Sorry for the lack of writing! I've been working 5 of the 6 past days! 12 hours, too! I'm exhausted. I'm sooo looking forward to a nice 4 day weekend.

Work is great...I am now taking care of level 3 ICU patients: Vented and hemodynamically unstable. I had two patients that pretty much seemed like mirrors of each other. Vented, ARDS, hypotensive and on pressors. One had an anastomotic leak and multiple drains draining stool and pus. Yum, I know. The other guy was admitted for management of a grand mal seizure with possible aspiration pneumonia. So now I'm getting really good at titrating drips, especially Dopamine, Levophed (Norepi), Fentanyl & Versed. My days consisted of lots of suctioning *BLEH* and learning what exactly those vent settings mean. Still couldn't tell you much. haha. But I do feel like I have grown so much in the past couple of days because I've been doing so much.

...I got the ultimate compliment from one of my preceptors today. She said she was amazed I was still a student. She says I have the confidence of a nurse with at least 2 years experience. I told her thank you but I don't feel like that! But I'll gladly take the compliment! It was definitely an honor to hear that.

Oh and I hate 1st year medicine interns. They're annoying. Okay I'm done. =)

I'm annoying...

...according to Kee. So because of my persistent annoying and bugging, I did find out that he's planning on proposing sometime this fall. =D You know there will be a big, huge announcement...and a myspace bulletin. LOL.

We started looking at houses again. I have about 25 listings written down here that I am going to attempt to look up. I really want to try and get a house by early next year. Wish me luck!

I Want To Be...

1. An inspiration to someone
2. A Critical Care nurse
3. Engaged already!
4. ...then married already! =P
5. Less judgemental
6. More positive in life
7. A leader
8. Happy
9. Able to stand up for myself more.
10. Fabulous. Oh wait. I am. =)

You know me...I HAVE to throw in some humor here. =)

I had a super busy day yesterday! I had a 34 year old Filipino guy. That was weird in itself because every patient is usually 55+. So it was weird that he was young and independent and had really good veins!! So yes, I took him down to CT scan and he had fluid in his left lung. Had to come back...given tons of meds and insulin. D/C'd one IV and FINALLY inserted a new one. I've done blood draws in the past, but I've never had the chance to do an IV. So yes, yay me. Anyways, after all that we went and took him down to Interventional Radiology (IR) and he had a pigtail drain placed in his posterior chest. From that moment til the end of my shift, he drained over 2 liters in about 3.5 hours. I was like "no wonder you had trouble breathing!" It was great that he was so young because had he not been, with that diagnose, he would have been intubated probably since Monday. So yes, it was another good, but very busy, day!

It's so hot right now. The only thing I'm looking forward to this week is going to the A's game on Saturday night. Why? Because I'll be out in the bay...and I'll be in bay weather. Nice & cool I hope!

Caroline saw my wacky away message the other night "PLANNING MY WEDDING." Kee wants to start looking at venues and working out details. We want to get married around next fall! Crazy, huh? So he was all "we need to find a place so we can book it a year in advance!" I'm like Okay, but you need to propose first! DUH! I'll keep you posted on how THAT all goes.

He's cute, sometimes...

So I was writing Tiffany about something that happened yesterday. I thought it was kind of cute, so I'll write about it here.

Yesterday I went to my good friend, Kayla's bridal shower. She's the one who's getting married in August in Lake Tahoe. So yeah, it made me all jealous because I want to be engaged and plan a wedding and do all that good stuff. I told Kee about it after the shower and he told me to get over it...that he had the time and the plan in his head so I shouldn't worry about it right now.

After the shower and spending time with my neices and nephew and brothers and sister-in-law, I went over to Kee's house. I walk in and sit on the bed like usual. We were in there for a couple of minutes...he showed me all this stuff he bought like new shoes and clothes. And he even picked out his outfit for Kayla's wedding! LOL. Wow, he's better than me!

