Taking Thoroughness One Step Beyond..

Attention:  I actually wrote this post last week, but never posted it.  I just felt I should confess that this story is late...

I feel better now.



I'm learning to not worry if I'm going to be "short hours" at work because I took a few days off for Fall Break...

God provides plenty of make up hours for me...

In the form of a ten hour, no lunch shift on Monday followed by an eleven hour shift on Tuesday.  On Tuesday I did get lunch, but I took it around eleven or eleven thirty, and believe me that by the time I was clocking out at 7:30, I felt as if I had not received lunch at all...

So, following my whining about hours, I have a nursing story for you...

And it's not a fun story.  I can't even begin to describe the stress and fear and overall sense of sadness I had with the case that is still fresh in my mind...

So instead of sharing a scary, "why am I a nurse" story, I will instead tell you of a conversation that was overheard on Tuesday.

I work with a nurse who could be described as OCD.  And that would not be an overstatement.  We had a long line of patients backed up due to some urgent add on cases, and a delay with an anesthesiologist for a case my doctor was doing in surgery, followed by difficulty with the case causing it to run over.  Consequently we had more than adequate time to prep our patients for their procedures...

Well, OCD nurse can make a fifteen minute duty last two hours if given the chance.  He has this tendency to create work when there's none to be done when he has too much time on his hands.  Strangely, he seems to stress himself out when he has too much time also. He spent two solid hours getting his patient ready.  He even went over discharge instructions before the procedure began, which is actually pretty normal, but it's usually a brief description of what to expect after the procedure and a list of a few restrictions along with a handout.  He was telling his patient not to drive as she was going to receive sedation.  This woman was over 80 years old and no longer drove...And she told OCD nurse so..."Well, I'm just saying you need to be careful about operating any equipment or electronics today.  For example if you have an electric can opener at home, you might want to avoid using it today."

????

Needless to say, we haven't let him live that statement down, and I don't think we will any time soon.

BEWARE THE ELECTRIC CAN OPENER!!!