Wow, my third 12 hour in a row...

[Adam D. RN2005]

Got to work at at 0700 and almost immediately the fires started with a timely 0710 code red. Then the fires just started. I find out I have students taking three of my patients. (And of coorifice they are the three with the most complicated meds, this allowed me to fight the fires one at a time.)

During report, I am told one pt came into the ER with a K of 7.1 (Cardiac arrest waiting to happen. Fortunately they didn't) Down to 6.1 at report.

Okay, N/V/D pt starts vomiting at 10:00, take a look at the vomit and think that doesn't look good. Is that coffee grounds I see? Then the lab calls, with a critical value. The lab was wondering when I said, okay how high is the K. it was 6.6.

Page non-teaching, after paging non-teaching for a totally different pt. Funny, I was not expecting to page non-teaching so quickly again. (In total, I paged them 20 times for 6 different pts during the day. In fact I was the only one from the unit paging them. They knew who it was by the end of the day.)

Then I have to explain to a nursing student why I am giving a diabetic pt with normal Glucose (in the nineties) regular insulin followed by D50. It just came to me exactly what we were doing.

Once that was taken care of, back to coffee-ground pt. Bunch of MDs and one RN who have never seen coffee ground emisis before are looking at it, and guiac it. Yup its positive. So that is what coffee ground looks like. Put that fire out, then just I am getting ready to tackle some of my meds, I get an admit.

Go and take care of that in the middle of the other two fires. Have to apoligize to pt that I am just checking to make sure the pt is stable before going back to the others.

With all of the craziness, of the day, I actually found time to eat lunch, don't ask how. But I did.

By the end of the day, I have another admit, turns out, now the computers are acting up.

Then I have to start an IV on a pt with tiny veins, and I do it on the first shot!!!

Then I blow an IV on GI Bleed pt. Just a completely crazy day. I don't know how I did it. And sometimes I just amaze myself. And I did.

I did it. Now I am off tomorrow and back on Friday for OT.

And for a person who doesn't handle stress all that well, I handled it pretty well today. And my Nursemates got about 17 miles according to my pedometer, on them today. God, those little blue hearted shoes (Yes I wear nursemates, and I'm proud of it! Hey, I have to wear my heart somewhere) kept my feet nice and comfy all day.

[Birdwatcher1, RN]

Dude, what a day...you were awesome!!!! :)

(and making me very thankful to be in my quiet little oncology unit!)

4ZBirds

[SteveNNP, MSN, NP]

Isn't it great that those days happen infrequently? You know you've had a busy day when you realize in the car on the way home you haven't peed in over 18 hours. They sure go by quickly, though!

[Indy, LPN, LVN]

17 miles?! Holy smokes! You're making me want to go get a pedometer.