The last two days of day shift were great. It was steadily busy with no down time, got a lunch break, and was out on time. Yesterday my assignment included a labor and a high risk antepartum. The labor was a high profile, very educated woman with one of her support people being a recently retired OBGYN. It was a balancing act, but a fun one at that. I’m beginning to really enjoy the new challenges that are found in each new day. My antepartum had a really high blood pressure and I had already given her three IV pushes of blood pressure lowering IV meds, I was going over the plan of care telling her we would recheck her BP and give one more dose and then give it some time per the doctors orders. She smiled and responded with, “no you won’t because my blood pressure will be down when you recheck it.” So I told her if it was down I would do 5 push-ups in celebration. Sure enough it was down and it was fun to have the opportunity to make her laugh and smile as she and her visitor watched while I payed up with five boy push ups. It was quite a feat as I’m sadly out of shape right now. All was good. I was updating the Lead (charge nurse) on my patients status when she said I was welcome to stay over, that they were short staffed on nights and were forcing two day-shifters to stay four extra hours. I love my job, but it is physically draining and my all natural labor (besides the pit augmentation) was getting very active and going to be in need of fresh energy so I declined. But as I left I caught one if the other nurses coming out of the bathroom in the break room with red puffy eyes. I asked if she was OK and she just explained that she would be fine but she was tired of being forced to stay over she felt like it happened almost every shift and I know it has happened at least twice in the last two weeks to her. I felt guilty…they must not force travelers to stay extra. Maybe I should pick up an extra shift every week. I have been working four days every other week in New Mexico and it wasn’t that bad. Here they treat travelers so nice, everyone has been so nice and so helpful, saying thanks for coming and helping us out. I know if I am busy everyone else is just as busy. I didn’t stay. The kids were all playing a card game together when I got home. They make me smile as they are becoming each others best friends. After dinner I took Myra on a walk, a long walk…I felt like I was going to have to drag her to get her home about 3/4 of the way, but she made it. A tall glass of ice tea then another. It was 8:30 pm, still another hour and a half until I would have gotten off had I stayed. I climbed up to our room, got ready for bed and crashed. I think I remember my head hitting the pillow but that is it. I was out.
Owens Endeavors 