Yeah, it happens

I've read a thousand medical oriented blogs and I know a lot of people, so I generally know this happens.  It doesn't make it any less bizarre when it happens to me.

I had a patient that told the next shift's nurse, the next shift's charge, and my unit manager that I was "cold" and "Uncaring" and "didn't show empathy".  The kicker - this was my "easy" patient that night, and I did not have an ounce of trouble with her.  My other patient was insanely needy and constantly testing my nerves (is that OK to say? ).

I seriously have no idea what I said or what I did, because I feel like I had a great rapport with this lady.  We talked about how hard it is to be stuck in the ICU especially for someone who's young and active (this lady was a runner, and it sucked that she was going to be stuck there for almost another week for intense monitoring, but was not going to "feel" sick or deserving of an ICU bed, and I always feel horrible when that happens).  I talked her into accepting pain meds numerous times because it was helping her rest to do so, and she was otherwise lying awake whimpering in pain. 

I am not taking it personally or anything, but I feel like I can't figure out what I did or didn't do.  I keep replaying my interactions with this person and I can't make anything out.  I know this is common, but it kind of sucks when it happens anyway.

The night after, though (but before I was told about this patient's complaint) I cared for a young guy who had had an excruciatingly painful surgery.  Several times that night we kept needing to change his pain medications around to give him some semblance of control.  I felt awful because apparently pain service hadn't been able to come see him after his surgery and at the hospital, pain service is 9 to 5, so the pain control was left up to us bumbling nurses and neurosurgery residents (not that we're not good at it, but this was a complex case and this guy had been seen at the pain clinic on an outpatient basis before his surgery).  I apologized to him lots of times about the pain service issue and the fact that he wasn't getting decent pain control.  He told me at the end of the night I was the best nurse he had had ever in all his hospital experiences.  Which was awesome to hear, considering I was about to get ambushed for being a bitchy nurse to my other patient before.  So. weird.

The corollary to having nine days off in a row....

Is apparently nine or so days of utter and complete hell. 

Friday: work night shift 7p-7a

Saturday: work night shift 7p-7a

Sunday: Day "off" but weird one because I got home at 9 am

Monday: go to training for new job, 8a-4:30p

Tuesday: go to training for new job, 8a-4:30p

Wednesday: go to training for new job, 8a-4:30p

Thursday: go to training for new job, 8a-4:30p AND work night shift 7p-7a

Friday: work night shift 7p-7a

Saturday: work night shift 7p-7a

That's 92 hours of work in ... 8 days? 9 days?  Do I give a fuck anymore? 

Whatever.  Anyway, I have six hours left to go (whispering, so as not to tempt fate) and all I have to say to this week* is: Fuck you.  Don't let the door hit you on the way out.  Suck my left nut.  Got that? 

One other thing: Shout the fuck OUT to all of my family and friends. I fucking LOVE you people. I feel like every time I was about to lose my shit completely, I would get an awesome text from someone or someone would make me laugh really hard, which was so much needed. You all rock and you absolutely collectively saved my sanity this week. I owe you guys.

I've been completely climbing the walls.  I went from posting on facebook every 3.1 days to posting 8 times about dumb shit no one cares about - and what did you guys do?  You were awesome.  You kept liking and commenting on shit.  I texted all day incessantly about dumb shit no one cares about.  You not only replied, but totally put a smile on my face every time. 

For that, I think you're all awesome.  You know who you are.

Peace out, bitches, I'm going to bed.

*(And yes, I'm aware that I set this up myself. Completely, horribly stupidly aware of that)...

Hits from last night

I had a post op guy who was just awesome. after I got him settled, and I walked in his room again, he said, "Hey, thanks for coming to my party". I laughed and said, "your party?" - because this guy was thus far not confused at all. He said, "yeah - all you guys keep coming up in here asking me my name, and asking me what my birthday is, it's kind of like people asking what your sign is, you know? And then they all ask what I'm doing here and why I came in today, and some of y'all want the whole life story."

The funny shit about that is, he's kind of right. We are so routinized and always ask people for name, date of birth, and things like that. It's funny sometimes having patients who make awesome observations.

He needed a lot of cups of ice chips. He kept saying, "you rock" every time I brought him another one. Randomly in the middle of the night after he had gotten Dilaudid, he said "you rock it better than any other white girl". I'm totally flattered!

So, I don't know whether it was that guy's Dilaudid or that guy's awesome, but I loved being his nurse. After we did his CT scan and left the room, he said, "I don't think that guy was all about our party". And he was right, the dude wasn't.

If you go someplace faking a stroke

And get admitted to the ICU, be sure you don't suddenly have PERFECTLY CLEAR speech when requesting the name of a narcotic medication. That makes you look like an idiot.

You know it's bad when you're too gross for work.

I forgot to blog about this one!

So last week, I was drinking ice water out of a plastic container. These things are used for everything in my unit, from holding supplies on tables/organization to carrying around urine. So... as noted before, it was new grad week. One of them paused in mid sentence and looked at me with huge eyes and asked, "Are you drinking out of a PEE thing?". I laughed - a pee thing? And I said yeah, although it's obviously not a used one.

The following conversation ensued:

New grad: You should go get an actual specimen cup and fill it with apple juice or something, now that would REALLY freak someone out.

Me, laughing: Yeah, like during report in the morning?

New grad: Totally!

Some of the other nurses thought this was funny, too and they were all laughing.

Me: I could also add some sugar so it looks all sedimented and cloudy.

Everyone else: silent, then EWWWW!

Me: Wow. I just grossed out a pack of ICU nurses. I don't know whether to be ashamed or really proud.

ZOMBIES!

