Monday, March 26, 2007
What really happens when the Grey's Anatomy Drs are making out.
I have just woken from the "recover sleep" of my first 12 hour shift on the ICU. The shift was great and in 12 hours I learned so much, remembered that I remembered so much and changed more bedpans on two patients in 2 hours than I had the entirety of my nursing education thus far.
It was new knowledge, old knowledge and poo. As it should be. Ahh, all is right with the world.
What else happened? It was gooey, to be sure. I'll offer some scenarios, let's say, and you can attempt to assemble the gooiest 12 hours possible, kay?
1. I helped to hold down, by physically putting myself nearly on top of him, a combative patient who they were attempting to start a new line on because he had ripped out (dahhhhhh!!! Poop is cool, but ripping out one's own lines gives me the willies) all of his previous IVs. The man was detoxing from quite.the.binge and was hallucinating some awesomely scary things in the room. I wonder if "nursing student pinning me down" was one. 'Cept that totally happened.
2. The non-English-speaking patient who would sweetly ask for the bedpan by pointing at his crotch and saying "Poo-poo." Once on it, he would clasp his hands in front of himself with a big smile of satisfaction.
3. I removed the arterial line on a patient's wrist and had to apply the requisite 5 minutes of pressure on it (it truly, truly squirts otherwise.). We sat together and watched trick-billards on tv while we waited. As I was bandaging him up, I asked him when he was buying me dinner. Obviously he had to buy me dinner since we had just held hands for 5 minutes and don't tell me it didn't mean anything to him. He burst out laughing and said he'd be happy to tell his buddies that he had held hands with and then had dinner with Gloria Estefan, because, of course, I look very much like Gloria Estefan. (On the level, do I?!)
4. A patient had recently had a liver surgery. The incision, called a mercedes incision (you might creatively figure out why), went across his entire torso and was closed with staples. He asked me how it looked and I said, "Well, the good news is that this ensures your pirate costume for Halloween will be awesome." He quickly retorted, "Oh good. I just need to find my eyepatch and convince the parrot." He, incidentally, was about to be transfered to a step-down unit. I assured him that at least here, in the ICU, the jokes were free. They weren't free in the step-down.
5. Why you need to, even at your age, put your advance directive/DNR wishes in writing ASAP (In Virginia, you don't need to have it legally notarized, only witnessed. If you know how you'd like to be handled if you can't handle yourself, get one, fill it out and sign it. Make sure your loved ones have copies.) An elderly stroke patient who was long ago brain dead sits in the ICU. He is on a ventilator, fed by tube feeding and is systematically shutting down so much so that he is on continuous bedside dialysis. As we turned him and changed his sheets, he is so dead that his bright yellow skin is falling off. It is disgusting and terribly sad. The man is rotting in his hospital bed. His sweetly smiling and doting wife sits close by, keeping the hope ever alive, asking when he'll be on the kidney transplant list and won't it be grand when she can get him home.
6. A patient who had attempted suicide and failed, somehow managed to get his suicide note into his chart. Which I promptly read. It was sad, it was desperate. It was written on a post-it. Is it tacky to write your suicide note on a post-it? As I said to the nurse, "A suicide note on a post-it says, 'Goodbye cruel world! We need milk.' Is that how you want your last words on earth?" At least it stuck to the chart.
7. Another bed-panned patient would ask for it, get one and when we came back ten minutes later he'd sigh heavily and say, "Ahh. False alarm. Sorry girls." Dude, it's totally cool.
8. Jack Bauer came in and tortured one of us until we gave up the location of the cafeteria.
9. All of the above.
10. All of the above except, sadly, for 8. Which would have been awesome.
Don't you all want to be nurses?! You pay in bedpans for the awesome stuff. Just wait until I start working nights.
It was new knowledge, old knowledge and poo. As it should be. Ahh, all is right with the world.
What else happened? It was gooey, to be sure. I'll offer some scenarios, let's say, and you can attempt to assemble the gooiest 12 hours possible, kay?
1. I helped to hold down, by physically putting myself nearly on top of him, a combative patient who they were attempting to start a new line on because he had ripped out (dahhhhhh!!! Poop is cool, but ripping out one's own lines gives me the willies) all of his previous IVs. The man was detoxing from quite.the.binge and was hallucinating some awesomely scary things in the room. I wonder if "nursing student pinning me down" was one. 'Cept that totally happened.
2. The non-English-speaking patient who would sweetly ask for the bedpan by pointing at his crotch and saying "Poo-poo." Once on it, he would clasp his hands in front of himself with a big smile of satisfaction.
3. I removed the arterial line on a patient's wrist and had to apply the requisite 5 minutes of pressure on it (it truly, truly squirts otherwise.). We sat together and watched trick-billards on tv while we waited. As I was bandaging him up, I asked him when he was buying me dinner. Obviously he had to buy me dinner since we had just held hands for 5 minutes and don't tell me it didn't mean anything to him. He burst out laughing and said he'd be happy to tell his buddies that he had held hands with and then had dinner with Gloria Estefan, because, of course, I look very much like Gloria Estefan. (On the level, do I?!)
4. A patient had recently had a liver surgery. The incision, called a mercedes incision (you might creatively figure out why), went across his entire torso and was closed with staples. He asked me how it looked and I said, "Well, the good news is that this ensures your pirate costume for Halloween will be awesome." He quickly retorted, "Oh good. I just need to find my eyepatch and convince the parrot." He, incidentally, was about to be transfered to a step-down unit. I assured him that at least here, in the ICU, the jokes were free. They weren't free in the step-down.
5. Why you need to, even at your age, put your advance directive/DNR wishes in writing ASAP (In Virginia, you don't need to have it legally notarized, only witnessed. If you know how you'd like to be handled if you can't handle yourself, get one, fill it out and sign it. Make sure your loved ones have copies.) An elderly stroke patient who was long ago brain dead sits in the ICU. He is on a ventilator, fed by tube feeding and is systematically shutting down so much so that he is on continuous bedside dialysis. As we turned him and changed his sheets, he is so dead that his bright yellow skin is falling off. It is disgusting and terribly sad. The man is rotting in his hospital bed. His sweetly smiling and doting wife sits close by, keeping the hope ever alive, asking when he'll be on the kidney transplant list and won't it be grand when she can get him home.
6. A patient who had attempted suicide and failed, somehow managed to get his suicide note into his chart. Which I promptly read. It was sad, it was desperate. It was written on a post-it. Is it tacky to write your suicide note on a post-it? As I said to the nurse, "A suicide note on a post-it says, 'Goodbye cruel world! We need milk.' Is that how you want your last words on earth?" At least it stuck to the chart.
7. Another bed-panned patient would ask for it, get one and when we came back ten minutes later he'd sigh heavily and say, "Ahh. False alarm. Sorry girls." Dude, it's totally cool.
8. Jack Bauer came in and tortured one of us until we gave up the location of the cafeteria.
9. All of the above.
10. All of the above except, sadly, for 8. Which would have been awesome.
Don't you all want to be nurses?! You pay in bedpans for the awesome stuff. Just wait until I start working nights.
# posted by Cathy @ 9:50:00 AM 
