Tuesday, October 30, 2012

New Job, New Blog Title, Same Patients Allergic to Everything but Dilaudid

Yup.  New home is the balls, I am crazy excited to be starting a new chapter in my life as evidenced by my new blog name,  which now includes reference to my favorite sequel subtitle EVER.  I feel like this is the sequel in a way- it's still basically the same shit here.  But also it's way WAY better.
Like, omegerd guys.  The patients here, they actually get rooms.  Like, upstairs, on a floor.   And the nurses take report and stuff, and most of them look at the chart and don't ask insane questions.  So then, right, all the patients in the waiting room come back to rooms, and sometimes, the waiting room is empty.  IT IS AWESOME.
And dude, they have IV pumps, and all of the monitors actually work. And I get to eat and go pee here, too.
I have more patients here but they aren't nearly as sick as the ones at Hood Hospital were.  And you get your stuff back faster and the doctors actually don't sit on the patients for eternity so if you have someone really sick or just a pain in the ass you're usually only stuck with them for a little while. 
Hearing people complain here is hilarious.  Day one I worked with ER BFF, and while we're sitting there in report everyone is all "Oh noes, today is terrible, there's a FOUR hour wait."  Both of us had to stifle our laughter. It's not like it isn't hard, or that I don't get stressed, but it's not I "I have a 14 hour wait and I just filled my last bed with a cardiac chest pain and now I have a CPR coming" level stress.  And I don't see it getting to that point, because they have a system set up here that actually seems to work. 
But yeah, the patients are almost exactly the same.  Well, some of them are  literally exactly the same- apparently some of our frequent flyers at Hood Hospital have been cheating on us with the new ER.  (One saw ER BFF here the other day- "hey, I see you're working over here now! Her reply "Yup, looks like you are too!") I have no doubt I'll still have plenty of stories to tell.  To give you an idea, the first patient I discharged day one was here for dizziness secondary to smoking marijuana.   His family asked me if he was getting any prescriptions.  "Uh... no.  See, the doctors thinks he's dizzy because of the drugs... so prescriptions aren't really necessary... he should probably just, yeah.  Not do drugs anymore."
So yes, the same foolishness that I love/hate about working in the ER without the coming home everyday feeling like I'd been out drinking all night and had the crap beat out of me when in reality I'd just been at work.  A little break every now and then from the constant onslaught of crazy sick people with no mercy.  It still feels so foreign- every time I sit down, I'm still in disbelief that I'm actually caught up with my work and I have nothing else to do.  I just always assume I'm forgetting something.  I kind of have that weird disoriented feeling, like when you step down from running on a treadmill and you're trying to get used to the fact that the ground isn't moving under your feet anymore.
I hoped, but I really wasn't sure, that nursing in the ER or in a hospital setting didn't have to be as awful as it was.  It's such a relief to know it doesn't have to be that way.  To know that I can step away and enjoy my days off without looking over my shoulder and feeling like something was going to come back to bite me.  It's so much better, but a little part of me aches and feels guilty knowing that so many of my friends are stuck where I was.  We'll see how it goes in the next couple of months but right now I am loving it.  I feel like I've gotten my life back. 

11 comments:

  1. Sounds like a much better environment! I know the feeling of leaving a job where you feel like you've left a war zone. It's so hard to decompress and not look for ghosts to jump out of every corner at the new place, but eventually you'll get used to it & settle in. Good for you!!

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  2. So glad to hear that you're happy in your new place!

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  3. AWESOME new blog title, Special K!

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  4. Survivor guilt, yep. You'll get over it! Congrats on being able to eat and perform bodily functions in a timely manner. Love the new blog title

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  5. Glad you have the chance to know that nursing doesn't have to be as bad as what you have experienced up until now!

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  6. So glad you are in a better place now. Stop the survivor guilt though. To help others, first you have to help yourself (and all that blah blah - but it's true).

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  7. I agree with Shash above--you have to take care of YOU first or the rest doesn't matter. I am SOSOSOSO glad to hear that there are minutes when you can actually sit and think about yourself or your patients for a minute without having that awful feeling of dread. YAY !~!

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  8. Good for you. Now write a letter to the members of the board, the hospital president and let them know why you left in a non-angry way. Then walk away, you've done what you can.

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  9. I love this. I went through the same thing when I left my own Hood Hospital years ago. It's been a dozen years now, and I still remember the helpless feeling of receiving two acute ambulance patients in two minutes and taking Dilantin off of the IV pump because I needed it more for the nitro drip in the next bed and there were no more pumps in the whole department. Everything you've learned and done at HH will serve you well for years to come, and the PTSD lasts almost as long...

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  10. Congratulations on your new job! I hope you continue to enjoy it as much as you are so that you can enjoy your ENTIRE life!

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  11. Same shit, different bag with fewer leaks- that is rich! Congrats on your improved work conditions. Nurses, really, really deserve to eat and pee and all that good stuff.

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