cleaning

Today my mission is to clean the house. Which is why I'm writing on this blog. It's pretty dirty in here. I don't think I have vacumed for mmm... about 2 months and I'll be walking on the carpet and I'll step on something sharp, and then remind myself that I should vaccum. I also haven't done any laundry since..... this is hard to admit.. ( and also remember when exacly I last did laundry.)... I believe it was February 20th... And most of that stuff was stuff I wore on vacation. The sad thing is I have enough scrubs that I don't have to do laundry. Except Yesterday all of my scrubs were dirty so I just bought some old lady clearance ones at this scrub sale at work so I wouldn't have to do laundry. I also bought some socks so I wouldn't have to do laundry. Good thing I worked at JC Penney's in the lingerie section. I think I have enough underwear to go for half of the year without doing laundry. thank god for that. Anyways, with that explanation one can imagine how much laundry I really have to do at this point in time.
I really think that if someone walked into my apartment at this time, and I wasn't home, they would think someone tried to come in and kill me and we went through a large arduous struggle. Then the murderer won and took all of my clothes out of the closet and the drawers and threw it on the floor and just picked up the pieces he/ or she wanted. Then he would have had to eat a few bowls of oatmeal and leave the dirty dishes around the house.
See, when I eat, I usually eat in random places. Especially since I'm working day shift. I don't leave myself much time to eat. So I'll make some oatmeal, and eat it in the bathroom in between washing my face and brushing my teeth. Or I'll bring the oatmeal in while I'm getting dressed and find a bowl inside of my dresser drawer. At least I don' t have many dishes to do, because I mostly just eat oatmeal or sandwiches, and Sandwiches don't take dishes.
Well, now that you all think I'm the most un-sanitary person alive, maybe I should change the subject.
Work was not fun this past weekend. I worked evening shifts, and the earliest I left the hospital was 1:30. I am supposed to be done by 11:30. Good joke hospital. I was working on tele, and the only person I worked with that actually worked in that area was the charge nurse. Then there was 3 float nurses. Float nurses are nurses that work on the medical floors, surgical floor, or the telemetry unit. Granted, these float nurses had all been float nurses in the hospital for 20 years plus. By this point in time, you would think they would have worked on tele several hundreds of times before. You would think that, and I'm sure they have, but for some reason, they all have down syndrome. Here are the things I would have to do for them.
'Annie, my patient hasn't had a bm for a couple days and really wants an enema.'
- um.. okay. I guess I'll call the on call doctor and get one ordered.
Apparently, they had no idea how to do this. REally... an enema? You don't even have to explain anythign to the doctor on call about the patient. you just say the name, who their doctor normally is, why they are here and that they are a constipated mcgee and owuld like an enema.
8 seconds later, you have an order for a fleets. NOT difficult.

Then there was this one nurse who had had an actively dying patient on a pca pump. (patient controlled analgesia) They are basically hooked up to a morphine pump that gives them so much an hour, and they can hit a little handheld button every 10 minutes or so if they want another bump or morphine. Anywho, her patient kept complaining that he was having a terrible headache and pain. I had to keep calling the doctor FOr her to get the pump raised up. I had been in her room about 50 times to fix the pump for her, because she also didnt' know how to use it. I hadn't had pca pump training since orientation.. and this was a nurse who had worked on the surgical unit.. where people have these pumps ALL of the time. BUt it really isn't that difficult to figure out. The family even asked me, ' Annie, what is the name of our nurse again?' I had been in their room so much they had no idea who their nurse really was. Then I was fixing their pump and I noticed that the other nurse had not had his handheld device plugged into the pump. So that means every time he hit the button, nothing happened. Dear God.
What really made me mad, is when I was in his room helping him and explaining things to the family and one of my patients had put her call light on while I was in the room. Both of the float nurses that I had been helping all shift just sat there and charted so they could get out on time. I finally got out of his room and ran down to my patients room because her call light had been on for about 3 mintues by then. I opened the door and found her on the floor because she really had to go to the bathroom and nobody came to help her. Then I was at work until 2 am charting and filling out all these unusual occurence forms. The patient that had fallen was fine, had no pain. I told her I was in someone elses room and I was sorry that nobody else came to help her. She was fine with it and knew I had been busy all shift. I'm just glad she didn't pull out her central line when she fell.. because she was still attatched to the iv pole when she fell, in a little puddle of pee. The float nurses didnt' even help me get her off the floor.. the charge nurse had to interrupt her report and help me clean her up and change the sheets. ppbbbbb. Now I see how nurses get burned out so easily.
I work night shift tonight, which should be interesting. I am supposed to be the charge nurse... even though I havent' really been trained in to do that... nor have I even worked there for year yet. 8 months to be exact. It's going to be awkward, because the girls that I will be working over there with started a month or two before me. ... .. Cool. This should be a good time.
Well, I'm going to go to target and buy some cleaning supplies to make me more motivated to scrub stuff. bye!