity right now.