Sense, Fire, Capture

Six more ICU shifts. They moved me to days to make me happier, but it’s kind of been a struggle since I’m now so used to night routine. Like on days there’s this weird hellish block of time between 2 and 7 where you’re just waiting for stuff to go wrong. Night shift seems to have always flowed better for me. Like getting my assessments and meds done, then charting, then having a little bit of down time to look up my patient in more detail, then labs, bath, follow up on labs, switching out tubing, garbages, linen and then it’s basically change of shift. Days is far less predictable for me. I also had to withdraw care for the first time at this hospital and it was very emotional for the husband and daughter. They were on a 24/7 Zoom call leading up to it and the husband listerally played their wedding video so my patient could hear it, and he had a playlist of all of their favorite songs and I honestly cried. Both husband and daughter got a big hug from me and I hope I made it as good of an experience as I could

I also talked to my boss because I’m honestly so done with being in the ICU and I’ve been ready to go back to stress testing. Like yeah I know our numbers are at basically an all time high, but we’re getting more travelers and I’ve given them a considerable amount of time and flexibility with redeploying to the ICU. I only got four weeks in stress testing before I left to work ICU overnights. Originally it was supposed to be 8 weeks which then turned to 12 weeks as it stands now (with 3 weeks left). I told my boss that I get that they may not be able to justify me coming back to stress testing (although I can’t imagine why since they have a nurse that started after me, and another part time me who started and a per diem person). Regardless, I need a break from ICU overnights. If that means doing something else somewhere else as long as it’s during the day I’m happy with it. I’m just increasingly annoyed that when I started talking to my (now) boyfriend back in November I had this nice day shift schedule with weekends off and then basically we started dating and I’ve been on overnights and it just sucks. Like it sucks falling asleep next to him only to wake up at 3am and then be up until 8am where I then fall back asleep. I just want to go back to my normal day shift weekday job where I get up at 5am and am ready to fall asleep by 8pm 😩

So I forgot to post about this but I had my first step towards getting a diagnosis for ADHD which was meeting with a psychiatrist and we basically talked about the symptoms that I had written down and I was then told that I didn’t meet the DSM criteria for a diagnosis. I told her about my inattention, my difficulty focusing, how I misplaced things, how I was getting angry- especially at work. And apparently that wasn’t good enough. She was so focused on the fact that I don’t have difficulty with performance at work. Like I’m a fucking ICU nurse like I’d sure hope that I don’t have performance issues at work??? Because ya know, people’s lives??? But that doesn’t mean that I spend a considerable amount of energy three nights a week being extremely productive at work and the rest of the week??? So I scheduled the QB test anyways, but she said it wasn’t really diagnostic in and of it’s self. She said I was also more than welcome to get a second opinion. I asked her what she thought could be going on if it wasn’t ADHD. I told her I don’t feel the anxiety of going into work like I did when I was new to the ICU. I’m not filled with panic and dread. I’m not depressed even though I’m seeing perhaps the worst scenarios on the daily. And her answer was- “oh it’s just been a tough year”. Like? Thanks that literally didn’t help me at all. So I have my test scheduled for next week and I guess we’ll see. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Lol. So I got a COVID PCR done exactly a week ago because I have a bit of a sore throat which feels like an allergy exacerbation (I have all season allergies and being in Phoenix doesn’t help). Anyways, so I thought it would be a good idea to get a test done just to make sure. I’ve never had a fever, a cough, loss of taste, weakness, etc- but just to make sure. The turn around time for the results is supposed to be 3-4 days and I didn’t have results yet. So I call the lab that I think it went to and they never received it, so they said to reach out to CVS. So I did and after being transferred around for a bit and told they would call back I eventually found out they lost my specimen lol. There honestly isn’t any point in me getting re-tested because I get my first vaccine shot on the 29th. I also found out my sister tested positive and now I’ll be spending the holiday alone lol. I mean I wouldn’t expect anything else from 2020