Monday, November 8, 2010

striking out and digging in

The last few weeks saw me taking on patient's who were extremely difficult to handle- not medically, exactly, but emotionally. They demand your constant attention, they are uncomfortable and painful and miserable every second and there's nothing you can do about it. In one case, I had a patient crying out "I'm dying I'm dying" every few seconds (he later coded and died), and on another day I had a guy in 4 point leathers begging me to just let him go down to the police station.

Finally, on my first night of 4, I got every ICU nurse's dream patient: sedated, intubated, no talking, no struggling. It was a GOOD four nights.