We all have those days that make us sigh and want to start our shift over.  Have any of these situations ever happened to you?

• Your “stable” admission crashes upon arrival to the unit?
• You get sent home due to low census and just as you are about to leave, you find out 2 new admissions are coming?
• You wait for a medication to arrive from pharmacy and then proceed to drop it on the floor after it arrives?
• You arrive to work only to discover that you were scheduled off?
• You stay for day shift after working all night?
• You’re usually a “pretty good stick” but then have a day where you just can’t find a vein?
• You volunteer to stay and help out with staffing and then are pulled to an unfamiliar unit?
• You find your patient lying in a bed flooded with cold water due to a leaky cooling blanket?
• You finish your assessment, reposition your patient, and allow visitors to return to his bedside, and then realize you forgot to give him his suppository?

Fortunately, the positive experiences and feelings that I’ve encountered as a nurse outweigh any of these memories. Some of these examples even bring a smile (or smirk!) to my face and make me shake my head as I recall when they occurred. Do you have a story to share?