You know you are going to have an interesting day when you get report that . . .

[anon456]

Feel free to add your own, thought this might be kinda fun. I feel so sorry when I see the looks on the oncoming nurses' faces when I give report and hand-off on patients and they realize what kind of day it's going to be.

I probably had one of those looks when I got report that I had one patient in a Posey Bed with a sitter who needed frequent PRN Ativan. The next patient was a total care on Ketogenic diet which means crushing lots and lots of bedtime meds and giving things like 0.67 tablet of this, and 0.35 tablet of that, and needing to watch carefully, do labs and replace electrolytes as needed. And then am told by charge nurse that my next patient is in the ED, they are waiting for another Posey bed and a sitter to become available before sending them up, and family will not be at bedside.

I survived the night, as always. But felt so sorry for oncoming nurse.

[CaitlynRNBSN]

Basically if it's like 0.67 of a tablet, I crush the whole thing and mix it with 10mL water in a syringe, then push out all but 0.67 mL. The patient was tube-fed so that helped.

GENIOUS!!!!! I never thought of that. Totally using this :)

[anon456, BSN, RN]

GENIOUS!!!!! I never thought of that. Totally using this :)

Yes but I was very tired when I posted this-- and I made a MED ERROR here-- (not in real life). A good reason to have everything double checked if you are tired. ;-) I meant to type 6.7 mL of water, not 0.67 of water. This has been bothering me ever since I posted it so I wanted to make sure there is a correction here!

[Clementia]

The glassy-eyed smile of relief as you walk past their station. Coupled with the overly-cheerful, "Hiii, Clementia...boy am I glad to see you."

"They're on contact precautions and there's a bucket of Go-Lytely by the bedside..."

"I called for three units of blood and it's not here yet."

"Tonight you're starting with six patients!" (It's still a PM shift -- I get to work at 7 pm -- and I usually have no more than 5.)

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

...when there are lounge chairs outside three patient rooms, each with a thermos of coffee, a newspaper, and a big cop with handcuffs and a sidearm. True story.

[nrsang97, BSN, RN]

When the nurse who should give you report is under arrest and detained by police in the nursing office and being accused of trying to kill a patient.

Sure would set you up for a bad day. Jeez

[Kay28]

I should have known to just turn around and go home the other day when I realized I had come into work with my scrub pants on backwards. It was truly the shift from hell.