I swear patients wait until the change of shift to code, and this was the third night in a row I was running off to some floor right as my relief walked through the door…Code Blue 90 Cardiac Step Down…While sprinting up the stairs, I was expecting to see a little old grandma or grandpa that was decompensating after cardio surgery when I walked into the room, so imagine my surprise
Elle Woods-“Endorphins make you happy. Happy people don’t shoot their husbands”…or burn themselves. I remember 2 years ago when I burned myself for the first time. I started my first nursing job about a month before, and was moving into a new apartment the next day. The night started like any other during that time: beer, weed, percs. I remember sitting on my porch just enjoying the high while drinking a beer and smoking a cig. I remember how numb I felt. Free without a care in the world [ready for more]
I didn’t go to ICU to become a drug addict…
I had never seen anything like it before. Grandma had an upper GI bleed and blood was everywhere. My friend and I were switching back and forth between setting up pressure bags and doing compressions. While we were doing this our manager was going back and forth fixing our masks and getting us new gowns the whole time [ready for more]
At the very end of every OD everything stops. All the thoughts buzzing through your head are suddenly quite. All of your self abuse dissipates. No person or drug has control over your life any more. Everything stops. Your heart no longer beats. Your lungs no longer oxygenate your blood. The brain starves, and then slowly disappears… [ready for more]
Code Blue 90. The little old grandma in 3 is coding, the victim of Q-on-T syndrome brought on by Sotalol. Everyone rushes in while you start compressions. With each push you feel her ribs breaking one by one. You know this is one feeling you will never get used to. Thankfully you soon catch a grimace on her fragile face, and yell stop she’s back! However, just as quickly she is gone again. Grandma continues this dance, going in and out, three times. She’s now in sinus, and holding her pressure with a little help from some Levo. You clock out feeling a high from being able to give this little old lady more time to make memories with her sweet, strong husband. Somehow though, this high is not enough [ready for more]
Being a Nurse and an Addict 