beep beep dreams

maybe someday i'll be able to go to sleep without dreaming of the sound of beep beep in my ear. working in critical care, we have all sorts of alarms hooked up to people, and they go off all the time. i mean, ALL the time.

reasons for an alarm to go off; oxygen saturation too low, heart rate too slow, heart rate too high, premature ventricular contractions, premature atrial contractions, supraventricular tachycardia, asystole, leads off (white lead, red lead, black lead, brown lead, green lead), ventricular tachycardia, or........the patient scratches his chest, coughs, or a pretty girl walks in the room.

ha. so, funny story, i have this patient, a teenager-ished kid who faceplanted off of a skateboard (sidenote-my kids will NEVER own skateboards) and broke his face. well, 'bout 2100, his cousin and his girlfriend walk into the room to say hello to Kid Brokenface, and his heart rate skyrockets into the 150's . ha. awesome. the girl was pretty cute, but, man, talk about an akward time to be hooked up to a heart monitor. ha.

so, pretty much there are alarms going off all the time. after working for three nights in a row, i go home and hear the alarms going off in my subconscious. man, it drives me nuts.

when i used to work in a warehouse, it was forklifts, same in manufacturing. now beep beep, heart monitors.