VENT!

I am sooo over my first RN job. I work at a long term care facility and usually I like it, but when an emergency pops up, I am reminded of how few resources there are.

So I walk into a patient's room to give meds and my spidey-senses go off. She doesn't look right - she's breathing a little too hard and too fast. Sp02 is in the mid-80s. I run back to the nursing station to call the doctor ... alas it's in the middle of the night and the doctor is not available. I then run to the oxygen room, grab a tank and a nasal cannula while praying I get an order for the oxygen later. I slap it on and then telephone the after-hours telephone nurse. I connect with an awesome telephone nurse who ends up getting a couple orders for me from another doctor within 10 minutes. Then the fun begins. I fax these orders to the pharmacy. Thus begins a 3+ hour saga of faxing the same information again and again. All the while my poor patient is SOB and now feeling some pain (she's DNR, next of kin doesn't want hospitalization). I finish late on my last med pass and give report to the next shift. The next nurse ends up cussing out pharmacy over the phone (bless her heart, I need to take a page from her book) but the pharmacy issue still isn't resolved. I finished up a few odds and ends then go home ... and then I realize I never asked for an order for oxygen that probably saved the patient's life for the time being. UUGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!