day by day blow

If I were told by my teacher to write a daily journal and at the same time have a blogger account, I just can't help but type down what I wrote down. Here's a shorter day by day account of what happened to me for the first week of my ICU/ER duty at CDUH.

Day 1: "ICU first"

I took the load of ICU 1 for no particular reason, I picked randomly based on the number of cuteness a staff nurse contains. I guess my randomness went okay. The patient I had had more stuff to do on the nite shift than there would be in the morning. There was no resting for the first 5 hours straight. It was non-stop procedure after procedure. I was in full force and the great part was that I enjoyed it. I got nothing to complain about other than the aching arm and back. Feeling really independent right now plus my staff nurses are super nice even if i'm so super reserved.

Day 2: "Feeding her wrong"

I began with feeding preparation for the same patient I had for yesterday. I was used to NGT feeding so I guess it might be almost similar with Gastrostomy Feeding. I began with my feeding with my other staff nurses. Everything went fine until we noticed the feeding was leaking from the stoma itself. I was panicking, this was my first Gastro Feeding and it all went wrong. The first thing that ran through my mind was who would they blame for this situation? Staff nurses and the charge nurse inspected it and thankfully, no fingers were pointed anywhere near my direction. We had to clean up all that mess and changing those diapers and curity pads are not easy.

Day 3: "ER first"

Another first for me and being the code nurse for that nite tops off that ice cream sundae of my shift. Mam Jen, the code nurse who I was to go with for the whole shift was super nice. She told me everything I need to know about codes, E carts and the materials in it. We inspected all nine carts and eventually got the hang of everything. I was hoping there would be a code (evil me, sorry) but there actually was! "All medical interns go to ICU". If it's ICU we were not allowed in it coz that's a different floor for a different code nurse.

After every E cart inspection, we were back at the ER and I was at the Pediatric ER section. It was a pretty lazy task maybe because the time doesn't agree with me. We were freezing our arses off at ER than in ICU. I couldn't stand the cold. Everytime I turn down the thermostat, someone else would turn it up.. All in all Iw as thankful I volunteered being the code nurse and I had Mam Jen as the code nurse for that night too. I jot down the essentials of what she said.

Day 4: "Menigococcemia scare"
One of our groupmates was absent so that leaves only the three of us for the 3 ER departments. I was back at Pedia while no one was the charge nurse.. oh well, their loss. It was another lazy shift until a parent hurriedly brought in her child with a huge backpack on hand, an IV on the other hand and then her baby girl. The baby girl had blotched of hematoma all over her extremities. I did my usual vital signs task. I stayed away right after because docs are rushing to help the child out. I was attending to another patient when a code was given out. The baby girl was suddenly surrounded by the medical team. It was sad to see the parents there. Julien, Emma and I were mere spectators coz we didn't want them to lose their focus.

One of the docs suspected it to be meningococcemia to be the baby's condition. They looked in on their books and found out that the baby supported the clinical manifestations. They suddenly worried why they hadn't implemented precaution and they did right after. Everything was a whirlwind right after then the baby had a flatline! They were rushing to give her CPR. I was getting goosebumps from the scenario. I finally have seen a silent code in action but the baby dying part was sad. The parents then gave their last respects and said goodbye without the hugging part.

All 3 of us went berserk because of that meningo scare and started rushing to find Mdm. Lim to tell her everything that happened. We were either to wait for the prophylaxis or buy Ciprobay with our own moolah today. We went in for the latter.

Went home and bathed like crazy.

Day 5: "Ward time"

Any normal ward day would do with the inclusion of a really nice staff nurse. XD

xoxo
c.