Sickness and Love/Hate Career

I have been sick for almost one week with this annoying cold that just won't go away. Nick and I went out Friday night with friends and that night I started losing my voice. My voice never returned Saturday and Sunday the cold finally hit. I spent most of the day in bed. I couldn't go to work Monday or Tuesday because who wants a sick person seeing very fragile people. I would be mad if someone who was visiting my loved one was coughing and obviously had an active illness. I was finally feeling ok to work yesterday. It was more boredom than anything. I worked all day yesterday and was to be on call that night. My coughing is the worst at night and the only thing that works is Nightquil to help my cough and help me sleep. I couldn't take it that night so I decided I would probably be up all night coughing. Instead I was up all night working. Here is the saga of my night.

We were planning an admission on Thursday of a man dying from cancer. Him and his wife had gone to California on a business trip and he ended up in the hospital due to complications related to his cancer. He was declining so fast that the family did not want him to die in California, but in Colorado. So, the family was paying for this man to be life flighted from California to Centennial Airport and transported to his mother's home in Littleton to die. Suddenly plans changed and this man was coming that night (wednesday). He was to arrive at the home at 600pm. My job was to admit him and make sure he was tucked in. We had all the equipment there and important medications were there. We thought everything had gone so smoothly and little did we know the mother had completely different plans that what we thought. She thought she was getting an RN at bedside 24hours a day not a nursing assistant. She wanted IV fluids which we didn't order and she wanted everything done right then and there. These tasks are very hard to coordinate at 7pm. I was so frustrated that the lack of communication was putting alot of stress on the mother. To make a long story short I spent over 5 hours with this family getting medications, IV fluids, getting help etc. It was so frustrating and so exhausting for me because all of this could have been done before 5pm if we had known. I finally got home around 1145pm. I spent 2 hours coughing and not sleeping. Then I got the call at 200am that this man had died. And suddenly all my frustrations and feelings had changed. I realized that my company had helped this family and this man get his wish to die in Colorado not California. The family was so stunned that he had died so quickly but you would be amazed at people's will to live to achieve a certain goal. All that stress with coordination, getting meds, making sure certain people would be there tomorrow all went away because of fullfilling someone's wish. This is why I love my job.

I ended up getting home at 445am and only sleeping a couple hours the rest of the night and needless to say... MY COLD IS BACK!!!!! I am not feeling as good as I did wednesday and had to stay home from work today because I was first exhausted, and second I am coughing like a chronic smoker. I was able to get some sleep today and plan to take 2 Nightquil tonight and hope to be well enough to work. Those nights rarely happen and having cold did not help my siuation at all.