Shift 35 and 36

Shift 35:

Today was much busier than the last few shifts. When I came in at 2pm, no one had gone to lunch yet, and usually at least 2 of the nurses do by the time I get in. So basically all I did from 2 to 7 was relieve lunches and help the nurses catch up prior to going to lunch and coming back from lunch. Then at shift change I got 3 rooms, which at the time meant I had 6 patients since my rooms also had hallway beds. But around 9:30 or 10pm it started slowing down. I hadn't had my lunch break yet, but as it was dying down, I got a patient from fire rescue that is normally a patient that is with it, but was confused and not responding at all to our questions and commands, etc. She was awake and constantly trying to get out of her bed. It took me, the security guard and two techs to hold her to get an IV started, and the security guard had to sit with her the entire time she was in the ER. I gave her some meds to try to calm her down and help her sleep, and actually gave her a couple of doses. It wasn't working. I went to lunch and another nurse was going to give her more meds if they were ordered while I was at lunch. When I came back, more doses of the meds were ordered and we finally got her to stop trying to climb out of bed and she actually fell asleep. There was one point where she woke up and was scratching at me, and she actually scratched my neck a little, but I just calmed her down and talked her into going to sleep. Eventually, we got her transferred to the floor, and later on, I had to run something upstairs to her floor, and saw her bed literally sitting in the middle of the nurse's station, so that they could keep a close eye on her in case she tried to get out of bed again. Crazy. That's about the jist of my day today.

Shift 36:

Not so bad today- actually kind of slow when I get in. All lunches were done and we had our fast track area closed (not enough patients to have to open it as of then), and we had an extra nurse floating and then me. It did start to pick up some towards 4/4:30 and we opened up fast track. At shift change, I was assigned 3 rooms again, and it was pretty much a non eventful night, for me at least. We actually had 2 patients who needed to go to ICU, but they were full, so we had to hold them in our ER. That means they stay there until a room opens in ICU, which could take days, worst case scenario. Two nurses and I basically covered the ER while one nurse took just the 2 patients (since they're critical, they need more attention and in the ICU its one nurse to two patients). One of the ICU patients ended up dying while in the ER (that patient was a patient who did not want to be resuscitated, so there was no code of anything). And then an ICU room ended up opening up around 10:30/10:45, so the nurse got the patient ready to go upstairs. We had slowed down a lot, and I was told that when that nurse brought the patient upstairs and returned, I would go home, so I ended up leaving at midnight. I like leaving early, but it does stink to miss out on the money.

So that's that. I work again tomorrow and Tuesday, so stay tuned for more updates soon.