I loved reading the other posts (neuro, pediatric, general nursing). I thought that we in the ICUs/CCUs could come up with a good list too.... I'll start it off with what I can think of off the top of my head... (I'm in CVICU for nights so mine might have that flavor to it...)
-Your heart transplant comes back bleeding, with an open chest and 4 chest tubes and your first thought is, "it's just a flesh wound!"
-Your ECG leads come off, giving the illusion of asystole. When your co-workers get to the room, you wink and say, "gotcha!"
-You have a sixth sense of when your post-op patient is going to wake up and reach for the ETT
-At least 50 times a night you say, "you're in the hospital- you just had heart surgery"
-Say it with me, "it's like breathing through a straw!"
-Before you even get to your room for report, you pick up some macrobore tubing, a liter of lactated ringers, normal saline and blood tubing on the way
-You alphabetize your drips
-You have figured out a way to arrange a Swan-Ganz catheter to look downright pretty
-You have seriously considered giving yourself an IV coffee bolus before
-Your first introduction to a patient was your hand in their groin holding pressure and you asking, "Sooo... how're you doing today?"
-For cheap entertainment, you bring your co-workers down to gawp at the completely apneic ECMO patient up in the chair
-You and your co-workers have considered recording an album, entitling it "Ventilators, VADs and Moans - Sirenic Sounds of the ICU"
