I'm Tired

For the past two weeks I’ve been consistently getting my ass kicked every minute of every hour of every shift I’ve worked. Usually I’m fairly organized and timely but last week was just a god-awful mess. After the first two shifts, I couldn’t even bring my C game to work, let alone my A game! Lately the department has been getting inundated one major after another. Everything from stabbings, substance misuse, old people falling and breaking various bones, people with fairly complex medical histories circling the drain and of course drunks. It’s never a normal night without a couple of drunks. I’m lucky to work in a department that’s extremely well staffed for the most part but for I’ve worked almost 11 hours without a break for several shifts and stayed overtime for two of them.

A particularly memorable shift included a patient who kept desatting down to 75% on a non-rebreather mask – sure he had lung CA but 75% is still not a number I like to see. The woman next door to him went into a v-fib arrest only to be replaced by a tachycardic/hypotensive MVA who needed surgery ASAP. Of course all the surgeons were already swamped so she got transferred to the hospital next door. The cherry on the crap sundae that was my shift was an ashen looking LOM with a Hb of 47 who experienced a horrible transfusion reaction. I came back after only getting 4 hours of sleep to get a psychotic patient who needed elephantine doses of haldol. He just had to develop extra-pyramidal symptoms right when I see the monitor showing full blown tombstones on another one of my patients. I almost missed the drunk-tank. Almost.

By the time I finally made it home, all I wanted to do was to crawl into a little blanket covered hole and die. But no – I couldn’t sleep the entire day and my neck hurt! If the next set of shifts is as crazy as the last set, I may have to start self-medicating – or seriously consider switching over to retail :P