Am I a failure

You should request a stress debriefing even if it is one on one with your manager. Your company also have a hotline that may be able to help you too. This is a stressful event for you and it needs to be addressed. Address it before you decide to quit or let your job performance suffer.

Take a breath, my friend, you did just fine.

I'm going to be really honest with you, this horse was well out of the barn at word go. Really.

Look, a rapid response is going to get more eyes on the situation, but unless you have orders and something that is actually correctable by external intervention, like labs, tube placement, etc, you would still be in the same situation. At least in my facility, an RR call does not = a surgeon at the bedside. Just sayin'.

And for pity's sake, you were in constant contact with the doc and followed his orders. So long as you documented same, you are all good.

From the surgical standpoint, often times in some of these belly cases, when we open, we find that there has been something a brewin' for some time. Ceacal Volvulus and many things bowel can be one of them. But like so many things (::cough:: sepsis ::cough:: , it can take a bit to marinate, if you will, but when it goes bad, it goes ugly.

Sometimes !@#% happens. In great quantity. All over our shoes. And try as we might, we can't fix everyone but we can sure as shoot give it our best shot.

Sounds to me like you gave it your all. Make peace with that. Get a sandwich (May I recommend turkey on rye with bacon, lettuce, tomato and onion? Perhaps some dijon mayo?), snuggle your favorite critter (whether four or two legged), and keep on keepin' on.

Cheers,

~~CP~~

Try to learn some stress management..it will be a very long career if you fret over every patient. Sometimes no matter how hard you try they get very sick. You did a great job!

No, you are not a failure. From your post it sounds like you did everything you were supposed to do.

Sometimes things go wrong even when everything is done right. As nurses we often believe that we should be able to fix everything, but that isn't reality. Some things are beyond our control. You kept the physician advised, and the physician gave you appropriate orders, which you carried out. Even if the outcome is negative, your actions weren't.

OP - With such a large membership here on AN, chances are good that some of your colleagues are AN members also. PLEASE do not divulge such specific information on a patient - this opens the door for a HIPAA complaint against you.

As for the situation you have described, I agree that it appears you were actively advocating for your patient. Depending on your own internal 'learning' from this experience, I wouldn't be surprised if you act much more strongly and decisively in the future... initiating RRT, escalating requests if attending does not respond adequately, etc. Experiences like this can turn us into Ninja Nurses... going to the mat for our patients and refusing to accept anything less from others.