1st Rea

I have a cold. I have one per US presidential term. This is it, and I was afraid to go to work cuz how can it be allowed to work in the ICU with a cold? But thankfully when I arrived, two other nurses had the exact same symptoms, so we must have all caught it from the same carrier. So, that sucks, but at least they didn't tell me to go home.

***

We had our first rea today in the ICU - heart restart with AED.

I'd never seen doctors move fast before. No kidding.

There are only 8 beds in ICU and the vitals from each display not only in their rooms but at the main desk, all 8 compressed onto one monitor.

I'd been through lots of yellow alerts, for example, an alarm goes off and blinks yellow on the patient's blood pressure reading when it reaches a certain limit. No one worries about those.

But I heard a new alarm and saw flashing red on the EKG and all 4 doctors who were there ran into the room, with 3 nurses, one of which had grabbed the AED and ran it into the room.

This patient is 27 years old (which gave the nurses something to commiserate about later (several are near his age) and I saw him,  eyes wide open as his heart rate went off the chart (he was unconscious).

They did what I learned a million times in my medic training, "Everyone back, I'm shocking the patient!" And a doctor administered the shock. Another doctor started chest compressions immediately and the patient came right back, blinking, confused. Not before even 10 compressions were performed.

The poor guy said he felt weird and they said, "Next time you feel weird like that, will you please press the nurse call button?" OK, OK then.

Finally I got to see a real "rescue" situation. What I spend all my time training for, and never get to see, even when I worked on the ambulance.

Not long later, "My People" arrived in blaze orange and took him away. Two emergency doctors were on hand (the ones who work with the medics) to make sure he survived his trip to Remscheid, to a hospital with a heart unit. We are a very bare bones hospital, I'm seeing.

***

I'm often bored and desperate for something to do, and was thrilled when Ralf said I could accompany him to MRT for a sweet Portugese lady named D' Lordes Lorienn Lor...something so long I could not remember it much less pronounce it!  Ralf wasn't very nice in his directions to me as I helped him wheel the bed around corners and into the elevator. He mumbles, my German isn't perfect, so I stare at him blankly a lot. It's humiliating.  And seriously, pushing a patient around on bed into and out of elevators is a *learned skill*.

Then I sat for 40 minutes watching "Lorien" get a brain MRT. She'd had MRTs before and was not worried but I was so worried for her! I needed the sedation simply to observe her head-immobilization device! I am not claustrophobic, but I think an MRT would create that in me.

 The MRT/Roentgen (xray, in English)  nurse was thrilled to talk to me about what she was doing, and showed me each picture as it developed (even of the arteries in the brain!) and answered all my questions. I asked her if she could interpret the images, even though she's just the "photographer", after all this time. She said, "A little" and she showed me a potential tumor on Lorien's brain.

"What music is the patient listening to, trapped in that tube?" "Classical." "Good, cuz my dentist ruined the Beatles' White Album for me." She is so nice, afterwards she said, "Take my car keys and walk toward the MRT machine."

"I'm scared."

"Just go!"

I walked sure enough, the keys lifted off their chain, drawn to the machine. She said even a missed EKG electrode on someone's chest is a problem. I wasn't even allowed to have my pens in my pocket during.

After 30 MINUTES! The sweet Portugese lady was released from the tube, from her "helmet" - Ugh, I could not stand that. The patient said, "You do what you have to do" and smiled at me. What a sweetheart!

I took her up to the 6th floor for "regular patient" check-in (whatever that is called - "stationaire"?)

It was my first time taking a patient in a bed somewhere totally alone, and rolling those beds with a heavy patient is not that simple. I went slow, and brought her to the top floor of the building, and said, "Oh, you have a view! Wonderful!"

The "stations" staff (the staff of the floors of the building that are for long(er) term care, are always so nice to me, calling me by name and I'm always, "How do they know my name?!"!" Oh, nametag.

I told her to get well soon and she smiled. So happy she has such a gorgeous view to look at! Rolling hills turning color and airplane con trails in the bright blue sky. 


***

Herr W's breathing regimen is being altered, I heard them discussing in the shift transfer meeting (when morning shift leaves and evening shift begins, there's a  status meeting - sort of like a Scrum in a software company).

The doctor wants him to breathe on his own more often (always?) but with O2 support (and the "artificial  nose" as they call it - a device that moistens the air he gets).

His sister arrived today from America - the one I'd spoken to this week! But she had to leave cuz the guy in the next bed was our "rea" patient. I guess I'll never see her again.

***

On the shift change meeting the evening shift saw Jeny looking ill and she admitted she had a cold. (I had offered her my throat drops but she didn't want them.) Jeny was sweet to me all day, but I never got to work with her. Anyway, Petra (I've rarely met a Petra I can stand) said, "Jeny, what you need to do is chop up an onion, and fresh ginger, and lemon, and make tea out of that, and drink it."

Then she said, "And you need to chop up an onion, put it in a sock, and hang it by your bed. It will heal you."

I felt my jaw drop.

THIS IS A NURSE!?!?!?!?!??!?!

Onion by the bed therapy!? Oh good grief! This is so typical German. I'd been told by others in Germany to rub onions on my skin. I tried it once, OK. Whatever.

At least J got a laugh out of that story.

***

I just made one of my specialties, American brownies, for the ICU workers, that I'll give them tomorrow, my last day. They weren't all nice to me, but the ones who were, deserve it.

My throat is killing me, my nose is stubbed up, but I will be fine. 

This weekend: Mag's FIRST TTEAM CLINIC!! And Aachen! All Nations Cup!

When will I rest? Hrm...in 2 weeks.