One of the things I have been doing a lot since I’ve been “interrupted” is reading. I read many different types of books. Romance, inspirational, mystery, mystery medical, found a really good series of forensic books that is set in South Dakota plus trying to spend more time reading the Bible.
Currently am reading a book by James Patterson titled ER nurses, walk my rounds with me. It is many interviews with real life nurses. As I read this it brings back memories of time in ER and urgent care when I lived in California. I worked both jobs at same time, a very very busy urgent care ( which functioned more as a free standing ER with ambulance patients and the works) plus at an ER that was the second busiest in LA county. I wore my pedometer one day when working 12 hour shift in the ER and I walked 12 miles that day. No wonder my feet would hurt when I got home.
Most patients that were seen were pleasant and grateful for the care we gave them, but not all. I particular time comes to mind when working in the urgent care. We had a patient code and we working on him on floor in hallway because that was where we had enough space. 911 was called but we started IV’s, gave meds, placed on oxygen, defibrillated him and worked on him till EMS arrived. Once EMS arrived they took over care. While we are on the floor doing CPR and bagging him and all the other things, a mother of a little boy that was waiting to be seen for a sore throat kept opening the door and looking out. Finally after EMS transported patient we could continue to see the others that were waiting. The mother of the boy was furious because they had to wait, and made the statement” I don’t know why we had to wait that guy is probably going to die anyway.” I wished that I could go in that room and tell that lady just how selfish she was but that kind of behavior is frowned upon. Luckily the doctor was able to do just that. He grabbed the chart and walked into that room. He never raised his voice but when the mother left she was really mad and crying. The doctor would never tell us what he said to her but it seemed to get his point across.
I worked with some really great nurses in that urgent care and not all days were bad, they was some good times. It was Halloween and the whole urgent care was decorated as Wizard of Ox and all of use were in costumes as characters of Wizard of Ox. A guy in probably his 30’s came into waiting room and promptly collapsed. We grabbed him and placed him in our cardiac room. Did all the normal things, IV, monitor, oxygen and drew labs. There were 3 of standing around him, me as the lion, another nurse as the scare crow and third as the good witch , he opened his eyes after a few minutes and had no idea where he was or why we were dressed the way we were. You could tell by the look in his eyes and on his face that he was very confused and scared as his eyes kept darting around trying to figure things out. Once we reminded him it was Halloween he calmed down and even laughed about how freaked out he was.
This book also talks a lot about COVID . I was working LTC in Colorado when COVID first started. I was doing a lot of infection control at that time and collecting the weekly staff COVID tests. When staff would come in for weekly testing, they would get their mask for the week in a brown lunch bag with their name on it and we wore that same mask for a week. The saddest thing about COVID and LTC was the isolation. No visitors were allowed unless it was an end of life visit and only 1 family member could visit at time. I remember so many family members asking and begging if more than one could come in because they needed support from each other but it was the regulation set by the heath department and no way around it. Many times the family members would stand outside and look in the window and then switch out so everyone could say good bye. A very hard time to be a nurse in long term care, you have built a relationship with the resident and their family and want to comfort them. LTC saw many deaths with COVID because this population was already at risk due to age and co-morbidities.
COVID definitely changed nursing and many nurses left bedside care d\t COVID. Even with all the challenges there was never a time I regretted pursuing a nursing career. Well not for more than a few minutes at a time. I’m sure every nurse at sometime during their career have uttered the words, ” what was I thinking ” but returned the next day to do it all over again.
Thanks for reading
Ann