I don't want to write it. I want to stay positive, I don't want to whine or complain or bitch. But I can't keep this shit in.
Don't get me wrong, I love being a nurse. I think it's such a rewarding job and I wouldn't trade it for the world but.....this past week was the HARDEST week i've ever had. The hospital saw the highest patient volume in its' history. We felt it...I felt it. In the ER we have 5 patients each. So we are responsible for 5 rooms. Sometimes they are all full and sometimes you have only 2 or 3 patients. This week every room was full, every hour and every minute. There was no moment of relief.
No second to run and go pee
No second to take a deep breath
No second to think
No second to focus
Just run
run
run
and think later.
I felt like I was putting my license on the line. I could of made so many mistakes. I did make mistakes. I forgot to sign things. I didn't give my best care. I was uptight, stressed and not at all the nurse I want to be...hell...the nurse I AM.
I understand that jobs get busy and I do work in a fast paced job but this was crazy. This was too much for even the experienced nurses. Everyone was losing their shit. Swearing, lashing out, not working as a team. What could have been the solution? Call for back up! Call more nurses to help! Call more paramedics! At one time I had 5 IV lines to be started and 4 EKG's...how the hell am i supposed to get that done in the 15 minute window I have if all the people came in at the same time???? Just insane.
Then..just when i thought i couldnt take anymore...the ambulance bay opens and a cardiac arrest comes in. The guy had been without a heart beat for 20 minutes. Of course he becomes my patient. We all gown up quickly covering our faces, bodies and hands with plastic assuming this is going to get messy. The man is about 70 years old and i'm told he had begun vomiting buckets and buckets of blood at home. His wife called 911 cause she didn't know what to do. Fire rescue got there and as soon as they placed him on the stretcher he coded.
His heart stopped.
They jumped into action giving him two amps of epi and doing cpr. Unfortunately he was in what's called PEA. That means 'pulseless electrical activity'. The monitor was showing a rhythm but there was no pulse to be found. His heart could have been quivering due to meds or other unknown reasons but it wasn't actually producing a pulse. Unfortunately we cannot shock a rhythm like that. All we can do is continue cpr and hope for the best. It turns out he had Lung Cancer and the cancer was now affecting his heart as well.
I was advised that the wife would be coming around the corner any minute and my job would be to stay with her and explain all the proceedings. You DO NOT want that job.
At this point there are a million people in the room, the patient is being intubated, lines are being drawn, CPR is going on, his clothes are stripped off and its loud and crazy. The wife is asking me everything"
"why are his clothes off"?
" why are they pounding so hard on his chest?"
"why isn't he talking"?
"when will he be discharged?"
WHEN WILL HE BE DISCHARGEDDDDDDDDDDD????
THIS LADY HAD NO F---ING CLUE THAT HER HUSBAND HAD BEEN WITHOUT A HEART BEAT FOR OVER 45 MINUTES. SHE LITERALLY WAS IN COMPLETE DENIAL.
I had to try my best to explain everything in terms she could understand. Meanwhile I still have 4 other patients calling my name, meds that are late and people that are becoming increasingly pissed off.
The doctor looks at me from across the room basically to say "what does the wife wanna do"? Should we stop now or keep going. The wife says "my brother came back from the dead so my husband will too". Jesus. Doc says that last thing we could try is to place him on a special heart medicine drip. We both know that its been too long now without heart activity but we must try. He advises me to run and get it. I drop everything and go to the med room to get it only to find that it's not available there. I call pharmacy and they tell me they will make it. I look around for a tech to retrieve it from pharmacy but no one is around. I RUN...and i mean RUN up three flights of stairs to the pharmacy. They were mixing it up there and it still wasn't ready. I was pacing. Finally I grab it, fly down the stairs and burst back into the patients room.....only to see them pulling the sheet over his head.
It was too late.
He was gone.
I didn't run fast enough.
I know it wasn't my fault. I know he was gone already. I know all this but somewhere in the back of my mind I hold onto that little feeling that I could have done more.
The next two hours were full of reports, family members mourning and screaming and more patients demanding all of my exhausted attention. I drove home from that shift feeling defeated. I just couldn't take much more of anything. I was too tired to feel emotion and too full of emotion to be tired.
I had the next 4 days off...THANK GOD...and I didn't have a true meter of what a wreck I was until I was over at my boyfriend's house. We were watching tv and relaxing and I was starting to doze off. He asked me about my crazy week and what made it so stressful and that was it...
I COMPLETELY LOST IT. Tears came draining out of me. My shoulders shook and heaving sobs poured out of body. I was an absolute mess. I guess I was waiting for the okay from someone and the flood gates opened.I had been holding the stress and pressure in too long. The death of that man haunted me that week and I couldn't seem to let it go. I sobbed and sobbed and I'm pretty sure completely soaked his shirt with my tears. It felt so good to have someone to talk to (or cry to) and I realized that it's not a bad thing to be filled with so much emotion over my job. It makes me human. I have always said I hope to never get hardened to the likes of death or pain. I honestly don't think I ever will.
You know...someday I might need someone to save me. I pray that if that ever happens and I'm laying there in a hospital bed with my life hanging in the balance, that there will be a nurse there by my side who's just like me. Someone who's maybe a little overly emotional, bursting with passion and wearing great sneakers to get up those damn stairs quick...
Emma Roberts RN
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