Hell Week (Vent)

leslie :-D · Apr 24, 2005

hey sweetie,

i don't think there's one nurse here on the forum that hasn't had weeks like what you describe, yet somehow, you get through it. thank God weeks like this are the exception and not the rule. but yes, they burn you out at both ends of the candle. if this continued on an ongoing basis, you just couldn't do it. but that is not the case and you did it. your body and mind are showing the effects of the chaotic events- but you did it.

from what i've read on this board, there are nurses that work under these type of conditions qd, q week 24/7 when they're on the clock. everyone has a limit. and when you reach real burnout, then pt care suffers. you just cannot work like this on an ongoing basis-it's a lose/lose situation.

so chill, relax, and thank the Lord that this is the first post you've ever had to vent about. and also keep in mind, the posts you've written when life as a nurse has been perfect. that in itself, should hold your sanity.

now go soak those feet.

leslie xo

Long Term Care Columnist / Guide · Apr 24, 2005

Leslie, you are a treasure..........thank you for putting things into perspective. :kiss

lifesaverwv · Apr 24, 2005

Hi,

Keep your chin up little buckaroo :) I can totally relate to how you are feeling. I hate being over whelmed to the point that I don't know what to do first. Paper work consumes too much of our time & we don't have a chance to really spend time with our pts like we would like to. As we all know because of insurances being stricter about who gets adm. to the hosp. we are getting sicker pts.

I,ve been a nurse for 33 years & I don't know how much longer I can work because of the arthritis in my knees (putting off total knees as long as possible) after being at work for several hours my back hurts & I have trouble getting up from the desk to go do pt. care due to the pain & stiffness in my knees. I also need to lose wt but that's easier said than done. Anyway, enough of my whining. I hope that next week is better for you

Long Term Care Columnist / Guide · Apr 24, 2005

Me, too! Of course, I'm only working two days next week due to my scheduled kidney-stone surgery on Wednesday.......I need a vacation to be sure, but recuperating at home with stents in both ureters and having twin blowtorches racing up my back each time I go to pee, isn't exactly how I'd envisioned it :chuckle

ValerieB · Apr 24, 2005

And it's not even a full moon yet.........
I'm sooooooo glad it's Saturday!! This past week has literally been the week from Hell at work.......every single day we've been bombarded with admission after admission, most of them coming after 3PM when we lose at least one nurse and two aides. :stone It's been completely insane.......seems like half the elderly population has come down with either pneumonia or small-bowel obstruction, and half the younger population wound up in MVAs. These have all been days when you could put 20 staff members out there and it wouldn't be enough.........not when you've got a septic MR/DD pt. (with a mental age of 18 months) crashing in one room and a new admit who's been over-anticoagulated to the point where he'll bleed out if you so much as breathe on him in another, along with a terminal CA pt. with brain mets who's crawling out of bed and a discharge who wants to go home five minutes ago.
It's one thing when you have ONE shift like this, but an entire WEEK?? Thank God I got to float yesterday and spent the entire shift in OB-GYN, where I was busy but not overwhelmed with two couplets and a fresh post-hysterectomy patient. I heard it was bad on my 'home' floor though, and I felt bad for them because everyone was just as tired and grumpy as I was, and yet they still had to soldier on while I enjoyed relative peace and quiet in the Women's Center.
These are the (rare) times when I find myself seriously questioning my sanity and wondering how much longer my body is going to hold out under these conditions. Some days, I don't even get to lunch until three or four in the afternoon, and the rest of my breaks just never happen even though I'm supposed to take them. My back aches; my feet and legs complain all night after a bad shift; I'm not sleeping well; I'm almost always tired. (Granted, I need to lose a lot of weight, though I already feel better now after two weeks of eating higher-quality foods and having lost eight pounds.) But on days like the four I've had at work this week, I think to myself that I'm getting too old for this $h*^.......even if I weighed 100 pounds sopping wet, I'd still be exhausted.
Why does nursing have to be so punishing sometimes? I love med/surg, and I know the working conditions at my hospital are among the best anywhere; still, I wish I didn't go home so often in pain from running for a solid 8 or 9 hours, feeling like I did a lousy job even though I know I did the best I could. Sometimes I'm happy just to have made it through the shift with my meds given on time and my paperwork done---hardly what I'd call a satisfying day. It's frustrating when I can't give the kind of care that I take pride in because there's too many conflicting things going on at one time, like an admit and a post-op and a move-out from ICU who all come within minutes of each other, and I spend half the shift just trying to get caught up on paperwork and meds rather than actually taking care of the patient.
I cannot imagine for the life of me how some of you manage to take care of 7, 8, 9 or more patients........some days it's all I can do to keep up with four, while other days I could manage six, but certainly no more than that, and not without CNA assistance. It's relatively easy to deal with three or four on my own as long as they're not 2-person, total care pts......I can certainly do my own vitals, fingersticks and I&Os, but when I have a team which includes a LOL who needs to be pottied every half-hour, a diabetic who gets hourly blood sugars (we're now doing some insulin drips on the floor ), and a couple of 'close observation' patients, like the demented gentleman I had last week who'd get OOB and traipse down the hall naked if I turned my back on him for five minutes........well, it just makes for a really hard day.
So how DO those of you who take care of twice that many patients, or even more, do it? I like to think I'm a pretty decent nurse, but I get discouraged when I come home every night for an entire week feeling completely drained and hurting in places I didn't know I even had. It's time like these that I have to keep saying "I love my job, I love my job, I love my job", when I've actually had it up to here with my job and want nothing more than to run away to some faraway place where nobody knows I'm a nurse, where I don't hear my name called 15,000 times a day, where I don't get paged on my lunch break (when I can get one, that is), and where I don't have to explain HIPAA over and over again (don't people read the freakin' NEWSPAPER anymore??!).
OK, I feel better now. I really do love my work.......but once in a while, the job really sucks. :stone

