Perfect storm

My morning:

Bubba wakes up way too early and runs to the bathroom. Vomits like crazy. Says, "I feel much better" and goes back to bed.

I wake up right after, and was amazed that I didn't have anything to clean up (I really hate vomit more than anything else). Got a good enough migraine that I thought I might also be heading to Vomit Land. Interrupted such thoughts with the good old sumatriptan, instead.

Hung out and laid low. Called into work sick. School calls and says Bubba has no school. Rejoice that I don't have to play Vomit Roulette and send him to school.

Bubba did perfectly fine the rest of the day. Once I rested for a bit, so did I. Made Bubba and I a little breakfast ('cause migraines make you hungry...at least when you realize how long it's been since you've eaten).

Finally started working on my slides for the next big gig. Bubba, meanwhile enjoyed himself and read books and watched movies.

I'm just hoping they have school tomorrow. This snow day business is getting old really fast.

You know you're a nurse when...

1. You get excited about dressing really horrible wounds. I like to consider myself the Queen of the WoundVAC since K. retired.

2. Input and output doesn't faze you.

3. Vomit? How much and what color, you ask.

4. And if the doc recommends this (as a transferring physician did recently), you know exactly what it is.

My least favorite thing

As a nurse, revolves around a body product. Yes, I deal with pee, poop, blood and sputum all the time, but my Achilles heel (in the right context) is emesis.

That regular ol' vomit will send yours truly to sick bay in the right circumstances. Alas, sometimes those rascally patients will do it once in a while.

So at work the other day, at the nurses' station, I was talking to the charge nurse and a few others about these Achilles heel issues we have.

Charge nurse:  "Oh, I just can't do sputum. Coughing, spitting...yuck!" To Mr. J., one of our characters with a trach who hangs out at the nurses' station to catch up on gossip between therapies, "J., I know I've known you for years, but you'd better not cough anything over here or else." J. just rolled his eyes and went somewhere else, since we started grossing him out. Obviously, no gossip was going to be discussed.

Newbie nurse: "I worry about someone having an arterial bleed. That much blood is scary. What if I pass out and can't hold pressure anymore?"


Our most experienced rehab NP: "RehabRN, did I ever tell you about when I worked at the kids camp one summer before cell phones? (this automatically piques the interest of the junior nurses, who can't imagine life without one.)"

"I had a kid with a high temp that wouldn't go down whatever I did. I was really worried about him, so I called the parents at camp and told them what ER I was taking Johnny to. On my way out of camp, my husband Bob was driving in, per usual. I rolled down the window, told him what was going on and that he could stay or follow me."


"I thought Bob elected to stay back at camp, so I kept going to the ER. All of a sudden, Johnny says, 'My stomach really hurts, I think I'm going to be sick.' So I pull over to the side of the road, and he opens door."


"What I didn't know, was that Bob decided to follow me, stop once he saw me pull over, then approach the passenger's side of the car. Kid then proceeded to vomit all over Bob once he opened the door."

"Needless to say, Bob doesn't approach the car from the passenger's side of the car anymore."

Lessons learned: Listen to your experienced NP wife, get a cell phone, and never assume anything with kids.


(BTW this post was inspired by NurseXY's comment about his sick kid. Hope you have a great vacation, dude, with little to no more vomit in store!)

Fridays on the floor follies

Ah, I'll be playing the Hotel lounge (and a couple of rooms) this weekend for a limited engagement, before I'm sent off to toil the holiday season in the sister unit.

Today's entertainment...two skinny (thank you!) characters who have bowel issues. One's constipated, one's runny. Oh, the joy of bowel mania! Nothing a little chugged Miralax can't fix, unless of course you chug it in front of the med nurse so fast with that cold juice that you promptly vomit most of it up five minutes later. Next, same patient coughs so hard that it's coming out both ends. Happily, (if there is such a thing) this was not a bowel prep, and the volume was low.

Most of the characters are happy to see me back. Some of the floor staff, not so much. No vacation yet, but am planning to enjoy some of the holidays at home this year. It warms my heart just thinking of it.

More later, so stay tuned. The day has just begun.

Whew!

The days fly by at the Hotel Rehab when you're busy. It's been a lot like a bus station this week, with all the discharges, admissions and tests here, there and everywhere.

I got the pleasure of orienting a guy who wants to do everything himself. Yes! We don't get too many motivated characters. He's plugging away and wants to make the best of everything. I hope it all works out well. Once we straighten out his bowel, bladder and skin issues, we'll be set.

On top of all this, we had an in-service today. The Slug was a primo b*&tch, snatching my materials, so I withheld something near and dear to her...the presenter's chocolate box. There's no better way to get the nurses' attention but with a large plastic box filled with chocolates at the end of the day. It just warmed the cockles of my heart, as I ate her favorite dark chocolates before the box managed to get passed to her at the end of the presentation.

There was a big crowd at the pain seminar. Our people are some of the best customers for Ye Old Pain Med manufacturers....Percs, Roxies, you name it...we could have some people on the wall of fame.

Thankfully, when I got home, Bubba felt much better. After significant GI upset yesterday, he was happy and smiling today. Probably had to do with all the quality time he spent with Dad.

Oh, to be a kid again...just without vomit! Stay tuned...

Not quite...

Nursing school ready, and certainly not Hotel Rehab on evening shift ready....

Bubba tells me about his day at school.

"Mom I puked at school today."
"Okay," I ask, "what happened?"
"Something smelled really bad in the boys' bathroom and it really made me sick."
"How are you now?" I ask.
"Much better, thanks. " says Bubba.

The joys of school...makes me wonder if the custodian threw sawdust down on the floor.

Ironies

I was driving down the road the other day and saw this license plate on a BMW:

BM-ING

Oh, the rehab nurse in me was just laughing out loud...if this man only knew how this would be received on my unit. Many punny comments would be exchanged and probably no one would want to ride in that car!

I'm coming up on my anniversary as a nurse and I keep thinking about some of the things that have happened to me since I've become a nurse.

1. I'm not too afraid of bodily fluids, but vomit gets me. Everything else--nasty, draining wounds, poop, etc., rarely faze me. It's that rascally vomit that is my Kryptonite. I go to that happy place really quickly when people vomit, or I'd be going to Emesisland with them!

2. I've learned to like gloves. It never bothered me if a foodservice person wasn't wearing gloves before, but it really does now.

3. I like teaching. In rehab nursing, we do a lot of this, and I've developed my own internal scripts, depending on the subject. One of these days, we ought to have a Rehab Nurse Learning Channel, tape our delivery of the educational topics and let patients watch on a patient channel, just like public access on cable.

4. I'm now fluent in several types of wheelchair drive systems. At least, I don't crash as much as I used to when taking them to the charging station. (Maintenance frowns on holes in the walls caused by staff).

5. I've always thought I was pretty resourceful, but I'm learning even more tricks. One of my recent patients, a quad with shoulder mobility, figured out how to use his rolled up washcloth (for his hand) to scratch his nose. It was great, but it kept falling out, so I used Kerlix and tape to attach it to his hand without gumming him all up. It worked great. At least it keeps him occupied enough, so he doesn't bug us ringing the call light to come scratch his nose!