Don't Ever Try Yoga, she said

I was on long day yesterday and even I had a very crapped shift there was a time that I laughed.

Conversation during our lunch break:
Me: I am really fat now.
Gay Nurse: (who's got a body to die for) if you don't go to the gym try exercise video or dvd.
Me: I'm thinking about it.
Student: Just don't get a yoga video because when I tried it I was admitted the following day for an emergency appendectomy, because my appendix got ruptured when I was doing the yoga.
Me and Gay Nurse: Holy s*%$! Bwahahahaha!

My Patient Who Has Staphylococcus Infection

My patient yesterday was very poorly and she was isolated in the side room as she contacted *Staphylococcus infection which I heard is widespread in the region right now. She is young, on her 40's but she is a smoker which doesn't really help when you get chest infection. Poor lady. After we removed her *endotracheal tube because her blood result from *ABG's was all in normal range she did not managed. She was very distressed and was about to arrest so ICU consultant decided to put one back again. Normally the minimum of registered nurses that will help during *intubation process is about 3 in case something bad will happen but because I was in the side room and other nurses are busy of what they are doing of I'm not sure what! We intubated the lady and I was the only staff nurse who is present, with a consultant and a 2nd year nursing student. Thankfully we managed well and nothing wrong happened.

*Staphylococcus is group of bacteria, familiarly known as Staph (pronounced "staff"), that can cause a multitude of diseases as a result of infection of various tissues of the body. Staph bacteria can cause illness not only directly by infection (such as in the skin), but also indirectly by producing toxins responsible for food poisoning and toxic shock syndrome. Staph-related illness can range from mild and requiring no treatment to severe and potentially fatal.

*ABG or arterial blood gas test measures the acidity pH and the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood from an artery. This test is used to check how well your lungs are able to move oxygen into the blood and remove carbon dioxide from the blood.

*ABG or arterial blood gas test measures the acidity pH and the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood from an artery. This test is used to check how well your lungs are able to move oxygen into the blood and remove carbon dioxide from the blood.

*Intubation is a procedure by which a tube is inserted through the mouth down into the trachea (the large airway from the mouth to the lungs).

picture from Google image

The Story Behind This Recipe

I know the first enters into your mind is that why I am posting a picture of a food here in my nurse's tale blog which is supposed to be a blog that consists a story from the hospital. Here's the story...

I went to a party before I went to work last night. The food are all delicious and that's including the "dinuguan" (pork blood stew) which is a Filipino recipe. At work when it was time to chose a patient. I did not had one but there was one patient that was bleeding rectally and one nurse cannot cope so I stayed there almost all shift. He was bleeding heavily with clots and as you can imagine it smells so bad. He was swimming with blood in the bed. And as nurse we are the one responsible to clean the patient. If you are the nurse and you just had pork blood stew before going to work and need to clean a smelly blood with clots, what will you feel? Because me I felt sick the whole night. Thinking about it makes me throw up again.

Live Life To The Fullest Each Day

picture grabbed from Photobucket

As what my husband said live life to the fullest each day. Yes we should do it that way all the time. We never know what will happen to us in the following day, hours or even minutes. Accident can happen anytime and fatal disease will strike any time of the day.

This time of year I remember one of my best friend who died with brain cancer. It's been two years but I still remember her talking to me happily telling me that the following day they will travel in Philippines to attend their family reunion. She was a nurse too, very young, fit and healthy. She did not even suspect that there was something wrong with her health. Few days they are due to come back here in UK, she collapsed and was admitted straight away and they discovered that she had brain tumor. It turned out to be cancer. She never came back and she will never be forever. I miss you so much my friend. Wherever you are, I promise I will keep an eye to your hubby. And yes your still welcome in my dreams. Just don't scare me too much or else I will have a heart attack. Love you my dear friend.

Back To Reality

Starting tomorrow I will be back at work after a long month annual leave. Sad to say, I am back to reality again. I did some overtime on the ward during my off but I only worked when I feel like it. As you noticed I did not do a lot of post in here. Maybe lack of inspiration? So now I am back, expect for more updates.

Just A Reminder

My friend who is a nurse too told me about this. She had a patient who is poorly and wife want to be contacted anytime if he detiorates, and he did during the night. But they had difficulty doing this because the wife is deaf and using a hearing aid. They tried to contact all her number but without any reply at all. My friend thinks that wife might be sleeping and removed her hearing aid. Just a reminder folks if you are using one and waiting for an important call don't ever turn it off, ok.

My Ward Overtime

I'm still on annual leave. So I did an overtime on the ward for two consecutive night. My first night was horrendous. I was up the whole night, every time I'm in the chair, the bell will ring - bummer!!! There was 28 patients, shared between me and another nurse and one health care assistant. We had transfers, admissions and self discharged during that night. But my second night was another story.

On my second night I worked with a male nurse whom I know very well. We used to work 8 years ago in Philippines. We applied at the same time and luckily got through with the interview. He works in rehabilitation ward so when I knew that there's available overtime in their ward I called him straightaway to know if he is on. And he is, so I grabbed the slot without hesitation. It wasn't so busy so we chatted the whole night and talked about our friends who we knew back then. The following morning I suffer with sore throat and exhaustion due to our never ending chatting :)

Granny With A Mascara

One thing that I love doing overtime on the ward is that patient are all coherent (not all of them though :) They can talk back and make me laugh. Unlike in ICU that most of our patient are unwell. My recent experience is with an old woman who is 102 years old. When I was preparing her things for her wash, I noticed that there is a mascara in her wash bag. A mascara for a 102 years old??? Can you believe that! To make sure if she knows what it is for because she was a bit confused. I told her to used it and she did without hesitation. You know what? She did it very well, I was so tempted to used my iphone to take a photo but as you all know it is not allowed for patient confidentiality.