Good Times

This past week went by in a blur. It was so busy on the unit we could barely see straight. Thankfully the rush is over and this weekend was actually pretty slow, except for the rare triplet delivery at 35 weeks that went off beautifully. What was funny is her waters broke, yes waters, 6 hours before her scheduled c-section. Baby B's water broke first, and Baby A's water broke as she sat on the OR table for her spinal, C's was broken when they got to him after the other two were delivered. A great outcome, and a rare treat for us. I actually circulated for a triplet delivery 4 years ago, and because a labor patient came in 2 hours before her water broke, I didn't end up getting to do this one. I had been taking care of triplet mom up to that point, and if that one patient hadn't come in, it would have been me. It was good someone else got to have that experience. That pay period, I ended up with 25 hours of call-in pay, which will make for a sweet check.

On a different subject, I learned a valuable lesson this weekend: don't pick fights with a dresser and TV. Okay, so we live in a 100+ year old house. Over the years as the house settled, the floors developed a slight slant to them. Generally, the house will settled out and the floors everywhere, except our bedroom, dip ever so slightly down toward the outside of the house. If you put a marble on the floor, it will roll toward the outside walls. Not the case in the master bedroom. The wall that my long dresser is on actually dips ever so slightly toward the center of the house. Well, Friday night my in-laws were in town. My MIL was passed out in Clara's room, and my FIL was still up watching TV down in the living room, right below the master bedroom. It was about 11pm, and Husband was in bed and I was headed that way. I got upstairs and wanted a pair of pj pants to wear. My dresser, I'll admit is overstuffed with clothes, and Husband's sock/undies drawer is always open. The TV, my jewelry boxes, etc are on top of the dresser. I tried to open the drawer that my pants were in but to no avail, so I lean over, start pulling, and you guessed it, the dresser came crashing over on top of me and the TV hit me straight in the forehead. I think my FIL downstairs about wet himself. The kids and my MIL never stirred, though. I did have a pretty good sized knot on my forehead and a decent headache for the rest of Saturday. No worries that I have a subdural hematoma, or even a concussion. Just a little bit of embarrassment that my dresser and TV fell on me, but I now have motivation to clean out those damn drawers! Now if that was the only uncomfortable thing this weekend, it would have been enough. Sunday night at work, at about 10pm, I felt a twinge after I had finished peeing that I had only felt 2 other times my entire life. And I thought "Great, I think I'm brewing a UTI". I knew if it was truly a UTI, within the next 2-3 hours, I would know for sure, because the first 2 I had progressed rather rapidly from that first twinge. The first two UTI's I have had, started after not getting up to pee after, um, well, shall I say a bedroom rendezvous after a night of partying years ago. I learned my lesson and always, always get up afterwards. So I"m not sure what happened this time because sure enough, about midnight, I was peeing red, and when I say red, I mean red, and about ready to lose it from the urgency, pain and pressure. And I still had 7 hours left in my shift, and another 9 until the doc's office opened. I started downing cranberry juice and water, hoping to flush things out a bit. I had a labor patient who ended up delivering for me and I was so uncomfortable I did something I have seen other nurses do, but have never done myself: I asked that delivering doc to write me a script for an antibiotic. By this time, it is 6am, and I'm actually starting to feel like I could possibly spike a low temp if I don't get treated. I could have waited another 3 hours to call my docs office, but I was tired after a 12 hour shift, and it would be at least an hour after I called to get my script picked up. The doc was kind enough to do it and didn't seem to mind, but I still feel horrible. I really try not to take advantage of the fact that I work with doctors and have never asked for something like that. I've seen other nurses do it and the docs don't care. And in all honesty, if one of the other nurses hadn't said "Nurse Lochia, there's Dr. H" and got his attention, so he was waiting to see what I needed, I wouldn't have asked. And it wasn't like I was asking for pain meds, or sleep aides. It was for a UTI, and we see UTI's all the time and I'm sure he knows after the years of working with me that I wouldn't ask if I wasn't miserable. He gave me a script for Cipro, offered pyridium, but I said I'd just do cranberry juice, and I was able to take the first dose at 8:15 a.m. When I was crawling into bed, I had that feeling I usually get right before I spike a temp, like my skin is super sensitive. Hard to explain, but anyway, I've got drugs. I'm no longer peeing red, but that urgency and burning pressure at the end of the stream is still there. So I'm in for more fun and glasses upon glasses of cranberry juice for awhile.