Meltdown moment...when was yours?

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So as a new nurse, I officially had my meltdown moment yesterday. I had high hopes for the day since I had the same patients the previous day and thought I knew what to expect. Boy was I wrong. Here's what was happening when I had my meltdown: one patients BP was dropping, 80's/40's, lethargic, difficult to arouse, another patient was getting prepped to receive 2 units of PRBCs and blood bank called to say they were sending the blood (they never work that fast, and patient was not yet premedicated), and I was about to get started on paperwork to discharge a pt when the ambulance showed up for him-half an hour early, and this guy had lots of discharge instructions. Everything hit me and I was done. Now I am laughing at it, but believe me it was not funny at the time. So what was your meltdown moment? How long were you in nursing at the time?

Specializes in ortho/neuro/general surgery.

Around 1 year experience, 7 primaries 11-7 ortho/medsurg. One pt was severely DD and needed a new PEG. General surgeon had attempted replacement unsuccessfully and was going to do it next day.

PEG currently in place can't be used at all, pt needs sz meds but no IV equivalent to her specific med available and pharmacy had known this since 5 pm. Report takes nearly an hour and before I'm even able to swing on my stethoscope, the pt's caregiver is on the phone ripping me a new one because she hasn't gotten a replacement IV sz med.

I call pharmacy to see if they have a replacement, they state this med only comes in liquid and I needed to get a different order. I call the surgeon ASAP and he rips me a new one even worse for about 20 minutes because the order was written at 1700 to replace med with IV equivalent and even though I just came on and had nothing to do with it before now and had no idea why it hadn't been dealt with 7 hours earlier.

Then when I hung up, the nursing supervisor called and asked what was going on because the caregiver had called her all ****** off, too. As soon as I heard her voice, I started bawling. She came up to my unit and helped me calm down :redbeathe and dealt with pharmacy/doc herself. We ended up giving the pt her liquid med rectally.

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Specializes in Level III NICU.

Well, one time sticks out in my head right now and I still get teased about it. I was about 1.5 years into my career at that point, and we were pretty busy. I had 4 babies, but probably should've had only 2 or 3 of them. One was a s/p myelomeningocele repair baby (2 or 3 days post-op), one was a chronic belly kid with an ileostomy, and the other two were feeder-growers. I think. I was so busy with the other two that I don't even remember. I'm running around all night, the chronic belly kid just cries and cries all night long and I'm doing the best I can to keep him quiet. But when he got worked up and was hysterical crying, he would kick his legs and would often manage to kick his ostomy bag right off. I must've changed it and the bed 5 times that night. I've got coworkers helping me, holding the baby whenever anyone had a free minute. Oh, and of course, his parents and the parents of the myelomeningocele baby don't speak English and there wasn't anyone working that spoke Spanish.

I finally get to take my first and only break around 2 am. I didn't bring anything to eat that night, so I go downstairs to buy a sandwich. I get back up to the breakroom, walk in and immediately trip and drop my sandwich on the floor. It lands facedown, so I just pick it up and toss it right in the trash. Of course, the breakroom is full. I just turn around and go rushing through the unit towards the locker room crying. On the way, I pass my 3 good friends. I'm in there having my little meltdown and one of my friends came in to see what my problem was. She thought that something serious was wrong, like with one of my babies or something. She asks me what's up, and all I could get out between sobs is, "I dropped my sandwich on the floor!" She's like, "Um, do you want some money so you can go get another?"

I find out later on that my 3 friends argued with each other about who was going to go and see what was wrong with me. They sent the one with teenage daughters in.

Looking back, it's really funny, but that night it wasn't. It certainly wasn't the worst night I've ever had at work, but usually when the poop is hitting the fan I can keep my cool. I've had some real doozies while being in charge, but I've been told by my coworkers that they never really know if I'm freaking out.

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Specializes in Psych, Assertive Community Resource Team.
Dear Jelli Belli....I am just starting with prerquisites. You have completley horrified me! As I read your post I was actually laughing out loud because of the insanity of your whole situation...but when I stopped laughing....I began shaking in my shoes.....please tell me this is NOT typical....

Oh honey, so sorry! No this is not, I repeat, NOT normal. If it was I believe I would have to look for a new job. Thankfully my unit is actually usually very well staffed. We usually have 2-3 licensed staff and 2 techs for 12 patients. Not to shabby!

