The rest of the month of January was more of the same. Our TICU nurses were joking that we had to run into a few people on our commutes home, you know, to fill up the TICU again. Our census got so low that pretty much every nurse was being floated to other units. My last night in the unit I was scheduled with one other resident and we started the night off with two patients. We of course accumulated a few more as the night went on, and I would walk over to the Surgical ICU and help there throughout the night as well, so at the end was maybe even more busy that usual.
Despite a generally low level of critically ill patients this past month, we still had our handful of deaths. From time to time, we were faced with having to step into that role of explaining reality to a family in denial, or bringing the family back to the hospital after a change for the worse. And when bad things happen to good people, and a daughter pleads with you, tears streaming down, "doctor, fix him please! please! please fix him", sometimes you think you'd pay $1000 to know what the right words would be.
From nights in the TICU, it's been an easy transition to nights at St. Vinny's in Bridgeport. February is the first of three months in a row I am scheduled at St. Vinny's. Why as a junior resident I'm scheduled three months in a row... not even the chief who made the schedule could tell me why. But either way these three months mark the end of my 15 straight months without a break. Surprisingly, it hasn't been as bad as I was thinking it would be. Mom & Dad came to visit me once. I went to visit them once. I had my good share of golden weekends. Of course, Vinny's isn't exactly easy for the junior resident, which is why we don't do all of our months strung together. But I guess I'll just finish these 15 months running uphill to the finish line. It'll just make vacation time in May that much more welcome!
Much Love!
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