I did okay. I suspect that I can make it as long as I don't have 3 days in a row. That 2nd night was more typical of the sort of awful assignment that our unit sort of expects anymore. After being off 6 weeks, we had 2 new nurses working independently I had never met and other than myself and the charge nurse, the entire nursing staff was nurses who had been working in a hospital for less than one year. One nurse needed to call a rapid response for a potential stroke and another nurse had to call a rapid response for a patient whose oxygen levels kept falling really low. We had some sick patients. I ended up with a patient that was excessively nasty if she didn't think I brought her pain meds fast enough ("You are 15 minutes LATE!" ... I wasn't and her pain level wasn't real high by her own admission). Worst part is she claimed to be a nurse but I am not sure because she seemed to lack a lot of knowledge ... like how pain med distribution and shift changed worked . I wanted to tell her that although she was uncomfortable (and on her way to a narcotic addiction for a relatively minor issue), that I had another nurse as a patient who was basically dying of cancer at a very young age who was actually a very pleasant patient although being sick and in real pain. While the one patient was acting like she was the sickest patient on the floor, the one dying of cancer was telling me about her plans for volunteering in the NICU when her cancer was better.....
Why do people have to be A-holes to us? We can only care for one person at a time and we aren't private duty nurses. My "15 minutes late" was actually AFTER my shift was over and I was just making sure her pain meds didn't get lost in the hubbub of shift change. I bit my tongue, apologized, and smiled as we are expected to do. Her response was to actually about have a breakdown over another med that wasn't due yet because I couldn't give it early since I had to wait for pharmacy to sent it up....and really doesn't do that much (I take it personally and it isn't for pain.) ...(can I add, in a normal situation, I would have probably spread her meds out a bit longer because she seemed a bit high and we are supposed to manage pain without letting our patients get high.)
And my assistant manager decided to change my patient assignment in the middle of the shift meaning that I had 4 new patients that I hadn't met assigned to me at 3am. Luckily, I had the sickest one the night before so I understood her issues...but I had one patient that I never met because she slept the rest of the shift. I am glad she didn't have an emergency issue because I would have been clueless on what was "normal" for her. I also still did some things for two of the patients I had prior because I knew them better than their new nurse did.
OK...sorry, I needed to vent. I love my job. I love my patients. I don't like that often budget (under the label "policy") is used to make decisions instead of what is best for the patients or the staff. The stress level of taking on patients who are sleeping at 3am is significant because you have no sense of what their normal is...so it means we might miss something that I'd never miss normally. I take my job very seriously and would have a hard time living with myself if someone was harmed because I missed a change in status.
Today, I ache ... even in my fingers. My physical therapy assessment showed I do have a significant muscle imbalance and mobility between my left leg/hip and right leg/hip. However, I believe that can be improved with therapy.
