Three days of work, and they got their money's worth out of me this time. I'm not one of those that just sits around well, but some days we have a little more time to get things done. This time was not one of those. I don't think I left on time once, and that was with folks helping me. Thursday I got a little man down from the floor in respiratory distress, we intubated three hours later because he was stuggling so much and sats were not so good. It's always hard when you go from having a patient that is talking and you get to know them a little bit, then you sedate them and even know that you may never talk to them again. We were able to wait on his wife to come back before we intubated so that they could be in agreement with the decision to intubate.
This man went from bad to worse. I can't believe he made it to Sunday. When you see ICU nurses excited about a sat of 80% you know it's bad. I had so many drugs going, I was using a mix of central line and PIV's to have enough places to put things. He was so unstable, we couldn't bathe him, turn him or anything. The doctor that was primarily treating him came in to see him even though he was off this weekend. The family was touched. At any rate, so far so good. Between losing one lung to cancer, now the other has ARDS, this guy barely has a chance. For those that know me, they are amazed b/c I've got the reputation as the "angel". Of course, some times we get lucky and the power shifts to another for the day.
Another treat for the weekend was both my families gave me treats!! Yeah! Feed the nurses!! Chocolate ROCKS! This was a good weekend for me to get chocolate, between the stress and other stuff, one friend loaded my pocket with the instructions that when she commanded I was to get some. And you know, it worked well, I started getting a bit stressed, she'd look at me, say "eat chocolate" and low and behold, it was doable. :) I love my friends, I love my patients and most of their families. *giggle*
1 comment:
Chocolate huh? ;)
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