Oh What A Night!
While working last weekend, I was lucky enough to get to work in the NICU. That’s where I’m completely happy, I spend the night dancing throughout the rooms and singing like a fairy tale heroine.
Right.
I was blissfully happy until we found out that we were getting an incredibly sick PPHN baby from a regional hospital that tends to hang onto kids too long. Not to mention, they like to cut off the ET tubes as short as possible and the tube is almost always high. Nothing like having to retape a tiny tube on a very sick child with no tube to work with.
When the baby came in, we thought we had it under control. All of the equipment was ready to go at the bedside and there were six of us in NICU that night, all with solid experience.
Did I mention that it was a full moon?
I truly believe that full moons shine the hardest on central Indiana. It has to be. There’s no other explanation.
Every piece of equipment didn’t want to work well that night. The nitric popped out of line from the jet and succeeded in spraying water all over our charge RT and fellow. There was no tube to work with and it was in fact, very high. The oscillator that we got after the jet didn’t work was missing all kinds of pieces. Even the quick connects were gone! The heater kept alarming and we changed all of the pieces out at a frantic pace until we came to the last conclusion, it was the circuit that was making the heater alarm! We changed the circuit, and then they decided to go on ECMO.
Doesn’t that just figure?
All six of us worked like crazy that night. It took every person and every skill possible to make it through. I’d say we all earned our weekend pay and then some. Just another fun night in the NICU!