🙂1/13 8:40 am

Ethan’s nurse last night was a delight!  I thanked her for coming into work.  She was one of the ones I requested to be on regularly. 

When I met with the overall nursing supervisor yesterday I handed her a card with a dog wearing a dress on it. It was cute. I figured if I wrote it in a card with a cute picture, it wouldn’t get as easily lost.

I listed Ethan’s name and room number and a polite little note that read: For consistency of care, we would like to be assigned the following nurses if possible.

I had several names under day shift and several nurses under night shift. Really I could have written never assign us with nurse excuses or nurse loud mouth-bossy pants (don’t forget the hyphen). But I didn’t. I had my reason, consistency, and my solution. Boom! Professional and without emotion.

This morning the charge nurse came around. She collects info on how the night went and presents it to all the nurses as she gives them their assignments. I verified that I was not going to have nurse excuses again. She said “no”. Wow! Already I have my bright spot of the DAY. 

I then saw nurse excuses walk in and set her stuff down at the desk outside the room. I was sitting in my quiet panic bubble that was swirling with disappointment and anger, trying to contemplate what to do. Are you freaking kidding me?  Am I being Punk’d?

Quickly, Ethan’s actual nurse came over and told her she was assigned somewhere else. Phew!  Nurse Awesome to the rescue.

The wonderful nurse Ethan had last night actually listened to me regarding his blood draw for the test that measures how long it takes Ethan’s blood to clot. As I had mentioned to nurse excuses, there has been a large discrepancy in the results when the blood was drawn from Ethan’s arterial line versus his peripheral blood. His arterial line is much easier to use because it is already in an artery and you hook the syringe up and draw.

Peripheral blood requires a tourniquet and a little skill getting the needle in a vein. Ethan has become a pin cushion at this point and everything is bruised.

Nurse excuses used the arterial line. Her excuse was that the doctor said that was fine. It had already been sent to the lab. This was after I explained the whole bit to her. After a long day with this woman, it was close enough to shift change I just let it go.

Ethan’s heparin dose is adjusted based on this number. Because the arterial blood reads higher, the doctors in the past had adjusted the medication down. The dialysis circuit clots and Ethan has the blood in the machine wasted.

As soon as his night nurse showed up, she drew the sample from his peripheral vein, the number came back lower than nurse excuses number (surprise, surprise) and they adjusted Ethan’s heparin dose accordingly. They increased his heparin. Which is important for Janice as well as the two clots they are trying to prevent from getting bigger in his neck. I kicked myself that I didn’t catch it sooner.

That is likely the reason Janice crashed so much over the past few days.

Ethan had a relatively good night. His withdrawal symptoms remained steady however, he seemed comfortable.

I am so thankful he has a decent nurse today.