O Brave New World

Right, almost forgot this one. Thanks for the tag, Markie.

Eight things about myself…hmm…

1) I like coffee. Specifically, I like to go to Starbuck’s and get a tall white chocolate mocha cappuccino, breve, with whipped cream. My budget can no longer afford it, though, so it’s in my dreams at night.

2) I’ve lost six pounds since Thanksgiving. No lie. Too much stress, yo. This is on a 5′7″, 125 lbs frame, folks. CanNOT lose any more weight.

3) My second son had a non-displaced fracture of his right frontal bone, on the suture line. Wish I could  share the CT with you. It was hugely obvious, even to a little US/MT like me. But no worries. It’s all good now.

4) My love ignores me. Seriously, it’s what they say–you fall in love with a man-whore, you shouldn’t be surprised when he dumps you like leftover fries. Bastard.

5) I’m addicted to blogs. Not writing, necessarily, but reading? Yeah. Like, I should be reading about cardiac stimulants and depressives right now, but I’m blogging.

6) I love Firefly. That and BattleStar Galactica are my favorite shows on television today.
7) I had my clinical final. My prof looked at me and said, “You are an OCD control freak. Chill out, or you’ll be a really good nurse for about five years, then turn to a crisp and go back to English…oh, and I think you are going to be a wonderful nurse once you learn that you aren’t perfect.” *sniff. I cried. Of course, she said a lot more than that, but I can’t share it yet. Needs a new post.

Rat bastard. ICU nurses suck, guys. For real.

ThoroughDoc is gone.

Damn, I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye, or blog about her, or anything.

Here’s the deal. ThoroughDoc is thorough. CNAs hate her–she asks specific questions about patients that they could only know if they’ve actually, you know, seen the patient. If she writes “strict I/Os”, she expects them to be charted every hour…not when you feel like it, not once per shift, but every hour, and damn if she will not be checking on you!

Expected we monitor techs (oh, yeah, that’s happened, too. I work in the ICU as a monitor tech now, yeah!) to be able to tell her, in great detail, exactly what the patient had been doing…how frequent are the PVCs, what do you mean by “occasional”? Thought a unit secretary should know basic things about the patient’s color, day, diet, etc.

I miss her. She was so good, didn’t miss a thing, wasn’t afraid to chafe the ass of the rad.tech to get a scan read on a weekend, and then chafe the ass of his superior to, ahem, motivate the nighthawk to get it done. Nurses think they advocate for their patients–could learn something from her, let me tell you.

She was so small, mousy, could’ve been a smokin’ hottie if she’d wanted, but she had other things on her mind–caring for patients as her first priority.

Dammit.

She’s gone, and this little sandy corner of the world got a lot less safe.

This is awesome, y’all.

I’m in preclinical, assessing my patient. He’s s/p explap that led to a colon resection. I ask him about his pain, you know: “How are you feeling?” and all that crap and he says, “Well, my leg hurts.” Okay. Which leg? “This one.” Can he wiggle his toes? Nice in the left leg, not in the right. Color looks fine, a little pale…pedal pulses? CanNOT feel them. Plus, the foot is friggin’ cold, and they were covered up the same with the blanket. Ask a few history questions, yadda yadda ya, can’t find a reason for the chill. So I go tell his primary nurse. You know what he says?

“It’s because he’s old.”

“…What? I’m sorry–did you just say it’s because he’s old?”

“Yeah. Old people do funny things.”

Wha–I mean, WHAT THE FUCK? He just had surgery. I cannot palpate his pedal pulses. I can feel his popliteal pulse, but it’s weak. He can barely wiggle his toes…in the one foot. He’s complaining of pain. I’ve assessed and documented areas of numbness in his lower leg. Um, guys?

“Well, he probably came in that way.”  And how would you know that, since you HAVEN’T DONE HIS ADMISSION H&P, AND ASSESSMENT, IN SPITE OF THE FACT HE WAS BACK FROM SURGERY 5 HOURS AGO, YOU SCUTMONKEY?!

Bastard. Then later, I overheard one of the LPNs on the other side of the floor talking about “that student. They always think they’ve found something funny.”

Well, hell. So, the next day I get there…it’s worse. No popliteal pulse, can barely feel the femoral pulse, foot is white, leg is pale. Can’t wiggle toes, unless you count foot shudders as wiggles. I tell my clinical supervisor the whole thing. She sighs deeply, says: “Student nurses. You people always overreact.”

Bitch. You could’ve at least looked at the damn thing.

Now…we SNs aren’t supposed to go to the patient’s primary nurse unless a) it’s an emergency and b) our CS says it’s okay. Screw that, bitches, I’m getting this guy some help. Frakkin’ looks emergent to me, now, so I go to the guy’s primary nurse.

Hell if it isn’t my good friend Mary, thank the gods! She knows me, she believes me, she goes in, listens to what I say and what the patient says, calls the doc, gets interventions online, and I’m happy to say that by the end of the next week–because he was in there a lot longer than he should have been–he was all better.

Moral? Don’t discount SNs just because we’re baby nurses. Babies know enough to cry when something’s wrong.

Damn. Been forever.

Okay, so everyone is wondering what I’ve been up to. Well. Let me tell you. I’ve been up to…

my elbows in shit. No lie. See, here’s the thing. When I hear a call light go off, I look to see who it is. No big thing, right? Apparently SO, for certain people who think that the definition of nurse is “someone who is never around when you need them, especially if you are a blind diabetic with COPD and a GI bleed, in the bathroom”. Frak. Dammit, I spent more time cleaning up bloody poop in the room next door than I spent with my own total care patient.

This went on for four weeks of clinicals, yo. Somehow, I and SlackerNurse were always paired. They tried to do that to help us out, right, so we were together for four weeks. Holy shit, that’s all I did, answer her frakkin’ call light! The first two weeks weren’t like that, but on the second week her patient went south, called a fast team. Hell, I don’t know what she thought it was going to be like when the anesthesiologist said, “Now, SN, you’ll have to monitor his BP every five minutes once I give this bolus.” She smiled and said, “Okay!” and got busy setting the auto-BP. Then when his second pressure was iffy, she got worried…his third was total crap. She lost it. We almost had to escort her from the floor, no lie. She needs to be in a little clinic or something.

So anyway, from that moment on she was like, “If I’m not in there, they can’t blame me,” or “If I don’t see it, it’s like it doesn’t happen,” or some such shit. So who took care of her patient, and my own, and helped everyone else, and ran interference so we lowly SNs could actually chart? Me, of course. “Miranda, could you…” “Miranda, Slacker needs help with…” hell, everything. Ambulating her patient. Checking their pulse. Getting a bedpan. Charting safety rounds. God.

Because it’s all about the patient…right?