Monday, July 26, 2010

A Loss

I haven't been a nurse for very long. I will come into contact with so many people I won't remember most of them.

Today I learned that one of my patients passed away. She was 42. It saddens me a great deal this time because I was able to take care of her for a few weeks while in the ICU so I got to know her and her family fairly well. She came in with abdominal pain and unexplained weight loss. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last week and given 3 - 12 months to live. She died yesterday.

I am grateful that I got to know her. She was a feisty, spoiled, and demanding woman. But for some reason it never bothered me. I guess because I thought of myself lying in that bed not knowing what was going to happen to me and realized that I knew nothing of what she was going through. I didn't care how she acted because she was fighting her own demons and fears I couldn't possibly understand her battle.

She came down to see me in the ER last Tuesday while she was in the hospital. She was out and about and wanted to come say "hi". Her friend wheeled her down to see me. She looked awful. She probably weighed all of 85 pounds. But it made me feel good that she thought of me the way she did. I am glad I was her nurse and was able to care for her. And I know I gave her the best possible care I could have.

They say that there will always be a few people in your nursing career that will touch you in some way and that you will always remember the first one that dies. I believe them. I will always think of her. If I met her outside of the hospital in some other capacity, we probably would have never been friends, but she touched me in a way that I can't explain. I knew when I went into this profession that it wouldn't be easy. And its not. But I love it anyway. I will always remember her.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Time Will Tell

Unfortunately for me, my ICU experience was cut by one day because my unborn son decided he wanted to try to come early. Luckily for him they stopped the contractions but I am supposed to take it easy until Monday. Tuesday is when I start my ER training. I am sure I will have LOTS to blog about when that starts!

For the past three weeks I have been in Surgical Intensive Care (SICU) training. I must say, it is very different than Medical/Neuro ICU (MICU). The first thing I noticed is that everything goes much smoother down there. Surgeons are just a different breed of doctors. Most of the time they don't have to deal with multi-system problems because their patients have been operated on, which means one thing not a million. I was able to see a few open heart surgery patients come out of surgery (at our hospital, open heart patients come right to SICU after OR, they do not go to the Recovery Room). As a float nurse, I will never take care of an open heart patient but I was able to see how incredibly COMPLICATED it is! Holy Shit! The open heart patients come out with tubes that go everywhere and are hooked up to machines I have never seen before. It's very intimidating.

I was nervous about SICU. The nurses there have very strong personalities and surgeons don't have the best bedside manner either. But all in all I liked my experience. I think the nurses accepted me just fine and I did my best (which is all I can do.) It will be different when I am on my own, but I am not afraid to ask for help which is the most important thing in an ICU. Never assume you know everything or those nurses will eat you alive! There is a small window between life and death and you always need to remember that.

That is all I have for now. I will catch up with you next week hopefully. Have a nice weekend!