Ortho floor nurse here. Was in the grocery store this afternoon looking like a zombie after three nights and this woman stops me and says my first name. I had no idea who she was. Turns out I had her for four nights after her hip replacement like a year and a half ago. She was terrified to get up and I spent forever with her that first time walking to the bathroom.

She told me she walks two miles every morning now. Showed me pictures of her and her grandson at the lake. I stood there holding a box of cheerios trying not to cry in front of the produce guy.

We almost never find out what happens after discharge. Anybody else ever run into a patient out in the wild? Good or awkward, I want to hear it.

Drove to work today. Parked. Walked all the way in. Badged through the employee entrance and was halfway to the locker room when it hit me that I'm not on the schedule until Thursday.

I've worked four nights in a row so my brain just put me on autopilot. The security guard watched me turn around and didn't say anything, which somehow made it worse.

I bought a coffee from the cafeteria so it wouldn't be a total loss. What's the dumbest autopilot thing you've done after a long stretch? Please tell me I'm not alone in this.

Picked up an extra shift because they offered incentive pay and we needed it. My daughter's spring recital was tonight. My husband sent me a video and I watched it in the med room on my break and she was looking at the audience the whole time like she was trying to find me.

The money covers her dance fees for like two months so I don't even know what the right answer was. Do any of you have a hard line on pickups or do you just take them when the money's good and deal with the guilt later?

Had three patients in MICU tonight. One on CRRT, one on two pressors, and a fresh intubation. Staffing said it was that or someone gets sent to us from med-surg with no ICU experience, so I said fine, give them to me. Which is on me I guess.

Nobody died. Nothing bad happened. I just kept thinking all night about how close the edge was. If two of them crumped at the same time I don't know what I'd have done. Run between rooms I guess.

I keep going back and forth on whether I should've refused and filed something or whether saying yes was the safer choice for the patients. I honestly don't know anymore. What would you have done?

Med-surg. Five patients plus one in active alcohol withdrawal, already pulled his IV once and tried to climb out over the rails. Sitter got pulled to cover a suicide watch on another floor. I get why. But now it's me running back and forth every ten minutes while my other five get whatever's left.

I called the house sup and got the "do the best you can." I wrote it up. I don't know if that does anything.

What actually works when you escalate this stuff? Is there a magic phrase that makes them take it seriously or do we all just pray nobody falls

ER. We've had this guy so many times I knew his birthday without looking. Every time it was ETOH, a fall, a lac, sometimes all three. Last time he was here he was really sick and I honestly didn't think we'd see him again.

He walked in tonight through the front door and the triage nurse almost put him in a room out of habit. He said no, he just wanted to show us his chip. One year. He asked for me and the tech by name. The tech had to go stand in the ambulance bay for a minute.

We don't usually get to see the after part. Has anyone else had a frequent flyer come back for a good reason? I need more of these stories this week.

Saw the offer letter by accident. She left it on the printer. Two years experience, hired last month, $3.10 an hour more than me. I've been on this unit nine years. I trained half the people she's going to be working with.

I'm not even mad at her, good for her honestly. I'm mad that the only way to get paid what I'm worth is apparently to quit and come back.

Has anyone actually gotten a market adjustment by going to HR with numbers? Or is that a waste of time and I should just start applying