My first code

People who knew me know that I have been complaining about my new job, being so boring even though is at the ICU. They have regular medical patients rather than “true” ICU patient, and we only need to take care 1-2 and 3 at most at a time. Remember my first job, I had in average 6-8 patients in any given day with almost the same “sick” patients I am having right now. I am not officially staff, still orienting, so I do not “really” have my own patient theoretically. My orienter does give me patient(s) to take care by myself and I’ll just let he/she knows if I needed help.

Today is one of those uneventful days nothing much happened. “My” patient was tranfered before noon to a regular floor and so I ended up just learning a bit more on charting. My preceptor has, I should say “had”, a patient with high blood pressure and psychosis. He was restless most of the day, more than before. Anyway, I noticed his blood pressure was getting higher and higher throughout the day, so I suggested that we need to check with the doctor after we gave some powerful medicine with no avail. My preceptor planned to leave early, since all we have was just this one patient, reluctantly paged the doctors and got more orders on more medicine. It did not help at all, but it was toward the end of the shift and so she left! I was worried, worried about the situation on the patient not getting better. I was noting the time for the medication to work, instead more things went even more unsettling… So I told the other nurse and then called the house doctor right away, in the same time the attending doctor called and I reported the situation with him giving me more orders.

At that point on, everything went down! We pushed all the new ordered meds and I could tell we will have to code him. So we started the code after the house doctor came, then the attending doctor arrived. I was glad that the next shift of nurses arrived just in time, we all went into action. I have never been “in” a code before, just observed one when I was a nursing student. It happened in a big teaching hospital and everything was there ready for you and you got like ten doctors with twenty nurses around… This time, it was just the two doctors and us four nurses, and we used up all the medicine in the emergency cart so fast that I found myself running down four flights of stairs to ER to get more and came back running those steps! They are real excellent ICU nurses I can tell, they all can run a code on their own I figured!

Now I learned from one of my coworkers that they usually have one to two codes in two weeks, I was expecting it should happen soon since I was there almost a month… but this is quite unexpectedly expectable. I saw that coming on this patient, but I thought am I ready for this? For real?! After tonight, I learn that:

1. I have to get my ACLS soon!!

2. I should pick up jogging again.

3. I got to know where stuff is.

4. Rest when I could so I could be ready for action!

5. This unit is not so bored afterall… with a code.

That’s why I like geriatrics

There was a little thing happened in my patients which made me laughed, even though it’s a small thing it reminded me why older adults are so funny.
One of my patients down in the ICU wanted to call her sister, so I offered to help and ask for the phone number. She tried to remember, and all of a sudden her next-bed neighbor, who came back from surgery and having a lot of pain and getting morphine for pain control, raised her voice saying “288…”. We both looked to her direction, with a curtain in between we were puzzled what’s going on. So we kind of ignored it and my patient started saying “it’s 262, uh let me think…”. And immediately her neighbor once again said “it’s 288…”. At this time, I looked at my patient and we both laughed hysterically! I said “don’t worry about it” and gesturing don’t mind her so she could remember the phone number. She tried real hard to remember and wasn’t very sure but gave me a number anyway. I dialed that number for her and the other end said I got the wrong number. So I told her what I heard, and her neighbor once again, with a more assertive and louder voice, said “I told you it’s 288…”. This time I laughed real hard thinking that these elderly ladies were so cute and confused at times, but my patient was kind of bothered by it and complained she made her unable to concentrate in remembering the number.
In my mind, I thought this lady must be dosed by the morphine pump and responding to whatever came across. And the both of them skinny old ladies in their 70s just talked back at each other over the curtain made me think that they are the most adorable thing on earth! So my patient once again gave me a slightly different number for me to try, and this time her neighbor insisted that the number she gave was correct. This time I wondered, would they by any chance related? So I asked “you know her sister?” And she said, “you are looking for Katherine, right?”, with her eyes half opened and looking at me drowsily. Then I smiled and said, “she Clara, not Katherine.” Until then she, “oh, then, never mind!” and closed her eyes and went to sleep.
This is so funny, even though may not be as funny as it was during the actual occurring, brought myself a bit of joy for the day. I like them old people.

New job becomes old job…

Should I look for a new job to make my new one old? This place has been working out for me till lately. They wanted me to work more weekends now, which I am very reluctant to due to church activities. Some of the nurses’ assistants are not helpful to me sometimes since I’m new here. The hospital’s central supply is always out of stock! The wound VAC I ordered for one of my patient a week ago just came… who already discharged to nursing home couple days ago! At least I have it now, then it will be available when I need one. Gradually I feel like this is such a crappy place, over-working employees with minimal benefits and cutting us short. If I go find a new job, where and what should I be looking for? I have a strong sense of leaving this state.

Life sucks from time to time, but that’s not why I do not want to live a long life. I never wanted to live too long because of the human suffering and finding no one I can love without reservation on earth. I tried but this is much harder than I thought, maybe we human beings are rebellious in nature. God’s will has been clear to me and He reaffirmed again and again, things still do not seem promising to me. I’m weak and worrisome, I don’t know how long I can last.