Dear Respiratory Therapist

I was feeling down in the dumps about my job–how inadequate I feel at my job–the things I miss-the stuff I forget–how late I am at work every night trying to document all the things I did for my patients all day–How I wish I had more time with my patients making them feel better instead of worrying about how the “powers that be” at the hospital that is the administration are trying to move beds around–move patients around–etc…All this worrying and feeling alone about it–you know what I mean: try and express this feeling to other nurses and the aura or air about them is that they have time to do their job, spend time with patients and feel all good about their last 12 hours: this must be some sort of sick RN defense mechanism because I certainly on most days feel like poop.  Green poop from popping iron pills is how I feel on alot of days.I am not going to hide that truth from myself and I screw up, mess up, and forget things alot!

So in the midst of this self pitying, pity party over myself and my job performance and the lingering dwelling sad weight of all the patients that circled the drain ever in my now 6 months off of orientation memory: I read something that really made me laugh out loud.

I laughed all by myself out loud and thought, “if someone could see me they would think that I have lost my marbles!”

I just want to thank the RT responsible for this laughter because I actually felt some sort of weird chemicals being released into my brain that made me feel some sort of weird goodness or happiness.

Please for laughter check out these Top Secret Respiratory cures at the link provided. To get to the top secret treatments you must scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Your morning medications.

Yes

I felt like a real jerk. One of my patients was supposed to be discharged to go home the other day. A patient that honestly I have no idea the reason why the level of stay was so long or why the patient was still being monitored via telemetry. The patient had a history cardiac arrhythmia but that was not new or anything different and it was controlled. This patient was located at the nurses station and could not be left alone in the room due to fall precautions. (the patient liked to climb out of bed)

So during my shift I started with 6 patients and was busy as usual and I completely forgot to medicate the patient with morningmedications, and I did not realize it for a long time- approximately 6 hours later. The patients attending came to discharge the patient and I had to reveal the tele strip with 5 beats of v tach. I still did not remember the fact that I did not give the patient the morning calcium channel blocker or any medications at all!

The end result: No harm to the patient. The hospital was pretty annoyed though because a cardiologist was consulted, more tests, and another day at the Ritz.

Anyhow I felt like an idiot and the Cardiologist tried to assure me that the 5 run of v tach is not because of late medication administration, but somehow I do not believe that.

What I learned: I have to be careful and administer all medications in a timely fashion. (I am serious) and I went home to learn more about calcium channel blockers and multi focal atrial tachycardia and COPD patients. Perhaps my essay will follow one day.