So you had a bad day at work.

 

So you got in trouble with your boss.  You pissed off a customer? You showed up late to work.  Maybe you even lost a really big client.  But when a nurse has a really bad day it’s most likely because their patient died.  It’s may sound callous but when a code comes in it’s a little easier to distance yourself from the patient.  You didn’t hold their hand or comfort them in their last moments like I did in long term care.  Though a child code will always take your breath away.  Which brings me to my bad day.  I had a female early 70’s come in due to a fall at her home.  She had a laceration to her head.  But was mainly complaining of her hip hurting.  She told me of her stories of being a nurse.  The things that she loved and the ones that she hated.  Being an ER nurse you are rushed so I really didn’t have a lot of time to really listen to her stories long.  In between vital checks, pain medication administration and positioning.  I helped clean up her laceration and all her dried blood.  We chit chatted some more.  She went to CT.  When she came back the CT tech states she was complaining of head pain.  So I went to check her pain level.  Upon arriving to the room.  She was no longer her chipper self.  She was only moaning.  I called the dr. ASAP.  Called for some back up help to my room.  She went from talking  to unresponsive.  She was tubed and moved to the trauma room.  She had a major bleed in the brain.  Nothing we could have done they say.  She won’t live they say.  That doesn’t make it all better.  You still look back and reevaluate did I spend enough time in that room?  Vitals were fine.  Did I miss something?  So the next time when you hear a nurse say they had a bad day at work.  Don’t always dismiss it as just something trivial.   When a nurse has a truly bad day it’s not always caused by some drunk running down the hall naked.

Put the gun down.

So there are some really cool things you get to see when you are a nurse.  Okay let me rephrase that when you are a nurse you think you see cool things.  This is one of those things.  So we get a shotgun wound patient.  Sound exciting?  Well it would be in our rural area since that doesn’t happen often.  The city I am sure its and every night episode.  How ever not only is this a 12 gauge shot gun there is not “real bullets”  just bean bags.  Apparently a suspect was holding a gun.  Got two warning shots with a 12 gauge shot gun.  Patient comes in with it still embedded in his leg.  The cool part was he was wearing sweat pants and the sweat pants when inside his leg.  The pants acted like a catcher mitt and kept the bean bag from exploding in his leg.  Freaking cool.  Not for him but to watch it being removed.  Yea I know I am sick.  But hey when the cops say put the weapon down, they mean business.

Holes in your neck

We had this lady come in a few nights back that came in via ambulance.   They didn’t tell us quite what was going on just that this lady had holes in her neck.  They had the bleeding under control but would explain the situation when they got there.  Apparently they couldn’t figure out if the patient tried to kill their self or if it was an accident.  The patient was drunk as a skunk screaming that she would never hurt herself.  That she would just take pills because it would be easier.   The lady’s hair was matted with dried blood and the front of her shirt look like she murdered someone.  I gloved and gowned up because the patient was trying to get out of bed.  Shouting she didn’t need to be here.  The Doctor was tied up in another room and I was just accessing the damage.  Which didn’t take long since she wouldn’t stay still the washcloth that was covering her neck fell.  While she screamed at us the holes in her neck would open and close.  Which would cause it to bleed and then stop.  Weird and gruesome all at once.  If she caused these holes she was pretty talented.  I was in weird patterns.  After the doctor accessed her apparently she gotten drunk and passed out.  On the way down she must have hit something to cause the weird holes.  Unfortunately even though she didn’t commit suicide she was home alone with 3 small kids.  Not good because this wasn’t the first time.  Meaning social services had to be called.  It took the doctor about an hour to suture her back up.
***morale of the story if your going to drink yourself unconscious lay in the floor and move the furniture prior to partying.