Rx: Ironman

Three Days of Work in Review

Saturday: Today, I Love My Job.

The days leading up to Saturday were pretty tough for me at work. I hadn't had days like these since I was down in the trauma ICU. In the last couple of months, I have had a lot of patients. Some get better, some get worse, and some don't make it. For the most part, I've been OK with all of it, knowing that my team and I are doing the best we can for each patient. By the end of the day Thursday, I was pretty convinced that I was going to need very large doses of Prozac very soon. It was just a rough day. One of my patients died just a little over 12 hours after he came in, and even though he looked very peaceful, it was just really sad. A couple more of them got even sicker, and now they may not make it. When you've been following them for weeks to months, it's really hard not to get attached sometimes, and I start to get a little protective. I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. I just know that it means I care.

The patients I took care of Saturday on my other team were tons of fun, and they all seemed to have smiles on their faces. I just kept thinking how beautiful they all were. I was done with work in 8 hours and was home in time for a nap before church. Everything went pretty smoothly.


Sunday: Wow, This is One Crazy Job Sometimes.

My alarm clock went off around 3:10 AM, but I couldn't seem to drag myself out of bed. I finally managed to do it and still made it into work by 4:20 or so. I should still have around 3 hours and 40 minutes to get all of my work done before rounds. I checked the new patients, and there were only 3 admits from the night before. I worked them up and went upstairs to look at their charts. I no more than get to the first patient when a Code Blue was called to another unit. I stopped to think for a second. Technically, that unit is not my responsibility, but there are no other clinical pharmacists in the hospital at 5:20 AM. I didn't give it a second thought;I decided to go. It lasted about one-half hour. The patient didn't make it, even though we did everything we could. Wow. What a way to wake yourself up in the morning! My sympathetic nervous system was revved into very high gear. I should be OK, I thought. I still have plenty of time to work up my patients before rounds. I was cutting it close, but I made it back to my office in time to check for labs and get all of my work done. I logged back into the computer only to find that there were two more admits. Arrrggg! Well, kick into overdrive. You've got to get them done. I raced through checking labs, ran back upstairs to look at the new patients' charts, and made my list of med changes for the medical residents. Thankfully, the attending physician was a little late. I wrote down my last change just as he was rounding the corner. We finished rounds over 3 hours later. I wolfed down a fruit roll-up and ran to the pharmacy 15 minutes late to relive some of the inpatient pharmacists for their lunch. Funny. I had already put in an 8 hour shift at this point and had not yet eaten lunch myself.

I put in my hour of checking orders, and just as I was finishing up, they called another Code Blue in the intensive care unit. I ran up to see of my co-pharmacy resident needed any help. The patient was having breathing trouble, and she didn't need any medications. I went back to my office to finish looking at my patients for the day. I quickly realized that I wasn't going to make it a couple more hours without some lunch, so I ran over to the caf only to realize that they were mostly closed. I settled for a bag of Doritos and two cartons of chocolate milk. Two hours later, I was on my way home; it was a 12 hour day.

When I got home, I was basically nonfunctional. I took a 1 1/2 hour nap, watched TV for another 1.5 hours, vacuumed my house, and crashed into bed at 10 PM. My WONDERFUL husband offered to give me a backrub, then I passed out.

Workouts this weekend? Unless you count running to codes and walking all over the hospital, zero. None.

Monday: hopefully Back on Track

I woke up this morning at 4:30 AM with a terrible feeling that I'd overslept. A quick mental check revealed that it was Monday, and I could sleep in until 5. I did weekend sign off, and now I'm back in my office. Today is a project day, and a much needed one at that. My big residency project is hanging over my head like a huge black cloud. I'm relieved to have some time to devote to it. Tonight, I try my hand at Pilates again. I'll probably lift weights afterward to make myself feel better. Thursday is my first 5K in over a 1.5 years. More on that later :)