I finally made it through the two weeks from hell. I didn't think I was going to survive, my stress level exceeded anything in my memory. Things are working out.
I had 3 hours of staff meetings last Thursday. I wasn't thrilled about that because all I could think of was going out to see my sister. I had to be there, they are mandatory right now. It was supposed to be my day off. First we had a new hire meeting so we could discuss progress of our orientation, there are 8 of us new people on the unit. That's a lot of new people for a 12 bed ICU. I am the only new grad. It was a bit of a venting session for everyone. Our boss is good at summarizing what we're saying and distilling the main points out of it. She's also a good listener. I feel comfortable being open with her. Also, I got a day job, I am going to be on days after orientation. I was hired for nights but they need more people on days than nights so I will get my wish to be a day shifter. I am so happy because my body did not agree with sleeping during the day.
In the general staff meeting we all introduced ourselves to the new travelers who will be with us this winter. All the nurses on our floor were introducing themselves, e.g., I'm Sarah Jones and I've been an ICU nurse for 20 years....etc. When they got around to me, I said, "I'm Jane Smith and I've been a nurse for six weeks." That gave everyone a good laugh.
I am now on the falls committee. For preventing patient falls, that is. That is what my boss decided to start me out on. I would have chosen something else. Like the electronic health record committee. Dealing with the crazy computer charting system that originated back in the DOS days. You would not believe the antiquated computer charting system here. It is from the old days, pre-windows, etc. I'm sure it is older than Microsoft. You have to use all these crazy keys to do things and have to back out of it screen by screen. It takes forever and everyone hates it. For a hospital that does so many things right, you would think they could get a computer charting system from this century.
We also got a little surprise too, we are getting a nice raise as of December 17th. It's a market wage increase. About 6%. Wahoo! They have been having trouble recruiting nurses for the OR and ED because of their low pay. So they decided to give those nurses differential pay. Not us, though. I guess right now they are not experiencing a critical care nursing shortage here, at this hospital. But everywhere there is a shortage of critical care nurses, so we are hoping the hospital will wise up and give us extra pay too. After all the training we get, plus being responsible for codes, rapid response, traumas, transport of patients between hospitals, our skills are way beyond what the average floor nurses learns to do.
I went out to California to see my sister last weekend and she is doing remarkably well. I was not so sure going out there, but after spending 3 days with her and seeing where she is physically and psychologically, I think she's doing great. Not to minimize the impact of what she's been dealing with, but she has a lot of support and is doing well. She is still in pain and the reconstruction will be painful too but I think they did a good job and the surgical sites look good. She already has the expanders in which causes more pain and muscle spasms. They will add more fluid to the expanders until she is ready for reconstruction. She has at least one more surgery this spring. She kept me busy. I was addressing her Christmas cards, for one thing. I don't even do Christmas cards myself. Here she is having been through all this surgery and everything that goes along with dealing with breast cancer, and she's got her Christmas lists all ready to go and her shopping planned out. I picked up her photographs she had taken of my nephew. She was talking about going back to work. By the third day I was there, I knew she was mostly back to herself. On my way back in the airport as I was waiting to board the flight back to Denver, I felt much lighter. She is strong.
Our house in Desert Hills finally closed. At 4 pm Monday after I got back from California. Eleven days late and a few hundred more gray hairs later. I don't know what kind of damage I did to my cardiovascular system during this real estate transaction. I'm sure there was some. I was ready to fly down there and strangle the buyer. He was a used car salesman, by the way. He was such a pain that the realtors on both sides were doing everything to get done with him. He was freaking out over the fact that the drain plug in the master bathroom didn't fit right in the drain. See quote below. Now we are under contract here and if all goes well we will close on January 12th.
At work I am suffering through some preceptors who aren't all that great. I am supposed to be with one person again throughout January. We'll see how that works this time. I feel like it's a slow process right now. I have 4 classes coming up in the next 5 weeks, so that will keep things interesting.