So, yesterday I had to go to the hospital where I'm getting my second job, for more paperwork/bullshit. (this is the 7th time I've been up there for stuff like this, for those keeping track). I had my kids with me, since they can sometimes act decent enough for me to stick them in a hospital coffee shop for a few minutes while I run to the paperwork office and get stuff done. Anyway, we're walking along and run into a sign like this. While I'm asking where there is an ATM (since of COURSE when I'm going with both unruly-ass kids, they can't POSSIBLY have any spaces open in the designated HR use parking spaces, which are free for 2 hours - so I ultimately had to park in the expensive patient lot on level LXZ in row 888).

I noticed the kids were pretty fixated on this sign and were laughing and pointing. Obviously I see stuff like this every day at work, so it doesn't even occur to me that it would be funny under any circumstance. So I stepped closer to listen to their conversation.

Older kid: "That lady looks like a zombie with her hands like that!"

Younger kid: "That guy looks like a zombie, too. What is this poster about? Do you have zombies in the hospital, Mommy?"

Me, laughing: "No, that's a poster about strokes. It's when someone walks funny and has slurred speech, and their arms droop, it means something happened to their brain. It's called a stroke."

Older kid: "No, that sounds like they're turning into a zombie, too. Come on mom, 'something's happening to their brain?' that sounds like code for ZOMBIES!".

Me: "It does."

Younger kid: "You DO have zombies in the hospital, Mommy! Is THAT what you mean by taking care of sick people?"

Older kid: "Oh, and you're supposed to call 911 when this happens. So I'll have to remember that. If you see Zombies, tell them there's someone having a stroke."

I didn't even tell them that people ALSO can drool a lot when they have a stroke. That would have just added to their incredulity. I might have to tell them that later...

Best.compliment.ever

There was a telltale group of nervous looking younger ladies in clean, pressed scrubs. It didn't occur to me, but a friend of mine and silly night shift buddy went up and asked if they were the new grads. I said "Ohhh, new grads! Makes so much sense". She turned to me and said "This is Nurse Geek. She's up to no good" (sidebar: incriminating details removed, the same reason I don't put pictures on this site). Without missing a beat, I replied, "If all you people even knew the half of it...". Sometimes I have some really good one liners after, say, 4 am or so. I wish I kept that talent throughout the day, because most of the rest of the day I feel completely unlively and positively boring in comparison.

When I first started in the ICU, (probably a week kind of like this one, when I had about zero sleep on board) I said something kind of stupid to one of the PAs (Physician Assistants) that works with us. She was talking about how she was at a party with a lot of the nurses, and she brought a boyfriend. About halfway through the party he remarked that there are a lot of nurses here, do they hate you because you're a PA? At that point, sleep deprived and lacking caution and any kind of filter, I piped up, "You should have been like, 'no, they hate me because I'm a bitch!'". Because I really do make little quips like that all the time, and anyone who knows me would just say "I know, you all hate my bitchiness, I don't even belong here with the rest of you bitches" or something and it would be something we'd all laugh at. Well, not this one. She just stared at me, clearly not seeing the humor. I said something like how that sounded much funnier in my head than in real life.

Funniest thing? This lady and I are really good friends now at work and she has NEVER mentioned it. Ha. Did she forget, or did she later realize that saying stuff like that is just what I do? No idea.

(enjoying my first of nine days off, catching up on my lack of...bloggage? bloggery?)

My locomotion is discombobulated!

Definitely the quote of my night. Admitted an older gentleman, a southerner, who said that when asked why he ended up in the hospital. He was freaking ADORABLE. Somehow I love the old men. Husband jokes that I am going to up and leave him one day for a guy who's 90 with the gross yellow toenails and good arm veins. Clearly he just doesn't understand.

So this guy kept ringing the call bell and I went in there. He said "I need to get back to bed". WTF? it's six am, you are totally in bed. Where I work, that'll earn you a roll belt. My other guy ALREADY had a roll belt. So last night I was just running from room to room putting little old men back in bed. In between doing stuff like running to CT and giving platelets and doing entire volumes of paperwork. The guy I didn't talk much about? Good lord. Whenever he wanted anything he would SHAKE HIS EVD POLE. Which is kind of as useful as poking a sharp stick around in your eye a bunch of times.

I really have no idea how the ICU karma knows when you're about to have a long sequence of days off. But somehow my last shift before vacation is ALWAYS full of crazy shit. It's like an ICU prophecy.

OFF FOR NINE - count 'em, nine! - DAYS!

Weekly update? Yearly? Oh well...

So I've made it two years. Someone apparently thinks I'm good enough at this job that I should be allowed to teach the new grads. I hope it's someone who is familiar enough with my irreverant sense of humor that they don't get upset when I laugh at things I'm not supposed to laugh at.

I start a new job soon, but only PRN (defined as working at least 2 nights per month or so). It's in a unit that is VERY different and uses technologies and such that we never use on my ICU. I'm terrified because they only give us three nights of orientation. THREE nights.

I've transitioned to nights only. For a long time it was weekends only, (Friday, Saturday, Sunday nights) because I was homeschooling my kids for the year. Next month they go back to public school, and they are all excited and so am I. So now I'm sticking with nights only, but I get to be off more weekends! Hells yeah.

Part of this is because I can't stand the people who work day shift in my ICU. Part of it is that I do better at night - less people around, less management, more independence. So, a number of things.

I'm looking at starting a program next year for grad school if I can put away enough money from my PRN job. I'm planning to have them deposit my checks into an account I don't use that's not connected to my regular checking account. I really hope that works out for me and it's not just a stupid bullshit strategy. I feel like whenever I work overtime I just spend the extra money away as quickly as possible. The idea of never going to grad school in this is really scary and sad for me - but the idea of not having enough money to, you know, live on and send my kids to school - that freaks me out too. My oldest is going to be 14 next month, so it's not a faroff concern either.