Nursingaround1's thread got me to thinking about the worst nursing related nightmares I've ever had.
I have a recurring one where I find out I've had a patient for several hours that I didn't know about. Nothing like discovering a patient to ruin your day. This one freaks me out every time.
I also had one about the incredible growing cafeteria. I was on lunch break and the cafeteria kept expanding and shifting, kind of like a kaleidoscope maze, or Hogwarts. I couldn't get to the food, and I was so hungry I was ready to gnaw off my hands. Then, lunch was over and I couldn't find the way back to the unit. I was doing Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones type stuff to try to get out of there and was totally trapped. I actually had a panic attack in my sleep during this one. I was so traumatized I had to miss my shift. I couldn't stop shaking long enough to drive.
My funniest one is the dream I had that I was naked. I had a really fiii-iiine patient. Think Jason Momoa or Matt Bomer if he was 6'2" and straight. Yumm. Unfortunately, the patient noticed I was naked and proceeded to laugh hysterically. Ouch.
What are your worst nightmares? You get bonus points and a PM'd funny nursing .gif if they are nursing related.
When I was a year out of school I took a job in a big cardiac surg ICU. I had this recurring dream often: I am in my two-bed room with my fresh heart. I take all my 15-minute VS and chart them, empty the UO hourly and chart that, strip chest tubes Q15minutes and chart the outputs, draw the Q4hr labs and chart the results and hang the potassium replacements, run the blood, suction, draw ABGs and make vent changes and chart all that, call docs, invite in family members and teach them, hang and chart the Q4hr Keflex, do the dopamine ... I literally relive an entire eight-hour shift, every damn minute of it.
The alarm goes off and I feel like I am starting a double, having already worked a full shift...
Then there's the one where I am wrapping my hands around somebody's neck, feeling my thumbs collapse her trachea, watching her eyes roll back in her head and knowing the effects of no cerebral blood flow as they occur as I coolly observe them progress. I woke up terrified that I could even dream of doing that. But I did really want that person out of my life.
The last really memorable dream I had was many, many years ago, but I will never forget it. It occurred when my first husband and I had been reconciled for about three months after a six-month separation. Things were not going as well as I hoped even though we had been in counseling, he made some smallish good moves, and he was making a lot of good noises to the counselor but had also started his constant criticizing and told the therapist that if only I would do this and this and this everything would be fine. She put down her pencil and told him he had to change or he would lose me and the kids, and he never went back to see her again. So I was still going, alone.
We had traveled cross-country to visit family for Christmas. After putting the kids to bed we hauled the enormous stash of presents out of the grandparents' cellar, put them under the tree, had a drink, the husband was charming, and we went to bed. I dreamed that night that it was Christmas morning and I was going through the house to get to the tree and open my presents. I knew they were there, I had seen them with my own eyes. I keep walking and walking through the house, overcoming blocks and continuing onward and onward and it was all so familiar. But I never got to the tree or those presents and finally, sorrowfully, realized that no matter how long and hard I tried, I never would be able to have those things I sought.
I woke up realizing that even though I had had fleeting glimpses of what a good marriage could be, I was just never going to have that here. Eight weeks after we got home from Christmas he started to hit me and we separated permanently. Quite the dream.
Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.
I've also had the unattended-patient-at-the-end-of-the-shift dreams. Except I would always think "Gosh I've had so many dreams about this; now I've actually done it." Always so relieved when I wake up for real.
But the most bizarre lucid dream I've ever had was when I worked evenings on a surgical floor and hardly ever got breaks. One night I dreamt that we were crazy busy as always, but someone had left us a wonderful buffet in the nursing station. And I knew it was a dream. I woke myself up, just to be sure, and I was home in bed. Then I went back to sleep and resumed the dream. I kept trying to convince the other nurses to stop working and eat with me, but no one would. To be on the safe side, I actually woke myself up a second time, was safe in my bed, then went back to sleep and resumed the dream.
I tried to tell my charge nurse that since I knew this was a dream, the patients technically didn't exist and we didn't have to look after them. I couldn't eat the food by myself because I felt too guilty about everyone else running around doing patient care, and I couldn't get anyone to stop. Eventually the dream ended and I never did have a bite of that nice food.
When I went back to work for real and told the charge nurse about the dream, she laughed and said "You better make sure to get a break tonight."
Shortly after I started doing charge, I started having this nightmare that some patient on the floor was coding. I could hear the code alarm, but could never figure out where it was coming from. For some reason, it wasn't being paged overhead either. I was also the only ACLS nurse on my unit that night (this could be entirely true...we have a ton of new staff) and the code team was taking forever to show up. Glad it was only a nightmare, but going back to work that night scared me to death!
I had one yesterday about being stuck at the desk and not being able to run to a falls patient whose alarm was going off. I was literally stuck to the desk.
I had a nightmare where I was working on a new unit, and it was the size of a neighborhood. Literally. Along the street were houses, and each house was filled with sick patients. I was working with another CNA and we each had half the neighborhood to cover. We had to go in each house to answer call lights, change patients, take vitals....we each had 30 + houses with about 4-5 patients in each house.
