Divine intervention

"OMG I saved a choking baby today at work! My baby patient turned purple on me and thank God I was inside the room to suction her secretions out! Still gives me goosebumps thinking that it happened in the right place and time that I was inside the patient's room and was able to save my baby patient's life! Imagine if I wasn't there and the fresh c-section mom is sleeping. My goodness! Thank God for life's miracles!"

-- That's my mini-summary of what happened tonight at work that I have posted in Facebook and Twitter. But here's the complete full story...

I wasn't having a good day at work to begin with. One of the nurses from the day-shift that I relieved earlier forgot to chart the pain medication that she gave. Then I gave my patient the medication, later finding out that the medication was already given an hour ago! The day-shift nurse had charted it LATE! So it turned-out that I gave the medication too soon! So I had to call the MD and reported what happened to the house supervisor, nurse manager, and wrote a variance about it. The nurse manager told me that if at all she will confront the day-shift nurse and rest assured that it was not totally my fault. Anyway, that's out of the topic here. What i'm just trying to say is I was not having a good day at work at all.

Then, I had to admit a fresh C-section patient. Of course I expect that she will be tired and sleepy since she just came back from a major surgery! So my patient was sleeping when I did my hourly rounding later the shift. And inside her room next to the patient's bed is the baby's crib since we recommend mom and baby to room-in. Anyway, when I was inside the patient's room, I decided to check her baby for a pee or poo in the diaper (since it's important for a newborn baby to have a pee/poo within 24 hours). Sure enough, my baby patient had her first poop! How exciting, lol.

Anyway, when I was about to change my baby's diaper I noticed that she was gagging and started choking and all of a sudden her pink color turned to purple! I felt that she was having a hard time breathing and her arms and legs were getting stiff! My heart started racing and I was scared and nervous!! I almost called a Code Blue! In my mind, I was like "OMG what am I gonna do??!!" But in times like this the adrenalin will rush-in and you'll just be surprised on what you can do in an emergency like this! I immediately took the bulb syringe at my baby's crib that looks like this:

And I started suctioning the thick secretions coming out from my baby's mouth. Then I burped her like this:

...until I stabilize her color. It was probably a good 5 minutes until I got her color back to pink. Whew!!! What a sigh of relief!

[And oh yeah, during those times that I was suctioning/burping my baby, I realized that I still haven't completed changing her diaper so there was a lot of poop all over her clothes, in my hands (since I didn't get the chance to put-on my gloves), all over the crib case and ID bands! Oh my, my poor baby patient had poop all-over! Shucks!]

Whew! What an experience! I just saved my baby patient's life! You know immediately after that incident (and after cleaning-up and changing my baby, of course!), I ran to my coworkers and told them what happened. One of them said something that still gives me goosebumps until now, she said, "..your guardian angel and the baby's guardian angel talked, to have you come inside the patient's room and see the baby choking in the right place and time!" This is indeed a divine intervention! The guardian angel saved the innocent one and thank God for using me as the instrument of it. I feel very great about it! My first encounter of saving a choking baby. Nothing happens in this world as mere coincidence, because everything happens for a reason. Ain't it? Imagine if I did not come inside the room and the mom was sleeping and the baby started choking.....Thank goodness for life's miracles!

Sometimes this job upsets me but actually it feels very rewarding when I realize the true power of this profession. These healing hands are blessed by God from the moment we start our shift and to the moment we end it. And I'd like to think that nurses are also protected by God, needless to say. So no matter how I hate this job (90% of the time), I will just think of the true meaning of it because it's really all about saving and affecting people's lives - especially the cute little ones! :)

Have a good/day night everyone!