Moments

There are moments that come along in all the craziness that remind you why you choose to become a nurse.

It was a few hours into my shift and I was due to move to another area soon. I get a new patient and on the board it just says to look at chart. I look and the chart shows a possible miscarriage. One of the many sad things about my job is seeing people dealing with this situation. I have seen quite a few. You are never sure how the person is taking the news and I am not sure there is ever the right thing to say.

So, I take the chart and enter the room. Most of the lights are off. The woman is sitting in bed with a friend sitting in the chair. They are laughing and joking around. You can tell she is hurting, because she cringes in between cracking jokes with her friend. For a minute, I am not sure if the woman even realizes that triage thought she was possibly having an miscarriage.

I start by introducing myself and tell her I need to ask her some questions. I ask her about pain, if she was having any bleeding, when it started, etc. Then she starts asking me about how we do things here. I am explaining how things happen and how we usually approach things. I let her know that we will give her something for the pain she is feeling and to feel free to ask me if she needs anything. She smiles at me and tells me I have a calming voice. She asks me about my job, if I like it. I explain that even though most days are crazy, I love being here. That even if I am tired, I get a burst of energy as I pull into the parking lot. She looks at her friend and says “see, I need a job like that. I just don’t feel that anymore at my job”.

She is good at her job, but feels she is missing something. We talk some more and I leave them for awhile. I go to the nurses station where the doc takes the chart and orders some pain medication and says we need to do a pelvic exam on her.

I get the medication and all the things we need and enter the room. She is still talking with her friend and laughing. I explain what I am giving her and what I am setting up. She cracks some jokes about how the medicine is making her feel and we laugh. Her friend tells her that although they are close, she is not sticking around for the exam. She plans to go get some coffee and offers to call the patient’s husband. The patient tells her no, she does not want to bother him, he is away at work. The friend squeezes her hand and tells her she will be back later. I hand her a gown and let her know that the Doc and I will be back soon.

I head back to the nurses station and see that I am supposed to move to another area in a few minutes. I decide at that point that there is no way I am going to leave right now. I need to see this through. She needs for me to stay because it is not fair to have a stranger come in now. The Doc asks if everything is ready and off we go. I have so much respect for this particular doctor because he has to be the most caring doctor I have ever met.

He does the exam, explains to her what he sees. There is no way to save this pregnancy. She gives him a half smile and said she figured that it was. She just needed to make sure that everything was going to be ok. The doctor looks at her, and says “I’m sorry” and tears start to form in her eyes. She whispers thank you and he leaves the room.

I stay to help her get changed and to clean up the supplies when I notice she has many tattoos on her. Her friend comes in and says well, which one are you going to get this time. The patient explains that every time she has a miscarriage, she gets a new tattoo. She said the sad thing is that when she got pregnant this time, she already knew what she was going to get when she miscarried. The biggest one, I learn, is from when she had her one and only child. The rest, were from all the children she lost.

I leave the room to get her prescriptions and instructions, when I come back, she is laughing with her friend again. I know I need to say something, but I am not sure what. So, as she is walking out, I place a hand on her shoulder and tell her I am sorry. She turns and gives me a big hug and says thank you. She fights back some tears, smiles and says “you guys give some kick ass care here.”

That was my first hug from a patient and I will never regret choosing this profession because of patients like her.

Ms. Whispers

You can usually judge how the night is going to go by looking in the waiting room. Some sadist one thought it was a good idea to put the time clock in the waiting area. Granted, time clocks are every where in the hospital, but they want you to clock in on your unit. So, you get to walk to the waiting area and get a good look at what you are in for.

Here are the different scenarios that I have encountered:

1. Almost empty waiting area: Yay! Means that the evening is going to start out somewhat slow and you get a chance to warm up to being at work.
2. Packed waiting area, but the people just look up at you and then continue what they were doing: Means that they have not been waiting long, we must be getting them in and out quick. Yay! Hopeful that the patients and family are friendly due to not waiting long.
3. Packed waiting area, this time the people give you a hard stare, and continue to stare as you walk towards the rooms. You can feel their eyes burning holes in you as you walk. As if it is you that is keeping them from entering the sacred area of the all-knowing: Means that people will be complaining all night, they will want food, want to drink, want to go, threaten to leave AMA (side note: this is not a threat when we are busy), and blame you all night for them having to wait so long.

As I was driving to work, I had decided that no matter what, I was going to try my best to be as friendly and nice as possible.  I am here to help the sick, here to take care of people. I remind myself they are scared and worried and that with enough time and care, they will understand we are trying to do our best. Positive attitude.

Then, I step off the elevator and enter the waiting area. I am hit with scenario #3. *sigh* So, I speed up my steps a bit to get to my area.

This particular area is near triage and you carry 5 patients instead of the usual 4. Also, when people are put in the hall from triage for whatever reason, they can see the nurses station and the doc. Also, this nurses station is..oh about the size of my bathroom. Now, let me give you a visual. At home, when I am in the bathroom, and L. and my two girls walk in, I feel like I can’t breathe. Now….picture a unit secretary, a Doc, 2 nurses, a tech and sometimes a PA all trying to work from the same amount of space. Plus, on the desk/station area, there are 4 computers, 3 phones, monitors hanging from the ceiling, and the x-ray/CT screen. Needless to say we are tripping over each other the whole time we are there.

