Down time

I’m on my second overnight shift in the PICU. The fact that I’m having time to blog is encouraging, although I fear that it will come back to haunt me in the next few days. I don’t have a whole lot to share, but posting is one of the only ways I can stay in touch with the outside world, since all my time is spent at work or sleeping (see post from 3/5). The PICU in general is steadily busy, but there is a huge spectrum ranging from blog posting to stay awake to never sitting down and having 34 verbal orders to sign at the end of a shift (which thankfully, I haven’t experienced yet, but like I said, I’m expecting payback for this night).

One thing that is striking about the unit is how differently each of the attendings does things. There are a dozen different ways of solving the same problem, from different meds to different fluid choices to how quickly you make changes. It makes keeping up a little difficult, but it also makes for learning a lot of different options in a short period of time. As long as I can swallow my pride about looking stupid when one attending does things totally different than the last one (and usually they switch just as I’ve gotten used to one way of doing things), then I think I will be fine.

I’m almost halfway there.

What a difference a day makes

So that last post...disregard please. That is NOT indicative of the reality of the PICU. Remember that whole "we don't have any beds" thing? Apparently that is not a deterent. I'm pretty sure Tuesday was more typical of a day in the life. Rounding by myself on the whole surgery service, two post-op admits, including one who wound up on ECMO...Good thing they changed the duty hour rules so that that 10 hours between shifts is more of a strong suggestion.

But...BUT!

I had the day off today. Finally. And I slept in, and I made a delicious breakfast with delicious coffee and went to Mass and worked out and sat in my recliner and read a totally non-intellectually-enriching fluff book with a bowl of popcorn. And some chocolate-covered pretzels. And it was glorious. And I'm (almost) ready to go back tomorrow to do it all again.

Between a 3 and a 7

I'm 4 days into the PICU...Dad says I have to update this so he knows I'm alive. I'm pretty sure if a certain someone wouldn't teach a class on the rare occasion that I have time to call him, he would know for himself.

Surviving so far...I'm on the cardiac surgery service and they keep having to cancel surgeries because we have no beds (thanks to the overflowing medicine service...influenza and RSV are nasty, but I'm grateful that it keeps our service smaller). Learning a bit about efficiency, physiology, interpreting data, good communication, and how to sneak snacks when no one is looking. I'm not going to say anything about the kids mostly behaving at the risk of jinxing something. Two more surgeries tomorrow (and not simple ones) and my co-worker has the day off, so I will be seeing all the kids myself (if there are no more updates, you know it broke me).

So far, we've had visitors every day bearing gifts of Chipotle, chocolate, hugs, and binder clips (for the charts that keep getting thicker). And I haven't cried...yet.

I told Dad that my priorities are as follows:
1) Don't kill any kids
2) Sleep as much as possible
3) Everything else

I guess this falls under everything else, so I must be doing something right on those first two. Off to bed!!!