At Jeremy’s work:
At my work: On Tuesday, again we were short staffed at the hospital. I had 6 patients which is 50% over the ideal number of patients. I did have the day off on Monday, but really, it is not enough time to recover to do it all again. It is days like yesterday that I believe the next step I need to do is to do union work for nurses. It’s not safe for me, it’s not safe for patients when I am stretched so thin and very tired. I did not lose my mind (when we are stretched so thin, no one can help you because everyone is so busy and certain things need two people (some things like blood transfusion for an actual witness other things you just need strength like lifting), but I did run out of there as fast as I could after I handed over my responsibilities to the oncoming nurse. These are the things I did on Tuesday: manage NG tubes, manage a chest tube, manage a wound vac, find a polar ice cooling bath, have a patient threaten to walk out AMA (against medical advice) and try to convince them to stay, try to have conversations in three different languages, coordinate COVID testing with surgical teams, interventional radiology teams and the lab. I’m extra weepy today.
Vince’s COVID antibody testing is still locked out of the computer system. Because he is over 18, I can’t really manage all these accounts without his authorization. So I have to catch him when he is awake to do this stuff with me. Which is hard to do because he is hardly ever awake during business hours. I had to introduce to him today, phone trees and when to press zero and when to wait and how long to listen to hold music with LabCorp. I have very low expectations of when we will get the results. Now I’m just worried that the account associated with his email address will never get verified and then when he gets any more results from LabCorp for the rest of his life, he will not be able access them unless he does it from a different email address. This week, I can not imagine that he will be going to CA. Even if the dorms are open, is it even ethical to have him travel there if it isn’t necessary? I dunno.
Edda’s teeth are most likely going to have to be pulled. This makes me weepy. You know what else makes me weepy? When you stand in the hospital that has in its name with word National in it and on all their promotional paperwork they say they are ranked in the top 10? top 5? of all the children’s hospitals in the country and they (very nicely) hand you a sheet with a list of other providers and then they pretty much say, sorry, we can’t help you out here. wtf? I will feel better about this tomorrow. I’m too tired to process this properly. I think I’m going to find some ice cream.