Last night's Epic SUCK.

It was slowish, we only had four patients and there were three of us. Those of us that came on at 11 pm had one each, and Clarissa, our new hire, had two.

Around 2:30, we got a call from admitting to tell us that we were getting a patient from the ED, who was R/O MI (rule out Myocardial Infarction--in other words, "see if he hasn't had a heart attack")

He had.

His cardiac enzymes were through the roof, and it was surprising, because he admittedly "only smoked 3 or 4 packs a day."

You see what I have to deal with?

He was nice enough, but he didn't come up from the ED until around 4:30, and he was going to Mills-Penninsula for cath, so I was filling out admit AND discharge/transfer paperwork simultaneously. On top of that...I never discharge anyone, so I wasn't sure what the procedure was. (people just die on night shift, they don't check out of the hospital in the middle of the night--they wait for day.)

So, it was a little crazier than normal--not to mention that my other patient, whom I had bathed and changed her sheets around 4, decided to wet the bed and needed another bed-bath, with new linens at 6:45.

I still managed to get out of there with only a half hour of overtime.

As I drove home, I was trying to remember how many days there are until I give notice. My boss is nice enough, she took this patient that was transfering out, and she didn't find and harp on every little thing I had missed on the paperwork. To boot, she fixed a confusion with the ambulance transfer who wanted to be paid up front before they'd schedule picking him up to take him to Mills...

Then I came home and tried to schedule the needle biopsy of the lump in my breast, and I'm getting the run around...I finally told the person on the phone "you know...it's a disgusting commentary on the state of our health care system, when I--An ICU nurse!-- come home from a long night and try to take care of my own self, and I'm having trouble navigating the system, and I'm falling thru the cracks...I just want to have this looked at...can you please tell me who I'm supposed to talk to in order to schedule this?"

She agreeed it was bad, and told me she'd look into it and call me back. I went to bed, and now I'll go check and see if the left me a message on the answering machine.

Our health care system is broken! I see patients all night long who are victims of having no care, no insurance, and then I come home, a well-paid health care worker, and cant even find out who the hell I call to schedule this biopsy?! Disgusting, I tell ya.