We do what we can.

Work on Saturday was a dream. I hadn't had such a wonderful day at work in a long time. I actually had fun, and it was slow. In the span of 12 hours, I started ONE IV, took ONE patient to XRay, drew blood ONCE, and took ONE patient to CAT Scan. That's it. Usually days like those drag on, with each tick of the clock feeling like one year, for lack of nothing to do. Luckily, it was a great crew, which helped time FLY.

I should have known Sunday was going to be a crappy day at work, just because fate likes to balance out the good with the bad, and something had to counteract the greatness of Saturday.

It wasn't the busiest day I've had, I'll admit that. It was busy enough, though, and to top it off I had two really intense cases which drained me physically and emotionally.

First, I'll talk about the drunk girl. We received a call from Fire Rescue saying we were about to get an alcohol poisoning patient. A few minutes later, the 15 year old girl rolls in, practically unconscious. She was so out of it that she even reminded me of a CP (Cerebral Palsy) patient. Reportedly, she was at an apartment complex pool with a friend of hers, at around 10 am, swimming and drinking. She's lucky she didn't drown to death. According to the police, she was upset that she wasn't able to go to the prom the night before. I assume that's why she was drinking so early in the morning.

We did the works on this girl. Started an IV, drew some blood, inserted a Foley Catheter, placed an NG (nasogastric) tube to pump her stomach, etc etc... You name it, we did it.
You could smell the tequila on her breath from a mile away.

I was eager to get the results for the alcohol levels in her bloodstream, since we knew it was going to be a ridiculously high number. An hour later, we get the results back. The girl had an alcohol level of 2.44. The legal limit in the state of Florida is 0.08. She's lucky she didn't die.

One thing that really got to me was the mother's rection to the ordeal. She was completely clueless as to the gravity of the entire situation. I was in the room performing an EKG on the girl, and all the while I'm explaining to the mother what's going to be happening in the next couple of hours. I inform her that we will be admitting her daughter to the Intensive Care Unit, and she is completely dumbfounded. Her jaw drops, and she asks "what? how come??" I proceed to explain to her how high the alcohol level in her daughter was, etc. etc. She responds with "Are you kidding me?! God, all she did was drink... What's the big deal??", in a very offensive tone. At this point I wanted to strangle the mother for being so incompetent. Judging from her reaction to everything, I started to sympathize with the daughter...Obviously there are problems at home that need to be dealt with properly. The mother is clearly not meeting her child's needs.

When the girl finally came to, I could tell she wanted to talk to me about her issues. She was sobbing, asking me why she had so many problems in her life...why she was so stupid as to do this and add more problems to her life. I wanted to sit there and listen to her and provide some sort of comfort, but the mother remained in the room, and I didn't want the girl to get too detailed in case the mother freaked out or something. Social work will handle the problem during her stay at the hospital. I hope she gets the help she needs.

The other patient I had almost brought me to tears; an 11 year old boy with AML (Acute Myelogenous Leukemia- for more info, go to http://www.marrow.org/PATIENT/aml.html).
He's what we call a "Frequent Flyer" in the Pediatric ER due to his debilitating disease. I've seen him go from good to bad to worse, and this time when he came in you could already tell that death was on its way. I don't mean to be so grotesque and grim about it, but it's the truth. His skin was an ashy gray color, his nails brittle, his lips so chapped they were scabbed everywhere, his gums swollen and bleeding, his body skinny and weak, his face swollen from all the medication, his port sites on his chest black and blue down to his arms.

It's so hard to come to terms with terminal patients, because your job as a nurse/EMT is to help people get better, improve, and attain a higher quality of life. With them, all you can do is make them as comfortable as possible so they can go peacefully. You feel helpless, especially with children because they have so much to live for. Their entire lives were SUPPOSED to be ahead of them. This poor boy will never see his 21st birthday, he won't get to experience the beautiful things in life that come later...party with friends, finish school, choose a career, have a family, fall in love, experience the increasing wisdom that comes with getting older, bask in the beauty of a sunset or the moonlight... So unfair.

