SSDD

Back to the glue factory again. Conference weekend was great though I was only able to make it to two sessions. Work went really well too. Friday, I only slept 2-3 hours before and I was afraid that I would be completley braindead. I was right. I drifted through work in a dazed stupor. The shift started with some blood cultures. It was an old man. I could feel his median cubital right in his AC, but it was pretty hard. SInce that was the only one he had going that wasn't purple for miles around, I decided to poke. Of course I had tandem blood cultures with a lot of other bloodwork too, just perfect for a hard stick. I poked him with a syringe, got the flash but not much else. I changed the needle position slightly, hoping the bevel was just sucking up against the vein wall. Still no luck. I only got about 1.5 mils out of him. Grr. So I withdrew the needle and gauzed him up. Time for the ped's bottle. Pediatric blood culture bottles only need 1-5 mils, so I was ok there. I put the blood in the peds bottle and scouted another place for the second poke. Blood cultures are usually paired to give an accurate assessment of the spread of a bacterial infection. His right hand was promising, so I looked there. Just a little pinch I told him, pushing the needle into the back of his hand. Of course his rubbery vein scooted to the side. Time to reposition and try again. This time I got a flash in the butterfly. Success! Of course he was none too generous, only gave me 8 mils. I neede 12 for the other cultures and more for the blood work. I put 5 of the 8 into an areobic culture bottle and split the rest for his blood work.
As I had expected, I was pretty zombie-like during the shift. I lurched my way through the midnight charting from 1-3 am, until lunch time. After break I was slated to do the 5th floor (surgical) for morning canvas. Normally 5 main has a lot of draws, and this morning I had 22. After 5 am I hit a groove and started blazing through my draws, lots of vacutainable people in a row helped to make up time. At 7, Mindy came to pick me up and I was homeward bound. I slept until 1130.