One time, I slid in the seat behind the Doc to be able to use a computer. I was happily writing away when the doc saw something on his computer that made him jump up. His chair hit me and caused me to go flying towards the counters. Needless to say, after a couple of hours, one begins to become quite cranky.

So, off I go to the mini station. I see my co-worker who says “welcome to hell”.  I reply with “that bad huh?” She points to the unit secretary’s computer and there is a bottle of Vodka sitting there. *eyebrow raise* Hummm.. I glance around and there are bodies everywhere. Triage has overflowed and is taking up our area. And every one of them is giving us “the stare”.

So, I get report and start going about my usual business. One of the triage nurses wheels over a lady on a bed and places her by the even smaller room that holds our pyxis, needles, etc. So, any time we need something in that room, we have to step around the bed to get in there. As I continue on with my stuff for my patients, she begins to start waving people down. We are all running around like crazy trying to get things done, but I stop for a minute, because I am a caring person like that. So, I ask her what she needs. She whispers something I can not understand. I lean forward….”I’m sorry, what was that?” So, she points to the bathroom and then points to herself. Ok…..  So, I go to the triage nurse and ask what is up with the whispering lady in the hall. She replies with “here for abdominal pain”. I tell her that the lady needs to use the restroom. She kinda of sighs and says I will get to her in a minute. So, I explain that I just wanted to make sure it was ok for her get up and go. She tells me that it is ok, no concerns. So off I go.

I walk back over to the lady and undo the side rail and tell her that she can go to the bathroom. So, I start to walk off when I hear her, at least I think, saying something. I turn around and she is pointing to the IV bag, the bathroom, her, the bed all while whispering something incoherently. I walk back over and ask her what is wrong. The above continues. I explain that the bag can be taken off the hook and she can walk over there.  

So, off I go back to triage, while the flags on my charts are being pulled left and right. I am getting behind and I can feel it. So, I approach the triage nurse. “Hey, can whispers walk? Because she is just pointing and stuff.” Yes, I nicknamed her whispers. Because, the triage nurse knew exactly who I was talking about. Before you think I am evil, I did ask what was up with the whispering. Triage nurse replies with “dunno, she was doing it in triage. When I asked why, she said she was hard of hearing.” WTH? How does being hard of hearing make you whisper…ah hell, I do not have time to figure that one out. I explain that all she is doing it pointing and whispering. Mind you, from her bed, to the bathroom, is maybe 15 steps, tops. So, the triage nurse sighs again and replies with “she can walk”. So, off I go back to whispers. This time, I take the IV bag off the hook and show her that she can carry it and walk to the bathroom. She begins to whisper again, pointing at the bathroom, her legs, the bag….etc. At this point, I am starting to get a little peeved. About that time, the triage nurse rounds the corner and sees whispers pointing. So, she walks up and says “what is it?” More pointing. So, we pull the rail back up and unlock the bed and wheel her to the bathroom door. Triage nurse says “do you think you can walk from here?” So, after a few rocking movements, whispers gets up and sits there and points to the door, the bag, the door…you get the picture. In my head I am counting to 10. I mean, really? Triage nurse tells her “I got the bag, just get up and go to the bathroom.” We get her in there and give each other one of those “it is going to be a long night” look and continue on.

A few minutes later, she exits the bathroom, no bag. Begins to point to the bag, the bed, the bag… I am thinking “*@^!%!*#&! So, I go get the bag off the hook in the bathroom, put it on the hook on the bed, wait till she gets on the bed and wheel her back to her spot by the med room door. Finally, time to get caught up.

About 30 minutes later, whispers is waving me down again. Seriously? So, I put my stuff down and walk over. She is getting stuff out of her wallet and asking me to call a family member. I ask if she has a phone number and she hands me a piece of paper, with an address. Being creative, I hand it back, tell her to hold on and look her up in the computer. I get a number and take it to her. She nods yes, so I call and leave a message. I go back and let her know that no one was home and I left a message.

I continue on with getting caught up and I look up later and whispers is gone. I have cleared out some of my rooms and see I have a new patient. Grab the chart and enter the room.

Low and behold it is….holy hell….it is whispers. I envision myself beating my head into the wall. Instead, I put on a smile and enter the room. For the sake of making this post shorter, just picture taking a medical history.

My time with whispers consists of the following:

1. Being asked every 10 minutes for something to drink
2. Having the tech ask me why the woman can not go to the bathroom…all she is doing is pointing
3. Having her ask another nurse if she can have another bottle of CT contrast
4. After whispering for hours, starts yelling because someone has not been in her room for 10 minutes. When I walk in, she proceeds to yell at me saying that she can not breathe. I explain that she can breathe or she would not be yelling at me. She continues to yell that she can not breathe.
5. Telling the Doc she wants to leave AMA because we will not give her “pop”. Doc allows something to drink and she agrees to wait long enough to get the CT scan.
6. Wants me to give her more medicine in her IV line, because it helped her breathe. The breathing medicine was morphine that the doc ordered for her stomach pain.
7. Asking for something to eat even though her complaint was that she had abdominal pain and had been vomiting. Although she did not vomit the whole time she was there.

