I was furious yesterday. For one, I ended up having 7 patients and another, a male pervert patient patted me on my butt twice. They said he was a doctor but he does not look like one. He is extremely obese confined in bed requiring total care in terms of oral and body hygiene. They said he’s been coming in and out of the hospital for quite a while already. Instead of me having pity on his condition, I tended to hate him. I left the charged nurse for his diaper change and I called upon his bedside nurse to assist him. Maybe that moron has overdosed some testosterone cream making him act that way. It was not the first time that he did that to a nurse. As a precaution, he is being assigned to male nurses.

It was a busy night for me, as usual, but I was able handle the shift smoothly until the incoming staff nurse begun intoxicating me with her demands to endorse my other patient to her. This is what she normally does, makes sure that the endorsement gets done early so she could start or end her shift ahead of the others. It was okay if I was not busy but the thing is, I was attending to two patients when she started asking about the patient that I was supposed to dowload to her. It was really irritating. There was also this other orientee who waits for me to get done so she could endorse all her two patients to me. She was quiet though because we had an agreement that she we let me know if she’s already ready for the endorsement.
So when I was done attending to my patients, I sat down and asked who between them will I attend to, then she snapped at me. Begun with her lithany of me being arrogant. All the three nurses there were shocked. And as the orientee and I started with our endorsement, I tried to assure the orientee that everything will be okay and we giggled. This made the mad nurse furious as she thought we were laughing at her.
I have heard that she had issues with other staff nurses because of her attitude.
I still kept my silence. I wanted to snap back but then again, a mature person would not do that. Instead, I turned the other cheek. She will get transferred to another ward anyway. I cried though in the morning when I got the thing off my chest with my batchmate during our post duty breakfast.
I was thinking if I will let it slide or bring it up to our headnurse.

I was able to punch out at past 10:00 this morning from my 7pm to 7am shift. I was able to finish my focus charts early but I was caught up between the chaos of cleaning chest incision wounds and giving medication to a disoriented patient. I thought I could make it through my shift early. It just as frustrating as my first month of being an orientee. I was home at 12nn and slept immediately but I woke up at 3:00am soaked in sweat. The power supply server in our air tripped and it needed an rv repair It was restored just now and I am trying to get my doze mode back on.

What I actually enjoy about the rotation of sked in the hospital are the long days off. Aside from sleeping long hours, I am looking forward to doing my DVD marathons. Unfortunate for me though because my home theatre is still busted so I have to contain myself in the portable DVD or in my laptop. I do not enjoy the resolution and sound quality of these gadgets because they are not top of the line or near nordictrack audiostrider 990 pro Well, better than nothing. Who am I to complain?

If there was anything light happened during my shift, it was being assigned to be the bedside nurse to a local celebrity. Which I did not find enjoyable anyway. She’s not critical, just a stomach pain and intermittent fever and yet again she gets the special attention. I was glad to be relieved by another nurse who by the way wants to switch patients with me. I declined. I am not after the glitter. I really do not understandd why the people in the hospital are going gaga over her. Phone kept ringing asking about her, staff are constatly passing by her room hoping to take a quick glance at her. I actually pity her, she seems like a caged animal in a zoo or a piece of art in the museum. I wanted to scream, people, she’s human! She needs a rest, go get a life!
I’d rather take care of level 3 patient who acts to be level 2 that be burdened by the one who acts like leve 2 patient when she’s just level one.

I have had three days off and I was planning on having DVD marathon of some movies that I missed out on theatres. To my dismay, my DVD player will play for minute then shuts off and as I turn it on again is displays power error. I was thinking of bring the thing to its service center but then again I thought it would be better just to let the repair man come by. The Handy Manny in me did not work this time but it tells me that there are just some Mopar parts needing to be replaced.

I woke up this morning to the voice of my dad and nieces. It is the usual morning for them, screaming running around the house being chased by my dad. With the morbid thoughts running on my mind, I could say that I have got some decent sleep after all. I just noticed that my fingers are throbbing a bit, yet again. I have stopped taking Plaquenil which is among the best yet pricey rheumatoid arthritis treatments out there.

