So being the kind person I
am, I volunteered to come in early for a fellow nurse who had a family
emergency (I don't know what I was thinking, since that put me on a 16
hr shift, but hey you know it could be a little fun). I got report and
settled in to start my shift. As I was looking over orders, the tech
comes running in and tells me that one of the other nurse's patients has
a glucose of 10 and she can't wake him up!
Of course, we couldn't find the nurse so I went running into the room.
I
tried to wake him up and got no response. I attempted the sternal rub,
nothing. I ran back to the nurses' station to grab some dextrose.
When I got back into the room, the first thing I noticed was that the
patient did not have an IV...well dang it...there goes the dextrose
idea. I quickly ran back and grabbed some glucagon and called the Dr.
and rapid response.
I ran back to the room and gave the patient
the glucagon. By this time, the MD and rapid response arrived. They asked a million questions, and I felt very stupid when all I could say was "I have no idea, he's not my patient, I don't know where the other nurse is". They
pretty much took over and left me to run to get more glucagon, IV fluids
and line, call report to the other floor and stay in contact with the
MDs.
They quickly got the patient responsive and back to his
baseline. As they were wheeling him off the unit, the Rapid response
nurse came running back and told me to call the MD because the patient
was having a heart attack. I called the doctor and put in the new
orders. About this time, the other nurse reappeared and wanted to know
what was going on. She informed me that the patient was supposed to be discharged within the hour.
Since the patient was gone, I went about my very
long shift, and just barely survived.
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