Click the link to enter the newest See Jane Nurse medical poetry journal. It started out with mostly poetry, but the nurse content found a way back to the pages. Now it is a mix.
I abandoned this new nurse blog many years ago. I wasn’t even sure it existed, but with a quick search: I found myself.
Also, I am still drawing. The complete heart block is an example below.
Check out the poetry!
And if you like stickers, they are available on Redbubble! Third Degree Heart Block Sticker!
This work is hard.I know what the book tells us: eat right, exercise and care for self. I was never good at doing what the book reads.
The eyes are complicated things, I still don’t understand the anatomy and physiology. I don’t understand how a camera works either.
I do know that these shutter lids wet my eyes even with the dry eye. Apparently the glassy end of shift red dry eyes try to compensate with tears like lake reflections in the water of a busy shift– but they are still dry.
I do not like eye drops but I love eye wash.
This space for the case of the new nurse does not apply anymore: from telemetry to the intensive care unit; I hardly know what to write about anymore. I read popular science to get away from nursing science. I wonder why it is so hard to prime the CCRT cartridge without getting air bubbles and alarms. There must be a missing step or maybe I didn’t snap the lines hard enough; maybe I didn’t tap the cartridge hard enough.
I might be back with a fire. A fire to extinguish the lonely flame in this world without lovers.
Get me through this traffic. My patient wants to get home.
I figured out that critical care nursing is like defensive driving. Defensive driving is defined as: driving to save lives, time, and money, in spite of the conditions around you and the actions of others.
We are nursing to save lives, time and money, in spite of the conditions around the patient, the reactions of a sick body, and others.
Getting the sick patient in an ICU bed is like merging a highway through a tollbooth. One lane is coming from the ER, one lane is trying to get in after decompensating on the floor, and one lane is trying to get in post-operatively from the recovery room.
The charge nurse is collecting tolls, and patient tracking is trying to direct traffic. The urge to move patients sometimes causes road rage.
The nurses are driving and we can’t give the middle finger to those blocking the box in the intersection when the light is green because we are too busy preventing a ten-car pile up on the side of the road.
It is not just about the movement for us. There are illnesses out there just waiting to cut us off. Sepsis is weaving in and out of traffic with it’s fast yellow car. It’s a high-speed chase and the bad guy ARDS is coming up on us in its blue sedan full of old school metal just waiting to ram us into the ditch. The dump truck filled with gastric content just flipped the bend and spilled the belly juice into the perforated bowel. The landscaper’s truck is spraying our windshield with the tiny rock clots of DVTs, and emboli are everywhere. The drunken sports car made out with the telephone pole and now we have a head on collision with bloody brains. Sometimes we get stuck in a bottleneck; this one-mile per minute stage two pressure ulcer is going to get worse.
We keep driving and nursing. We look ahead and see the crash before it happens. We drive to prevent accidents. Sometimes we have to take detours. Cruise control isn’t really an option. It’s a good thing we know our way around.
My Dad always used to tell me: Don’t crack my truck up.
I lost the time to write. After a while it all starts to type out the same way. My eyes still hurt. I wondered how long this has been going on, and then I read old writing and found out it has been a year of these eyes.
I thought the eye doctor would tell me: They are beautiful! And let me go.
I am not sure how my eyes can be dry with the years of tears.
sotalol: it is a pretty a little blue pill and it works.
sotalol loading: don’t forget to monitor QTc.
These are so cool
I want one in my living room!
Ok. I love my job. Call me crazy but I think these mock intravenous pole lamps totally rock! Sure most house guest may not even realize the mock IV pole lamps but who cares! I think they would make interesting decor! They should have wheels though, that would make these lamps even cooler, but they are just ice as is. Found over here:http://www.coolhunting.com/archives/2008/03/lichtinfusion_l.php
Most of the pharmacists where I work are great and are super smart~ They can be super helpful and reassuring such as dealing with the multiple calls from nurses about dosage, compatibility, missing medications, administration timing etc…I mean I am not sure how many times I have called the pharmacy to confirm gtt rates for certain medications, or to check the compatibility of antibiotics with say…heparin infusions (saving me from putting in additional lines in the patient.)
There is however this one pharmacist who always likes to as nurse K would put it “jack my sh**t”. I am serious! Here is my latest scenario with Pharmacist who hates Nurse: I have a patient circling the drain and a rapid response is called: Amongst the rapid response team is a Pharmacist who should always respond as well. After 15 minutes it is determined that The patient is going to be transferred to ICU –but the problem is that no beds are available. The situation during those first 15 minutes is deemed stable so the the pharmacist leaves, and the ICU nurse continues to treat the patient with assistance from myself and my charge nurse and the attending MD. Hours go by, and the patient still does not have a bed yet because ICU is full. This is all taking place in a telemetry floor. Well…the situation is deteriorating quickly and the patient needs to beintubated. Medication orders were faxed to the pharmacy for diprovan needed for the impending intubation. So I ask one of the other nurses on the floor to walk down to the pharmacy and get the diprovan gtt for me because I knew that the ICU nurse was going to get the bolus out of the pyxis or that she was going to get it out of the code cart. Well…The pharmacist who is known for hating nurses gives her a hard time telling her to call some other pharmacist etc…The nurse leaves without the diprovan. So I call the pharmacist who hates nurses and ask why are you giving us a hard time, and he states something about a label printing out etc…I tell him…My patient is being intubated, we had to tether the patient to the bed, the patient keeps waking up, and we need the diprovan NOW, I ask the pharmacist who hates nurses if he will bring us the drip now. He then proceeds to tell me that it will take longer then. WHAT? I mean the orders for the diprovan were faxed to the pharmacist at least 30 minutes prior to the intubation, at that point intubation could not be put off any longer and the MD and the RT had to proceed with tubing this patient. I mean we could not just wait around all day for the pharmacist to “get around” to dispensing the diprovan. This pharmacist who hates nurses should team up with the Angry Pharmacist (I love reading the Angry Pharmacist!!) , they would make a great duo and we would end up in tears when looking for STAT medications. It is like a big huge lack of communication~ Doesn’t the pharm remember that this patient was rapidly responded, is now in critical condition and near code status and we need the drugs NOW?
Ahhh….This Pharmacist HATES us!!!!!!
See Jane Nurse 