Apr. 26th, 2009

dragonflymuse: (Default)
Praise {insert the Deity of your choice here} I am almost finished the antibiotics and The Strep is on the run! After Monday's relapse, the PenV rallied my immune system and sent the strep buggies packing. The soreness lingered until about Thursday, but it was nothing a little ibuprofen couldn't deal with.

On the workfront, my first two shifts went well. My student, Colleen, was officially handed the reins and was to be the one to make all the decisions regarding patient care, organizing that care, choosing our break times, etc. Those days were ideal for that switch to happen: the floor wasn't too crazy, our assignments were nicely balanced between post-ops and discharges, and our one chronic patient was pretty stable, with only a couple curve balls tossed at us for some on-your-feet problem solving.

Our last shift of the week - Thursday - was chaotic. Not so much our assignment, but the staff manning another pod were quite overwhelmed (well, one staff person was overwhelmed: the others helping her out found they were running tight trying to work their assignments and deal with the other nurse's patients).

Added to that insanity were unexpected admissions from day surgery, OR waitlist cases that were called to surgery with NO heads-up time (meaning, 'The OR is ready for 'X' so bring them down NOW PLZ!'). One of those cases belonged to the overwhelmed nurse, so when I went to get the kid ready for the OR, I found NOTHING done on her chart: no vitals documented, the pre-op check list incomplete, flow charting blank and the kid was on a narcotic infusion. So I whipped everything together, did vitals, heplocked the kid's IV so that a porter could transport the family down to the OR, only to be told 60 seconds later that the OR was taking another patient first, so we had an hour more to wait. Le GRRRRRRRRRRR!

My personal treat of the day was a wee heart babe from PICU, who has the family from HELL. Mother, father, extended family members all present and all with substance abuse issues, instances of violence while in PICU and disruptive behaviour all-around. Whee. The babe was easy, for a heart patient; the family was not. By the time they arrived on the unit though they were presenting their best behaviour, which in and of itself is creepy when you know what they're really like (cue thoughts of Stepford). They were trying to be pleasant and interactive. When I was washing my hands at the wee sink in the room, the grandfather asked me when I 'was due' :/

Le sigh.

I rolled with it, and replied that I wasn't pregnant, just fat. The BabyDaddy (his son) tried to clarify, saying I misheard him, but grandfather copped to the question and apologies abounded. I made a joke of it for the rest of the shift, but man... what a clue-in that I need to start doing sit-ups.

The joy of that shift was when it ended :) Mostly because that was the start of a nice 7 day-off stretch, which will be spent spring cleaning, walking the dog (the weather is going to be nice for the next few) and indulging in afternoon naps!
dragonflymuse: (Default)
It took over 10 years to figure it out, but this evening's events leave no doubt in my mind.

My parents don't respect me. One bit.

Knowing that might make things easier for me in the future...

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dragonflymuse

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