Let the Chaos Begin

It’s funny how work can go from a nice, relaxed pace in one moment to cluttered chaos the next.  Take, for instance, last night.  One moment I was laughing and chatting with my patients, breezing my way through their evening observations and medications.  The next moment I was rather frazzled and frustrated.  And it’s not like anything catastrophic happened to turn the tide.  No - it was a series of little things that just kept gathering momentum until they became a full-blown storm, leaving me feeling winded.

It all started when I had to run downstairs to pick up a narcotic from the pharmacy.  (What a pain!)  When I came back, I received orders to prep a patient for CT – STAT!  (Even though he’s been waiting ALL DAY.)  Then I found myself traipsing through the hospital, going from ward to ward, hunting for a medication no one had bothered to restock in our supply.  Next, another nurse needed help checking out narcotics, which she promptly spilled, requiring the entire lengthy process to be repeated.  Oh – and then I had to search for a doctor, any doctor willing to write a simple insulin order for my diabetic patient because his regular team had forgotten and left for the day.  Then another patient required an immediate ECG.  And just when I thought I was getting organized, another nurse dragged me into her room to start IVs on her patients, because no other nurse on the ward can.  All the while, I was trying to squeeze in my normal evening duties, amid my homeless patient (who thought he’d just landed himself in a 5-star hotel with me being his answer to room service) vying for my attention to complain about the hospital food, demanding I find him salt, pepper, sugar and a cup of tea.  Aghh!!! 

Separately, each event was nothing.  But when all of these nothings came crashing down at once, I barely had time to breathe, let alone think.  (And finding the time to relieve my bladder was totally out of the question!)  So, while this job isn’t really stressful, it can be very busy.  Sometimes, it’s too busy, leaving me spinning and wondering how I got myself so far behind.  Sometimes I leave work, shaking my head, simply trying to figure out what happened.