Work update

Ive decided that while it may be boring to the rest of the world I am going to start blogging about my work days. It will be therapeutic for me and help me to become a better critical thinker...

I didnt go to work on Tuesday 9/8/09 because I had such a bad back ache! Ive never had one like this before. I laid around all day with my feet up and tried to do as little as possible. I felt so bad for using my sick time but thats what happens sometimes. No one really minded in fact they were all very reassuring that its okay to do that. I just knew that I would have made it much worse had I gone to work. I felt good enough when I had to return to work thursday. What made it better was my best friend came over and helped me feel better :)

Thursday 9/10/09 was a good day at work, I had a total of 4 patients in the beginning then I got a transfer patient from upstairs that put me at 5. All my patients were pretty stable except for a few BP issues. One of them had never been admitted to the hospital before and everytime his IV beeped he thought he had to take it out and we had to give him a new one. He had a lot of anxiety and had just lost his job of 28 years - 2 weeks ago, a lot of mental anguish for him. As a result he was pretty sensitive to everything that was taking place. He had a shared room and there was some mixup with visitors for him or the other patient and someone -not me- told his family they had to leave. I dont know who it was but he took his frustration out on me...my first semi-hostile experience, he was very agitated and using vulgar language, pacing in and out of room making a big spectacle. I was able to get him to calm down and stay in room. I told my shift leader and we just left him a lone for a while. Then the Patient Care Representative was doing her daily rounds and just happened to start in his room...weird but good. Anywho she wanted to know the story so I told her all of this and she gave him her card. Nothing else transpired during the day with him and actually at the end when I recieved his discharge orders he gave me a hug... a little uncomfortable. Oh yeah the MD that wrote the D/C order also hugged me! Weirder!

My other patient had a surgery that I didnt really think my hospital would attempt or have someone that could do it, an enlargement of his foramen magnum, the hole in the head where the spine and the brain meet. Anywho he had been having a series of very severe headaches- naturally- and upon the MDs examination they planned this surgery. A lot of discharge teaching was done with this patient and his family, I feel the best out of all the D/Cs I have done for this one.
I recieved not one, not two but three discharge orders pretty simultaneously and I jammed them out. I was actually trying to get the other two out as well. That didnt happen, I was anticipating an admit as well but that took a long time to get one, I guess because I was prepared and expecting to get an admit I didnt but the down time allowed me to help my fellow RNs/CPs out and rest my back a little which felt pretty tight at the end of the shift. I am now off for 4 days and it will be great!

All in all, I am getting the hang of the tasks, requirements and responsibilities that this career choice has and each day I feel a little more confident about my work efforts and abilities. It feels great to be a very supportive environment.

-M