My blogging has been in the toilet!

So, we have one week until we are making the 12 hr trek home to Tallahassee-WOO HOO! Keely is going back to Labor and Delivery full time at Tallahassee Memorial and I am going back as a "flex" nurse but can, and will, work full time until I find another travel assignment.
We got our butts handed to us this week at work. Can't complain because we've sailed smoothly through the last 11 weeks. I had a pre-term patient Monday night with uncontrolled blood pressures that didn't improve with multiple medications so I was waiting for the inevitable seizure (miraculously, it never happened-Hal-la-leu-ya) Tuesday night my patient had serious electrolyte issues that made her heart rate jump up into the 200's every time she had a contraction, muscle rigidity was setting in, she was vomiting over and over, she felt like she couldn't breathe and I, needless to say, was freaking out! We did an EKG and had the Cardiologist, who was on call, read it. He suggested the patient remain on a cardiac monitor. Ok, there are multiple problems here. #1-I do cervix's, NOT hearts #2 Who is going to shock me when this lady codes and I pass out on the floor? Thankfully, we don't labor cardiac patients in L&D, but we do stop her induction, move the pt to ICU and monitor the baby down there. It only took the residents, Chiefs, Attending, etc 4 hrs to figure out she didn't need to be in Labor and Delivery. So, while I spent the last two hrs of my shift in the STICU (Surgical, Trauma and Burn ICU) the nurses in the ICU were piled outside the door hoping for a baby to be born. Oh, I did have an orientee with me who used to be a nurse in this particular ICU so she was giving me the scoop on all the patients who had been there for months. One guy who had been severely burned said he lit a cigarette, fell asleep on his couch, his couch caught on fire and thus the burns. However, his ass wasn't burnt so they figured out his meth lab blew up in his face knocking out his front teeth. He is now black and white, or pink. He is a black man who had skin grafts placed all over his face and arms from a white cadaver. It smelled awful down there and I asked why. They told me it's from all the drains, open wounds, disgustingness- hurl, vomit, gag!!! Moral of the story is- I will never work in an ICU. The labor patient received Calcium thru her iv b/c her electrolytes were so out of whack (thankfully, she never had any serious cardiac problems) and she delivered during day shift. Baby and Mom are doing well. Breathe. Ahhh.
Last night, Keely's patient had a 6 minute shoulder dystocia, the attending had to break the baby's arm to get the baby out, the apgars were 1/4/6-yes, the baby went to the NICU. We did 5 c-sections last night, 2 of which were Stat and Perinatal codes were called (that's when everyone from the NICU, respiratory, PEDS comes running for a delivery). My patient was 9.5 cm for hours so they wouldn't give her pain meds in case the baby decided to turn and deliver and she didn't want an epidural (good thing b/c the anesthesia resident was in the OR) Anyway, the baby had simply had enough so, they rushed her down to the main OR for a c-section(no clean OR's in labor and delivery). I had just given report to another nurse who knew the ins and outs of paperwork in the UVA operating room. (We were never oriented to the OR and it was too busy to have two RN's in the back) So, I had a delivery in one of the triage rooms (small!) but thank goodness the lady pushed twice and had the baby. It is now 6pm Thursday night. We are going out to dinner with some nurses to eat, drink and decompress. Hope ya'll are having a less eventful week. I'll take some pictures tonight. I still haven't gotten Kristy's pictures from Saturday nights bowling mania! They're coming, just not sure when :-)