It was one of those nights.

It was one of those nights.

We had another one of those CBIs (Continuous Bladder Irrigation) that we were running "wide open", flushing a patient's bladder with liters and liters of sterile saline. As I tap this on my Palm, sitting in the near-dark making sure his catheter doesn't clot off, it lookes like we'll end up using 15 3-liter bags of saline for our 12 hour shift. I've connected 2 foley drainage bags to his catheter, just so I won't need to empty the collected fluid as often.

My other eye is keeping track of the automatic bp machine. I'm getting systolic pressures in the 80's and 90's, but he's been awake and alert and breathing fine.

I've also been spending time talking with all of my night-shift staff about allegations made by another charge nurse (from another unit) that some of the chatter between co-workers has been of a sexual (nay, pornographic) nature. It's just one of those weird things I face, that on one of my units, the nurses wanted to have security expel a husband for having consensual sex with his hospitalized wife, while on the other unit, the staff allegedly were having a deep-throating contest with bananas.

Yes, it's a burden. Some people have drug-seeking children, or cheating spouses. I have sexually inappropriate employees. I consider myself ahead.

Comments

[Maria]

... this is the stuff of medical TV shows. ;)