Uhhh...not last night! Susan and I spent an hour with a man circling the drain, getting our tests (with Julie's help) the tests, calling the docs (and a CAT call) and then thankfully the doc moved him to a unit and Bipapped him. Then, the Baby Buggy went out to bring twins back so we lost Carol and Kim for the rest of the night. I took over their loads (knowing I had Susan and Mike to back me up if I got in the weeds). It really wasn't as bad as it sounded. Even though that gave me two Bipaps, tx's, A&T and Peds, everything I did was spaced out evenly enough that I could do the tx's that were on the same floors with the A&T's and the couple of Peds tx's flowed pretty seamlessly into the mix...not horrible. I was busy but it wasn't as bad as it seemed like it was going to be. Plus Susan and Mike both picked up a tx here and there for me which kept my sanity sort of in my head. Well, at least the equivalent to what was there before so that's acceptable. Thanks y'all!
Oh, AND, I had another adult respiratory distress pt who started having stridor out of the blue. The racemic helped but it didn't take it away completely. Just like the others. He also tested negative for influenza and had no other big resp issues, just like the others.
A few days ago, talked to a friend who's a coder in a hospital a couple of hours south of here and she said she's coded a couple of asthmatics in the last couple of weeks who have been exactly what I described: respiratory distress, no influenza, get over the lung hump and have unaccounted for stridor that doesn't go away until the hit it with a high dose solumedrol.
I'm tellin' ya, there's funky respiratory virus floating around out there.
The best part of last night was everyone bringing dinner for a potluck Thanksgiving. Dinner was wonderful--thank you everyone!
Uhhh...not last night! Susan and I spent an hour with a man circling the drain, getting our tests (with Julie's help) the tests, calling the docs (and a CAT call) and then thankfully the doc moved him to a unit and Bipapped him. Then, the Baby Buggy went out to bring twins back so we lost Carol and Kim for the rest of the night. I took over their loads (knowing I had Susan and Mike to back me up if I got in the weeds). It really wasn't as bad as it sounded. Even though that gave me two Bipaps, tx's, A&T and Peds, everything I did was spaced out evenly enough that I could do the tx's that were on the same floors with the A&T's and the couple of Peds tx's flowed pretty seamlessly into the mix...not horrible. I was busy but it wasn't as bad as it seemed like it was going to be. Plus Susan and Mike both picked up a tx here and there for me which kept my sanity sort of in my head. Well, at least the equivalent to what was there before so that's acceptable. Thanks y'all!
Oh, AND, I had another adult respiratory distress pt who started having stridor out of the blue. The racemic helped but it didn't take it away completely. Just like the others. He also tested negative for influenza and had no other big resp issues, just like the others.
A few days ago, talked to a friend who's a coder in a hospital a couple of hours south of here and she said she's coded a couple of asthmatics in the last couple of weeks who have been exactly what I described: respiratory distress, no influenza, get over the lung hump and have unaccounted for stridor that doesn't go away until the hit it with a high dose solumedrol.
I'm tellin' ya, there's funky respiratory virus floating around out there.
The best part of last night was everyone bringing dinner for a potluck Thanksgiving. Dinner was wonderful--thank you everyone!