"Lay down" he said as he did the Vanna White arm thing across the bed.
I don't wanna lay down.
"No, LAY DOWN."
But I'm fine sitting there."
"Here, take this pillow." as he shoves it in my face."
I don't want the pillow babe.
"What's on your nose?" as he shoves the pillow AGAIN in my face" (He does this like 5 times.)
"Fuck. Just smell the pillow." and it was his cologne that he first wore when we met 8 years ago.

At the mall he found it and bought it. Then he continued to tell me that when he proposes to me he wants to wear it so that it will remind me of when we first met. But then he says he has to soak himself in it because apparently I can't smell anything. LOL.

He's a cutie!

First FULL WEEK Recap

After being with my mom for 2 weeks and doing nursing orientation for 3, I finally completed my first full week of work. I worked about 44 hours this week...so I'm exhausted! Basically I transferred some patients to the floor, gave lots of injections, primed tons of IV tubings, and gave tons of IV antibiotics. Exciting, yes I know. Oh yeah, on Wednesday I wasn't the primary, but the secondary nurse on a case coming in from the OR. I received a neuro case...a craniotomy. So my role as the secondary was to hook up the foley to the criticore machine, set up the SCDS, and get his labs done.

Oh and then yesterday I was all set to take care of my one patient, then his heart rate starting going up. He had been in Sinus Tachy all morning...the highest his HR went up was 131. But the new resident was adament about pushing Adenosine. She wanted to stop his heart and let it re-start so she could see his underlying rhythm. All the nurses were like "WTF? Why?" Apparently she thought he was in SVT, but my charge nurse/manager was like "His HR is only in the 130s...that's not SVT. She's gonna stop his heart" and then she was all annoyed. But then the Attending came in and wanted the Adenosine, too. So we let the MDs push Adenosine twice. His HR was still up, so we gave some Metoprolol and that seemed to bring his HR back to the 110s. So all day with him I kept reminding him to use his PCA Dilaudid for his pain (he was s/p R Hip ORIF) and titrating his insulin drip. Kept me pretty...

...THEN next door my preceptor received an emergent case from the IICU. This guy was in respiratory distress. He was brought up and sedated and intubated immediately. Julie (my preceptor) and Karen (another nurse I work with when Julie's off) told me to jump in. So they gave me the Emergency Medication (NON-CODE) sheet to fill out. My job was to write down what the MDs and nurses were giving, what time, and how much. We had like two pages of meds once we got him stable. I also did his ABGs and was the one calling out all the abnormal data like low BP, low MAPS, and low sats. It wasn't a CODE situation and I didn't have anything super crazy to do, but it was exciting to get in there and be considered part of the team.

So yes, I am here exhausted now. haha.

Mary needs to start a blog so she can tell us how here preceptorship is going *hint hint* =)

OH P.S.

...despite our Pedicure Awareness Program [PAP!], my sister and I went and got pedicures on Saturday morning. And it was amazing. I wanted to make out with the lady massaging my legs. Kloveyoubye.

Back to work...day one.

Yesterday was my first day on the floor after 3 weeks of not being there. I was nervous because I didn't know what was going to be expected of me. I kind of just eased into the day. I had one patient like the other 2 days I had been working. This guy was a little more acute than other patients I had been working with. Basically I was giving Metoprolol and lots of IV antibiotics all day long trying to control his pressures and heart rate and to treat whatever infection he may have. It was a good day...thank goodness it was a Sunday. I had plenty of time to work on my time management and figure out what was going on. I hopefully will be more prepared tomorrow when it should be a little bit busier for me.

Kee said we got the condo for Tahoe in August! Thank goodness. Now I don't have to fork out $500+ for a hotel for the weekend. Any money I can spend is awesome.

He told me that one of our good friend couples are buying a house in the development that we really want to get a house in. I'm sad. I want that to be MY house. So now I am determined to save more and search harder for a good deal...in that community. Wish me luck!