Blue Fingers

What?  I  haven't posted a story from my new job yet?  Well this is a good one to start with.  Though I'm sure anyone who reads these posts have already heard the story.

I feel like an idiot about 75.8647% of the time at work.  Whether it being a doc correcting me, having to ask another nurse a question, or just being clumsy in patients' rooms, I always seem to be doing something sub-par.  I suppose that with experience and time these feelings will gradually become fewer and farther between.  But this week I was able to, for once, be the one who was right.  So yes, I will gloat.

Enter "Blue Fingers Girl".

I walked into my patient's room whose complaint was "blue fingers".  She didn't seem in any distress or sick.  I did a quick assessment on her.  Yes, her fingers were cold, but it was like -3 degrees outside from where she had just come.  On closer inspection of the finger I concluded that it must be dye.  The girl denied touching anything blue and her increasingly worried parents in the corner didn't seem to appreciate the fact that I didn't understand the gravity of the situation because clearly their daughter was turning hypoxic.  I was about to pull out an alcohol swab to rub off the dye when the doc came in.

"So you have blue fingers?  Let me see.  You probably have what's known as Raynaud's syndrome..." I wasn't about to  interrupt the doc to make a fool out of myself again so I left.  I ran into the director of nursing who was working as an ER nurse that night because we were slammed, and he had triaged the girl.  I decided to ask him what he thought.

"Oh, it's Raynaud's syndrome..." and then proceeded to explain to me what it was.  Yes, I know I act like an idiot most of the time, but I do know what Raynaud's Syndrome is. 

"Really?  I thought it looked like blue dye."

"No.  Her fingers were really cold, and her capillary refill was pretty sluggish.  I'm confident it Raynaud's".

I left to go take care of some other patients, and a while later saw my director of nursing back at the nurse's station. 

"Hey, did you hear that girl washed her hands and the blue came off.?!  I guess you were right.  We should call you Sherlock".

I was trying so hard not to smile ear to ear and roll my eyes at the same time.