10/16/05

work last nite? sucked. busy as fuck. a high percent of the milieu is highly, highly psychotic (I mean, usually there’s one or 2 at any given time. Right now? 4 or 5. not to mention 3 are violent when they so choose to be.) Ended up coding one pt last nite who had been walking in circles and around the unit for 2 hours, slamming other pt’s doors, trying to knock stuff off the desk, trying to go in the nsg station. I’m thinking the final straw, at least the point at which I could tell Jeff had lost all patience, was when the pt grabbed me by the wrists and tried to pull the hairtie off my hand. Well, Jeff grabbed our hands to try to get the pt off me and the band came off my wrist and then the guy aimed it at jeff who was annoyed at that, but moreso that he went after me. then he was like “don’t do that, or you’ll lose it for good” and i was like “It’s mine in the first place!!” jeff thought it was the pt’s. heh. well, he was just getting more and more aggressive, so jeff tried to get him to go in the safe room, which he did but then when i had my back turned (i had been on one side of the desk and the pt on the other when he grabbed me) on my way to the bathroom to wash the scratches on my wrists (cuz at this point the pt was calm and such.) he apparently changed his mind and i turned around in time to see the nurse shoved in the corner, then the pt struggling, then jeff trying to get the pt out of the way so the nurse isn’t being crushed by him. well, i of course ran back to the desk and called the other unit to call a code and when i turned around i just saw jeff and the pt stumbling/fighting out of the safe room and then fall to the ground. thankfully jeff landed on top and sat on him, straddling his chest and pinning his hands to the ground and i got on one leg and the nurse got on the other cuz he was kicking and kicking at us and kneeing jeff in the back. even with the three of us on him? yeah. still had trouble holding him down. he was nearly lifting jeff into the air. like. bench pressing him almost. thank fuck there were two guys on staff on the rtf. even WITH the two guys and me (the nurse had gone to draw up a prn/call the dr for restraint orders etc…) we were having trouble. and he was starting to spit and he scratched at jeff’s hands and drew blood. GRRRRRRR. about that time the third guy got there (he had had to wait til one of the nurses from the other unit went over to the rtf so the unit wasn’t left empty…). So i got up and got restraints out and got them on the bed as fast as i could. not an easy task. well, getting the leathers and getting them on the bed is no prob. however, whoever had used the room last had pushed the bed close to the wall. which would NOT work to try to restrain someone, cuz you need enough space on each side and such. and the beds? not light. heavy mostly so they can’t be picked up and thrown or some such thing. heh. but i eventually shoved it into the middle of the room. and by that point he had calmed enough that they stood him up and escorted him into the safe room and he lay down but then started fighting again. *sigh* scratched me some more, but didn’t draw blood (i do, however, still have the red marks, and this happened at 1am…heh.) finally got him in four points, but then he pulled his body up as far as he could and got his hands to his head, and managed to gouge a 2 inch long patch of skin off his head. so now he’s bleeding and spitting and threatening to pee on us.

of course, the whole time this is happening, he’s spouting off nonsensical things. most of them having to do with pussies and ding dongs and pee pees and “tonite” (i actually kind of like to listen to people who are psychotic when they’re rambling. the free association and word play amazes me.) of course then he started aiming his sexual remarks at me, which made jeff angrier (lol. it’s kinda sweet the way he gets all protective of me sometimes!) So. We readjusted the pt so he couldn’t reach his head with his hands. but then he just started digging his nails into his other fingers. so we kind of tried to swaddle his hands with washclothes and tape. heh. i ended up wedged between the head of the bed and the wall, trying to keep hold on his fingers *thru* the towels, cuz he was still trying to work them free and scratch at himself. This of course envoked him to try to gouge me, but luckily there were towels between his fingers and mine, so it didn’t hurt too much.

he kept up for hours, literally. not constantly, but he’d settle for 5 minutes and then start up. and this is AFTER he had had po thorazine, po ativan, im ativan, im haldol, im thorazine……and usually once someone has that many meds in them, if they just calm for a few minutes, it takes over and knocks them out. not him. he just kept going. got less combative after 40 minutes or so. but then would start up again, trying to get at himself and wrench all around the bed. UGH.

