Happy February 1st!!
February is my favorite and most important month of the year. For one, it is Valentine’s Day on the 14th, my (25th) birthday on the 17th, and most importantly, my SEVEN year anniversary with Mirza on the 22nd!!
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Between my last post, I had one day off and then worked two more.
Remember the guy I helped to intubate? Well, I had him again on Saturday and Sunday. Actually, I requested to take care of him again because they originally had me with another group. It just felt right since I pretty much did everything for him in terms of what he had going on currently, and knew his entire history.
Poor guy. He had a ton of bloody secretions and he was alert through everything, even while on the max of precedex. Anyone else have a shortage of propofol in their hospital? We have to keep rationing it out and switching to other sedatives.
When I came in on Saturday, his eyes were stuck shut from eye boogers (that is the medical term, of course), so I helped to clean them up so he could open them. His peep was 10, so we did not SBT him that day.
Yesterday, however, we got to extubate him! yay! I was so happy for him.
He was hacking up so much junk all day and I think he even burst a vessel in his eye because it was bloody. He told me that no one else had cleaned his eyes like me and he thought that was why. He said he couldn’t even open his eyes. aw. And then his shoulder was killing him. He said that no one had turned him all night. I find that hard to believe, but I know the nurse was tripled over night, so you never know.
The best part was feeling how grateful he was. Everytime I went in to turn him or help him with anything, he would softly say, “Thank you so much, Nicole, for taking care of me.” And I could tell he genuinely meant it. The weird thing is that we’re still not sure exactly what is wrong. His bronchoscopy and cultures are all coming back negative. It could perhaps be a viral infection, but they have plans to possibly do a lung biopsy.
I’ll be interested to see if he is still there when I work again on Wednesday.
Some patients you truly enjoy taking care of, and then…THEN, you have patients like my guy next door. He was definitely ready to transfer. When you’re able to start complaining and being rude, BYE!!
However, I like to work the weekends in the ICU. It is, dare I say…quieter? I guess just in terms of not having to present in front of the multidisciplinary team. It is more informal with just the intensivist and charge nurse.
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Randomness:
Anyone ever have organic carrots picked from the ground hours earlier? You cannot even believe the flavor. They put grocery store carrots to shame (as in one tastes like a carrot and the other like cardboard). I love my CSA:
