code blog: tales of a nurse

Wow. It was surprising and wonderful to see that Codeblog made it to the Forbes.com list of reviewed Medblogs. I'm in great company :) (And by the way, Forbes.com - I DO have archives. They're right over there to the left, under "navigation.") Funny that they saw the search box but not the "archives" link directly above it!

Unfortunately for this blog, CCU has been quite dull for the last couple of months. I've been grateful to have some very well-written and interesting story submissions to post. Here are a couple more:

Submitted by "Gypsybobocowgirl":
On one late night emergency in the cath lab we had a patient who spoke no English, only Spanish. When we opened up the coronary artery, he promptly went into V-Tach (reperfusion arrythmia). The nurse promptly called out the rhythm, said "Charging, 360 Joules" and shocked. The patient converted, but a few moments later, he went back into V-Tach. Another, "Charging 360 Joules" (the old days before biphasic) and a shock. Another conversion. Shortly thereafter, the patient went into V-Tach a third time. The nurse called out, "charging, 360 Joules."

From the table, the patient cried out in a loud, heavily accented voice, "No, No, No, no 360 Joules!"

He learned that phrase in english pretty fast.

Another submission I had actually came from the blogger at Nurse Practioners Save Lives:

While talking to the current group of nursing students, one asked if I had a particular patient that stuck in my mind. I told her that I had many patients that have touched me in some way but the first as a new nurse was a woman in her 70's who had suffered an aphasic stroke.

She couldn't speak at all and could only smile or nod. During the three days I took care of her, the tech and I would do her daily care and the assessment would commence. All the while, I would talk to her constantly even though she couldn't respond.

On the third day, she was to be sent back to the nursing home. Right before transport arrived, I went over to her and leaned in and said that it was nice to meet her but I hoped not to see her again her in the hospital. Slowly, she raised her good hand and stroked my face and smiled. Tears ran down my face as I gave report to the transport personnel and I knew that they must have thought that I lost my mind.. I never did see her in the hospital again because she passed a few weeks later at the nursing home. I like to think that she felt that she was cared for while I had her...

I also found some great stories on these nursing blogs:

Mediblogopathy weighs in on "rodeo nursing," which can be a very fitting term for taking care of patients withdrawing from alcohol.

DisappearingJohn also has a great post about when alcohol withdrawal patients go bad on the medical floors. Alcohol addiction is an extremely powerful thing, and those patients can be dangerous to care for if they aren't treated appropriately.

And lastly, Jen, SN recently posted about her "nurse residency day" in the ICU. She seems to have run through quite a few emotions. A lot of what she wrote really resonated with my own memories of my first few days working in an ICU. It can be very overwhelming.