A funny thing happened on the way to the medcart...

The doctor summoned me urgently to the patient's bedside. He pointed to her ileostomy bag and said,

"Please page the ostomy nurse, STAT! It looks like pieces of her intestinal tissue or stoma are sloughing off into the bag!!!"

I whispered in response, "It's watermelon...she had it for breakfast!"

He blushed and said, "Well, don't I feel silly!"

To be fair, the patient had no teeth, so she regularly had pretty big chunks of food in her collection bag!


Then there was the patient who didn't seem to be arousable. Calling his name, gentle shaking/jostling, nothing was working. So I fired up the good, ol' sternal rub and hoped it would work its magic...

nothing. I kept rubbing and rubbing, harder and harder, knowing I was surely hurting him as he was pretty damn hairy.

Without opening his eyes, he suddenly said,

"You're rubbing the wrong spot..."

Alrighty, then! Gotta love the night shift...

God save me...

from brand-spankin' new residents! This is my first year dealing with this phenomenon, and I don't like it. Having to page someone fifty times before getting a response, having new admissions languishing in their rooms for several hours without orders, trying to parse exactly what the "doctors" are trying to accomplish with the orders they actually place, and trying to explain the most shittiest of discharge summaries to a patient, among many other issues, has wrought havoc on my work the past three days.

On the other hand, they sure are sparky and enthusiastic!

I'm beat. I had two simultaneous discharges and two admissions that showed up within half an hour of each other. Luckily, I work with an amazing team of colleagues! I had a lot of assistance and managed to get everything done that needed to be done.

Of course, I was charting until 2030...

When the old battle-ax of a charge nurse tells you you did a good job, it means something. :)