It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

So today, I felt like I was working in a big city ER.  We were so busy, I got no breakfast or lunch.  Saints be praised, I brought a protein shake to work with me so I got that life-saving 26 grams of soy isolates at least, and that's the only reason I didn't lose my shit several times.

Which brings me to one interesting patient.  I connected with this gal.  She was a GI bleed.  About my age.  The paramedic hadn't started an IV because she had no veins and before I could even get her vital signs, she'd crapped Blood Lake.  I was in her room alone as the ER was blowing wide open and everybody was busy somewhere else.  I was trying to clean her up a little bit but feeling that pressure to get an IV started and, for God's sake, some vital signs to get an idea of her life expectancy and she starts to hassle me about a drink of water.  No, I said, no drink of water right now.  Oh, but she'd be so much more comfortable if she had a drink of water as if she didn't know she was exsanguinating through her anus.  I told her that we had several things to do before we worried about making her comfortable and that we weren't even close to being done making her more UN-comfortable.  She was totally cool and went back at me a few times and neither of us held a grudge and I really appreciate that kind of human interaction.  It feels real to me.  And there's nothing more real than a big pool of shitty blood in a bed, right? 

Toward the last, as the surgeon was stitching in her central line, she said something about something hurting and I was swabbing her spoiled rotten lips for her and said, "Bitch, bitch, bitch!" and she smiled.   I hope she does okay.

We jumped through our asses all day long and once I was just acutely aware of how every single minute, there's somebody wanting something from us and it's almost made worse by the fact that it's usually a relatively small thing to ask and so appropriate.  It's just that there are billions of bells and orders and people and phones and doctors and other nurses and hunger and having to go to the bathroom grabbing out for us at the same time until you think you're going to roll up in a little ball and roll under the desk.  And they keep coming.

Yet, there was something oddly satisfying about today.  Feeling like you fit somewhere, like you were used as a tool to turn a special nut on a bolt.  Like you made one, small difference to at least one second of someone else's life.