Stringish things!

Good morning! Please lookee, lookee at what I received in the mail! I was lucky enough to win Marcie Patch's giveaway...please see her blog button on the right side of my blog. She is an incredibly talented quilt designer and maker, and I won two of her patterns! I have been eyeing these patterns for a while now...and was so lucky to win them. Her patterns are very concisely, well written and fun to follow. She also sent a very nice note and a neat box of quilt note cards. Thank you Marcie!!

Remember the string quilt of my last post? I have been hand quilting it...some of the strings were pretty large, so I jut kind of meandered through the widest strings. Fun!

Strings? Threads? Of course, if you see them here, it must be your imagination. :)

Another string pieced quilt I just started...I love this!! Pretty turquoise in the middle. We shall see how it turns out.

Below is my nursing weekend...pretty intense! Skip right over if you want, but if you are interested, it is pretty fascinating.

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I worked the last 3 days, 14 hours days. I was in charge, which means I am in charge of critical care, 25 employees, 20 patients. And was doing staffing for the whole hospital, deciding where to best utilize staff to maintain and care for each pt. And I had my own patients too. Of course, we were short staffed. Whewww!!! and then.....

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The ER called. "You need to take a full cardiac arrest patient and place him on hypothermia protocol."

Egads!! I have been reading about this and knew we would start this, and the huge medical centers have been doing this for some time...but we just received our cooling hypothermia machine and protocol on FRIDAY! and this was Saturday, and of course I had no idea how to do this. But the patient needed it....I would give it my all.

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So up came the 78 year old patient. He was eating breakfast at home, and just did not feel well, called 911, and the paramedics got there just in time to see him do a nose dive...full arrest, code blue. Shock, shock, shock, epinephrine, intubated (breathing tube placed), scoop and run for the hospital. 1 hour later, he was with me.

Sooooo, we placed huge IV's (central and arterial lines), and ran the equivalent of ice water through him. When he was about 92 degrees F, we placed the cooling machine on him, and kept him cool all weekend. This is in theory supposed to stop the cellular damage of the organs, most importantly the brain. So, temperature measured constantly, blood pressure measured constantly, whoops, low BP, started on levophed, vasopression, epinephrine drips. Too acidotic, started bicarb drip. Sugar too high, started insulin drip. Pt now waking up, had to sedate on diprivan drip. Pt shivering, had to paralyze with a nimbex drip. OH, NO!! V-tach!! Shock, Shock!! Amiodorone drip. Whoops, no urine output, start continuous dialysis. Turn, oral care, turn, careful of his flesh, remember he is super cold and circulation is poor. Foot pumps/ted hose on. I can't tell you how labor intensive this was....just incredible!! And remember, none of the nurse's had been trained on this at all. Hurry up, read and figure it out. HURRY!!

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Today, he is warming up slowly. He is waking up. So we shall see if we saved his brain and other organs. I found out later...he is a hugely important person in the country, a bishop of a church. Not that it makes a bit of difference to me! Every person gets the same treatment, you know?

Thanks for listening...you nurses out there can relate for sure!

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Gratitude's:

Technology, to give patients a chance to live who otherwise would have surely succumbed.

Day OFF!

Telephone, so I can check up on this patient.

JulieK