Friday the 13th...

And for me, it's evenings again. Last night, there was nothing unlucky about it. Yes, I did end up with the med wagon again, but I had three patients who were relatively easy to take care of, so all went off without a hitch. It also helped that the schedule was stacked with more RNs to the rest of staff, so it makes the load lighter. (Not that I don't like the LPNs and NAs, they just can't do everything...)

I had one patient I'll call DQ (that's for Drama Queen). Every time he goes into some rant, I just want to stand outside the room, applaud and yell, "Bravo!" for his Oscar/Emmy/Golden Globe performance. I told the MD about his gentle rant (no one on either side of the hall in the other rooms complained about this one...) yesterday at the beginning of the shift. Since he's not going with the bowel program (which is a big, big problem on our unit), she told me to give him this message, "If the bowels are plugged, I'll just have to drop the pain meds." We'll see what actually happens. Hopefully, he'll be reasonably good again on my shift.

We expect to have a discharge today, but we'll probably get one or two people to take his place. It really depends. Since the Hotel is pretty much to capacity with isolated patients, it's getting more interesting to find places to put people...especially the ones who aren't on isolation. My favorite charge worked with us last night (which she normally doesn't do) and her take is, "we always get extra people in on our weekend." The scary part is that she's usually right. We don't take people back on the weekends, but on Fridays, if any of our folks are at Washington and nearing discharge, they're pleading to come back to us before nightfall. Ahh, isn't it great to feel loved? Hmm....

I'm not too superstitious, but I'll be hoping I'm lucky enough to have another night like last night, which was not too crazy.

More to come...stay tuned!