2.6.1

Ohkaaay. I just updated my wordpress' current version yesterday - from 2.5 to 2.6. And then here goes another message on top of this Write Post-area of Wordpress: WordPress 2.6.1 is available! Please update now. Haha. My website is so outdated. Sorry for not updating my other contents, etc. I am too busy to fix it because all I do when I visit my site's admin panel is just to blog.

Anyways, I am happy because I get to blog regularly for the past few days. Maybe I have so many stories to tell.

Last night was my last duty in Adult Wing. I thought I would be "benign" on my last day but I was wrong. I was assigned to 2 patients for the first 3 hours. Then our senior staff nurse asked me to get the initial vital signs of our newly admitted, 73-year old patient who has Acute Myeloid Leukemia. She was my patient before, actually. They recognized me as soon as I went inside their room. So when I checked her cardiac rate, I was shocked. 160 beats per minute, my goodness. Tachycardia. I immediately referred it to the resident doctor. He said, "I-Q1 mo na lang yun V/S, Ma'am." Let me translate it. Hehe. He told me to monitor her vital signs hourly. Hourly. Hourly. Holymacaroni. I hate hourly monitoring. It's tiring, especially if your patient is like kilometers away from the nurse's station.

I realized that I am going to handle her together with my other 2 patients. Thank God they are not as toxic as lola.

After 2 or 3 hours of monitoring, my patient's cardiac rate increased to 180. She has a bounding pulse and it really scared me. I was praying while taking her vital signs. I don't want her to die.

I was surprised that the resident did nothing on my patient. My gosh! My patient is having a tachycardia, doc! Aren't you gonna do something?!

At 1 am, my patient's consultant called over the phone and talk to me. He ordered to incorporate Potassium Chloride to my patient's current intravenous fluid. To tell you honestly, I was a bit nervous incorporating the said drug. Haha. Why? Because that is Potassium Chloride. It can kill if you give it thru IV bolus. I do not know what was into me that I got scared of it even though I did the right thing. Maybe I was tired or sleepy or something. Whatever.

2 am came when the consultant asked for an update. I told him that I have already incorporated the KCl. And then I told him about her cardiac rate. And you know what happened? He shouted. "ANO?! 180?! SIGURADO KA BA DYAN?! MAMATAY NA YANG PASYENTE MO! I-CARDIAC MONITOR MO PLUS PULSE OX. NGAYON NA! BILISAN MO!! BIGYAN MO NG LANOXIN 0.25mg IV BOLUS! GO! GO! GO!"

I sort of panicked. I swear.

The consultant asked me why we did not refer her to him. I told him that I updated the resident on duty every hour. And I soo hate the resident for not calling the consultant. >_<

My patient almost died because of his negligence. I did my part as a nurse. I even suggested if we could put him on a cardiac monitor and he said, we don't need it. Gosh. I really really wanted to cry right then and there. I was scared to lose my patient, you know.

You see, I hate it that some doctors blame everything on the nurses. We are just nurses. We follow what they instruct us. We have our own independent interventions but when it comes to treatment and diagnostic procedures, we should get the order from them. Sheesh.

I thank the Lord that before I went home, lola was stabilized. Whew!

What happened this morning was really an "action". But you know what, I loved it. I loved the action despite what happened. I've been asking God to give me one. I am so thick-faced to have these guts to ask God. HAHA.

You know why I love action? Because I learn from it... and it improves my knowledge, and skills.