Thank Frogs February is a short month. Here is a partial list of the stupid things I did in the month of February. It is meant to give nursing students confidence, other nurses a feeling of community, and the doctors in the audience a good laugh.
1. Referring to a subarachnoid hemorrhage during rounds as a subarachnage hemorrhoid.
2. Tying a tourniquet around an arm, watching a nice juicy vein pop out, sticking an 18-gauge IV needle into said vein, and flushing it enthusiastically. Without first removing the tourniquet. Pop went the weasel.
3. Pulling the spike out of a bag of fluid while we were moving a patient. If it had been neuro juice (normal saline with 20 milliequivalents of potassium per liter) it would've been bad enough, but this was D5 1/2 NS. For the uninitiated, that's slightly salty sugar water. If the bag had been sitting on the bed, it would've been bad enough...but it was hanging up, higher than my head, on a pole.
4. Calling one of the rehab boys by his nickname, "Chuckles" (note: I was not the one that came up with that nickname for him) in front of his chairman. To be fair, I didn't know she was his chairman.
5. Don't even ask me about the guy with the bad gas and the colostomy bag. The less said about that day, the better.
6. Speaking of which, I ate undercooked beans and rice from the cafeteria shortly before the biggest bigwigs of them all were due to tour the floor.
7. Charting the fresh lower-limb amputation on the wrong patient. Twice.
8. Misplacing all of my nurse's notes for the entire day at 1750, and finding them only after I'd recharted everything on fresh new notes.
9. Running a sand bed over the toes of the sand-bed-distribution-company rep. Just so you know, they look like huge bathtubs and weigh as much as an old VW Beetle.
10. Doing my famous silent imitation of Mick Jagger doing "Brown Sugar" in the hallway for a couple of phlebotomists, and hitting the climactic strutting bit, complete with hip-shaking, just as God (our chief neurosurgeon) and all his minons came around the corner. They were nice enough to applaud.
Still, none of that is as bad as the time my scrub pants fell off in front of a group of prospective residents.
Must. Buy. Scrubs. With. Elastic. (Trying to keep a straight face, and failing.)
ReplyDeletewow! that's good stuff there! I think that my tearful outburst in skills lab involving saline ID in a hot dog pales.
ReplyDeleteHi Jo! Just wanted to tell you that I love your blog. Keep writing.
ReplyDeleteGreetings from a fellow nurse from Norway. :)
When you have days like this it really just all boils down to whatever you're wearung under your scrubs that day. Hopefully something opaque.
ReplyDeleteAnd unedible, preferably.