Uh oh. I knew last night was going to be trouble the moment I stepped onto the floor. The air was just charged with that frantic tension that always seems to precede complete and utter chaos. I could see it in the day-shift nurses' eyes. I could sense it in the way they franticly scurried around, responding to alarms and paging their respective docs, rather than waiting patiently to give the change-of-shift report. The phones were ringing off the hook. Someone was barking at me to talk to a doc regarding a patient about which I knew nothing. In the background, as if to emphasize the symphony of catastrophe that was threatening to erupt, were the high-pitched wails of two patients on the verge of psychosis. And, oh yeah, it smelled like poo. Ahh... Welcome to the ICU.
It's nights like this that make me want to walk away before my shift even begins. I've been around long enough to sniff out a pending night from hell. I know I'm going to spend the shift putting out one fire after the next, chasing my own tail, and doing my best to keep the insanity simmering at a manageable level. I'm never going to sit, eating a meal will be an impossibility, and I'll be catching up on my charting long after my shift is over. Yup - I could foresee my future before I even had a chance to glance at my patients. And once I did, I knew my fait was sealed.
Of course, I was right. It was a bad night. I ran. I put out fires. I kept our intensivist up all night. But, ultimately, it turned out to be a halfway decent shift. Partially, because we caught things in time. Even more so, because I work with a great team. Yet, I couldn't help but breathe a really long sigh of relief when it was finally time to go home.
One night down. Only three more to go...
No comments:
Post a Comment