long clinical woes

these 12 hour shifts are killing me! I'm sure eventually I'll get used to it, but just as I think I can handle it, I get a crappy shift.

Yesterday, my preceptor is assigned two patients: a very critical guy with all sorts of ICP issues and six million drugs and lines, and one guy who had no business being on the unit (he was in no way critical, just a big pain in the ass).

Instead of dealing with our sick patient, we spent most of the day babysitting the other guy, trying to keep him from pulling out his lines and stuff while we wait for him to be transferred. Meanwhile, our sick guy (let's call him Guy B)'s ICP keeps going up, his BP keeps going up, and he is generally just getting worse.

So we're rushing around trying to get him a STAT CT and get everything else under control, while we're babysitting this other "crazy" guy (Guy A).

After lunch, we finally get rid of Guy A (after calling to give report to the floor nurse 5 times!) and Guy B is stabilizing. So our busy pain in the ass day turned into a boring day. Nothing to do for a while.

So I start helping the other nurses out with things. Bed baths, turning, restocking supplies, etc. I even did a straight cath. Too bad it was a very heavy woman (I'd say probably near 300 lbs), and the two nurses in there helping hold back her legs and what not kept trying to coach me through it and messing me up. If they had just left me alone, I would have been fine. SHEESH! And to top it off, the lady started to pee right as I got the catheter up there ready to stick it in, peeing all over my hand! Thank God for gloves!

I also got my first IV! Got it on the first stick!!

I came home exhausted, and am still exhausted today. I'll be back on the floor tomorrow. Hopefully it'll be a great day and I'll learn a lot.

Actually, what I am really hoping is that the 400 lb pt that replaced Guy A right at shift change is gone before Wednesday morning. (So not looking forward to turning that).