Trump Card (and other stuff)

Up front, this isn't a political post.

Several situations at work today, I'll start with the amusing (in the dark kinda way):

First story:

*Paramedic report to their station*
Paramedic: We're not taking him in, he's dead dead.
Doctor's scribe in ER overhears report: Is there a difference between dead and dead dead?
Me: Of course there is. One is Mostly dead, they still might be alive. The other is all dead, nothing left in them
*Scribe stares blankly at me*
Me: Guess you've never seen the Princess Bride....

Second story:

I introduced myself to my almost 80 year old patient. After a couple of attempts she still couldn't figure out my name.
Me: I'm Ernesto, I'm your nurse
Pt: What's your name?
Me: Ernesto
Pt: How do you pronounce it?
Me: Ernest

It reminded me of a time when my coworker couldn't remember my name for over a year and she called me Lorenzo (and I answered cause I knew she was talking to me).

Final story:

A coworker created a problem that I spent almost an hour fixing. Long story my patient called out using the call bell and she answered. They requested pain medication, she called and told me but I was not on the floor. They called a second time and she cut them off. A third time and she didn't even let them talk before hanging up on them. I was back on the floor at this time and my patient called out to inform us they were leaving to another hospital.

I walk in the room to talk to them and they were gone.  I found them in the hall and the patient's IVs were still in.  I politely asked them to come to the room for me to remove them before they left the hospital.

They refused stating I could not touch the patient without permission or consent and they were not giving me their consent.  They obviously thought they had the upper hand in the situation. 

I agreed with them that I could not touch the patient without consent. I then explained that I could not allow them to leave the premises with the IVs in because that would be negligent on my part. I then dropped my trump card: if they left with the IVs in the patient's arm I would have to call the police to have them check on the patient and make sure they got removed.

They agreed to return to the room.

Now that the story is done I just want to thank my lovely coworker for doing her job so professionally. Her courtesy was so helpful in this situation....yes this statement is dripping with sarcasm.

Tired

I'm tired.

I'm tired of exercising. I'm tired of cleaning. I'm tired of running errands. The list goes on and on.

Problem is I've worked hard to lose over 30lbs. I'm afraid I'll quickly drop back into my old habits that caused me to get up to over 230lbs.

I'll probably take a week off after my next Spartan run but I can't fall into those habits again. I felt like crap when I was that big. I hated that my belly was so big it would stay behind when I rolled over.  At least that's what I felt anyway.

I don't think I have enough time to run tomorrow morning and I don't want to wake up early.

I need to sleep now.

Processing events

The last four days I've worked have been rough.  My shift ended on Friday with a guy arriving to the ED in cardiac arrest. Saturday was a double shooting that kept me late. Sunday overall wasn't too bad other than working with a slowpoke in triage (I would triage 2-3 people to her one) but she did triage all the screaming pediatric patients.

Today things finally got to me (to an extent). Though I helped care for more, I only had three official patients over eight hours. 

First patient was a stroke and due to administering TPA that patient was 1:1 for almost two hours. I was able to sneak a lunch break in after I got her to the ICU (her symptoms had resolved within the first 15 minutes of TPA).

After finishing my lunch break I get paged for an unresponsive patient. He was dropped off by his "girlfriend" and was told his name was Gary. After a little Vitamin Narcan he became responsive and we discovered his name was Larry (close enough, right?). He was discharged.

Here's where it got rough. Triage was backed up and one of their nurses went to lunch. I went out to help, the other RN out front said it was my call.  I felt I should stick around and triage a few people.

While out there a woman asked for help getting her husband out of the car, he was having a heart attack (we hear this frequently so they can be seen quicker). Rolling my eyes I grabbed gloves and a wheelchair to help the man out of the car. He reported palpitations and being sweaty earlier. 

Checked him in and took him to the back for triage. Before I could start the official triage he started posturing and became unresponsive.

Fuck. I thought he was just trying to get back sooner.  Called a code blue, got him on a stretcher and to our trauma bay.  After 45 minutes we decided to call it, he was not coming back.

Talking with the other triage nurse we both came to the realization that if I had not felt inclined to help, this person would have literally died in the lobby in front of everybody because the other triage nurse was already tied up and didn't get back to the triage bay until after he had coded.

I'm grateful I was able to follow my impression today. I'm thankful for a good team that worked well during the 45 minute code. Even though communication wasn't 100% the extra hands were great and everything was completed as it should have been done.