I was on the PM shift. I came in almost an hour before my shift. I want to have enough time to browse through my patients’ charts. As I looked at the board for my patient assignment, I was not surprised to see that I have 2 level 2 patients out of the 4 assigned to me while the other bedside nurse has only 1 level one patient out of four. I was appalled though that I will be receiving the first admission should there be any. The division of labor is really not fair. Then again, my only consolation for playing the underdog for the next 6 months is that, the bedside and the charge nurse are not allowed to go home without me. A fair deal.
The outgoing bedside nurse get to endorse the concerned patients to me just before the grand endorsement happened. I asked her to slow down a bit as I list down the medications of each patient but she commented that I should come in early to do it. Bitching out aside, I asked her that the reason I came in early is for me to do that exactly but she asked me to make an early endorsement. She rested her case because I was not gonna take it sitting down.
In almost a month of being an orientee, I could say that this was the most smooth shift. We call it suave shift. At 4:30 a.m. I was done doing my final vitally signs, input and output monitoring and charting! I was only waiting for my 6:00 am osterized feeding and medications. This was my best shift ever! Until the admission group called in as there was a patient that will come in from another hospital. Aaargh, admission is the most toxic job for me as there are so many forms to fill out plus there is the task of doing the patient assessment. I am kinda obsessed with the assessment part as I do it thoroughly from head to foot including the patient’s medical background. This was the comment of my preceptor and I am guilty for that, if that is a sin. The patient came in at 5:30 a.m. and I hurriedly but thoroughly did the assessment. At 6:10 a.m. I was done with it, I hurriedly prepared my feeding and medications. At 7:00 a.m., I was done with all of it. I set aside the task of finishing the documentation for the patient who just arrived. I had to make the endorsement for my four other patients. At almost 8:00 am my other patient who will undergo coronary angiogram buzzed for help. She pooped and the daughter needs assistance for a diaper change. As soon as I finished changing her diapers, I went back to the endorsement table. The same patient buzzed again after ten minute. This time she wants to have her hair shampooed and she is level one patient. This means that even though is on complete bed rest, she does not have any contraptions and her Glasgow coma scale or GCS is 15. But in the private ward, you cannot say no to a patient’s request. Technically, she is no longer my patient but since the endorsement is still ongoing, she is still under my care. I went in to shampoo her and as I was patting her hair dry already she insisted on having her daughter to do it for her. My ears flapped in joy.
My preceptor handed me a time table giving me an idea what tasks should be done by when. I looked at him with my eyes speaking “seriously?”. He told me that it was just a suggestion and he does that to all the orientees that he handles. He noticed that I was quiet finishing the newly admitted patient’s chart and I was not laughing at his jokes. He began filling out some forms for me while the other bedside nurse was chitchatting with some nurses from the other ward. It was nearly 9:00 a.m. I was done doing all the charts and as I told them to go home already, they insisted on waiting for me.
Nurses are like diamonds. Undergoing trainings and real life experiences are like series of tests in fire to make them as polished and as priceless as they could ever be. I am hoping though that I could withstand the tests.

People in the hospital were in a rush. Patients want to go home in time to celebrate new year in the comfort of their abodes. I got to discharge 3 patients but I admitted 2.
The old man needs blood transfusion and being my patient, I need to start a peripheral line on him. I was nervous I asked my senior to accompany me for moral support. I used gauge 20 needle that is suitable for blood transfusion. I found a vein easily and inserted the catheter. I had a back flow but as I advance the catheter, the vein bulged. I had to pull it out. I was looking for another vein when the cardio fellow came in. She volunteered to start the line to which I obliged. It is not because I would not want to do it on my own, it;s just I want to get it over with to attend to other patients in order for me punch out early.
I feel exhausted, I feel hungry. My fraternity brother who celebrated his birthday yesterday came to the hospital to bring me some food but as usual, I was not able to take even five for a quick bite.
I did pretty well today. I like my preceptor. He is patient. He waited for another 2 hours after our shift for me to finish my tasks. I was actually shooing him off as some girl was waiting for him but he declined.
I am too tired but I am starved. I guess I cannot wait for the new year to strike.

Expectedly, she’s again my preceptor this time in the PM shift. I had another bedside nurse with me. The 10 patients were equally divided between the two bedside nurses. Thank heavens!
I am getting the hang of managing level 2 patients. I got to do the admission notes for another patient with ease but still I know that I will be unable to finish the task on time.
The atmosphere is so much lighter compared to the previous day when we were just 2 in the ward. Maybe it’s because the charge nurse was conscious that the other bedside nurse would feel her bitterness.
I still got her angst once in a while though but not as intense as the other day. I got to do the morning care for my patient without her help and she was even surprised to see that I was done with it when she entered the patient’s room.
I was done charting before 6:00am. I only lacked the input and output data for one of the patients plus some last doses of medications due at 6:00am inlcuding the capillary blood glucose monitoring and the osterized feeding.
At 7:00 am, I was prepping the medications that I will endorse to the incoming shift. Another bitter female nurse told me to stop what I am doing and proceed with the endorsement. To which I obliged. Expectedly, I do not have the medications to endorse so the other bedside nurse commented that I should be well prepared. Yeah right, I do not know whom to follow.
For the record, I finished my task at 8:00 am.