My name is GuitarGirl, RN...

And I am an ER junkie.

I didn't think it would happen to me, but then again, no one ever does. Sure, I love working in the ER. I like helping people. I like making people feel better. I never thought I would actually say the following words:

"You know, it only takes one good code to totally make your day."

But I did.

It was a decent day, some non-sick people hanging out, some actually sick people getting taken care of. Not boring, but not exciting either. Then, in comes two EMTs pushing a stretcher with a woman on it who looked like a very large blueberry. (Think: an aging Violet Beauregarde.) Our ambulance triage nurse was a little new, and actually started to get vitals while the patient was on the stretcher. I jumped up, because I happened to have a resus room open, yelled for the docs and headed over with the intubation box, motioning for the EMTs to roll the woman's stretcher into the room.

Fifteen minutes later, the woman was successfully intubated. (Kudos to emergency medicine intern Dr. S--the patient had a short, fat neck, was very obese, and Dr. S got the tube in on the first shot. When I congratulated him, he said he used echolocation to guide the tube in. From now on, I'm going to call him Dr. Bat.) She had a Foley in (also no easy feat!), two peripheral lines and a central line, cultures drawn and sent, and meds hanging. Her sats were great, she was comfortably sedated, her other vital signs were stable.

Aahhhhh. There's nothing like a good code to make the rest of your day just fall into place.