anyways. so. yeah. my shoulder? definately burning right now. meaning i’ve prolly strained it. apparently it’s prone to strains? cuz any time i get injured, it’s always my left shoulder, esp since the car ‘accident’ i was in a few years ago. i mean, i don’t see how he would’ve wrenched my left arm any more than my right, but my right doesn’t hurt, except where i have scratch marks. the left one tho? shoulder burns, biceps hurt, neck hurts. (ha ha. i just discovered my neck hurts a lot more when i try to roll it around. fuck…)

and i dunno how i’ll get to the dr before tuesday, if she can even see me then. and i don’t want to go to the er cuz 1. i’m not in great amounts of pain. at least, no more than when my shoulder is having a bad day 2. don’t have the need to sit in the er for hours to be told that there’s nothing wrong with my shoulder and i’m an idiot and that it doesn’t hurt as bad as i think it hurts cuz there’s no reason for it too. and i’m betting it’s the same thing as happened with the last code that i was in….no pain at first, then it starts aching, then it starts burning, then it and/or my fingers get a little bit numb(not numb necessarily…just…funny feeling…?) but it’s not anything too horribly serious, i guess. dr bh just gives me flexeril or some sort of anti-inflammatorry/muscle relaxer type med and sends me on my way. actually, last time she also sent me to physical therapy. heh. which i have even less time for now than i did then….so maybe i’ll just do the exercises on my own and not go to the dr about it. ugh. so annoying….

did see a great play last nite. ended up sitting next to em and jen and wolfie and kat, even tho em and jen got their tickets 2 days ago, i got mine around 7pm, and wolfie and kat got theirs around 730….weird! i mean, we were right next to each other an dthen wolfie and kat were right in front of us. greatgreatgreatawesome music. must email the director and ask for the set list. tho it made me a little sad. anyways.

and THEN to top it off? yeah, Laurie the lazysluttype”coworker” I “work” with? Who is generally the one who is s’posed to float, since she’s an lpn and i’m an mht and so she can do more if she floats, help the rn’s out more…yeah, she was too sick yesterday to float, so I did. fine, whatever….ended up doing an admit on one of the psychotic, highly involuntary admits, who basically said “don’t get near me, don’t touch me, stop putting your evil in my soul. stop listening to my thoughts…” and otherwise refused to answer any and all questions or to sign any paperwork. anyways. so tonite laurie just teched again and i floated. of course, i barely got off the adult unit cuz patients were up all nite, plus the never-ending code…then..THEN she has the audacity to come over in the morning and ask the nurse if she has any MAR’s to copy over and when the nurse said No, she went back to the other unit. regardless of the fact that i hadn’t gotten all the stuff checked in, or any of the filing done, etc. And THEN later she comes over and interrupts Jeff when he was speaking PRIVATELY (as in, in a room with the door closed, and a chart in his hand…OBVIOUSLY not just chit chatting…) to tell him to come over to the c/a unit and see what she did with the scissors over there.

wanna know what she did all nite? MADE HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS. What the fuck EVER. Jeff and the nurse and I didn’t stop ONCE all nite. And she was over there cutting fucking cats out of paper????

THEN she came over later, at a time when she SHOULD’VE been getting vitals on the kids on HER unit, to ask if one of OUR patients was awake. Because she has a crush on him. NEvermind that she just got married 2 weeks ago. (she’s always bragging about “nearly” cheating on Bill, her foreverfiancenowhusband). Keep in mind, OUR patients were up and milliing about and i was completely flustered, trying to shove the filing in to some kind of order, since it hadn’t been done in THREE days and she’s just chit chatting???

ANGERBALL.

i have a headache and my body hurts and my shoulder stings, and i wanted to hang out with emily today but not only do i feel emotionally shitty, I also feel physically shitty, and have too much work to do.

on the other hand, i came out to jeff tonite but he didn’t realize it, i don’t think. cuz i told him i went to [where aj lives] last weekend and he was like “girl, you spend too much time there with that baby!!” cuz he was thinking i meant i went to [where h and the baby live} and i was like, no, i went to [where aj lives[ and he was like ‘what’s there?’ and i was like “my girlfriend’s lives there” heh. but he didn’t seem to indicate anything. and i think he prolly meant i meant just like a girl friend. rather than a girlfriend. oh well. at least i don’t feel like i’m hiding or being dishonest about anything now. at least, not so much. a little, since i didn’t clarify. but. whatever…

i want to go to bed but i don’t want to end up not waking til late and then not getting everything done that needs done.

(and the best part? I wrote that rant about 40 minutes ago, but OD was being a WANKER AGAIN and wouldn’t let me post. UGH.)

Oh. AND??? I broke piece of the fucking desk that I just bought last nite while trying to put it together.