Every day is weird when you're a nurse

Yesterday at work .. was very busy to say the least. It wouldn't be so bad but the charge nurse was Donna. Donna is a spaz. A very large spaz. Basically anything that happens, she makes it seem like the world is coming to and end, and there is lava dripping down from the ceiling or a couple tigers close by. WHen all that's really happening is two call lig hts are on... at the Same time!!



Anyways, yesterday was busy. I didn't even get to start charting until 11:15, so I didnt' leave the hospital until 1:30. Oh well. At least I get 2.5 hours overtime if I include no dinner break. woop woop.

I also eat the hospital's food. Not from the cafeteria. Like the graham crackers that are for the patients, and the pudding that I ate... those are all for patients. But at least half the people I work with eat them too, so I guess I really don't feel bad at all.

Around 4:00 this admit came in from the clinic. SHe was there for fluid overload/CHF junk. I think 1/2 the people are. So I got her IV in, and all her admit forms done.... but then.. there was the catheter. I saved it for last mostly because I really wasn't looking forward to it, because she was pretty overweight. I'd say a deuce and a half.. to be exact, 287.4lb. She also had stated that she hates getting them in because she's so sore down there. I asked her if she gets help cleaning down there at the nursing home and she said she does it herself.

Uh oh. No good. Uh oh. that is never a good thing. USually people get a pretty poor job of getting cleaned up at nursing homes, but when they do it themselves... (piss poor job.) when they can hardly move and are in a wheelchair. I don't even really know if she could reach, but I didnt' ask. Anywho, I got the catheter stuff ready. While I was doing so, another nurse came in to help me spread legs, etc. Then the patient is all like, yeah, this girl's been having trouble, it took her a while to find my vein.

Um, whatever bitch, it took 3 seconds. I put the tourniquet on and then put the IV in. I would say a maximum of 35 seconds. But I did look at both of her hands first to try to find a good one.

If it isn't apparent, I get mad when people get mad at me for only helping them. Like when I have 6 patients, (about 2 too many..) like I did yesterday, and one guy that I h adn't been in his room for about and hour and a half was like. Where the hell have you been? Sleeping? I need another blanket for my feet! (this was also a guy who was only there because he needed his INR to go up.. he could walk around, do whatever. could haev easily gotten the blanket himself...)

RIght. Yeah, I just decided to go into room 12 down there, the only room without a patient and take a little snooze. I am pretty tired.... BUt hey, here's your blanket. Asshole. I can see it was a very pressing need.

Back to the catheter story, we asked her to try to spread her legs, which she must have thought was a joke, because she couldn't spred them past shoulder width. so basically, I could see her thighs pretty well. Awesome. SO we were pulling her legs apart, which proved exceedingly difficult. It was like her legs were only used to being in one position, and when you pulled them away from that position they sprang back. When we could spread her far enough to actually see the giner, then came the hard part. She would not let me open up her labias. I could not touch them because apparently they were ridiculously sore. THey looked pink on the inside... but doesn't everybody's? She did smell very bad though. Very very very bad. Like the fungus smell. So basically I tried to put her catheter in blindly because when I tried to see what I was doing she would scream and shut her legs togethor, with me on the inner half of them. So I decided to blindly put it in while her legs were spread. I couldn't really do that either because een the tiny lubed up plastic catheter touching her giner was apparently too much to handle, because she would scream again and smash her legs togethor. (If she had that much strength.. I really don' tunderstand how she didnt' walk...) Anyways, after 10 minutes of havign my face in fairly close range of one of the worst fungus fish smelling giner's in the world I was kind of running out of ideas... and time. Being there were 5 other people that also needed crap done. So I juststuck my finger up her giner. Then there's only one hole that the catheter could possibly go in. I then pushed the catheter up until pee started coming out. Success. A disgusting success. I didn't know I was going to stick my fingers up an old lady's gina that day. Nursing is just full of surprises.
The smell was awful. After we opened up her door it seeped out into the hallway, then every time you were 30 feet outside of her room you could smell what was coming.
I tried to wash her up down there... wasn't a huge success being she wouldn't let me do very much. But there is only a few thing's that gross me out. Fungus giners and pus in the pee. That's about it. She I think, had both. Or at least some sort of white-yellow stuff growing around her .. area.

In summary, I'm really excited to go back to work in an hour . awesome.