Crazy ICU nights...

HEEEEELLLOO evyerone!!!!!!


Well i thought it would be fun to read about some of the crazy, gross, weird, amazing, touching, horrible, ect experiences we all have gone thu in the ICU...

I'll start...

SO I work in a 22 bed MICU/SICU. I have worked there almost 3 yrs, but only been a nurse a few months. SO, this is just somemthing i had never seen before and thought it was pretty crazy. we had a pt the other week who was a full code, but would go asystole about once q30 mins for about 10-40 seconds! it was the craziest thing. he would just be beating along and then ding-ding-ding, asystole, and we would jsut watch the monitor to make sure and to see how long it would be till he came back. he did this for almost 2 weeks before he passed.
The funny part was, after one night of this we were all used to it, but we would "get" ppl who were not aware, ask them to check what the alarm was on the monitor, have them look and start to freak out as we all sit there and say , oh, no big deal... I guess we ahve a weird sense of humor

Long, (well not SO long) ago and far away, my patient, whom I'll call Wong, had a Thoratec biventricular assist device. Thoratecs were relatively new, and he was only the second patient in our facility to have one. Wong had had a minimally invasive off-pump heart surgery that had gone horribly wrong, and he was brought to our unit with the device, and a heart rhythm best described as deadly: ventricular fibrillation. After we got over the initial discomfort with the device and the squeamishness of seeing that rhythm on the monitor, it was fun to watch other people's reactions. Wong was fully medicated and totally unresponsive.

One time, I happened to be sitting at the desk right outside Wong's room when our medical director brought by a group of fourth year medical students. Winking at me, he led the students into the room, chatting casually to the effect of "this is one of our private ICU rooms. Most of our rooms are semi-private and . . . ". It was so much fun to see which medical student would look up and notice that rhythm on the monitor first and what the response would be. One girl shrieked and flipped Wong's blankets off, almost beginning CPR before someone stopped her and suggested she check for a pulse. She argued until someone DRAGGED her off the bed, and the expression when she actually felt a pulse was priceless!

Eventually, all the docs would bring around groups of students, including the Point of Care Pharmacist with his group of pharmacy students. One guy, clearly noticing the rhythm but not wanting to be the first to call attention to it kept nudging his buddies and nodding toward the monitor. His buddies were far more interested in the technology than the patient until my boss (encouraged, I must admit, by me) rushed into the room and shouted "OH MY GOD! He's in V FIB!" The newbies blanched and froze until I came in nonchalantly and said, "Oh, yeah. That's his normal rhythm, " then busied myself fluffing pillows.