Describe your hairiest day at work...

bethin · Oct 18, 2006

Worked 11a-11p on med/surg. Not my normal shift.

Walk in with 28 pts, one aide (me) and three nurses. Do the math. It wasn't pretty. No baths had been done, no turns, nothing had been done. At 1100 nurses were still passing morning meds. I figured in my head that I could give 10 mins to each complete care on the floor. I think we had 6. Got a few done and then lunch trays came. Took me 30 mins to pass trays. Then another hour to pick them up. Wasn't done with lunch until 1315. Said screw baths, I've got to do I&O's by 1430. Did I&O's, finishing at 1700. Passed supper trays, done with supper at 1830. Needed to get vitals and start PM care. Had a code that lasted an hour. Came out of room and said screw PM care. Did vitals. Did I&O's again. Charted vitals. Three admits at the same time. Took 45 mins. Oooops, gotta pee. Nope, don't have time. 5 call lights going off. Head for the br. Nurse stops me and asks me to help turn her pts. Finally I get to pee. It's now 2300 and I can go home if I didn't have to chart baths, turns, chart I&O's for 2 shifts, chart anything that I need in nurses notes such as walks, complaints, etc. Have to chart how many bed rails are up on each pt, if I refreshed their water pitcher (remember, if it isn't charted it didn't happen). I think I left there at 2 or 3 in the morning because night shift saw an aide sitting down and assumed I was theirs for the night.

I called in the next day, not because of how bad it was(I looked on schedule, 6 nurses and 3 aides) but because I had the worst migraine I have ever had.

casi, ASN, RN · Oct 21, 2006

Alright I work Assisted Living and at this time we didn’t have a nurse in the building on nocs, instead we had an on-call nurse.

Went into a resident’s room between 11p-12a and found him sitting up in a chair. No clue how he got there since he was extremely snowed for behavioral reasons. So I grabbed a wheelchair threw the resident in and took him back to bed. During this I noticed he had a bit of a cold sweat and wasn’t responding quite right. Didn’t think too much of the lack of response due to the meds. Got in him bed anyways and got VS. Respirations a bit high and BS in the 60’s (I’d seen him go lower than this). This point he’s going down fast. We start getting a call out to the on-call nurse. She doesn’t answer. Call the DON who’s always on call. She doesn’t answer. Tried the PM shift LPN who just left since she didn’t mind us calling at night because she was a bit of night owl, and she wasn’t home yet. By now the resident will only respond to me shaking him and loudly hollering at him. Wouldn’t respond to anyone else, and his respirations are between 35-40.

By now I tell a co-worker just to call 911. Instead she calls out big, non-nursing boss while I got get paperwork printed out for the medics. We finally get the medics out they get an IV of sugary goodness on the resident. A nurse finally gets a hold of us after the medics arrive and is able to talk to them. Resident perks right up and everything is good.

I was just a bit behind on my rounds and had to deal with extreme incontinence due to IV sugary goodness.

Only really good thing that happened was I poked my head in the room once resident was back to normal. He takes a look at me, grins and turns back to the medic and tells her “That’s my girl.” Made me feel good.

Needless to say after a few more instances of night shift badness and increasing needs of residents we have an LPN on nights.

25(2)+2 · Oct 23, 2006

and some people think noc shift is a walk in the park. those of us who work it know better.

meintheUSA · Jan 26, 2007

and some people think noc shift is a walk in the park. those of us who work it know better.

:roll You best bet your bottom dollar we know better... I hear all the time, "nighters can do it, they have nothing better to do, everyone's sleeping."

I WISH.... The doc decided to dc 1/2 of meds (sleeping aids, anxiety aids, mood behavior aids) on our floor right before Christmas.

Was a place from your worst nightmare.... With 38 residents, 2 aides and 1 lpn, the place was losing staff right and left. Short staffed, and of course, we have no activities, hair appts, outside appts, or extra help on 11-7. Plus the awful awful stomache flu went around also at this time. Both ends.....

Talk about staff tears and holding on to each other. Then we get a $15 gift card from management. WOW that sure helped make out holdays merrier.

The straw was, management had to help out on Christmas and New Years Eve with the floor.... Pay backs are hell... But Justice was served...LOL:balloons: :icon_wink:

Megsd, BSN, RN · Feb 1, 2007

Eight patients, working 7-3. When I got in at 7, the night nurse told me Pt A's carpet was being replaced, so she had to be out of the room by 0730 (note I was a slow new aide, so it usually takes me 15-30 minutes to get someone up). Pt did not KNOW her carpet was being replaced, and hemmed and hawed and delayed the whole getting up process by several minutes. The carpet guys arrived early and glared at me the whole time while I tried to get Pt. A out of the room. She pouted all day, refused breakfast all together, refused lunch unless I let her eat in her room (which by this point had carpet in it, but no furniture), so I wheeled her and the bedside table into the room. While she was eating lunch, the furniture guys came to reassemble her room and once again glared at me, and she refused to leave her room until she was done eating. Then she spent all day complaining about the fumes from the new carpet.

After getting A out of her room, I went to Pt B who was very resistive and refused to get up. Every time I touched her she would yell and cry. I was working with the nurse who was always on my butt and didn't take no for an answer, so she went into B's room with me to try and get her up, at which point B started gagging and throwing up. So I got to spend 5 minutes holding a big basin while my pt vomited into it. The nurse finally let her stay in bed after that.

Now it's almost time for breakfast, and I had decided to get pt C up after breakfast. Until the HUC informs me C has a beauty shop appointment at 0845 so she needs to get up NOW. So the other aides had to pass my breakfast trays (and complain about it) while I got C ready for her appointment.

By the time I went to check on Pt D, she told me she also had a beauty shop appointment at 0930, so I had to get HER up NOW.

Meanwhile, pt E has gotten her breakfast tray but I didn't have time to toast her special gluten-free roll (that we keep in our fridge) so she is marching around the hall in a button-up shirt and no pants looking for me. The other aides are laughing at her/me and not doing anything to help, and the nurse is yelling at me for letting my resident wander around without any pants on.

Lunch time rolls around. C was very tired after her beauty shop appointment and wanted to lay down, which is always a challenge because she's a two-person assist or a stand-assist lift. When I bring in her lunch tray, she tells me she needs to go to the bathroom. In the interest of time, I offer a bedpan, but when I remove her pants, she's already gone. So I had to get her up, take her to the bathroom and clean her up. And the other aides are complaining that I'm not in the dining room to help feed the other residents.

THAT was my hariest day at work.