Last week was a busy albeit great week. I decided to pick up Tuesday because I'd like to get some extra hours in occasionally to give myself a buffer at the end of the year. There were 2 LVNs on the schedule so I decided it would work well to pick up that day, so Holly could cover one and I could cover the other. As it turns out, one floated to another floor so I covered the LVN (because I had the assignment the day before) and Holly was extra hands on the floor. I covered the LVN on the same assignment Monday-Wednesday and I was in-ratio (They were short staffed so I took a full assignment myself) on Thursday. Fortunately, it was the same assignment, so I knew the patients.
I've worked 4 days in the week; I've worked 3 in a row, but I've never worked 4 days in a row (Keep in mind these are 12 hour shifts). It worked out well. There was no way I was doing a 5th day. Wednesday was a really busy day, and Thursday started and ended great, but in the afternoon my patient, who was a trauma-blunt abdominal and blunt head trauma had increase abdominal pain. Ultimately what happened was we sent her to Telemetry (She complained of Chest Pain at admission and her Cardiac Enzymes were elevated on the second set).
It was stressful because both the Trauma Surgeon and the newly consulted Cardiologist were both there and there were hella new orders. Thank goodness for our unit secretary who knows how to enter in all of the labs and tests. The really frustrating parts were: it took lab 2 hours to come draw some STAT labs (For the record, I called them 3x and the charge nurse called once and that was documented). One of the labs, Lactic Acid was critically high (4.67). She was the image of sepsis. What's worse is that when I went in to help the resource nurse get her ready to go to her CT, her O2 was Off!. She was on 4L! I was pissed. She ended up going to CT, up to Tele, then to Emergency Exploratory Laparotomy due to air and blood in her Abdomen...
As I think about this know, a mere 3 days later I think about what I could have done differently. What I should have done, what I should have caught on to sooner. I'm not beating myself up, but I am learning from this. She is going to need some aggressive care. I'm put money on her being transferred to ICU after surgery.
After that day and the three preceding it, I spent most of Friday lounging about the house not getting a great deal done. That night, we hung out with Connor, Darby and Ann (VSCs from last year) at Ann's place in Culver City. It was very laid back and fun.
Saturday morning we went to Baldwin Hills. It is a park in the middle of a very industrial area. The main goal of the park is to call attention to nature vs. concrete. It was quite a hike up some very tall stairs to a garden and more trails. We had a picnic and went home. A very quiet night at home rounded out the night.
I found cheap free weights for the house on Craigslist. The money came out of the community account. We now have a basic, but pretty good, exercise room in the house. After we picked them up, we got Dim Sum and Yogurtland. I tried out the weights (I've gotten quite a bit weaker in the past couple months since I haven't done much of anything physical). It will be great to get back into the swing of things. Nachos for supper and it is time for bed!
It was meant to be a short post, but I needed to unload a bit about Thursday.
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