Putting out fires

So tonight was an interesting night! Many of my shifts are spent "putting out fires" if you will, meaning I spend most of my night running around being the middle man just to accomplish one task. Tonight was a night of literally putting out fires, though not for me or my patients luckily! Our floor had a fire just down the hall in the occupational therapist office. It made for a crazy start to the shift!  I was in a patient room when the fire alarms started going off and the lights started flashing in the hallway.  'Well I've never been here for a fire drill' I thought to myself.  I wondered if I'd know what to do! One of the nursing aids was in the room and she said, "Oh someone probably just burned some popcorn. We're in no real danger."  I found myself agreeing, as I'd heard plenty of stories of burnt toast or popcorn setting off the fire alarm. Then the patient's mom asked me what happens if there is an actual fire.  I froze for a moment, but then my brain popped into auto pilot and answered for me! I heard myself rattling off the RACE accronym and explaining our plan in the event of fire.  'Good job Theresa!', I thought to myself.  'Good thing it's just a fire drill.  Wait...is that smoke I see on the other side of that door to our unit? Wow! There was a real fire and it was on our floor. Awesome.'  Needless to say, there was some action to put it out and some explaining to patients and their visitors, but the excitement was short lived.  It just made me re-think using my expression of "putting out fires" everyday.  :)