Moments: Episode 4

I have no clever introduction. Here we go!

-Pt with bipolar disorder refers to me as 'Nursey'. She calls out to me as I walk by her room. 'Nursey! Come here Nursey!'

-I take care of a lady for 3 nights in a row. She developed a rare condition that caused all of her skin to peel off. The first day I took care of her, she was peeling everywhere and cuts in her skin from where it would rub off. By the end of the third day, she was so much cleaner. She literally looked like a different person. Brand new skin.

-Lady (who seems to be in her right mind) puts on her call light. I walk in and ask, 'can I help you?' She asks me if I can find her glasses. 'They're on your head ma'am.' A few minutes later she yells out to the nurses station. I walk in and ask the same question. She asks me if I could find her the call light. 'It's right here under your arm ma'am.' An hour later, the call light goes off again. I walk in, yada yada yada. She's digging through her sheets and asks me to help her find the towel I had brought in earlier. It was resting on the table.

-A confused patient is screaming profanities in his room. We walk in to give him some sedation. He looks right at us, tells us to hold one for one minute, then he proceeds to turn to the wall and resume the conversation.

-A patient who spoke very little English was very appreciative of the care I had given her. Unfortunately, she only knew one compliment. 'You cute.' I would take her to the bathroom and she would tell me I was cute. I would give her medication, and I was cute. I would wake her up at three in the morning to get her vital signs, but by golly I was cute.

- I had a patient who was in her nineties and didn't really speak, but would mumble/moan incoherently. I took care of her three nights in a row, and she actually seemed to be improving. One night, I walked in and heard her moaning when I made out the word 'Jesus'. I realized that she might actually be singing. I asked her if she was singing songs. She smiled and nodded.

-An eager family member insisted that I crush her grandmother's pills in applesauce so she could swallow them easier. I happily obliged, but once the family member left, my patient said to me, "I can swallow them just fine, but just don't tell my grandaughter!"

-I had a patient come in and hand me the list of his medications for his admission. I couldn't read it at all. He then handed me a bag with the actual medications in them. I took them out of the bag and realized I had no idea what they said. They were medications directly from Poland. I spent the next hour with a pharmacist trying to figure it out. It was tricky seeing as some of the medications aren't even authorized in the U.S.

- I spent the better part of a night changing the incontinence pads from under a lady who would ask to be changed every fifteen minutes. When you rolled her over, she would leak a little bit and need to be changed again. It was nearly continuous.

-I took care of a lady for three nights, and she remained on the floor for about a week after that. I would go and visit her even though she wasn't my patient. She would say, 'Oh there's my buddy!' We would talk for a few minutes, and then we would pray for each other. She didn't have any family, and it was a privilege to be more than just a nurse to her.

-I was sitting at the nurse's station and doing some charting when a family member came up and asked me to give her mother's nurse a message. I took the message, but then asked her if she was ok. We ended up talking for 10 minutes. She ended up in tears because she had to make decisions about sending her mom to hospice. At the end, she thanked me just for listening.

-I have seen so many pictures of children and grandchildren and dogs and vacations....

That's all I've got for now. I've got to go get ready for my 12 hour shift followed by 4 hours of class. Here we go. Wish me luck.

-C-

Nothing Important

Usually, I'd use the title of the post to draw you in, but there really isn't anything important here.... so....

I know I owe you all a nice long post, but I'm in the middle of three shifts in a row. I'm pretty much typing this as quickly as possible so I can go to bed. I have a lot of little tidbits to go into my next Moments post, but I don't have the time, creativity, or energy at the moment. Soon.

Instead, here are a few links to things I think you should check out.


This post was sent to me by a friend from another friend. It is perfect. This sums up the entirety of my life.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jobarrow/21-times-all-your-fears-about-growing-up-were-summed-up-perf#.hrkYZ5yK6

This is a link to a post from an online devotional that was recommended to me by another friend. I love this post in particular, but check it out because it's really good.
http://shereadstruth.com/2015/04/16/presence-provision/

I recently started watching the show Scrubs. There are parts of it that really annoy me- such as the fact that nurses are mostly under-appreciated. However, there are some fantastic parts too. Warning, this is a sad clip. It made me cry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uuCYzUjWik

Lastly, just because it's awesome. Here's a clip from Dancing with the Stars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCRpJXoNbek

Enjoy!

A Little Perspective

   Before I get to my main point, I want to share a few anecdotes from the past few weeks that have made me happy.

-I have two patients in a room who tell me that they'll put on the call light and pretend to be in pain so I can watch the end of the Blackhawks game with them. Then they both fell asleep. :)

-I have a patient ask me when I'll be back because he wants me to meet his wife

-I get a passionate kiss (on the cheek) from a patient because I got her a fan.

I'll post another Moments post here soon, but I wanted to share those :)

   A few weeks ago, I had a wretched shift. From the moment I got my assignment, I knew it would be bad and then it got worse. I was yelled at by doctors when I was truly doing the right thing and screamed at by patients when I was trying my best to help them. The patients I had should not have been assigned together because it was too much. The endless night turned into a hectic morning and I ended up in tears. This was the first time I cried because of stress. The other nurses around me stepped in and helped me finish out my shift. It was awful.

