The Calm was all too brief...

We've had several days in which both NICU and Critical Care has been WAAAAY too peaceful. I'm talking the kind of brain-numbing do nothing for hours kind of peaceful.

I told them a couple of days ago that I was going to go crawl under my boss's desk and sleep since he's on vacation.

Oh boy, I shouldn't have spoken the words out loud.

We've been swamped in NICU. The last couple of days, almost every baby has required tests of some kind. That's around 60 babies a day. We hit the ground running at 4 a.m. and it's been almost 9 a.m. before we get finished with morning rounds.

Wednesday we had a 27 week babe come in, and within an hour a set of 28 week twins. All ended up having arterial lines put in. But, I had to go in and do the initial sticks prior to the art lines being put in. I have to say I'm proud - not only to be able to do it, but that I feel the respect of the doctors and nurses when I come into the room.

Of course, in a lot of those cases, Dr. SmellGood is in there and I fall in love all over again. (Hey, Doc, would you just stand *right here next to me* while I do the stick?)

The crummy part of the last few days is that Little Mary Sunshine got in a snit again. The scenario was that instead of the usual 6-8 of combined lab scientists and techs to do a.m. draws, on that particular day there were only three of us. Should have been four, but one of the techs decided not to come to NICU that day and got away with it because the boss is on vacation. So, she put on her ugly face and even though we just tolerated her mood (we're used to it now), she complained to one of the lab scientists that she was being maligned and the LS had had enough. She called in one of the higher ups - a woman who tends to execute the staff and then after they're dead or fired, finds out the truth of the matter when it's too late - and reported the incident.

So, apparently there was a come-to-Jayzuss meeting yesterday; I missed it because I had the day off. Whether I get called in on it, I don't have any idea. At least, I didn't get called in today about it, so maybe I'm not part of the problem. At least I never thought I was, but you never know!

LMS did, however, quietly piss me off today. I said nothing to anyone, but am blogging about it here to get it off my chest. Seems BHTS has a new policy concerning late term abortions.

In the past, when we've had a situation like that come up, the remains have been transported to the morgue. But now, it sounds as though prior to transport to the morgue, the body is brought to surgical pathology for the necessary samples to be taken, then the body is taken to the morgue.

Apparently, when LMS arrived at work today, she walked into the Critical Care lab where we punch in and found the Lab Scientist holding the tiny body bag which had just been delivered for Surg-Path. Of course, Surg-Path doesn't arrive at work till 7, so the Lab Scientist gently laid the little one's body on the desk till they arrived.

LMS thought that was the funniest thing.

"You should have seen the look on (Lab Scientist's) face! It was SOOOO funny!"

Yeah, LMS, I'm sure it was - the sight of a young woman cradling a body bag just had to be something to laugh about. I'm sure the fact that she was holding back tears never even occurred to you. You just aren't old enough to think about the fact that this baby, taken away at 20 weeks gestation was just a little while before a little soul who had no chance of survival outside the womb because her little heart was so riddled with holes that there was no chance whatsoever for her to make it.

It never occurred to you that there is a mother someplace who is weeping at the loss of her child and a father who is every bit as broken up as his wife, but still wants to comfort and protect her.

It never occurred to you that hopes and dreams were dashed, that now there must be tissues and biopsies and slides and microscopic invasions to find out why before the family can get on with the business of grief and burial.

But, all you can see is that it's funny.

The other side of that coin also happened today. Air Care brought in a patient. For those of you unfamiliar with blood counts, a person is considered anemic when their blood count is around "8". Our initial labs indicated that this patient was a 4.7 - and of course the frenzy began.

Before it was done, we'd issued 12 units of whole blood, 4 units of plasma and 1 cryogobulin.

One of the nurses finally told us what was going on. The patient was a young mother who'd had a C-section and bled out. They almost lost her before Air Care got her here. I have no idea how many units of blood they gave her while transporting. Before I left for the day, her crits had climbed back up to 8, so she was still alive, at least. I'll be looking for her name tomorrow. And, there's no word on the baby; we presume that all is well on that count, but baby was not transported.

And that's the world of NICU and Critical Care for now. I'm on call this weekend. I sure hope it's a quiet three days.