I think the nurses we had Monday were the least competent we’ve ever had. The day nurse gave the vibe of eh whatever. I told her about Jesse’s v-phen. Normally they take it and register it with pharmacy. She just told me it’s a liquid, they just give it back.
But it turned out that we should have let pharmacy see it so they would know. It caused the pharmacist some extra work when told the Tuesday day nurse about it.
The night nurse was a know it all, who was way more worried about her social life. She had two charges. Jesse and a baby next door. When I came back to the room after the 6:30 to 7:30 you-can’t-be-here-shift change, she had her back to Jesse’s monitor.
Then she was outside of Jesse’s room belly aching that everyone should could go with to some function was married.
Around 1am, Jesse’s respiratory rate kept dropping to 6 then back to 12. The doctors don’t want it below 10. Do you think that she came to see why Jesse’s monitor kept going off? Or even come talk to me about seeing it on the monitor outside? No. I guess she had other pressing matters.
I kept repositioning Jesse, trying to get her breathe deeper. The oncology resident the next morning mentioned to me first thing that her respiratory rate had been funky durning the night. You would think if the doctor mentions it, the nurse would have at least come talked to me while it was happening.
Turns out the respiratory rate was from too much morphine. She was receiving 0.3, but the decrease it to 0.2. That rate is actually the rate she got it at last time.
Decreasing the rate also helped her finally pee. Morphine has the effect of constricting the bladder. Jesse held it for about 12 hours! I was pleading with her for a couple of hours to pee so we didn’t have to put a tube in.
I also overheard a NICU nurse who came to visit her friends say she had to do someone else’s patient load because that person was dealing some “Quizzer Parents” I hate myself for not getting up and walking out there to ask exactly what was wrong with that? Maybe this kid is hanging by a thread and the parents want to know what they can do.
Thank God on Tuesday morning we had one of the awesome nurses from last PICU stay. I really like her. She has a clue and is on the ball. She asked me about Jesse’s v-phen, and took it to the pharmacist to get it registered.
Then another nurse came back with it. She told me I would have to give it to Jesse. Ok…. I usually give her all her by mouth medications when we are in.
When I talked to Mike at noon, he suggested that we switch places. I have some work that needs to be done, plus it would be good for me to spend time with Chris. And it will be good for Mike to be with Jesse.
We switched off at 5pm. Jesse was asleep, but when I talked to Mike later she was awake and blowing bubbles. Her fever had started, but then was dropping.
The nurse was planning to culture one cap. Of course it was the flake from last night so I haven’t slept real well worrying about whether or not she’ll be careful. But it’s probably a very good thing that Mike is there to handle her.
And interestingly enough he said she was constantly in the room last night and cultured the cap very carefully. ( I called that one. I told FerFer as I was headed home yesterday that if she was on last night she’d probably be very attentive to Mike since it sounded like she was very single.)
When I talked with Mike this morning, Jesse’s temperature reached 102.9 F last night and was on the climb again. But she is in good spirits, happily blowing bubbles.