"Ho hum....just another day at the hospital..." I sang to myself as I walked down the hall to the nursing unit where I would be working. "I wonder what today will be like?"

I stowed my survival gear (lunch and medical reference books) and went to get my assignment for the day. Our unit was packed, and it looked like I would be "team-leading" with a LVN. We had eight patients for starters. Wow! That’s a heavy load, even if you do have a good working partner. However, I was to be working with an LVN that had never worked on our floor before, and had only been at Parkview once before...in the ER. She’d never done team nursing...and had no clue where anything was. She didn’t even have a code to pull meds from the PIXIS. To make matters worse, I had three of the most difficult problem patient’s on the floor. (I suppose every nurse could complain and say that...but...they’ve actually told me that they give me the more difficult patients and families sometimes because they think I can handle it...or at least I’ll be nice about it!) Well, today I wasn’t sure I was in the mood for handling it...and I felt myself close to tears as the night shift began to give the wonderful glorious report of all the trauma that had taken place during the night. "Lord help!" I breathed silently. "I don’t know if I’m up to handling this today! This is just tooooo much!"

About halfway through report, our charge nurse walked in the report room and handed me a slip of paper. "I hate to do this to you Melody, but you’re gonna get the first admit. It’s a 62year old male patient coming in from the ER with Syncope and Cardiac Dysrythmias. He’s had some type of fall and head trauma as well."

That’s just what I needed at that moment, but I tried to smile and took the paper. "Lovely!" I thought. "Will the pile-up never end?" We went on with report as I coached the new LVN what to take note of or be aware of. I felt the weight of the world, or at least of my almost nine patients, heavily upon my shoulders.

After we got our notes and the night nurses had gone home to sleep (where I wished I still was), I began checking charts for new orders and to make sure our medication were correct. I explained to the LVN how team-nursing worked and what she would be responsible for.

About this time our new admission arrived on the floor. So I immediately grabbed a stack of admitting paperwork and went to his room to make my initial assessment. (An action I would soon be very thankful for!) He talked with a lisps and I wondered if he’d been drinking. He was alert, but only partially oriented. He had a laceration on his forehead and swelling under his eye. It looked like he might have been in a fight. Vital signs however, were stable, and all appeared well. I looked him over, listened to his heart and lungs, checked his pulses, checked his pupil response, and scanned for other signs of battle scars. Nothing noticeable. So I finished my paperwork and headed back to the station. Still had to call the doctor for orders for my new guy as well as check the rest of the charts of my initial eight patients. Thankfully, I was able to get a hold of the doctor quickly and jotted down his orders on a piece of scratch paper.

Lights began buzzing as one patient or another (or their impatient family members) called out for this or that. A bedpan, a clean robe, ice water, pain medicine, a newspaper, or a house cleaner to mop the floor. I scurried about trying to organize my team and the tasks at hand and had barely gotten in to see two patients who needed pain meds when my charge nurse called for me. "Melody! Something’s wrong with your new ER patient! You gotta come right now!!" I rushed to the room. He was gasping for breath and his head was back as his eyes stared off into space. His body was rigid and stiff and shaking slightly. But he didn’t seem aware of those of us crowding around. I pulled his dentures out that were threatening to block his air pipe, and we turned up the oxygen. BP was 201/93 and climbing. "Was he like this before?" the charge nurse asked. "No! I was just here. He wasn’t completely oriented, but he was alert and talking to me!" So we yelled at our secretary to call for a "Doctor’s response." Soon the ER response team and doctors were crowding around. They’d taken a CT earlier that had been negative, but obviously something was up. Had he had a seizure, was there more trauma to his head than we’d realized? What was going on? I didn’t know...but I just did my best to answer questions and to follow Doctor’s orders...and before I knew it, we were wheeling his bed down the hall to ICU. I hadn’t even had time to write out all his initial orders! The next 45 minutes I spent finishing my charting, writing transfer orders, and doing the paper work for the "Doctor’s Response." By the time I got back to my floor and to the other poor forsaken eight patients (good thing I had other nurses willing to jump in and help out!), I was really behind. I didn’t finish assessing my final patient until almost 11am.

