half a humdinger

You know its time to go home when:

• you try to wash your hands with lotion
• you have more than one type of bodily fluid from more than one patient on your clothes
• your ankles are more swollen than your diabetic or pregnant clients.

The day started out as follows: my mentor and another nurse argued (politely) over who was going to be ER nurse today. My mentor lost. My relief was but temporary as i realized that would give us 9 wacky surgical patients.
Things were going relatively well until about lunchtime and then it was a slippery slope. The doctor ordered this tube to be pulled from my patient before he could go home but none of the nurses was certified in tube-pulling. So my mentor told me to go convince my friend the resident doctor to pull it. So then i wandered around the hospital trying to find him. He didnt really want to do it. Then the ordering doctor came along and i asked him to do it. Ok, i sort of TOLD him to do it. And he tried to convince me to do it. I'm not certified! Hell, i'm not even registered! No way! He said he'd even take pictures and all the responsibility should something happen but then i started to wonder why he didnt want to do it. It didnt seem difficult at all. I would have done it if it wasnt completely illegal. So i asked him! (i was told in nursing school to never TELL a doctor what to do and to never question them.) Ha! He took the manual in with him and laid it on the patient's belly and read off it as he pulled the tube. Next time, he said, he was going to make me pull it! Sure, buddy! Sure!

Another thing that is weird: today i got a phone call at work. It was the ER calling to tell me that one of my patients had gone down there. My patient who was already admitted went to check himself in at emerg? He thought he was bleeding internally and wasnt being properly cared for on the unit. The ER nurse asked if she could just send him back. Uh... could you send him to psych?

Speaking of the ER, my services specifically were requested there tonight. A patient came in while my mentor was covering the ER nurse's dinner break so she told everyone that he was my responsibility for IV initiation. And then she told the poor guy that i had never started an IV before. A lie! LIES! I called her a liar (its ok to call your colleague a liar in front of the patient if the patient is high on morphine and is known to all as Uncle Walty). She corrected herself and told the patient i HAD in fact started one other IV but it went horribly! Thanks, thanks a lot. She could at least tell lies that paint a favourable picture of my skills. I love being the new girl. For the record, like the first one, this IV went in without incidence or screaming or tears! So there!

When i got back to the unit, my mentor and another nurse were in the med room. The nurse was sticking out her bum and my mentor was rubbing it.
me: what are you guys doing?!?!
other nurse: i think its chocolate but no one will smell it!

I cant wait to go to work tomorrow night.

PS - there were a few inquiries as to the perfume i was wearing today. What was i wearing? Now let me see... this morning i put on....glasses...chapstick... maybe they were smelling the soap residue? All i smell is glue (i am NOT a glue-sniffer. they were glueing down the new flooring. honest).