Finally, I got moved to another area and had to pass her on to someone else. As I was packing up, the new tech was coming out of whispers’ room saying “Can she leave? She said the doctor said she can go……and she is pointing at a cup”

“You have changed..”

According to my other half and my father, I have changed since I started working. I do not see it, but this is how this statement came about.

Early in the days of nursing school, my family was concerned about me and nursing. They all felt that I would be a great nurse….I am caring, compassionate and have this freakish ability to remember things. Oh, I can not remember things such as…what the real reason I went to the store, or why I went to a particular room in the house, or sometimes my age. But, many times I can remember something told to me that I can repeat it word for word, or I can see something and recall much information about the situation.

So, before I decided to be a nursing major, my SO, L. and I discussed my options for a future career. I think the exact statement was “there has to be a job where your caring ability for other people and your freaky memory will work for you” I think it was supposed to be a compliment.

What was I saying? Oh yeah, the changed thing. The first time it was brought up, was a couple months after I was working. I was told that I “talk” different. Had I picked up an accent? Was I speaking in another language? No, apparently, I say things more matter of fact than before. Not that it was bad…it was, just well, different. I explained that perhaps the change has come from me getting in the habit of telling people information in a way that gets the point across. Not much time to sugar coat it. This is how it is.

Then, my loving family ganged up on me. This is how it went down. It is Halloween and my dad came over and was met by a very cranky Nurse D. See, I had put in for Halloween off 2 months in advance. Apparently, so did most of the shift. I love Halloween. It is only 2nd place because of Christmas. So, I was none too happy at the prospect of working on one of my favorite holidays. I recall dad asking me how work was going. I think I mumbled a few things about drug seekers, drunks and stupid reasons people come to the hospital. Took some pics of the kids and my dad dressed up and stomped off to work.

This is when the ganging up took place. While I was gone, L. and Dad had a sit down and they feel that I have become “hardened” since I started working. *raises one eyebrow* I was not even there to defend myself!! *sigh*

So, this is my theory on my “changing”. I feel that Emergency nursing calls attracts a certain personality type. I know that I was attracted to the ER because of the fast pace. It is a place that you never know what is going to come in the door. I work better when I have to think quick. It is perfect for those of us that have a short attention span. We actually have moments that the person is only in the room for an hour. So, you have to be on your toes, running from room to room. You have to be in a room with one person while thinking about your other patients. You need to be ready to anticipate what will be needed next and how to get everything done. You also have to be ready to change your plans with out notice.

Also, you deal with people and situations that are….unpredictable. You can only be nice for so long when you have a combative drunk that needs to be restrained while the family in the other room is giving you a hard stare because you have not got their family member a drink yet, while the drug seeker is asking for another “shot” of pain meds because it has been 10 minutes since the doctor said they could have another one, while your actually sick patient needs to be transferred to the ICU. Oh, not to forget, while this is going on, people are asking you if you are going to be transferring the other patient soon because they need the room, the doctor is asking you to please give the drug seeker the meds, because he is driving everyone nuts and the other family has started following you because, their family member has not had anything to eat ALL day and they have been here for HOURS now! Also, you have patients in the hall, waiting for a room, giving you the evil eye…because it is all YOUR fault they are not in a room.

Ok…so maybe I have become hardened. Just a little. But, hey, if I was too soft, I would have broke a while ago.

First post..new blog!

Welcome!

I decided to start a fresh new blog in a new place because I feel that I needed a fresh start. My old blog was started while completing my basics for nursing school, a few posts during nursing school, etc. Then, I stopped blogging. Ah…I love my old blog, but I needed something new. So, so here I am!!

A little about me. I am a new grad RN, working in a large ER. I am not sure what the time frame is for calling yourself a new grad. But, it has been less than a year, so I think I can still use the new grad title. Although, according to my co-workers, you do not count as staff for the first 6 months. I am almost at my 6 month mark. I can tell a difference in the way my co-workers act towards me now. They know that I am crazy strong enough to stick it out and not give up. Apparently many nurses have not stayed.

In a way, I wish I would have started a blog when I first began working. You know, when I was all wide-eyed and innocent about how nursing truly is. Ready to save the world! In school, I only had 1-2 patients! Whoohoo! Ah….the memories.

Not that I do not remember the days of nursing school and orientation. But, those days seem like such a long time ago. I was all wide-eyed and innocent. Now, I am trudging my way through the craziness that is nursing, esp. in Emergency nursing.

So, I decided to start a blog about the things in my life now. How things have changed! Although I do become cranky and well, disgruntle, I love going to work and I learn something new every day.

So, stay tuned! I have 6 months of stuff to write about! It took me a few weeks to get to the point of posting this first one, but I am sure that now I have actually started blogging again, I will be inspired!