A nurse's nightmare

When I went to bed last night I didn’t know I would bespending the night enduring the worst nursing shift of my life.

But I did, well sort of, I did it in my dreams.  I dreamt I was running around trying totake care of my patients and getting nowhere.  

First, I received a new admit and a patient from PACU, bothat the same time and I couldn’t find anone to help me get them into bed.  My new admit was a very old man in his 80’s or 90’s.  He was covered in urine.  His foley catheter was overflowing andthere was so much urine under him it looked like he was laying in a kiddy poolfilled with urine.  It sloshedaround when I moved the gurney across the room.  The room was full of furniture and supplies, none of whichwere useful to me and all of which were in the way.  I couldn’t even find his bed.  I couldn’t find a new foley catheter.  He had a dozen family members crammedinto the room surrounding his gurney and they were all watching me, waiting forme to get him off the gurney, into bed and cleaned up.  But I had no help, couldn’t findsupplies and the room was a disaster! 

I started running around the unit looking for supplies andlooking for someone who could help me. Supplies were everywhere, in bins similar to products at Ikea, and noneof them was what I needed.  Therewere miles and miles of hallway too, just like Ikea.  There were nurses everywhere, all of them unavailable tohelp me.  There were managers andcharge nurses having meetings in the hallway, and they all looked at me as if Iwas nuts for asking for their help. I started to cry.  I bawled even, as I ran around the unit looking for suppliesand help. 

Finally a few nurses took me seriously.  I frantically explained that I neededhelp and they followed me to the room of the old man laying in the urine filledkiddie pool.  Then, one afteranother, nurses kept filing into the room, each washing their hands with pilesof soap and each one using the isolation gowns, (did I mention this patient wason isolation?)  They just stoodthere not knowing what to do for me and clogging up my room.  This apparently seemed like a good timeto put a  new foley catheterin. 

With my manager and the educator and all my peers standingthere watching me, I kept dropping the foley catheters on the floor and wouldhave to get a new one.  Thensomehow the new ones were full of urine already.  The scene bounces between the foley catheters, the mounds ofsoap the nurses were using, my patient in a kiddie pool of urine and mecrying.  

I start to direct peopleto move the furniture out of the way so we can get the patient off the gurneyon into bed and realize I have to ask the dozen family members to leave.  I can tellthey don’t want to go but I ask if all can leave but one so that we can havesome room to arrange the patient comfortably.  They start to file out of the room, as I escort them to thedoor there is a little young lady in scrubs yelling at me at the doorway.  Like I had done something wrong.  

I’m pretty sure she was a nurses aideand I think she was mad that I needed so much help.  I was crying and yelled at her about how bad my day was andhow little help I had and if she knew what I’d been through she wouldn’t beyelling at me.  

I went back to theroom and started directing people on moving pieces of furniture.  There were tables, and chairs.  Big ones and little ones and abassinette and little rocking chairs and a sofa.  The patient's bed was on the opposite side of the room fromwhere it needed to be.  Of course,everyone is washing their hands after each piece of equipment they touch, andwith copious amounts of soap, then getting on new gowns and gloves.  I got exasperated with the isolationgown at one point and threw it and my gloves off saying “I just don’t careanymore”.  Immediately after, I gotsome nasty bodily fluids on my hands. Looking down I realized I had a big cut on my left palm that was nowcontaminated with bodily fluids. So I began washing with lots of soap and water.

Eventually Igot the help I needed.  The roomwas arranged.  The bed was where isshould be and the multiple chairs were lined up out of the way for the familymembers.  I had a clean foleycatheter to insert and I wasn’t crying anymore.

This was the most vivid nursing dream I have ever had.  What does it mean?  Is it a metaphor for the nursing profession?

Being surrounded by supplies and unable to find what youneed.  Two patients needing you at the same time.  Fellow nurses unavailable to help.

Family members with expectations far beyond what one humancan actually deliver.  Not a single doctor in sight.  Managers and charge nurses who appear to do nothing but clogthe hallways.  CNA’s with attitude.  Family members in the way.  And apparently nurse co-workers who are obsessed with soap, and isolation gowns.  Cluttered rooms.  The crying.  Taking shortcuts that get you in trouble.

UGH!  I hope that's not what nursing is.