Tonight I was involved in my first code blue - the patient has been on our unit for two weeks - he wasn't very old, and was there because he fell and hit his head and had a subdural hematoma, had a craniotomy done and had a tracheostomy done. Well tonight the hospitalisst came to our unit to handle a few of our concerns and this pt was one of them.
The pt hadn't been doing well all day - don't know the exact details as this pt was obviously unstable and was therefore given to an RN, not someone I can handle... and the hospitalist decided to do a stat CT scan... found out that this person had a VERY large DVT in the one leg.
Well this person gets back up to our unit and maybe 10 minutes, the hospitalist goes into the room and next thing I know, they're calling a code blue.
Since it's my first - I go in and try to see what I can do - at the very least observe - well I stood at the door and handed out the PPE (personal protective equipment) - masks, gloves, gowns - to those who attended the code... since there waasn't anything else I could really do - can't do any of the meds, they had a respiratory therapist there already and an ICU support RN there... so I observed in my corner.
It was intersting to say the least! What an adrenalin rush - I can certainly see why some people want to be part of the code blue teams! They worked on him for 20 minutes and then pronounced him as he had had 3 pushes of epinephrine, 2 pushes of sodium bicarb, and 1 push of vasopressin.... and he wasn't profusing, they couldn't get a pulse or rhythm.... the family was CRUSSHED!!!!
I felt bad for them for sure, I couldn't even imagine losing someone THAT fast - one day there, the next day gone.... I think I should look into a living will!!! For that matter - how many of you guys out there have one?
I still remember my first code blue - what a scary but very educational experience! Fortunately, things turned out differently for my pt.
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