Fourth of July

Well, to start the day we had four traumas by noon. One died, one is paralyzed from the waist down (hopefully not permanent), one broke two legs and an arm or two arms and a leg (I can't remember), and one trauma patient's head was cracked open like an egg (don't know if he'll live or not). As I was leaving, the first traumas of the evening were starting. We get them in the morning and evening as people travel. The mid-day traumas are usually idiots on ATVs, motocross, jet skis, etc.

Can I just bitch a little? I swear when I was a floor nurse who only worked in one unit, I still cared about the other patients in the hospital and would float a nurse to another unit if necessary. I did not like to float, but I understood it. Tonight, I got all of this crap about not having to float because it is a holiday and the other units should have staffed appropriately. They did staff appropriately but sometimes there are unplanned things like census higher than normal or a nurse barfing her guts out. I just get tired of hearing all of the "we aren't taking this patient" or "we don't want to help that floor" or "those guys always do this or that". The word "always" is one of my least favorite. Nothing is ever "always"; it can be most of the time or sometime but "always" is too concrete and rarely if ever occurs. I don't want anyone who reads this to think poorly of nurses. Most of them love their jobs, are very compassionate, incredibly smart, contentious, and hard working. But the whiny ones I could do without.

I can hear the neighbor's fireworks outside. Trigger has crawled under Mike's chair to be protected from the scary noises.