The dreaded float

Today is my day off and I'm spending it on the couch sick with a nasty cold. I felt it coming on a few days ago and I awoke yesterday to a full on cold. I'm sure that participating in the Polar Bear Plunge on Saturday did not help my cold much, although it was fun! Sunday morning, I slept in until noon, hoping that I'd let my body rest as much as possible.  I loaded up on cold medicine and headed into work with the hubby. I really felt awful, which pretty much sucks to try and be someone's nurse when you feel like crap yourself.  Plus, I knew I'd have to wear a mask because I was coughing and snotting at times.  My neutropenic patients (those with little to no immune system or WBC {white blood cells}) can't be exposed to any type of illness, even if it's just a cold.  My regular little cold could cause a serious infection that could be life threatening to them.  I know that sounds like I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. I'll explain that later.  Back to my story first. 

So right at the start of the shift, the charge nurse informed me that I'm floating to another unit, 7B, for the first 4 hours of my shift. I grabbed my drink and clipboard and headed over. The unit was in chaos at change of shift, so I waited until someone made eye contact and introduced myself. Then the whirlwind of a shift began. I looked up my patients' information and try to get organized for my shift. Then I got report for 3 of my 4 patients, but one of the nurses had to float to another unit so she had left already. Go figure, that was the patient that I had the most questions about. Oh well..,improvise.

Floating to another floor is par for the course in nursing. We learn to be flexible and to expect the unexpected. For a new grad nurse, floating can be quite scary and frustrating.  There are lots of things (diagnoses and medical interventions) that I do not see on my unit because while we're a medical unit, we specialize in cancer and blood diseases.  We see the occassional chest tube and G tube, but generally not a lot. Last night, 3 out of my 4 patients had a G tube (gastrostomy tube, which by passes a person's esophagus and instills food, water or medicine directily into the stomach) and were therefore very busy. Once I was able to get organized and prioritize, the running started.  Except I was slower than usual  for several reasons.
1. I coudn't find anything on this unit [Note: not all nursing units are created equally].
2. I only knew one person on the unit, so my resources were more difficult to determine. I introduced myself to people and asked questions, but it was a struggle to get help.
3. My cold kept interrupting. I had several coughing fits and had to excuse myself from a patient's room.  Luckily I had loaded up on cough drops, which helped prevent the coughing fits. That's just what you want your nurse to do is start coughing and snotting all over your room!

Four hours is not a lot of time.  Especially when you're running a race to complete 4 assessments (on very complicated patients), administer all medications, feedings and flushes, and help the patients with the few things that are important to them.  So....it took me 5 hours.  Lucklily the 7D (my home unit) charge nurse knew that I was feeling crappy.  She called me on my ASCOM phone about 3 hours in and asked if I'd like to go home for the last 4 hours of my shift.  We were up-staffed (too many nurses for patient census) and they were granting and EA (excused absence).  I was the lucky winner who got to go home and sleep! I gave report to the on-coming nurse, then sat down and charted for an hour. Finally went home at 8:30p and curled up on the couch with a movie.  I woke up about 11:15p when my hubby called to get a ride home. 

Not a bad end to a tough day.  Sleep, fluids, and cold medicines await me today.