I hear ya sister! My thoughts exactly. There are days when I don't eat at all for 12 hours. You get so that you can't even enoy eating your lunch because you're thinking about all the crap you still have to do and be able to leave at a decent time. I love my job too and I can't imagine doing anything else right now. HIPPA? The people that need to sign it are the people that actually handle the confidential information. I can't tell you how many doctor's offices I've been in and I know what people are there for and what insurance they have. It is such a joke.

We all just need to hang in there with each other because we've all been there.

live4today, RN · Apr 24, 2005

((((((marla)))))) :balloons: been there, done those days and it aint over yet. :rotfl: vent all you want. we truly know your pain. :icon_hug: here....have a beer...let's cheer ya tonight!:cheers:

meownsmile, BSN, RN · Apr 24, 2005

Yep,, i think weve all had them.. one bite at a time. Thats all you can do.

Long Term Care Columnist / Guide · Apr 24, 2005

Thanks, folks...........I swear, weeks like this one are almost enough to make me take up drinking again, but never fear, I'm sticking to Diet Coke---at least until I get my kidney stones out. :rolleyes:

mysticalwaters1 · Apr 24, 2005

Yea I've only been working for just about 2 years and had those weeks. I hear you and it stinks then sometimes it's great. I don't get that either that we used to be 1:6 nurse/pt ratio and JUST as I got a good handle on it now we get up to 1:7 with sometimes several discharges and admissions. Pt's are being shoved out to let others in and they are all so sick and get lots of people from ICU. ONe thing ticking me off lately is the md's not puting or discussing dnr status with the pts or even the pts themselves not making a decision or even if they do know won't talk to the doctor and putting the nurse in the middle it's driving me bonkers!!! Maybe those ones don't know for sure and don't tell the md then start discussing with the nurse which is fine to ask us about it but they have to talk to the md. I feel so stuck. But i've allways wondered how some care for up to 8-9 pts on a morning or 3-11 shift I can't see it happening! I'm on a resp/medical surgical floor and i think we get the most pts that need you at the bedside that can't go anywhere on their own or are total care pts because anyone that floats can't seem to stand it plus we have tons of meds since most are over 75 years old. But I do know one thing is that i'm not alone that other nurses that have come from facilities that have a 1:8 ratio are having a hard time with 1:7 ratio so I don't get it! They've never really explained it to me i don't know why. Anyway hope next week is better it all goes up and down!

SmilingBluEyes · Apr 24, 2005

Marla, you are one strong person. (that is such an under-statement I know). But, I stand back and berate myself when I complain, thinking of all you deal with and how you always handle things with grace. Your plate is always full. I know you are in a lot of pain, physically, too, with the kidney stone issu, on top of all this.

