November 11

"I thank God for my life and for the stars and stripes. May freedom forever fly, let it ring.
Salute the ones who died, the ones that give their lives, so we don't have to sacrifice all the things we love."--ZBB


I cry every time I see this:

Vacation?

Me: Haha, oh Ben. I love that you're even more cynical than I am.
Ben: Well when you get to a certain age, it's totally appropriate.
Me: When you get to a certain age? So are you saying its not appropriate that I'm cynical?
Ben: Haha, at your age, no. You're way too young to be cynical.

I think I am in desperate need of a vacation b/c I have found that I get super irritated at work very easily. I dont know if I just work too many shifts in a row (which has its perks since I usually get a couple days off in a row after that) but I have definitely noticed that my threshold for annoyance is significantly lower than it used to be. Dont get me wrong, I LOVE my job, and I LOVE being a nurse. If you've ever heard me talk about my job, you know that there really is NOTHING I would rather be doing with my life, but I just dont have the patience anymore. I know its all part of the job, but I'm tired of dealing with pharmacists who dont put in orders in a timely fashion; I'm tired of lab technicians who "lose" specimens; I'm tired of patients who pull out their IVs 20 minutes before my shift is over, who try to manipulate you for pain medicine, who refuse to get their assess out of bed and do anything for themselves, or patients who yell at you and question your nursing judgment. Sorry for the bitch-fest. I just need a break. Or I'll at least settle for a pleasant, appreciative patient who can remind me why I do what I do. Siiiiigh.

Nurses know best. :-P

It still baffles me how doctors can write orders and "care for" patients without ever assessing their patients. I realize that this is part of their job and training to be able to do this to an extent, but I just dont understand how they can be the ones ordering treatments, medications, interventions, etc when they're not the ones at the bedside constantly evaluating the patients.

Last night I had a patient (W.) who was pretty lethargic, didnt want to keep his eyes open for me, and when he did open his eyes he had this blank stare on his face. He was just "off." W is pretty familiar to us but during previous admissions he'd always had kind of a weird affect, which of course made taking care of him last night that much more challenging because I couldnt tell if he was just being weird or if something was actually wrong. About 3 hours into my shift I decided to bring the doctors to take a look at the patient just for my own comfort and reassurance. We get to the W.'s room and of course he's sitting up in bed, eyes wide open and the docs look at me, give me a hard time and laugh, "Come on, Nikki. He's fine." And I just tried to defend myself and claim that he hadnt been like that the last 3 times I'd gone in to see him. I can tell they kind of believed me, but unfortunately they cant do anything since what they see is a patient who is alert and responsive. For the rest of the night I was constantly battling with W. to actually stay alert. He developed a low-grade fever (100.6) and the docs just said to give him Tylenol. I continued to claim that he was "off" but when the doctor would go in there, W. would either be asleep and the doc didnt want to wake him, or I would've just harassed W. and woken him up enough to a point where he could actually answer a question. They attributed his weirdness and lethargy to the fever, which is fair, but they still didnt want to do any more. I kept checking on him and his temp just kept increasing. By the time my shift was over, he was febrile (temp=103.6), tachy (HR=130's), tachypnic (respiratory rate=32-34), and borderline hypertensive (BP=145/100). Septic much? I think so. The day nurse ended up transferring him to the ICU 2 hours after I left and W. had a seizure within an hour of arriving to the ICU. ...Yeah, sure Dr. C, "He's fine."

...Just another reason doctors should listen to nurses.... :-P

Fall Back

Seriously? Adding an extra hour to your night can take up to a week to adjust to?? Try working 3 night shifts in a row and then switch your body clock back. Not fun.

Sidebar, I'm super excited to finally be able to go out on a weekend AND we get an extra hour of sleep (aka an extra hour to recover from the inevitable hangover)! :-p

reality vs drama

M and I went out for a couple drinks and to watch MNF the other night and we made friends with the guy sitting at the bar next to us...

Man: So, wait a minute. You're a nurse?
Me: Yes.
Man: And he's a doctor?
Me: Yes.
Man: And you both work at Georgetown?
Me: Yes.
Man (smirking): Niiiice. How does that work?
Me: What do you mean?
Man: Well you know, is there an HR issue there? Is it awkward?
Me: No.
Man: Oh. I just thought it might cause some drama, you know, a nurse and a doctor...
Me: No, its really not as uncommon as you think.
Man (disappointed): Oh...

It always entertains me how people assume that working in a hospital is comparable to prime time drama (aka Grey's). The sneaking around, the incestual-type hook-ups where everyone hooks up with everyone else, sex in the on-call room, etc etc. Sadly, real-life hospital gossip is just not that juicy. But I suppose that doesnt stop people's imaginations from conjuring up steamy stories. ....Now, if you wanna hear stories about crazy and ridiculous patients, then I could entertain you for hours... :-P

for your reading pleasure

"Drinking is the only way to deal with morons."

patting myself on the back :-p

I'm gonna toot my own horn in this post so I apologize, but this totally made my day and every time I think about it, it makes me super happy. So I'm going to share it. Mr. B is one of our patients who recently got re-admitted to the hospital and I saw him for the first time in about a year and a half...

Mr. & Mrs. B: NIKKI!!
Me: Hi Mr. & Mrs. B, how are you guys doing?
Mrs. B: Well, we've been better.
Mr. B: But at least we got a bed on 6 Bles this time. It was the best news I'd heard all night.
Me: Well we wouldn't want you on any other floor. Mary is your nurse tonight and I'm the charge nurse so let me know if you need anything.
Mr. B: Well look at you! You're charge nurse now? That's great.
.............
Mr. B: I just cant get over that you were a tech the last time I saw you and now you're a nurse. You're charge nurse! That's wonderful.
Me: Yeah, it's really good. I'm loving it.
Mr. B: Well you were great. [My wife and I] knew you'd be a great nurse. We loved when you took care of us. You were always one of our favorites.
Me: Aww
Mr. B: No really. Top 2 or 3. I cant tell you who the others are though. But every time I came back for a clinic visit, I would come up to the floor to say hi and see who was working. I hoped to see you, but you were never working those days.
Me: Oh no, thats too bad.
Mr. B: Yeah, you're a favorite. I'd say Top 2.

During a long shift of having to deal with obnoxious, needy patients, that conversation was a nice reminder of why I do what I do. :)

Long overdue

There were not very many quotes recorded from Homecoming weekend, but these are the 3 that I have saved on my phone:

• "You need to sit closer to me so I can touch you." --Danielle to me
  
• "How cute is he?!? He's such a dreamboat!!" -- Mike
  
• "Well, he's a man. ...So clearly you are the boss." --Mike to me

Other highlights from the weekend:

• spending a lovely relaxing Friday with Chinlund :)
• walking on the quad on a gorgeous Friday afternoon
• Running into Willie and having his gf and her friend glare at us the entire time
• Katie's cheerleading outfit
  
• Mike trying to convince the parking police to let us keep the car parked
  
• Matt following us to our tailgate when the game started
  
• a certain member of the Ocho making out with a certain Sigma Pi at the bar... ;)