P.U.

Just when I made the comment of c-diff being a really awful smell, I am presented with a patient this week that has a GI bleed.  Talk about a terrible odor, that makes c-diff seem like a perfume!  To top it off, our GI doctor is trying to say nothing is wrong with her.  Umm, she has blood pouring out of her whenever she goes to the bathroom.  I'm not a doctor, but I do believe that is abnormal.  She came in with a Hemoglobin level of 7.7.  It took 3 units of RBC's to get her to a level of 10.2.  However, with as much blood that was coming out of her...I think it's only a matter of time before that hemoglobin drops again.  The hematologist was consulted to examine her today.  Sweet lady, but at one point during the night, she had gotten out of bed to try to use the bedside commode - accidentally pulled out her IV which was transfusing blood & also missed the bedside commode.  There was blood everywhere - bright red blood from the blood transfusion & dark awful smelling blood coming out of her & all over the bed & the floor.  It looked like a murder scene.  Thankfully I had a great PCT to help me out.  The cleaning lady was not happy about having to mop up all that blood off the floor.  Although it wasn't the blood she had a problem with - it was the smell.  I can't even describe it, but trust me on this one...it's awful.  Even spraying some industrial smelling spray didn't make it any better.  If anything, it made it worse.  I needed some Febreeze...lol.  I couldn't believe her roommate wasn't complaining.

My night was pretty uneventful - most of the patients slept quietly through the night.  Another nurse had a patient who it seemed had a pulmonary embolism travel to his lungs.  Needless to say, he was transferred to the ICU rather quickly & put on a ventilator.  Scary stuff.  I also found out that a patient I had about a month ago - the one that "accidentally" pulled out 3 IV's in one night - had died last week in the ICU.  Seems that when he & the family had finally made the decision to go with Hospice, he died about an hour later.  Weird how some people hang on like that until the decision to let go is made with the family. 

We have a mandatory staff meeting tomorrow night - I guess they are making some more changes & they don't sound like good ones.  Such as the amount of time we'll be at work.....rather than a 12 hour shift, it sounds like it's going to be no less than a 13 hour shift.  They want to have 15 minute staff meetings every day/night before the shift begins.  Which means that will delay the oncoming shift nurses from getting report - thereby delaying the offgoing shift nurses from leaving on time.  What is next? 

I need to go get ready for work.  I'm gonna request tonight that if they need to call people off tomorrow night - put me at the top of that list.  They have 13 scheduled & only need 8 to 10 nurses for my unit now that the north wing is closed.  I want to start my mini-vacation early!