Instead of writing a good post, I made this for you! Get your flu shots!!!!
Category: Quick Notes
Short posts discussing nursing related topics. sometimes including pictures or news items.
A Florida hospital has developed a four-part protocol for treating Covid with over 96% success rates. They say no one needed to be put in a ventilator and everyone survived?!?! Data is in short supply but they plan on doing a clinical trial…
The treatment protocol includes many things we’ve given over the past 6 months, including zinc, dexamethasone, and azithromycin. Click through to read to specific/acronymed details:
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RBG fan art, don’t tell my sister
My sister & I live together (both of us now post-divorce) and we frequent do arts ‘n crafts while we watch tv or movies. Tonight we’ve been up to our usual shenanigans after sticking up on snacks (and plants, our other hobby) at Trader Joe’s. My sister did a quick art piece in honor of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s incredible life. I’m going to post it here because I love it… but she doesn’t know I have this blog so please don’t tell her. Lol?
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The Week the Apocalypse Began
It’s Sunday morning. The AQI (air quality index) is over 200 which is pretty much unhealthy for everyone. I think even the spiders at my house are dead. I’m sitting on my front porch anyways because, honestly—it seems like everything is out to get me right now.
Now, we’ve settled into an impenetrable whiteness, ash just aloft in the air waiting to settle. Fine particles of some else’s disaster making their way into our lungs. Luckily (?!?!), covid has prepared us all to wear masks. They are even more necessary now.
As I sit here, the quietness of the neighborhood is overwhelming. But then I hear it… the neighbors one street south. They’ve been playing music (on actual instruments) and singing throughout quarantine. I hear a low flute drift toward me, a haunting yet familiar melody. I hear a man’s voice maybe, but I can’t understand any words.
The neighbor’s music often includes a child playing the blocks, just banging away, but not this morning. It is on and off. Little snippets of song interrupt my thoughts as I wonder what could possibly go wrong this week to add to California’s problems. If Oregon will stop burning; if any of our beloved West Coast is really habitable at all.
Then it dawns on me as I begin to hum along. The song. It is “The Sound of Silence.”
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Pep talks and missed meals
Last week, everyone was still happy for the overtime and could see the $$$ in the missed meal breaks. Everyone was chipping in, picking up extra and actually in buoyant spirits (if that can ever be said about ICU nurses).
For my first few shifts this week, though, the nurses were just not feeling like doing as much OT. I can’t blame them. Our patients are incredibly sick. Our job is incredibly hard both physically and emotionally. There just isn’t as much support available as there should be even if people volunteer to work OT because nurses on overtime just aren’t working their best.
Also, it makes me sad to say, but the patients aren’t getting the best then either. As nurses we want to be THE BEST we can be for our patients, especially in the ICU, but when you’re working hours 12 through 16.5, you can’t always give your best. It’s sorta like the Rolling Stones’ song, loosely “translated” to this scenario: you can’t always give what you want, but you give at least what patients need.
On a happier note, though, I ended my week with a fully staffed night shift that gave report to a fully staffed day shift! First time in 3 weeks.
A family of a terminally ill covid19 patient (who now has multi-organ failure on dialysis as well as bacterial lung infections on top of the damage done by the severe ARDS caused by the covid19 virus) asked that we call a doctor in Texas to discuss treatments with alien dna that could help. They were referring to “Trump’s doctor” Stella Immanuel who also swore by hydroxychloroquine, which is now disproven as a treatment for covid. One question: where do we get the alien dna?
Another family of a terminally ill patient (who also has multi-organ failure on dialysis plus more than 15 surgeries that started as a complex hernia repair at another facility) asked that we try a high dose cayenne pepper derivative to cleanse their loved ones blood and raise his blood pressure. I assured them that the medications he was on were much stronger than cayenne.
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Life is short #1
Eat the honeycrisp apple, even if there’s none in season that are organic. They are your favorite.
Metaphorically and literally, we are crispy in California right now.
Last weekend was hot with crazy storms that set off a chain of many wildfires. Most of the fires have new types of names to symbolize this new catastrophic cause: “lightning complex” fires. Many lightning strikes hitting dried out & ready-to-ignite brush (it is wildfire season, after all) and then the small fires come together quickly, fueled by high winds, to form the larger “complexes.” I certainly wish I’d never had to learn that.
And back in the ICU, we are full of patients and short on nurses. For three of my regular shifts this week, I’ve been doing the work of 2 nurses (actually, more like 5– but that’s impossible so I focus on doing 2 and let the chips fall where they may). I’ve also worked extra shifts.
The amount of overtime I’ve seen people working is truly astonishing. In many ways, our team is really pulling together and doing the best we can with what we’ve got. This is what we’ve always done as nurses, and will continue to do. Even when it means no one gets a lunch break. Or the charge nurse is also the rapid response nurse is also the code blue nurse is also the break nurse is also the resource nurse….
You know what gets us through? Laughter! And kindness. I always end my shift huddles during times of high stress by reminding everyone to help their neighbors and be kind…
You know what else helps? Food and beverages! We order boba, pizza, fried chicken, sandwiches, Thai food… and if the coffee runs out? Omg, a national disaster!
It’s Sunday morning now. I’m preparing for a new week by washing my scrubs, washing and chopping my face work snacks: celery carrots and apples. If they’re not precut, I won’t be eating them… I made three sandwiches for three nights of work, and I ground some coffee beans to take with me tonight!
I have my go bag packed, in case I have to evacuate because of a fire. Last year, one jumped a body of water near a bridge (the wind carried it) and came within a few miles of my house. I pack for work the same way, like everyday is a small disaster— scrub cap, face masks, stethoscope, food and water supplies. Today the main difference is that the smell of fire and the poor air quality is here to remind us that emergencies will continue to occur— now we just have COVID too.
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Sleep disruptions #1
Would you believe it if I told you that I get woken up everyday while I’m sleeping for work by—are you ready for it??— an ice! cream! truck!
Yes, that little boxy kind that plays music and has images of all the ice cream treats all over it. I have so many questions.
- Does a time machine drop this infernal music machine into my neighborhood just to keep me awake?
- How does someone make money doing this? Like, enough money to live on???
- Is the ice cream any good?
- If it is, do they take credit cards?
- Do they kidnap kids or adults or both these days???