feels like a real icu today

Published Apr 20, 2011

50 Posts

I just want to say I had the ultimate patient last night. Sometimes I feel like a terrible person because I like it when people are really sick, but I don't actually want them to be sick, right? But this guy was; one of those weird MICU pts that was healthy until he went into ARDS for apparently no reason at all, and got put on the oscillator. He was doing ok on it, and then his kidneys shut down, and he was put on hemo. He didn't tolerate that, and CVVH/CRRT was started right before my shift. Without an anti-coagulent. Duh. When I got on, I started heparin, got a bad blood gas, started nimbex, BIS and train of four, I ran like crazy, but it was really rewarding. All too often, our very sick patients are hopeless-if they live, what sort of quality of life will they have, and why are we doing this to them? But this guy was very very sick and he really had a lot to live for. I took stellar care of him, and the CVVH ran like a dream. It never does that. Then the machine malfunctioned and the HD nurse had to take it down and restart it. I was so disappointed. But it was a great night.