In Their Place

Too busy, along with being understaffed. Now, in the past, where I came from.......If I had an ICU patient, that went out for a surgical procedure, this patient would come back to me after Recovery, and then, if he were to be downgraded, I would send him off to Telemetry, or such. Today, I received two people (from MICU and CSICU), who had a new Pacemaker insert, for their "one hour Anesthesia recovery". However, now they were going to be downgraded to Telemetry, and thus, I was not sending them back to their ICU. Well, that sucks, 'cuz, one of them ended up staying 5 hours in my Unit, waiting for the next bed and nurse. The other guy, I had to remove the Temporary Pacer, the Swan Ganz and the Arterial line, all of which had been in place for 3 days. These are not the typical duties of your General Anesthesia Recovery nurse, who at this time, has 3 patients, (one of them being the other ICU patient). My buddy was picking up a new Ablation case (general anesthesia); a guy that was leaping all over the bed, with 5 Femoral sheaths in place.........so my pal was out of the mix. Eventually, we each had 3 Recoveries a piece. Later, after lunch, I take the guy that is 410 Lbs, 6'9" tall, and had an A. Fib ablation. He has 4 Femoral sheaths in, and is flinging around, because his back / hip pain is off the charts!
Holy Bleeding Puncture, Batman! Pass me the Kerlix!

Hott Diggity, Dawg.

After nights like this
I need to empty my mind,
It was nothing like a kiss
No, 'twas a kick in the behind.

Two patients from ICU
Gone for Pacemaker
But not returning to that space,
Technically, I'm doing only
Anesthesia Recovery
But now some ICU duties, in their place,
Remove the Swan Ganz
The temporary Pacer, and the Art-line,
Do all of that stuff for CSICU
Hot damn they're happy, things are just fine,
Because TAVR Joe-Bob
Is finally off of their floor,
They have practically given his room away
The moment he departed the door.

"Me, I'm waiting so patiently
Lying here on the floor,
Just doing my jigsaw puzzle
Before it rains anymore*#.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _


*#Rolling Stones
"Jigsaw Puzzle"
Album: Beggars Banquet - 1968