The nightmare started with me stuck in an outhouse (why?) and I couldn't get out to call my work back about covering a shift on the mother-baby unit (for some reason it was my dream to work there!!). Since I didn't call back in time, that shift was given to another CNA and I ended up working the giant neighborhood unit.
I've also had dreams about patients falling, call bells going off like crazy, not knowing how to do anything (like take a temperature), and being late for work....
It definitely can be but it also can be amazing (not in a psychedelic way, lol!). I receive high dose IV ketamine infusions over four hours for four days in a row every 4-6 weeks to treat RSD/CRPS. It has given me my life back. I was almost completely bed/recliner bound, had little use of my arms, was on very high dose opioids and still in excruciating pain. After 18 mos. of infusions I have almost complete use of my arms(still some residual weakness), am off daily high dose opioids, and am looking into going back to nursing (after I recover from a broken leg). I haven't had any hallucinations with the infusions but it takes a steady dose of Ativan and Versed to make that happen and the infusion nurse is really awesome. She's been doing this for years and watches for any signs of restlessness or agitation and medicates accordingly. That said, I do have some bad GI side effects but they seem to get better every time I have an infusion.
Anyway, back to the original topic. Dreams. I frequently have to one about having a patient I didn't know about all shift. I still occasionally have this dream even though I haven't actually been able to practice as a RN for many years now. And I still wake up with that same sense of panic until I realize it's just a dream.
When I was first diagnosed with RSD but still working I would have nightmares that I was administering chemo (usually was Adriamycin aka the Red Devil) and spilled it all over my arm. It's a powerful vesicant and I remember when studying for my OCN seeing pictures of infiltrations of different vesicants. In my dream my arm instantly looked like that. I would wake up literally screaming out in pain only to realize it was the pain from the RSD and I incorporated it into my dream. I also frequently had dreams my arm was on fire but that's really not nursing related.
The other nursing related dream I frequently have even until this day is that my former school--sometimes college, sometimes even high school--discover that I missed a credit I should have had to graduate and they take away my nursing license and BSN. I then have to go back and repeat the class I missed and I never can complete it for a variety of reasons--none of which make any logical sense. Gotta love dreams!
It definitely can be but it also can be amazing (not in a psychedelic way, lol!). I receive high dose IV ketamine infusions over four hours for four days in a row every 4-6 weeks to treat RSD/CRPS. It has given me my life back. I was almost completely bed/recliner bound, had little use of my arms, was on very high dose opioids and still in excruciating pain. After 18 mos. of infusions I have almost complete use of my arms(still some residual weakness), am off daily high dose opioids, and am looking into going back to nursing (after I recover from a broken leg). I haven't had any hallucinations with the infusions but it takes a steady dose of Ativan and Versed to make that happen and the infusion nurse is really awesome.
This story made me glad I'm not an infusion therapy nurse.
Ketamine also reduces or eliminates suicidal ideation within minutes in a handful of studies. It's being researched as a bridge for the therapeutic lag of antidepressants.
nurseprnRN, BSN, RN
1 Article; 5,116 Posts
When I was a year out of school I took a job in a big cardiac surg ICU. I had this recurring dream often: I am in my two-bed room with my fresh heart. I take all my 15-minute VS and chart them, empty the UO hourly and chart that, strip chest tubes Q15minutes and chart the outputs, draw the Q4hr labs and chart the results and hang the potassium replacements, run the blood, suction, draw ABGs and make vent changes and chart all that, call docs, invite in family members and teach them, hang and chart the Q4hr Keflex, do the dopamine ... I literally relive an entire eight-hour shift, every damn minute of it.
The alarm goes off and I feel like I am starting a double, having already worked a full shift...
Then there's the one where I am wrapping my hands around somebody's neck, feeling my thumbs collapse her trachea, watching her eyes roll back in her head and knowing the effects of no cerebral blood flow as they occur as I coolly observe them progress. I woke up terrified that I could even dream of doing that. But I did really want that person out of my life.
The last really memorable dream I had was many, many years ago, but I will never forget it. It occurred when my first husband and I had been reconciled for about three months after a six-month separation. Things were not going as well as I hoped even though we had been in counseling, he made some smallish good moves, and he was making a lot of good noises to the counselor but had also started his constant criticizing and told the therapist that if only I would do this and this and this everything would be fine. She put down her pencil and told him he had to change or he would lose me and the kids, and he never went back to see her again. So I was still going, alone.
We had traveled cross-country to visit family for Christmas. After putting the kids to bed we hauled the enormous stash of presents out of the grandparents' cellar, put them under the tree, had a drink, the husband was charming, and we went to bed. I dreamed that night that it was Christmas morning and I was going through the house to get to the tree and open my presents. I knew they were there, I had seen them with my own eyes. I keep walking and walking through the house, overcoming blocks and continuing onward and onward and it was all so familiar. But I never got to the tree or those presents and finally, sorrowfully, realized that no matter how long and hard I tried, I never would be able to have those things I sought.
I woke up realizing that even though I had had fleeting glimpses of what a good marriage could be, I was just never going to have that here. Eight weeks after we got home from Christmas he started to hit me and we separated permanently. Quite the dream.