Bed-lam

Yes, I'm being silly after my most recent evening shift because I can. I feel fortunate that I left with my mind reasonably intact to drive home.

It's not even a full moon, but the crazies are out. We must be running a special, and while we're not a polytrauma unit, we keep getting TBI patients, who just came off one-to-one status. We don't have enough regular staff, nor PRN agency staffing, like the mothership, but they can send us people and suddenly, they don't need that one-on-one anymore. Hmm, must be a lot of miracles going on these days at Madison. The only miracle I see is the patient leaving one place for another (our little unit).

The crazies aren't actually the TBI people. Happily, they've been quiet. The crazies are our regular, crochety characters who really need to go home. They're bored, so they create problems to get attention diverted to them from other patients.

One regular decided his bed was too hard. (Remind you of someone...maybe Goldilocks?) We called the bed vendor. They check out fancy low air loss mattress on the bed. Bed works based on all their requirements. Patient waits until bed vendor is gone. Patient goes crazy, rings lights, spews expletives and acts all sorts of silly, just below the level where we can call security and get him some nice Haldol (a spray can of that would have been a delight). Charge nurse had to get one of our regular beds and plop Crochety on it, so he'd finally be quiet, for a moment. He continued to be a regal pain all night, for one reason or another. Sometimes, I think this patient did this because he was genuinely bored and it is truly a control issue.

My patients were reasonably good, but I always wonder why the boss gives me the assignment I get. It never ceases to amaze me that I get an assignment to give out pills to half the unit and try to feed two people at once.

Besides Mr. Crochety, we had a guy get unstable on us, so he took an ambulance trip. He was diverted from the hospital we intended to send him to, so the charge had fun getting with the ambulance crew to find out where indeed he was, since she had no idea to whom to give report. Turns out this patient verbalized chest pain and they pulled off and got him to the closest hospital en route instead of trying to get him to Madison.

I ended the night by finally doing all of my charting. I usually chart as I go, but there was no way to do that on that shift. Finishing with my faculties intact was enough relief for me.

Stay tuned...who knows what wild and crazy stuff the weekend will bring!