Ho hum....just another day at the hospital...but certainly not the kind of day I’d been hoping for.

Thankfully, while I still felt like I was behind all day...things did settle down. But the exciting events weren’t over. This time however, it came from one of the Nursing administrators, a lady who has been solidly against my re-hire because of my requests to work every Sunday instead of Saturday. About an hour before end of shift, she came up to the station.

"Hey Melody! What are you doing when your contract finishes?" she asked. "Youth Conference, family holidays...the usual..." I replied. Then she pulled me aside. "We’d like you to consider coming back and doing another contract with us...or maybe even being full time regular staff." she told me. "One of our top GI surgeon’s has requested we recruit you to work with his surgery patients upstairs. What do you think, would you consider it?" I have to admit, I was totally blown off my feet. I mean, I’ve had my challenging times at Parkview, and this day was certainly one of those days...but I’ve also loved it! I’ve had some of the best patient interaction of my entire nursing career...and I love the medical staff...doctor’s and nurses...that I get to work with. I’d love to work there more, but I’d just assumed my time was over. "Well....I’d have to think about it...." I began. "I mean, I love working here, and I like working up on the 3rd floor. (Who wouldn’t? It’s all newly refurbished, patients have private rooms, and the doctors are great...well...for the most part!) "But..." I continued. "I can’t work every other weekend! I don’t mind doing some Saturday’s when it’s an emergency...but not every other one!" (And I explained.) She smiled. "You know, I didn’t realize it was such an important spiritual conviction to you. I think we might be able to work with you after all...come to my office when you have time and we’ll talk more." She smiled again and walked away. Wow! I was even more blown off my feet. Not only was she offering me a great position....but she was now possibly willing to work with me on my Sabbath issues! I had some serious praying and thinking to do...

And so ended day one of my work week...yes, just another day at the hospital, but a learning and exciting one at that. However, I guess God didn't think one day of excitement was enough for my week. ;-)

Day two dawned cold and rainy. I took the time to actually curl my hair....which I only do every few days...and then I realized it was raining! (Something that occurs so rarely here in Southern California that it almost shocks the socks off you when it happens!) "So much for curled hair!" I whined to Valerie as I prepared to leave. Back to the hospital I drove, pleading with God to let me be a "primary nurse" this day, rather than part of a team. (It’s much easier to work with five patients on your own then up to 10 with a teammate...!) Thankfully that prayer was answered...I was on my own. Still had two of the difficult group...but I felt a little more chipper and a little more up to the challenge. However, exciting events of the day were only beginning.

As it continued to rain outside, water slowly began to come through the ceiling and walls in some of the rooms. And thus ensued the mayhem of trying to find dry rooms for patients. It rains so seldom I guess, that they never take time to really fix the leaks...so leaks we had! I saw glimpses of news clips on TV where a homes were getting flooded, and mud slides were occurring. (And here I was in a hospital that was flooding...) I had to laugh as I thought about it, although it wasn’t really funny. (Whatever California gets, it seems to get in excess. First it was wind and fire, now it was wind and rain! "Is God trying to baptize us all with Water and Fire?") If only it were that simple, huh...

The day wore on. We’d get one patient to dryness and safety, only to discover that the new room had a leak too. We moved one patient down the hall to a new room and then the bathroom ceiling almost fell through...so we had to move her back to her old room. (Wont she have a fun story to tell the grand kids?!) We began to joke about playing "musical beds" versus "musical chairs." And so the day went. Our poor charge nurse was about to go nuts. I didn’t blame her. Then they tried to give me a new admission. At the last minute it turned out he wasn’t faring so well, and they sent him directly to ICU. (Guess they’d learned their lesson from the day before with me.) By the time the shift was over, we’d moved 18 patients and closed nine rooms. And I was exhausted...and almost wished I'd been part of a team! At least I was able to relieve a little pain, calm a few fears, and wipe a few damp foreheads. After all, that’s what being a nurse is all about, right?

So...maybe it was just another day at the hospital...but it was also another day of adventure...showing strangers that there’s still people that care in the world, and there’s still people to help you...even when the water begins to rise!

"Thank you Lord for another day at the hospital..."