   The reason that I've shared this with you is because since then, the difficult shifts I've had haven't seemed so bad. The halfway decent shifts are positively delightful! Sure, throw me two admissions and a patient going through alcohol withdrawal. I can handle that! A rapid response and an admission at the same time while a confused patient is jumping out of bed? Bring it on! One of those patients who has to pee every half hour? I'd be delighted.

   Anyhoo, the lesson that I learned from this is that sometimes, a difficult situation can make us appreciate what we have even more. Working fast food might motivate you to make it through tough college courses. Failing a class can make you even more proud when you pass the next one. Losing someone you love can help you appreciate the people in your life even more. A bad or harmful relationship with make you more thankful for the healthy one. God has a plan. The hard things aren't easy, but they might help to bring other things in your life into perspective.

Frequent Flyers

    There are a number of patients who are frequent visitors on my floor. They come up, stay for a few days, we send them home, and they're back within a few months. The nurses might say, "____ is back again. It seemed like he was just here!" We know them by name, know what they'll be asking for, and roll our eyes when they end up on the floor again. Most of them come in again and again for the same problem. Maybe they didn't take their medications or missed dialysis treatments or want stronger pain medications. There's one patient who I suspect just likes the attention he gets on our floor. Most of the time, they come in because they didn't follow the instructions we gave them. No matter how many times a nurse or doctor instructed them to take their blood pressure medications every. single. day. they are resistant to it and end up back in the hospital. These are our frequent flyers.

    There were two or three frequent flyers on my floor this week. Seeing them and trying to teach them yet again the importance of following our instructions made me think. When I read the Bible- particularly the first half of the Old Testament- I see some similarities. God rescues these people, gives them very clear commandments, and they screw it up. He forgives them, sends judges or prophets to help them, and they screw it up again. Sometimes I just want to yell at them, "Come on already! God has made it so clear to you and you can't obey for just a little bit?" It's like they're ending up back in the hospital again and again and again. The treatment is clear and doesn't seem that difficult, but they can't manage it.

    After I have these kinds of thoughts, I'm forced to look at my own life. Are there issues in my life where I am a frequent flyer? Mistakes that I make again and again even though I know how to fix it? The answer is yes. No matter how many times God has shown His provision to me, I still doubt His faithfulness. No matter how many times I've come to the conclusion that God is enough and that I can rely on Him completely, I still fall away from that and try to find satisfaction in things of this messed up world. I repeat the same sins again and again and again. It's easy to find excuses, but in the end, I am exactly the same as the frequent flyers and the Israelites. The instructions are clear, but I still make the same mistakes.

   Sorry if that was a little heavy. Things have been pretty good on the floor recently, and I've had a run of pretty decent shifts with patients who were kind and thankful for what I was doing. I got to celebrate Easter morning at my church which is my very favorite holiday. Sometimes it seems like spring is here, and that always puts me in a good mood. Life is good, and God is good. Thank you to everyone who continues to read this blog. Love to all

-C-

Progress

When I had my internship at Mayo, I had an incredible experience that I was able to blog about. Before you read the rest of this post, let's do a Flashback Friday and read the post I wrote back then. http://lettucetomatoandmayo.blogspot.com/2013/08/all-of-summer-iiis-were-given.html

 

Finished? Ok good. Fast forward to this past week. 

   It wasn't my patient, but there was a situation on my floor that was eerily similar to my first code experience. It had been a quiet night so far. Earlier, I had noted that the nurses on my side of the unit were the three newest nurses on the floor. Also, it was our charge nurse's second or third night of being in charge. The nurse of this patient walked into the room to get vital signs, ran out and told me to call a rapid response. She yelled for us to get a breathing mask as soon as possible. The first time I called a rapid response, I was flustered and panicked and didn't know what to do. This time, I calmly and quickly gave the operator the information and then rushed into the room. 

    I walked in and the patient was blue. His eyes were bulging. I took a look at his monitor, and his oxygen levels were 10-20%. The next two minutes or so went by in a blur. I know that I yanked the removable headboard off the back of the bed and somehow got it under him in case we needed to start CPR.  I know that someone yelled for a code to be called. I know that I felt for a pulse and felt one. People were putting on oxygen masks and trying to wake him up. People came rushing in, but because he had a pulse, we didn't need to do CPR. Doctors, ICU nurses, residents, and respiratory therapy all were in the room. At this point, I made myself available, but the things I could contribute at this point were limited. 

    I walked out of the room and had deja vu back to my experience at Mayo. It was so similar, but I had handled it completely differently. The similarities didn't stop there. I looked over and saw the patient's wife. I went and sat down with her and held her hand. I once again was the one who was able to tell her that he still had a pulse. I helped her make a phone call to a family member and prayed with her until the chaplain came. 

    Afterwards while I was reflecting, I thought to myself, "We handled that pretty well." I told the patient's nurse that she had probably saved his life by responding quickly and appropriately. I realized how much I've grown in the past 6 months by how I was able to handle an emergency situation. Instead of watching everyone around me work together as a team, I was a part of the team. And yet I still ended up at the same place- holding hands with the family member and praying. And that's why I'm a nurse.