Nothing Left to Give

So there were 10 patients when I got there and we quickly filled the whole way up with patients in the waiting room. I had a busy day because I had a chest pain patient (elderly black male, dialysis pt) who got admitted. Then an 60-some yr old woman cancer patient that had to [...]

Iko Iko

I was recently offered the opportunity at work to switch from rotating days and nights (7a and 7p shifts, both 12 hours) to rotating days and evenings (11a-11p) instead. I debated for a good while about it because A: I really like the people that work nights and B: Nights (in general) aren’t as busy [...]

Nurses not Magicians

Our ER is a small ER 14 beds and here or there in the hallway when necessary. The hospital has been making some big changes over the past year or so moving from mostly OB to more than 50% medicine patients. This has understandably led to some growing pains. While other hospitals and areas of [...]

I Almost Said

I was discharging a patient who is perscribed seroquel (an anti-psycotic) with a prescription for seroquel and the patient said:
“This seroquel perscription is supposed to be 200mg not 100mg”
And I almost replied:
“You haven’t taken it for three weeks so what does it matter anyway?”

A Rare Follow up

Twice this week the man who had a cardiac arrest right under our noses a few weeks ago stopped by. He’s back to work now and looks amazing. I still couldn’t believe it. He said he wanted to come by to thank us, tell us that he thanks god for us every day as does [...]

Lame

So essentially I’m very lame and have no very good excuses as to where I’ve been for the past few weeks. School has been totally kicking by butt time commitment wise (and therefore emotion wise) Today I spent no less than 10 straight hours on this beautiful sunny day hunkered down in Panera typing up [...]

Nothing Left to Give

So here I sit, the end of night shift, the sun is rising and the sky turning from black to navy blue and so begins: The Hour of No Compassion.
The ongoing joke of the steady night shift nurses is the last hour of their shift is “the hour of no compassion”, where they may take [...]

Still in Awe

Awe:
1: An emotion variously combining dread, veneration, and wonder that is inspired by authority or by the sacred or sublime “stood in awe of the king”, “regard nature’s wonders with awe“
Yesterday was one of those days when everything falls magically into place and someone lives because of it all. I really don’t work in a [...]

So long MySpace

I finally joined Facebook in 2005 after much harassment from college friends… it took me a long time after that to join MySpace, maybe only last year, I wasn’t a fan of MySpace to begin with and now Facebook has finally won out totally and I deleted my MySpace account. I was just never really [...]

My Heart Attack

I worked 3 12 hour shifts in a row this week and on par with how things have been lately in our ER, all three days were real busy with real sick patients. As my dad would say “they beat me like a rented mule”. My feet and ankles are still hurting today and I [...]