The exciting news this week is I found out I can get DSL again! We are now back inside the city limits so I no longer have to deal with dialup! Wahoo! In about 5 days I should have it all set up.
The best thing about today was when I went to work, I knew my sister was doing better, I knew our house was sold and we were done with that, and I felt like for the first time since I've been here. I could concentrate on work. I wonder if I will remember those first 6 weeks. Now I feel like I can be there.
My patient on Tuesday was in a car accident and had facial fractures. Other than that she was okay. She was not wearing a seat belt. She was lucky that was all that happened. I hope she'll reconsider. After working in ICU for 6 weeks, I think people should wear helmets when they drive. Just my $ .02.
I got to see and assist with a central line insertion at the bedside. The doctor was nice, he didn't freak out over the fact that it took me a bit longer to get things set up than usual. So far I've met a lot of nice doctors. The main trauma guy is pretty intimidating though. He'll be mostly at the other hospital once it opens.
And then I hung a whole bunch of different medications on the new pumps. They are called "Smart Pumps" and they are supposed to be smarter than us. I thought I was pretty smart. Until I unspiked an IV fluid bag with some D5 left in it while it was still hung up on the pole, dumping it on the floor. The floor was all sticky and I got a sugar water bath. I tried wiping it up with a damp towel before my preceptor figured out what I did. But the sticky mess gave it away.
Wednesday was a blizzard. I ran in the blizzard for an hour and a half! I didn't realize how much I missed running in the snow. I love running in the snow. I don't like driving in it. We could get up to 2 feet of snow by tomorrow. It's dumping! WAHOO! Except I realized we don't have a snow shovel.
Tuesday night I actually fell asleep for the first time with the CPAP on. I think I slept with it for at least 2 hours. I didn't fall asleep with it until the third try. It's a real pain in the butt. I need to come up with something better than CPAP . Then I could retire.
But I know how to solve the snow shovel problem. I could use my CPAP as a blower! Crank it to 11.
Wednesday afternoon we had our inspection. There was also a blizzard. It is still snowing as I write this and there is already at least a foot of snow. It's almost up to my knees. I have to confess I did something terrible today. We didn't have a snow shovel. So after the inspection on our way home we went to Home Depot. They were closed because of the weather. Across the parking lot was our only hope: Wal-Mart. Ugh. I never shop at WalMart. But we were in a desperate situation. So we decided to repent. We said we will donate the same amount we spend at WalMart to some charity.
But as it turned out they were out of snow shovels at WalMart! I thought that was weird. You'd think that Colorado people would already have snow shovels so there wouldn't be a huge rush to get shovels in a blizzard. Not so. Maybe there are a lot of other desert people here. Or maybe it's only dumb people who shop at Wal Mart. We did buy a broom and some groceries. Wal Mart is creepy. It's like the ugliest of the ugly. I've never been in a Super Wal Mart before. I did notice that they have extensive shelves full of white bread. Most supermarkets don't have such a big white bread section. But Super Wal Mart has a whole aisle of white bread, with a whole section of hamburger and hot dog buns too. Quite impressive.
We'll donate to the American Diabetes Association.
The next two days I work. They called me today to tell me it was optional for me to come in because of the weather. Since I'm on orientation, I have to be paired with another nurse. A lot of people will not be in tomorrow and I figure they'll need bodies on the floor. Dale won't be working tomorrow. Things are pretty much shut down everywhere. I like that. In Desert Valley they never slow down. The weather never allows a reason to stop everything. I like that about winter. It forces you to stop going full speed ahead. We all need winter.
The girls love the snow. It is up to their shoulders. They are still mesmerized by the squirrel tree in the back yard. They sit back there and look up. You'd think their necks would get stiff after a while. Today they came back all covered with snow. I took pictures, which I will share as soon as I get DSL again.
Off to bed to try sleeping with the CPAP again.
Peace, love and be smart,
Towanda, ICU RN
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