nightmares

I just woke up from a nightmare and am too lazy to go back to sleep. (is that even possible by the way?) that's not what I meant. I got that from megan boom. That used to be her answer to everything. maybe it still is. I remember I used it for my piano teacher once. She wasn't very impressed. 'Annie, I want you to learn up to the next page on this song." -mmmm... that's not going to work out. 'why?' -eh, to lazy. notice now I only said I used it once. I guess I just wanted to see what she'd do. or maybe I really was just too lazy to do it.
you know when you wake up in the middle of the night from a nightmare, and you're all sweaty and disoriented and scared. I thought I'd do something to take my mind off of that, and the commputer was sitting right here....
Anyways, I woke up from this nightmare that I had about nursing. Yeah, I know. Cool. Apparently, I wasn't descriptive enough in my 'nurses notes' about something and the hospital was getting sued. So I was locked in the room with a glass door and a bed and my old english teacher, ryan v. was standing at the door. I kept asking him if I could leave, and he said no. Not until the case is over, and if the hospital gets sued you're fired. Alright, so when you write it out it sounds stupid as hell...
Not to mention nursing notes are also stupid as hell. We already chart on 4 different things on the computer, and 8 different sheets on a clipboard about them each shift, but no, we have to write a note about them too. Which is fine if something bad happens, or out of the ordinary. The problem is you have to write at least one note per shift. So if the patient just slept the whole shift, you still have to write a note about them.. So, unless something is out of the ordinary I usually just write about 3 sentences. Something like, Pt. vitals stable. Denies pain. Resting in bed with eyes closed. Will continue to monitor. ' then sign. Apparently that's not enough. I think I had this nightmare because I was reading some of the other people's notes. They basically re-state everything they have written in other places. Like they will write down the exact vitals, and where their IV is, what's running, etc. It turns out to be a page long ( of you know, the assessment that you've already charted in the computer.)
I think it will be funny when I go back to work on friday, and write a huge story about each of my patients. Or maybe just one. It could be something like this. (Nobody reads these anyways, so it will be like a joke to myself)

10-6-07 2230 Shift
Patient in room 3005 on Telemetry floor in brainerd hospital, MN zip code 56401. Their hair is brown, but not too dark brown, maybe more of a light auburn and of medium thickness. Head is definitely attatched to neck, which seems to also be well attatched to his torso. All of his extremities are also there as well. He has 38 moles, one on the left upper thigh which could possibly be cancerous. Pt has blinked 237 times during shift, at least that RN could count. Patient had no complaints of pain at 1630, 1700, 1804, (etc, i'd write them all out) His lips seemed a bit chapped so i offered some blistex, which he gladly accepted. He applied the chapstick to the top lip first, then the bottom, and slowly pressed his lips together to spread it around evenly. The IV is dripping in. His D 5 1/2 with 20 MeQ of Potassium is inside of a thick clear plastic bag. It is connected to primary plum pump tubing and pumping through a R157 Med plus Pump. It is into one of the veins on his right hand. Kind of a squiggly little vein. It's a blush color, and I think it's safe to assume it's bringing oxygen depleted blood back to the heart. The pump is runnign at 200ml an hour. It is dripping now. now. now. Now. now.. (etc.) Patient wanted a snack at 1626:04, so i brought him some imitation/generic brand chips ahoy cookies. (the blue bag which came pre-.sealed from a factory in louisiana.) I don't think the cookies have 1,000 chips in every bag, but I'm assuming it's close too it, being it's a competing brand. ) I would like to start a new paragraph at this point, but i can't because I can't leave any extra space in the note, otherwise someone who's real sneaky might come in and write something in under my name. Like, 'I then tried to kill the patient ' and I don't want that to happen,, because I could get fired. Oh yes, and it's also not true. So you'll just have to deal with the no physical topic breaks. I would also like to write that the patient is taking a nap in bed. But i can't do that. Because, what if my assumption is wrong? I can only look in the room and see him laying there with his eyes closed and the covers up and listen to his heavily breathing, and write exactly that. Annie Wyman, RN