Today's shift definitely had it's ups and not quite up there... I started off with two patients and sent one home before I got to have an early, mostly uninterrupted lunch (oh so rare in my world!). Right before that happened, a mother brought her child up to the floor to visit me. It was SO sweet! She said that she had come a couple times before when I was not working. Her baby was 7 months old when he received part of her liver. He is now 14 months old and adorable as ever! I actually only took care of him 2 or 3 times, but really connected with this family (at least, it seems that way to me since they did go out of their way to try and visit me!). This little boy let me pick him up and snuggled with me, giving me hugs...oh my gosh, it was priceless! For a 14 month old to be like that to a "stranger" is just amazing (maybe he remembers me from "way back when " so I'm not a stranger any more!). They are moving to another state, so that could have been my last visit, but I DID give the mom my address, so hopefully I'll get a Christmas card :o)
After lunch was when it all began to get crazy. One of my patients actually had two different student nurses, which, we all have to learn, but sometimes students are more work. This patient is quite the pistol to put it mildly and doesn't really like new people (she is 10 going on like 13 or 15 or 20). So, she wouldn't let the students do some of her cares, so I had to, but she didn't really want me either...argh! I got an admission around 3:00. It was "just" respiratory distress, but no English is spoken in that household, so it took a little bit of extra time. That patient was assigned a nursing student as he was getting admitted...okay, that is SO not cool! Luckily, she was a nice student who actually held MY hand as I started one of the few IVs I have attempted in my 5 years as a nurse (sad, but true). It only took one poke and I was pretty proud of that! Of course, he didn't get his first respiratory treatment until my shift was over...oops, kind of forgot about that being the reason he was admitted (**I WAS monitoring him and he was in no danger, but still not quite the way it should have been). In the meantime, the charge nurse started admitting another patient (reminder, I now only have two patients, since one went home). It figured that it would be my patient but that fact didn't really set in until she had done most of the work and was like "so, are ya going to assess him and do the charting?" Uh, yeah, I'll get right on that. After all that, I did manage to clock out at the "normal" time (oh, 7:40).
So, tomorrow I decided to work a "bonus shift" in the PICU...if I feel any complaints coming on, I suppose I'm going to have to keep reminding myself "this was your choice; this is your fault; you brought this on yourself; you need the money; this is not that bad" Oh my, here's hoping it isn't THAT bad. I actually know what patients I would like, but they will probably get a float nurse too, so I'll probably have to take different ones (or, I could get lucky and get who I want!).
Well, it could be a busy day tomorrow, so I better get some sleep. That's all for tonight folks (ha ha like anyone is reading!)
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