I'm Off

From today i'm off until the 19th. Hurray!!! Actually I am on night shift on the 19th but since it will not start until 7:30 pm I am counting it as off :)

3 minutes

3 minutes until the handover (pt's handover at the nures station) and my patient asked for a bedpan. Bummer!!! What can I do? Nothing but to get it and wait until she finished!!!

Warning: Smoking is Bad For Your Health

The patient that I had today has lung cancer that needed ventilatory support. She improved after few hours. She just had a radiotherapy for her CA. But until now she still smokes 40 sticks a day. When I was doing my health teaching to her (with her husband and daughter present). I said that she needs to stop smoking or else she will get worst especially that she has CA. She answered me straightaway, she said that according to her Doctor who smokes as well, that cigarettes is not the caused of her cancer so it doesn't matter if she will continue to smoke. I said what??? I'm sure in few months/weeks time she will come back in our unit again along with her GP/doctor.

My Plan Failed

This morning is the opening of the Olympic Games. My patient has a television and I was planning to watch it with her...naughty me :~) It was all set up and the countdown begins... and then one of my colleague called me and asked for help. So I said if she can wait for another 5 to 10 minutes because I want to look at the opening. But she can't because the Doctor's are waiting for us inside. What can I do? Nothing!

My Night Last Night

One down, one more night to do. When we we're in the old unit before I don't mind doing night shift but since we moved to a new unit everything changed. Less break and more work. We don't have a central station now, so if we have a ventilated and confused patient we need to stay at the bedside for the whole shift, unless we are on break. Last night I had an admission, a ventilated patient who was admitted of hypoglycemia or low blood sugar that made patient into a comatose condition. He wasn't too bad but he is not on any sedation because of his comatose status, so anytime he will wake up. Being his nurse I need to be on his bedside all the time. Poor me!

New Blog Design

Watch out folks for the new blog design of this blog. It will be lovely, I'm sure! And who's the designer? Of course it's Zoe of Chic and Sassy (the one who design my Shopaholic and My World blog). Visit her site for more nice template.

What's My Day Like

After 12.5 hours shift with 4 breaks, 2 x 15 minutes and 2 x 30 minutes, my shift has ended. Nothing much happened. I had 2 patients who is wardable so I was just waiting for a bed from the ward and since nobody is around knocking on the door to be admitted in ICU we are not pushing patient to be move today. So overall, a bit boring shift! But I'm still exhausted :(

Back To Work

After few days of being off. I am going back to work tomorrow. As usual I will be on long day and it will be for 12.5 hours. Oh life!!! When I am going to win the lottery so that I will stop working???

Fearless

When I was a student nurse...years ago. I used to get scared with patients who passed away. But now, since I've been practicing as a registered nurse for 12 years - 7 years of it spent in ICU. I already encountered a lot of patient who died. Some of them, care was withdrawn because there is no hope and some of them died because their body cannot cope with a lot of stress during their illness. To be a nurse you need to be fearless or else you will have nightmares all the time. And I learned it through my practice.

Smelly Doctor :)

(Posted this one before on my main blog)
One of our junior doctor has a very bad smell that every time he goes bed to bed to assist patient our facial expression change because he smells like shit! One of our consultant told him to use a deodorant (if it will be me...maybe I will die of embarrassment). I think he is using one now but still his "unique" smell is overpowering. I wonder if he does take a bath or shower. You don't really expect when you see him that he is so smelly (because he is so young) until you will go near to him.

Sad :(

My patient died this morning. I was sad, we did and gave everything but she wasn't responding. So, we let her go. The difficult part of our job is when we have a patient died and the second part is telling the remaining family about the bad news.

Cyclist Beware!

One down, one more to go and i'm off for 2 days. We had a very busy day today. One of our patient today who was admitted yesterday afternoon has a bone fracture everywhere. He fracture his spine, shoulder, ribs and skull. He was cycling for 25 miles per hour for his training but unfortunately he collided on the car. Lucky him he did not had a brain damage and he can still move his 4 limbs. But he will be bed bound for days and cannot move on his own because he need to be log roll to avoid more damage to his spine. So, to all the cyclist out there...be careful.