All of this leads me to the question of why these children, with such seemingly bright futures at birth, are put on this earth. What is their purpose? To teach the rest of us how to deal? To teach us to appreciate every moment that our heart beats and our chest expands to give us life for another second? Have they accomplished their purpose in such a short time? So many questions we may never know the answers to.

Those of us in the medical field are not the creators of life. Nor are we the destroyers (though some would argue this point). Rather, we try to be the enhancers and prolongers of life, and though life will run its course as it wishes (regardless of our efforts) it never gets easier to deal with the loss of one life. At least for me.

Though doctors, nurses, researchers, chemists, etc., have continued to perform "miracles" to save people, the ones that slip through the crack remind us of our fallible humanity.

We are not superheroes, and life is a fragile, precious thing.

Will She Be There Tomorrow?

I treated a child today who came in for difficulty breathing. He was accompanied by his mother, who had what looked to be like some severe swelling on the upper left hand corner of her face; around her eye and forehead. It didn't take long until we found out what the problem was: the mother had a cancerous tumor, which had grown so large that it was bulging out of her face and made her eye completely sealed shut. At that point, my focus turned from making sure the child was no longer having difficulty breathing (he had been stabilized by then), to worrying about whether he'd even have a mother a year or two down the line. Poor little 6 year old boy. Every time I walked into that room, it became all I could think of. I'd feel a heavy weight on me that almost brought me to tears. I lost my father at a very young age, and while there are occasional moments in which I feel a small void that feels like it could only be filled by havind had my father present in my life, I cannot imagine having lost my mother. For a child, his mother is the core of his universe. What would he do without her?

Trying to stay awake

I'll be digging for information to post on here tonight, since it's mostly me just trying to extend my hours of wakefulness a bit in order to avoid waking up early (since I have nothing to do tomorrow).

I've been growing a conscience about work. What I mean is, lately I've found myself waking up at my usual time, 6:15 am, looking at the clock, resetting it for 20 minutes later, and then not being able to fall back to sleep for those dear extra minutes of sleep; all because I actually care whether or not I'm late to work. My shift starts at 7am, but they require us to clock in at 6:45, which sucks. Even though those extra minutes of sleep would still allow me to get to work by 7am, they'd definitely make me arrive past 6:45, and I actually care now. Don't ask me why, they still drive me to the ground like a slave and don't appreciate anything I do, but for some reason, my conscience won't allow me to fall back to sleep. Damn.

Work was alright today... I thought I was going to be miserable since I've been feeling a little under the weather the last couple of days, but it wasn't bad at all (with the exception of the itchy nose that never went away. sinusitis sucks, hehehe).

I guess the most interesting case we got was a lawnmower accident which resulted in the amputation of 2 fingers. Ick. I have a pretty strong stomach, and actually enjoy cases like this...But even the strongest get a little queasy from time to time. This kid did some serious damage. I wonder how much use of his hand he'll have later (though I have known people missing fingers and they do just fine... so I'm not too concerned).

The patient that stuck with me the most out of the day was a girl who was previously anorexic, and suffered from mild depression. Maybe it's because she reminded me of what I'd gone through around her age, or maybe it's because of the way she relied on me for support throughout the entire day...who knows. Patients like her remind you that you actually make a difference from time to time. She'd been there since yesterday night, and you could tell that she, as well as the parents, were exhausted. She'd come in for a headache which wouldn't even go away when she took medicine. The doc in the morning decided to perform a spinal tap on her...Poor girl. Though it's quite a common procedure, it's definitely not a walk in the park. I've never had it done, but I know that it hurts...ALOT. I was in the room assisting the doctor with the procedure, and the poor girl was squeezing my hand so hard I thought it might break. But I didn't care. At that point my focus was on providing any kind of comfort I could to her. I don't know if the doctor was just having an off day, but she ended up sticking the girl's back like 4 times trying to get some spinal fluid...to no avail. I felt so bad for the girl, especially since she was being so cooperative. Later on in the day, the intensivist came in and successfully repeated the spinal tap. When the girl found out she had to go through it again she said to me, "you're gonna be here again with me, right?" Those moments are golden. When a patient has established a relationship with his/her nurse/tech in which we can provide comfort for them, it's priceless. At least for me. Those are the most rewarding moments of my job.

