intensive care unit adventures

I'm in the last week of my ICU rotation for my clinicals. It's been a bit of a crazy adventure. I've lost a lot of patients (4 now in 5 weeks) when most classmates haven't lost one. ICU is a crazy messed up world where I hope no one ever needs to go... but if you are unfortunate enough to end up there, I hope you have THE BEST nurses and doctors. Most of the nurses and doctors I've worked with have been phenomenal but there's definitely a few that scared the crap out of me. Working with patients in ICU is like trying to solve a crazy puzzle -- you have to work out patients current diagnosis(es), symptoms, lab values, drugs, history, family history and balance it all out. EVERYTHING AFFECTS EVERYTHING and it's crazy trying to keep up! I loved the challenge and I am a bit sad to be finishing this rotation. AND somehow I got the highest, bestest, almost perfectist mark in my class on my ICU final exam!

I saw a lot of very sad things too... patients that have been hooked up to machines for months because their families weren't ready to let them go (despite the patient having end-of-life wishes in writing not to keep them hooked up to machines). A patient whose heart was in such failure his legs looked as wide as an elephant's legs, patients with 30 drips going, patients struggling to breathe, patients with tubes in every hole of their body, patients with wounds deep enough to clearly see their bones, patients whose edema/swelling was so severe that it was weeping out of all parts of their skin and a patient whose biggest accomplishment was when he could squeeze my fingers. It's hard to watch so much suffering... and despite feeling like I was on "death watch" since so many of my patients passed, I'm relieved to know that they won't be suffering any longer.

One more weekend of this adventure and then on to the next. Maternity.