Remember: Your gift is your kindness and strength and you radiate those even here online for all of us to see. I will be thinking of you this week and hoping after your litho is over, things really start to look up. Hang in there, girly.

Judee Smudee, ADN, RN · Apr 24, 2005

My facility just set a med/surg record for me. I had 12 patients last evening. Worst patient to nurse ratio I ever worked with on 3-11. I have been complaining about 10 patients and I guess they figured they would fix my wagon. Seriously thinking about retiring folks, maybe yesterday. :angryfire

And it's not even a full moon yet.........
I'm sooooooo glad it's Saturday!! This past week has literally been the week from Hell at work.......every single day we've been bombarded with admission after admission, most of them coming after 3PM when we lose at least one nurse and two aides. :stone It's been completely insane.......seems like half the elderly population has come down with either pneumonia or small-bowel obstruction, and half the younger population wound up in MVAs. These have all been days when you could put 20 staff members out there and it wouldn't be enough.........not when you've got a septic MR/DD pt. (with a mental age of 18 months) crashing in one room and a new admit who's been over-anticoagulated to the point where he'll bleed out if you so much as breathe on him in another, along with a terminal CA pt. with brain mets who's crawling out of bed and a discharge who wants to go home five minutes ago.
It's one thing when you have ONE shift like this, but an entire WEEK?? Thank God I got to float yesterday and spent the entire shift in OB-GYN, where I was busy but not overwhelmed with two couplets and a fresh post-hysterectomy patient. I heard it was bad on my 'home' floor though, and I felt bad for them because everyone was just as tired and grumpy as I was, and yet they still had to soldier on while I enjoyed relative peace and quiet in the Women's Center.
These are the (rare) times when I find myself seriously questioning my sanity and wondering how much longer my body is going to hold out under these conditions. Some days, I don't even get to lunch until three or four in the afternoon, and the rest of my breaks just never happen even though I'm supposed to take them. My back aches; my feet and legs complain all night after a bad shift; I'm not sleeping well; I'm almost always tired. (Granted, I need to lose a lot of weight, though I already feel better now after two weeks of eating higher-quality foods and having lost eight pounds.) But on days like the four I've had at work this week, I think to myself that I'm getting too old for this $h*^.......even if I weighed 100 pounds sopping wet, I'd still be exhausted.
Why does nursing have to be so punishing sometimes? I love med/surg, and I know the working conditions at my hospital are among the best anywhere; still, I wish I didn't go home so often in pain from running for a solid 8 or 9 hours, feeling like I did a lousy job even though I know I did the best I could. Sometimes I'm happy just to have made it through the shift with my meds given on time and my paperwork done---hardly what I'd call a satisfying day. It's frustrating when I can't give the kind of care that I take pride in because there's too many conflicting things going on at one time, like an admit and a post-op and a move-out from ICU who all come within minutes of each other, and I spend half the shift just trying to get caught up on paperwork and meds rather than actually taking care of the patient.
I cannot imagine for the life of me how some of you manage to take care of 7, 8, 9 or more patients........some days it's all I can do to keep up with four, while other days I could manage six, but certainly no more than that, and not without CNA assistance. It's relatively easy to deal with three or four on my own as long as they're not 2-person, total care pts......I can certainly do my own vitals, fingersticks and I&Os, but when I have a team which includes a LOL who needs to be pottied every half-hour, a diabetic who gets hourly blood sugars (we're now doing some insulin drips on the floor ), and a couple of 'close observation' patients, like the demented gentleman I had last week who'd get OOB and traipse down the hall naked if I turned my back on him for five minutes........well, it just makes for a really hard day.
So how DO those of you who take care of twice that many patients, or even more, do it? I like to think I'm a pretty decent nurse, but I get discouraged when I come home every night for an entire week feeling completely drained and hurting in places I didn't know I even had. It's time like these that I have to keep saying "I love my job, I love my job, I love my job", when I've actually had it up to here with my job and want nothing more than to run away to some faraway place where nobody knows I'm a nurse, where I don't hear my name called 15,000 times a day, where I don't get paged on my lunch break (when I can get one, that is), and where I don't have to explain HIPAA over and over again (don't people read the freakin' NEWSPAPER anymore??!).
OK, I feel better now. I really do love my work.......but once in a while, the job really sucks. :stone