Returning home from vacation to have 3 terrible twelves lined right up in a row makes for one unhappy RN here.
As students we used to always wish for 2 words in our hospital rotations: Code Blue. That meant we got to make good use of all the money we spent on Red Cross by beating on someones chest doing CPR and getting the adrenaline rush to save someones life. It doesn't help that Grey's anatomy makes it look so easy and carefree, what they don't show is the after effect...The chaos, the trauma, the clean up.
My first experience of doing CPR is one I'll never forget, as already blogged about months ago it was an awesome and almost indescribable experience. As I would excitably re-tell my experience to person after person they would all respond with "so they lived??" nope. Only I saw the excitement, rush and experience of it all, they only saw the death.
I got my second experience with code blue last week, my first night back to work from vacation. I mostly work the rehab area lately and with being gone 6 days the patient turnover was such that there was a few recent admits I'd never worked with before. We only had 7 patients that night(normally 12, 14-16, and sometimes 18) and I was supposed to go home at midnight due to low census and all the patients being of low enough acuity that the other nurse would take over the keys for the rest of the night and we'd trade schedules the following evening. The patients were low acuity which means stable. or so we thought....
My patient was fine for me and had no complaints of any of the problems that I was told of in report that he/she had struggled with that morning. That remained true up to a half hour before I was supposed to go home for the night.
Less than an hour later: "code blue room ***" was heard through the building. Crash cart, check. CPR initiated, check. 911 called, check. So many things went right, but there was this one thing that kept us all, as in all 5 nurses in the building, EMT's, aides, and respiratory therapist, puzzled. Particular bodily fluids kept coming, and was everywhere.
We were in a zone, calm and collected but in the rush time flew by and next thing we knew time of death was called. EMT's left and as I got off the phone with family members and went back into the room, I saw the scene they show on TV, and haven't felt the same since. He/She was my patient, he/she was dead. I was no longer the innocent nursing student who got to go back to class and tell how awesome it was and what a learning experience I had and watch as all my classmates practically drooled over jealousy. It sucked. I didn't sleep that morning when I got home and as I went back to work that night everyone was talking about the code, the mystery's of it all and the rush many got to experience. The roles were switched in this experience and for me this time, I only saw death.
Even though it came to conclusion there was nothing we could have done differently, no warning signs, no nothing! It's still makes for those questioning moments where you're the hardest on yourself and will continue to be for such a time.
The joys of getting your dream job....
I still love being a nurse and while I know I'll see this all the time and it happens, the first has been hard. just another callus to the ol health care heart : )
Now that it's a totally depressing mood I'll perk it up with this awesome picture that I took up Sundance. I finally went on the drive up alpine loop that I've been wanting to go on and snapped a shot on a whim and this is what I got : )
smile. be happy. live everyday, because we never know when we won't get a tomorrow.
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