Well, it’s been awhile, hasn’t it? Unfortunately, I have no computer right now, so my blogging has gone by the wayside. But, what’s been up with me? Let’s see…..I’ve been back to work for about 2 months now. Same stuff, different day. LOVE OB nursing. HATE the politics. But I suppose that’s any job. I get so frustrated that they staff by this arbitrary “grid”, and don’t take into account the acuity of the patients or the fact that OB is essentially an ER. For instance, I was by myself with a patient who was being induced because she was overdue and had had a non reactive NST in the clinic. Her BPP was 6/8, but it was thought that is was best to get her delivered. So she came in in the evening to have a cervical ripening agent placed and then we were going to watch her overnight and start Pitocin in the morning. I was there by myself, my back up was home on call. She got called in to work in the ER at about 1:30 in the morning. Meanwhile I get a call from the hospital operator telling me that our AM induction was coming in in labor (the hospital operator thing is a whole other can of worms). Anywho. I look up this lady’s information and find out that she was 4 centimeters in the clinic that day and was a multip. I call my supervisor to give her the heads up that I was probably going to need my backup back. Her response, “We’ll see”. So this lady comes in and she’s 9 centimeters, very stretchy. Luckily my help got to come back, but in the meantime, I’m trying to get the doc in on time, the delivery stuff set up. The patient goes on to deliver without incident, but here’s the thing. Me and my back up were in this delivery for awhile. Who was watching the strip of the person who was being induced for the nonreassuring NST? Nobody. Sure the supervisor was out there, but she doesn’t know OB. We also had one night when we had 2 labor patients neck and neck, and a mom/baby. It was just the 2 of us. Ended up being 2 vacuum deliveries and 2 (mild) shoulder dystocias. Meanwhile, the mom/baby had her light on a couple of times and the only reason I heard it was because I had to leave the other patients room. If this mom had wanted to send her baby to the nursery, she couldn’t have, because we had nobody there to watch a baby. It’s all just fantastic. But, we seem to have enough people to shuffle papers and make arbitrary rules. Errr…..
In the meantime, my grandma was diagnosed with lung cancer. Not a surprise considering her smoking habit, but sad nonetheless. It’s hard when you know the course it will most likely take. She chose to do chemo. I’m not sure how I feel about that. She’s not young (78ish), and I just worry that the treatment may make her remaining time left miserable.
In the end, I get to come home to this…..<img src="http://mnrn.wordpress.com

My sweet Kate turned 4 months old on the 22nd. She was spending some quality time with her Auntie April that day. So, my wonderful sister caught her on camera (again!). Thanks April!

And I don’t know how many to go. But I hope my favorite teachers have a great year!