Saturday, January 19, 2008

What a Difference 3 days makes!

I don't really have a lot of time to write much here today but I thought I would put a little something up on the Ol' Blog.

I was off for 3 days and when I get back it's crazy busy here. This is the classic "Feast or Famine" in my little hospital and we are definitely feasting over here.

When I last worked I had a whole two Q4's to do through the night, now 3 days later there are 7 Q4's and a ventilator to keep me busy. Much to my surprise though all of these Q4 treatments are actually really sick. Forgot to mention the 2 bipap's we have running also which are not for sleep apnea but for respiratory distress, so yes they happen to be pretty sick to.

A common theme I noticed with these sick patients and with some of the QID patients also was that there is a Mucomyst craze right now that just seem to have started. Not only is it Mucomyst there is this large concotion of Mucomyst, Albuterol or Xoponex, and Atrovent together ... but wait there is more, not only do we throw in those 3 meds we add it all to a Ezpap. This takes FOREVER! There are also the bonus patients who twice a day get to add in Pulmicort, WOW what treatment that becomes.

Sounds like the last 3 days there have been an extra RT per shift which is good but very unusual at my hospital. My night tonight I had someone here til 2am then again at 4am so I only had to brave it alone for only 2 hours, really wasn't that bad but most of the other RT's have never worked in a Large hospital and are not used to a heavy patient load...I am so I was fine.

Well gotta run just ran a ABG with a CO2 of 91 and a PH of 7.20, time to go save someone.

After that my next task is to get off work and hope my car starts since it is -20 degrees Fahrenheit right now and I will be wearing the nice and thin scrub pants...brrrrr

Keep em breathing.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

There's been a craze for mucomyst here, too. Maybe there was an article in JAMA or something about it, got all the docs thinking of how great it would be. Now, at my hospital, they've begun to use Brovana as well, so we often wind up doing a nebulizer with Brovana, Pulmicort, Albuterol, Atrovent, and the odd Mucomyst all through the dreaded EZpap. I feel your pain, my brother. I feel your pain.

Good luck not freezing through your scrubs.

Rick Frea said...

Of course it is important to dry those secretions with Atrovent and then break up the dried secretions with Mucomyst so the patient can expectorate. It's classic therapy.

Rick Frea said...

We are just the oposite over this side of the lake. The -20 degree winds, I think, are blowing this way though.

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