Completely unrelated to work, but I finished off my day watching (most, or part) of "Napoleon Dynamite" with my boyfriend. We'd both heard alot of good things about it, so I decided to rent it. Well, we fell asleep. The movie had a FEW funny moments, but all in all, I don't understand what all the hype was about. I felt kinda bad we sorta wasted our time with that movie, but it was lovely night anyway. Yummy lasagna, carvel, and an awesome nap. I love falling asleep together.

OH....one more thing about work. I'm working more weekends than everyone else. Despite the fact that I agree to help out with extra shifts when I'm out of school, despite the fact that I work my butt off... they still give me the raw end of the deal. Completely unfair. I should speak out... but I'm afraid they'll just come up with some BS excuse like they do for everything else. Management in our department SUCKS.

Jury Duty

Hmmm...I'm in a bad mood today... Maybe it's cos I woke up too early and have already been up for 12 hours, or maybe it's because I went to jury duty, or maybe because I grew superstitiously attached to my ring. I lost it this past weekend, and though I don't consider myself a superstitious person, that ring meant alot to me for some reason. I never left the house without that ring... and now I feel naked without it. Strange. Anyway, back to jury duty.

My initial thought when summoned to jury duty was "oh god...i'd rather put a hole in my head".

Though I still detest it, today wasn't as bad as i thought.

I wasn't looking forward to it at all, since the last experience I had serving jury duty was a nightmare... I got called into a trial about half an hour before everyone was dismissed for the day, and ended up going home at around 7. Traffic was so bad it took me 2 hours to get home. So, naturally, I was a little concerned that today was going to be a repeat of what happened. Though to prevent an exact replica of that day, I decided to take the MetroRail there instead of my car.

Something occurred to me while I was sitting there, in the sardine can that is the jury pool room...I'm starting to think it's not even a bout being a juror. Instead, I think it's one of the government's ways to test the limits and patience of its citizens. HA. Kidding, but that's what it almost feels like when you're there at 8 in the morning, thinking only about how you would be sleeping instead of sitting in the room for the next 8 hours or so waiting for someone to call your summons number.

Luckily, today I got called once and never had to enter a court room. We sat outside the courtroom we'd been assigned to for about an hour, when finally the bailiff came out to tell us we weren't needed for the case anymore.

Around that time I found out that a friend of mine was also serving jury duty, so it wasn't as lonely an experience as it had been the last time. We went to lunch together and caught up on things. Then, it was back to the jury pool room to continue hearing people being called by number. For those who dread getting chosen (like myself and most everyone else), every time they get to your number range, your stomach sinks, your heart beats a little faster, and you cross your fingers that they'll skip right over you. When you're not chosen, you breathe a sigh of relief and carry on with whatever you were doing before (whether that was reading a book, or watching the crappy movies they play for you while you're waiting). This happens about every 15-20 minutes or so.

At about 2:30, someone came into the jury pool room to tell us we were all being dismissed (after which I breathed the heaviest sigh of relief), and I happily made my way back to the Metro station, and was home by 3:45.

After having gone through the ordeal, I was glad I went. I'm on break from school and only working twice a week, and it's bad enough that I'm going stir crazy right this moment from having nothing to do. If I'd stayed home all day I would be bouncing off walls to try to alleviate the boredom. Or something.

It was then I realized why most people work 5 days a week. I cannot imagine working only 2 or 3 days out of the week when I graduate from school (as I would have been doing had I chosen the nursing route). What the HELL am I supposed to do with the other 5 days in the week?

All my friends work regular work weeks, so does my boyfriend... And there's only so many books to read and so many websites to surf through...so many bike rides you can take, so much laundry you can do... and then you'd still have a ton of time left over. To do what? Sit and fry your brain in front of the TV all day? I don't think so.

Humans need to make use of their time. Well, at least I feel like I do. Some may be perfectly OK with sitting in front of a TV all day.

The next two months of working only twice a week are going to kill me. I need another activity, another job perhaps...Hopefully the trip I want to make will materialize. That will give me something else to look forward to.

For once in the entire time I've worked in the hospital, I wish they weren't so well staffed. It makes for some good extra cash andgives me something to do.