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
i was hoping someone else laughed at that! i love you, ruby! can we just have a forum that is your stories? you tell them so well, in such detail - i feel like i'm there! and you make them always professional and funny!

jess

why, thank you! i'm so flattered!

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

i'd have paid to have seen it, no matter who decked whom.

that would probably have ended my nursing career, right there. just as soon as they pried my hands from around the nurse manager's neck.

you're a better woman than i am, ruby!

i've seen a few fights between physicians -- and you're right, it is pretty entertaining, as long as you're a safe distance away. (but that's another story!)

i don't know if i'm a better woman than anyone -- usually calling your boss a "f***ing idiot" is a mistake. i only got away with it because the medical director of the unit happened to be nearby and set the manager straight!

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My meltdown moment came about 2 weeks after I got my license. I was working as a nurse on the same psychiatric unit that I had worked on as a tech through school. Actually I was still orienting (I had about 3 weeks to go). There was a really big snowstorm and the two other nurses I was supposed to work with called in. So I show up after fighting to get there through the storm and it is just me and the tech for the night. The day shift nurse tells me that the hospital is so short on nurses and the best they could do was send an LPN from the float pool to help with meds, but she has never worked our unit and never done psych before. Oh and guess what, I am charge nurse. :banghead:I start freaking out already saying I can't be charge, I'm still on orientation. I really considered quitting right then and there before I even took report, but I didn't because I really like my job and unit.

Okay so i psych myself up, saying "It's going to be okay, you can do this." And it probably would have fine if that night wouldn't have been sent straight from hell to test me. Turns out I am walking into the 7 patient we already have, plus I have 2 brand new admits one from 1820, and 1840, and there was an admit that came at 1400 that no one had even started on. So I have three admissions, 2 who are fairly stable and frequent fliers, and one who is crying so loud you can hear her through the glass partition in the nurses station and before I can even go out to talk to her to calm her down, I get a call from the ER saying that the police have brought in an Emergency Detention patient and that they are on there way up in the elevator and "Oh, by the way, he is in straps and you probably will need to keep him that way." :no:

So I hurry to get out there to meet him, grab the tech, and the police help us get this guy restrained in a seclusion room. So I am hurring back to the nurses station to call the doc to get Ativan for the sobber, Haldol for the restrained guy, and call my supervisor to get a tech to sit 1:1 for the restrained guy. Before I make it there a patient stops me and says she is having chest pain so I take her B\P and it is through the roof, like 180\100, or something. So I go in the nurses station, close the door, ask the secretary to page the psychiatrist, the CP ladies MD, and the supervisor, and then I start sobbing. I just felt so overwhelmed I couldn't stop crying.:bluecry1:

So of course this is the time the supervisor arrives, sees me crying and freaking out, and instead of staying and offering to help, she goes back to her office and calls my unit manager and tells her I can't handle it as charge nurse.:madface:

It all worked out in the end though, I got my extra tech. Thank God the tech I was working with was really good, she did so much to keep the milieu together and work on the admission paperwork.:bowingpur I got orders for everyone and CP lady got better with a little attention and Nitro. Everyone got medicated, and went to sleep.

We made through the night, nobody died and all the paperwork got done. Unfortunately, none of the patient got the attention they deserved but you can only do what you can do. It really was one of those nights that makes you question your career choice.

Are you serious? I would never ever allow to put myself in charge of 7 pts and do 3 admissions and delegate to a new LPN and a tech when I am in my second week of orientation. NEVER! No matter what kind of weather or family emergency or whatever... I would not consider a possibility of putting my patients and myself in a jeopardy.

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Specializes in Operating Room Nursing.

I had a meltdown moment last year when i rotated through the Plastics theatres.

I rocked up and my patient was already on the table. The nurse who was there said here is your patient and walked out. They were having craniofacial surgery, there was no sterile extras, no instrument trays absolutely nothing was prepared for the five cases that day. The first patient should not have been allowed to enter the room unless the basic equipment was available. The other nurse i worked with that day had less theatre experience than me and was happy to do nothing while i ran around with the preference card trying to get as much equipment as i could. I had no idea where to find stuff, what we were doing. We took it in turns scrubbing and we were both yelled at because we did not know the instrumentation, how to deal with plates and screws and the whole day just fell apart. I called the team leader and was told that they couldn't do anything, they were short staffed and that they had spoken with the surgeons and told them to be nice to us because we were new.

