Back in the solarium today. One of the four patients had died since I was last there on Friday.
Hospitals tend to be superstitious places. At SLRMC - the hospital I work at in downtown SLC - we do not have a room 13. In bigger hospitals, with multiple levels, I've heard they skip floor 13 all together. One of the main social rules to follow at work is to never EVER say the Q word (quiet), in any context. I said it when I first started, someone had a seizure and another person coded. Coincidence? I think not.
So today. Do you ever get the gut feeling that something is too good to be true? And then that feeling ends up being correct? Today was one of those days. I think I might have accidentally thought about the Q word, maybe thats what did it.
Since one of the patients had expired, we had an empty bed. We knew it was only a matter of time before the bed was filled again. The call came at 10, I got report, and waited. Here's where I made the mistake, I thought it would be may be a more relaxed day. Then 5 people coded in the ER, half made it. This caused my new patient to take longer to get to me.
Finally got them at 2 pm. The other nurse and I were running the rest of the day. There was so much to get done for the new patient, plus our other three. The hardest part of having to work in that room is the constant need to be wearing PPE. I had my surgical cap, hair net, face shield, N95 mask, surgical mask on that, a jacket and double gloves.
Anyone ever do bikram yoga? It feels like that. Just so much sweat, you can't breath, and everything is sore. But, obviously survived. Two more days to go for this week. Thankfully, I'm in a different ICU area tomorrow.
On a positive note, administration started a new thing this week. They play a clip of "Don't stop believin" by Journey every time a recovered COVID patient leaves the hospital. That went off 6 times today!
Britt.