Tele Class, Part II

Today was the second week of telemetry class... and let me just say that it's a good thing I am being paid to attend! Excrutiatingly boring. This week we did atrial and junctional rhythms. So at least it was mildly more exciting than last weeks 8 hrs of lecture on normal sinus rhythm! :-) I got to share with my coworkers the story of my experience pushing IV adenosine... still one of the scariest things I've ever done as a nurse. They were duly impressed with my story, particularly because that's not something we could do on our floor at UW (it would totally be the stat nurse's responsibility)! For those that aren't up on their pharmacology, adenosine is used to get someone out of an abnormally super fast heart rate... but the way it works is that it stops the heart. Which then restarts again (hopefully in a better rhythm) because the drug has a half-life of like 15 seconds. But those few seconds where the patient's heart has stopped... because you pushed a drug through their IV... yeah that is pretty scary!!

So anyway, we had a good time sitting in the back row and sort of paying attention. :-) I really enjoy this group of co-workers! Ashley used her cell phone to take a picture, which luckily got inadvertently deleted. It was actually a hilarious shot of Cher, Abdul, and me, sitting in a row, all three of us completely asleep. Haha. I don't think I slept for very long... when I woke up we were still on the same page of lecture notes... but then again it might have been. Hope I didn't snore!

Interestingly, there was a big announcement at the beginning of class, both out loud and via a powerpoint slide. The slide was entitled "Latte Emergency". Apparently, the espresso stand's steam wand broke, and there was no espresso available. Crisis!! You should have heard the cries of outrage. Seriously! Then I asked whether there was drip coffee available, and they looked at me like I was crazy, and said, "Of course there's drip coffee!!". So the big production was over the lack of lattes, not the lack of coffee in general. Only in Seattle!

This week we had lunch in the hospital cafeteria. I gotta remember to pack my lunch next week... yeah, hospital food is not the best. We're a funny group... there's Jesse, your typical Seattle-ite, who biked like 1,000 miles to get there and was wearing his t-shirt with the giant recycling logo on it (no joke), which goes nice with his long hair. I swear he actually pulled a half a cabbage out of his backpack and started just eating it. Raw. Weird. Also, he is going naked bungee jumping for his birthday in a few weeks. Apparently he is really into "naked adventure sports". I didn't realize there was such a category. Hopefully they won't add it to the Olympics! At least not the winter games.

Then there's Ashley, from Oregon, who told the story of how she took her cell phone to some scary place in Renton to get it unlocked, and then the story of how she tried to take a pineapple into the Galapagos. Haha. Then there's Abdul, who is simply hilarious... mostly because of his African accent and his occasional misunderstanding of the English language. For example, he swears that one of our colleagues at work used to be a male stripper, but we're pretty sure he just misheard something. :-) He laughs at himself, which is good, because pretty much everything out of his mouth is funny. Cher's the person I'm probably closest to. She's from California, and moved here over the summer, too. She decided today that she is going to give away all her clothes because all she wears is scrubs and pjs. Sounds like another nurse I know. Hm. :-)

Class was good in the afternoon. I managed to stay awake! We did have some excitement, though, when the fire alarm went off. Abdul jumped up, grabbed his coat, and ran out of that room like HE was on fire! The only person in the room to get up. It was so funny. Then the instructor announced that we would be staying put (despite the alarm) because we were so close to the front door and they'd let us know if we needed to evacuate. So she continues to lecture with the alarm going off. Couldn't hear a thing! But the alarm did keep me awake, so it was ok. After it went silent, all the sudden the door opens to the auditorium, and who walks in but Abdul, with a sheepish look on his face. He climbs over Cher and takes back his seat next to me, giving the explanation, "Well, I didn't want to burn up!". I guess you had to be there, but I laughed so hard that I cried. :-) Luckily we got out of class a bit early, which was great.

On that note, I gotta go figure out what to make for dinner. :-)