Curious about life in Emergency?

Note to self: Take glucose breaks so my blood sugar isn't lower than the patient's while I'm giving an amp of D50 [intravenous dextrous]!

Today I went in to do discharge paperwork for another RN, and the patient was a teacher I recognized from high school. I think we both feigned ignorance. I also met someone who knew my grandmother in her younger, political years.


"[Quietly with a sheepish voice] I hate needles... [louder and in a creepy voice] but 'Jay' loooves needles, pain keeps 'Jay' going"

-says my patient who walked at least one mile barefoot in snow, being treated for frost bite.

"Last time I had this done it was a new nurse and it hurt and she obviously didn't know what she was doing... you did great though, I didn't even feel it, how long have you been a nurse?"

-hahahah! I told her "oh, a few months" but technically I've only been working for one month. That was an awesome ego-boost [for iv starts]!

A severely inebriated man comes in on my first day in triage and has difficulty describing his knee pain, the intake nurse is also having trouble understanding him. "R------ did you keep it wrapped and take the medications we gave you yesterday?" I said recognizing him from his previous three visits this week.

A 30-year experienced Emergency RN pulls me aside one day; "the world outside isn't really like this, you can forget that sometimes working in here, but remember the rest of the world is happy, safe and normal...

most the time."

My days in the ED tend to come with "themes" 
like a broken bone day, 
or everybody's bleeding!-day, 
there are general themes like 
our community is just not well today 
or the general public is not taking care of themselves today... 
there was also the post Christmas weekend theme: 
everybody ate and drank and sat around too much 
and now abdomens, dormant illnesses, cardiac muscles 
and stress-inducing conditions are all a'flare. 
I'm always curious what the next "episode" will be about.