The E-Mail I didn’t mail.

I was informed recently that I send really depressing emails from work to my parents.  I was in a funk for a while… I am gradually coming out of it, but it took too long.  Night before last I started to write an e-mail, and I stopped.  It went as follows…

this is not a depressing email from work.
I think I have a concussion I have been banging my head against a brick wall for so long.
it is frustrating to call doctor after doctor and have no one acknowledge that something is wrong.
I will leave knowing I did everything i could for my patient.
and that his doctors let him down.
not a good feeling.

Pt had a bp of 212/102 for somewhere around 30hrs WHILE in the hospital.  By the time I’d got him he had some pretty significant expressive aphasia… meaning he was still talking, but having a super hard time finding his words.  This gradually went to him talking but making not the slightest sense.  I called the primary… who ordered 1 pointless drug and a neuro consult. I called neuro, who yelled at me for calling him at 1030 on a Saturday night.  Never had any problem with this neurologist, and he yelled at me for calling about dangerous BP, mental status changes and a pounding headache… I was not a happy person.  Neuro called cardiology… who ordered a pill.  a pill that is really a prostate pill that lowers blood pressure as a  side effect.  It did AMAZING things… lowered the blood pressure to 198/96.  I made doctor calls like 6 times.  I had my charge nurse call, cause they were obviously not listening to me.  They pretty much ignored her too.

Fast forward to 8am.  Day nurse comes in… the same as the day before.  She walks into the room to assess the patient, says “oh my word his bp is high and his mental status has changed from yesterday!”.  she called a rapid response, 3 doctors showed up (I talked to them all the night before, remember…) and all of a sudden they order what they should have done 2 days before and all is well.

I was so frustrated.  I DID MY JOB.  I advocated for my patient.  I got yelled at multiple times by multiple doctors.  and yet… I feel I failed my patient because I couldn’t do what needed to be done… but there was nothing else I could do.   Day shift walks in and everything falls into place.  There are times I hate working nights.  There are times I wish day shift could work a night so they will stop talking about how easy we have it… 

And then there are times when I just need to acknowledge that the system has flaws, that some doctors are jerks, and that I walked into my patients room last night, 24hrs after he flat out couldn’t talk, and he saw me and said “hi Corrie!”.  He knew me, he is okay, and now it is time to put it to rest and sleep…