Babies - R - Us

Well ... what a way to pick up blogging after a lengthy time away. I finished my MSN and changed jobs. Putting that aside, it seems that for as dull as my life seems to be, there's never really a dull moment ...

You won't believe what happened to me yesterday morning! There I was ... minding my own business while walking to my office @ 0830 when I encountered a tech from the ER pushing a VERY pregnant lady in a wheelchair. She hopped up out of the w/c and squatted next to it. I knew that wasn't good, so I went to check on her. They were on their way to L&D, but she refused to get back in the w/c and insisted on walking. She said she was having contractions every minute, and this was her 3rd child. Then she squeezed my arm & said she felt the head. What I saw certainly startled me - a huge, growing bulge in the crotch of her sweat pants! OH. MY. GOD!!! Mind you, I am a nurse for critically ill grown-ups, and have been for some twenty years now. I was screaming on the inside, but couldn't let her know that! A Case Manager rounded the corner, thank God.

Well .... we gently laid her down and delivered the baby right there in the hallway. I grabbed it, put it on her chest, and covered it with my jacket. It cried immediately, thank God! When more people showed up, as I stood up, I slipped and fell, hitting the back of my head on the floor. At that moment, I became a patient, too, with a huge scalp hematoma and a laceration that thankfully just bled alot but didn't need suturing.

There's conflicting information as to whether or not I lost consciousness when I fell. I contend that I didn't, but I guess a person wouldn't remember if they did. I do know that I heard a very loud "gong" sound and literally saw stars when my skull met the terrazzo floor. With blood quickly leaving my head (I take Coumadin), and a rapidly growing knot on the back of my head, I then got into the wheelchair that my new patients were in only 10 minutes earlier. The tech made the return trip to the ER pushing me instead of an empty wheelchair. I spent the next 3.5 hrs in the ER, where I got blood work and CT scans. No blood or growths inside my skull, but I have a follow-up with a neurosurgeon in the morning. I do have a masterful headache, but that's to be expected. Tylenol and an ice pack are controlling it pretty well.

I never even knew what flavor the baby was till the director of L&D came to visit me in the ER. I found out it was a girl, named Hannah - my favorite girl name, by the way. Had I ever had one, that would have been her name. Kind of ironic, huh? Hannah weighed in at 6 lb 6 oz.

All's well. Hannah went to the "regular" nursery, and she & Mom are doing just fine at last report. I'd like to think that any other nurse I work with would have helped if they were in the same situation, but with what I see out there, I just can't say for sure.

I got "rewarded" with 2 days off to recover from my headache (thanks to workman's comp). I have to admit ... I'm pretty satisfied with how things worked out. I guess that the year I spent working in L&D @ as a new grad over 20 years ago (God, has it really been that long?) finally came in handy, and that everything happens for a reason!