Yesterday I had On-Call #4. It was a completely different experience than On-Call #3 from a little over a week ago. I think I was being punished for having the quiet one. ;-)
Four people died on my shift yesterday. Oh, wait. That would actually be five, but for the last one, the unit didn't call me until about four hours after the family left, and then only because they noticed they did not have the all-important release of remains form filled out. A form I would have gotten completed had they called me at 2 am instead of 7 am. Anyway.
At least the deaths happened consecutively instead of concurrently. One took about three hours. One took about two and one took about an hour. One didn't take much time at all because the family did not come to the hospital. All I had to do with it was call them and have them fill out the above-mentioned form over the phone.
I also kept getting weird pages yesterday. The page would read "Call holding - dial this number" and when I did, I got a recording of "Please hold while we assist other customers" the first time and the second time, the person who answered said "I'm sorry - the person you are holding for is not available." Odd.
It finally got quiet around 11:30 and I was hoping for an uneventful night.
I get a page at 12:50, about 20 minutes after I'd fallen asleep. She apologized for paging the wrong number.
1:35, after I'd been asleep again for about 10 minutes. A page with not enough numbers to be a phone extension, so I tried a bunch of different combinations, to no avail.
2:07, after I'd been asleep for about 10 minutes. Same as above, different number, was finally able to get a hold of someone. After talking to her, being transferred, being hung up on, and trying back, nurse finally left a message that a patient would like to see me. And yes, that would be now.
So I went and had an intense conversation with a patient for about an hour. At 2:30 in the morning. But he seemed genuinely thankful and helped by the visit.
Page was quiet until 6:51, when they were freaking out about the death that didn't have the form filled out. I told him a chaplain would take care of it and would bring the form over.
7:18 got a phone call from a patient who wanted a visit. Yes, now. Another challenging patient. I got to on-call report about three minutes late. At report, we went over the three reports from the weekend and I led morning prayer.
There were several other pages, referrals and a few other visits, but that's the gist of it.
I walked more than 6 miles.
We then did a verbatim and I left the hospital about 10:45. Came home, ate some lunch. Slept for about 3 1/2 hours.
Friday I'm on call again.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Ashing
Today, I spent the afternoon ashing people. I ashed doctors. I ashed patients. I ashed nurses. I ashed in patient rooms, hallways, in the chapel. I got ashed by another chaplain.
I'm guessing that most of you know what I'm talking about, and it's nothing evil or dirty. Today is Ash Wednesday. We had an Ash Wednesday service at Rush. After the service, all the chaplains got little containers of ashes to take to our units and other areas of the hospital to give ashes to whomever wanted them. I took mine up to my unit and also to Mike's unit because he was post-call today, so he had gone home early this morning. When I got back to the office, Karen asked if I would go back to the chapel and give out more ashes. She and Fern had been there, but about 5 minutes after they left, more people had come, wanting ashes. So I went and ashed some more people, including a child in a stroller.
I guess it's been a while since I've updated the blog. CPE is going along. Three weeks from tomorrow it is officially over. It is unofficially over three weeks from today. Our final day is "Play Day" where we get free food and get to go do something fun...thus, I don't count it as an actual CPE day ;)
I had my third on-call last Friday. The person who was supposed to do it was sick, so they needed someone to cover. Nick came up with the fantastic idea for me to see if I could do it. Then, I would have my time made up and would not have to come back after the unit was over. I had been scheduled on March 19, the Monday after the end of the unit, for on-call to make up the hours that I am in class at LSTC. I thought that was a good idea, so I asked and that's what I did. Everyone was very thankful, since I don't think anyone else wanted to take it. Turned out very well. The pager was very well behaved. I think I got less than 10 pages the entire 24 hours, some of them I was able to pass to other chaplains because they were there and the pages were for their units. I watched some TV and actually slept a decent amount of time. Not the best sleep, but it was sleep!
Classes here at LSTC are going ok. I like both of my in-class classes, Lutheran Confessional Heritage and Worship. I feel like I'm learning a lot. Online history is ok. Life and Letters of Paul....I think I could like the class more if I liked the professor. But at least I'm not in-class, so I only have to deal with him via email and online postings. :) I also feel like I am supposed to be utterly flabbergasted and surprised at what we're learning. And I'm not, really.
But anyway. That's it for now. Tomorrow I get to do Story Theology at CPE. I'm actually kind of looking forward to it.
I'm guessing that most of you know what I'm talking about, and it's nothing evil or dirty. Today is Ash Wednesday. We had an Ash Wednesday service at Rush. After the service, all the chaplains got little containers of ashes to take to our units and other areas of the hospital to give ashes to whomever wanted them. I took mine up to my unit and also to Mike's unit because he was post-call today, so he had gone home early this morning. When I got back to the office, Karen asked if I would go back to the chapel and give out more ashes. She and Fern had been there, but about 5 minutes after they left, more people had come, wanting ashes. So I went and ashed some more people, including a child in a stroller.
I guess it's been a while since I've updated the blog. CPE is going along. Three weeks from tomorrow it is officially over. It is unofficially over three weeks from today. Our final day is "Play Day" where we get free food and get to go do something fun...thus, I don't count it as an actual CPE day ;)
I had my third on-call last Friday. The person who was supposed to do it was sick, so they needed someone to cover. Nick came up with the fantastic idea for me to see if I could do it. Then, I would have my time made up and would not have to come back after the unit was over. I had been scheduled on March 19, the Monday after the end of the unit, for on-call to make up the hours that I am in class at LSTC. I thought that was a good idea, so I asked and that's what I did. Everyone was very thankful, since I don't think anyone else wanted to take it. Turned out very well. The pager was very well behaved. I think I got less than 10 pages the entire 24 hours, some of them I was able to pass to other chaplains because they were there and the pages were for their units. I watched some TV and actually slept a decent amount of time. Not the best sleep, but it was sleep!
Classes here at LSTC are going ok. I like both of my in-class classes, Lutheran Confessional Heritage and Worship. I feel like I'm learning a lot. Online history is ok. Life and Letters of Paul....I think I could like the class more if I liked the professor. But at least I'm not in-class, so I only have to deal with him via email and online postings. :) I also feel like I am supposed to be utterly flabbergasted and surprised at what we're learning. And I'm not, really.
But anyway. That's it for now. Tomorrow I get to do Story Theology at CPE. I'm actually kind of looking forward to it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)