I CANNOT believe that I am going back to school in a week! I am very excited, but I think that's because I just want to be done!!

In the meantime, I have just been enjoying time off as well as working as much as I can before school starts because once that happens, I won't be able to work nearly as much. I have been floating a lot to my hospital's ICU stepdown unit which I LOVE. The nurses on my home floor treat me well, but the nurses on the stepdown treat me even better. I just love the whole nature of the floor and the fact that it is still critical care also makes me really happy because that's what I want to do when I graduate! Unfortunately the floor isn't hiring despite the fact a full-timer quit and a part-timer just put in their 2 week notice to quit...but they keep calling me to come in so they obviously must like me :)

For those who don't know, the ICU is for the critically-ill patients. You get patients with traumas (MVA's, GSW's, impalements, etc...generally those go to the SICU, or surgical ICU) as well those with critical diagnoses, such as ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome) which generally leads to intubation and having the patient on a ventilator, drug OD's/toxicities, DIC, DKA, TBI's, etc...when the patient gets better, but still needs close monitoring, they go to the stepdown unit. Sometimes you will still see ventilators, but generally patients who have trachs that are hooked up to them. Everyone is still on telemetry. You will still see things like DKA, respiratory problems, cardiac problems, guillan barre, etc. Patients aren't sedated in the stepdown like they are in the ICU. Once they get better, they are then d/c'ed to a general medical floor. It is truly amazing to see patients get better :)