It's official!

I'm DONE!!! I finished my preceptorship yesterday, and what a day it was! It started out REALLY slow...6 patients in the ER to start out the shift...a big change from Monday's 40 patients deep in the waiting room and on diversion to ambulances practically all day. It was kinda weird. Anyway, about 3 hours into our shift yesterday, we got an ambulance call, we were getting a man who was found with an altered level of consciousness, apparently had been drinking and overdosed on his meds. He was combative and the EMTs weren't able to initiate an IV site. So he arrives on our unit, gets transferred from the ambulance gurney to our stretcher and there are literally 10 people in the room from nurses, to the doctor to security guards and the guy is obviously fighting everyone (although he was completely out of it). It took 5 people to hold him down, and everyone else was running around grabbing stuff, hooking up the monitor etc. I got the priveledge of starting the IV. The charge nurse was holding his arm down for me and pointed out a good vein for the IV...only I couldn't see the stinkin' vein...I could feel it, but it was on the top of his arm and I couldn't see it for the life of me. AND the patient was struggling and squirming. Not feeling too confident, I took the chance and just did it...and it went in perfectly, got the flash of blood immediately, advanced the catheter, hooked it up and taped it down...all with 10 people watching and a struggling patient. Talk about no pressure!!! *Phew*!! They were impressed and so was I! And of course I am very proud of myself. :-D :-D THEN we ended up having to intubate him, which I had never seen before so that was awesome! Poor guy, this was his 4th suicide attempt in the past year (we looked up his past medical history in the computer).

So, I've probably started my last IV for at least a year. It is rare for IV's to be started in postpartum, they all get started in L&D and I won't be allowed to switch to L&D for at least a year after graduation. :-( I'm still slightly considering the possibility of working ER, but almost every other patient I change my mind...like the guy above, I really don't want to have to deal with that!! Then there's the patients who come in with a case of "stupid". I mean seriously...my very last patient last night came in with a main complaint of a cough. When I asked her when it had started, she said "About an hour ago." Me: "Have you taken anything for it?" Her: "No." SERIOUSLY?!?!?!? A cough for a freaking hour?!?!? I'm not making this up, I promise. She was in NO apparent distress, was sitting on the edge of the bed joking around with me and the cough sounded fake...like she had to make herself cough every 30 seconds or so to convince me of why she was there. *rolls eyes* AND she didn't want to wear her mask--everyone complianing of a cough gets a mask right now due to the swine flu thing. Good grief. Oh it gets better....as I was filling out the assessment page I had to ask her when her last period was. She just looked at me. I asked her if it was this month, last month....she finally said it had been a couple months, then she added that she had just started birth control and asked me to please not tell her husband because if he knew she was taking it he'd be soooo mad (they did have a 3 yr old...who was also being seen in the ER for a fever...her husband was supposedly going to have an x-ray...what is the ER, the doctor's office or something??) Anyway, she finally came up with 3/16 as her last period (who knows if she was just making it up or not) so I asked her if there was any way she could be pregnant...she said, "No way!" "Are you just saying that?" I asked. "No, I'm really not." Too bad I had to leave and didn't see the results of her blood work.

I'm not sure I want to take care of those kinds of patients day in and day out and have to put on the face of "oh, I'm sorry you have a cough, we'll try and figure out what's going on." There are genuinely sick patients who come to the ER...I like taking care of them...but the stupid ones?? Not so much. Not when I know they are on Mercy Care and I am actually paying for them to be there. It just irritates me. I'd practically have to be dying before I would go to the ER. Oh well, stupid people mean job security for those in the ER I guess.

I hope I haven't offended anyone!! Lol.

I am off to pack and take another load of stuff over to the new house!! We got our keys last Friday and spent all day Saturday and Sunday cleaning and then moving/setting up the kitchen and bathrooms. We also picked out all of our appliances on Saturday, and they will be delivered this Friday. The washer and dryer are cherry red!! We ended up getting a black Samsung refridgerator, and an upright freezer which I'll be putting in the laundry room. Now I can finally start stocking up on all the frozen goods from The Grocery Game and I'll have somewhere to keep them!!! Woohoo!!! AND our "First Time Homebuyer's" tax credit is on it's way....we should have it by the 8th of May--goodbye credit card debt!! :-D

Later!
~Abigail~