" Toxic" in a Nurse's Points of View

Literally, 'toxic' means poisonous substance that can inflict bodily harms, but in a nurse perspective it means pending work or multiple Doctor's orders or huge patient census. I never been toxic since i started working until yesterday.

My original shift was Am, ordinarily the usual ratio in our unit is three bedsides and one charge nurse. Unluckily, yesterday we only had two bedsides Ma'am Jem and I and Ma'am Tala our charge nurse. We had 13 patients and three admissions, so to sum it up i had eight or nine patients that morning. At the start of the shift, everything went smoothly, until when i started to fed my one patient using gastric tube, i didn't see the feeding Iv on the bedside so i utilized the Toomy syringe that has 50 cc, imagine i have to fed my client with 210 cc using that syringe, that ate my time so much, funny indeed the relative told me "Ito na lang gamitin mo,mas madali, ito iyong ginagamit nila!" gosh! i was humiliated, i overlooked that device. When i am really recovered, the patient tracheostomy released a lot of secretions so i suctioned it. Then i have to prepare all my due medications. I have to fill out all the stationary to plot all the Vital Signs, do charting, catered all the patients and relatives' request. And other pending work i have to attend to.

Much to my dismay, another co associate went absent so they asked me to extend my duty up to 7pm, the "toxiness" wasn't subside until 5:30pm, I have blood transfusion, i have to reinsert Iv's to three of my patients. Two of them had fever and increase blood sugar. To add with my misery i extended the duty up to 11pm, so i had A/P shift. Omg! what a day, i thought i was indefatigable but i was wrong, my energy was depleted. At least i learned about strategies and techniques. :)

Affectionately,

Ainan.