Nothing breaks you in quite like a patient going out on you!

One crappy shift out of 11 so far, I guess is not too bad of a statistic. It was also my first rainy day since arriving in northern Va. The weather here has been awesome so far! I recovered 3 patients in Rapid Recovery today. Essentially this is PACU for any procedure the cardiovascular surgeons do other than heart surgery. These procedures include VATS procedures, lobectomies, pneumonectomies, wedge resections (all of these are lung surgeries), AV fistula surgeries (dialysis procedure), carotid endartectomies, FemPop bypasses....... If the non-medical people reading this don't understand all that, keep it that way and stay healthy. So basically, this is a quick post anesthesia recovery about an hour and a half and then the patient's may stay overnight for a day or two and then go home. So I did two of these and then had a lull in the action for a bit because the third case was a little more difficult and lucky for me came out of the OR at 10 minutes to 7 pm. Just prior to my third case coming out, I was attempting to walk my second case from earlier whom had a lung procedure done and had an epidural. Yes! They walk their patient's with epidurals. Goes against anything I know or have been used to, but I am willing to learn new things and reconstruct my normals of thinking. Luckily, this guy was small, about 130 lbs. We took three steps, there was quite a lull in our conversation as his eyes rolled back in his head and became limp. I was at that moment, I was oh so thankful that I religiously hit Planet Fitness and have continued to lift weights, as I picked this little guy up and put him back in bed. One phone call away, the NP quickly came to the bedside followed by the surgeon. All was well, just a little bit of a low blood pressure. Thanks to all of my TCH Hemo peeps, I am well versed on what someone looks like when their blood pressure bottoms out. Just a little adrenaline rush for me and a reminder that I can start curling more at the gym. So a very disjointed day for me and I was there until 9 pm charting, but I am learning the system and everyone is very helpful and weirdly super nice. I haven't met one "Negative Nelly" yet. Where are they hiding that one? Every place of employment has at least one.

Well have a great day today everyone. I am off to enjoy the Air and Space Museum. Another rainy day here.