In the middle of the day when i was being told off yet again i yelled at the surgeon (head of the unit) that he was being rude, can't you tell that we are doing our best here , and don't you dare say one more negative word to either of us! I range the Team Leader again in tears and told her that she needs to send someone in here right away.

The person they sent was another new person and so the day went on. In the end I wrote an incident report about the entire day, risk to patient safety, treatment by the surgeons, lack of support etc. I also phoned the nurses union and in the end received an apology.

A couple of weeks later they tried the same thing on me again. I threatened to go home sick as i could not cope with this sort of stress.

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Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.

I had a meltdown a few months ago. I was taking care of an elderly woman whose husband could be very rude to the staff. The day nurse told me that the patient was going to have a PICC line placed because she was unable to get peripheral line placed.

When I explained to the husband that the PICC team was only in the hospital from 9-5 and that I would have to attempt a peripheral IV because the patient needed her antibiotics and heparin drip because she had DVTs, he was infuriated and called me various names. Needless to say, I stepped out of the room and went to the stockroom and cried.

To make matters worse, management called me on my phone and asked me rudely "Whats going on?" because the husband was now in the office complaining about me.

Anyhow, the PA on the floor calmed me down, took me back to the room and helped me get two periperhal IVs. Heparin gtt was restarted after being off for 5 hours and patient was given her antibiotics.

Explained to the husband and the patient's adult children that the PICC line was ordered but the PICC line team who places the line was not in the hospital after 5pm. The line was ordered at 6pm. The day shift nurse never bothered to explain that to the family.

In the end, the husband and other family did apologize to me and requested that I take care of the patient the following nights that I worked., but that day shift nurse sure got an earful the next day when she came in.

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Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.
then my nurse manager came in and announced "this place looks like hell! couldn't you have at least cleaned up after yourselves?"

that was a meltdown moment! (12 or 13 years of experience)

ruby, if my nurse manager came in after a night like that and said that to me, i would surely have been fired.

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

How ironic; I just had a meltdown last week at work.

This is rather embarrassing to admit, but I suffer from seasonal affective disorder and this winter has been particularly trying, what with cold, snow, rain, wind, and gray skies literally for weeks on end. I've also been working too doggone hard, putting in way too many hours, not sleeping well, worrying about staffing etc. Then my administrator decided to re-admit a resident from SNF whose family is a ginormous PITA, and who still needed constant attention and two- or three-person transfers when incontinent of stool, which was at least three times a day............and she went off to a gerontology conference and left me to deal with all of it.

So, last Friday came; it was payday, and of course I had to run the staff meeting too on top of everything else. I got about four words into the inservice materials when staff started bombarding me with questions about how to deal with this resident, and immediately realized that they---and I---were in no mood to sit through a dry lecture on the principles of assisted living THAT day. So I opened the floor to staff, but not before I shot off my mouth about how my nursing judgment had been overruled in the case of this resident, whom I had deemed inappropriate for re-admission to ALF due to her high acuity and our staffing inadequacies.

Well, that was obviously the wrong thing to do, but I was at my wits' end and it was all I could do not to burst into tears. Fortunately, my boss IS an understanding person, and she apologized to me later for going over my head the way she did, and I apologized for blowing my cool at the staff meeting. I knew it was unprofessional even as I was unloading, but I just couldn't shut up!

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i've seen a few fights between physicians -- and you're right, it is pretty entertaining, as long as you're a safe distance away. (but that's another story!)

i don't know if i'm a better woman than anyone -- usually calling your boss a "f***ing idiot" is a mistake. i only got away with it because the medical director of the unit happened to be nearby and set the manager straight!

we actually had one psychiatrist attempt to baker act (involuntarily commitment) another at our facility. apparently they got into a fairily heated arguement. i didn't see it, but most of the other staff still recounts the story several years later. :chuckle

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Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.
We actually had one psychiatrist attempt to baker act (involuntarily commitment) another at our facility. Apparently they got into a fairily heated arguement. I didn't see it, but most of the other staff still recounts the story several years later. :chuckle

Alright now that is hilarious. He actually tried to commit another doc? LOL:yeah::yeah::yeah::yeah:

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