The Worst Day Ever

On the 19th, two of the worst things that can happen in nursing happened to me. I know that I've been writing really downer stuff lately, so if you don't want to read it, don't. It's just how it is.

I was in the middle of my first medication pass, getting things done on time, and then it happened. I was giving an insulin injection to a patient, and the needle went through his skin, into my finger. I got a freaking needlestick injury. I was bleeding, and so I washed my hands really well and told the supervisor. I filled out one incident report. I had to leave the building and get blood drawn at a clinic a couple miles away and ended up being gone from the floor for almost 2 hours. 2 hours! That's a quarter of my shift! I knew then that I would be there late.

Then, during the second medication pass, I was trying to go fast and ended up giving the wrong medications to a patient. I had to complete incident report number two, call the doctor, and call the family members (always scary). The patient ended up being fine, but it was the fact that I made two big mistakes in the span of four hours that killed me.

A lot of my nursing friends have been really reassuring, telling me that it happens and that they've all made these mistakes too. Nurses are human and mistakes happen. I'm not a perfect human being.

On the positive side, I only had 2 hours of overtime yesterday, not 3 like I usually do. I'm getting better slowly, but surely.