Faith was taking care of a patient whom she had admitted to our unit 5 days prior. Upon getting report from the dayshift nurse, Faith noticed the patient's speech to be slurred. Faith contacted the on-call nurse practitioner, who ordered a stat CT of the head. Faith performed an NIHSS scale and the NP asked RRT to come to assess the patient. The rapid nurse didn't think the patient was having a stroke, however, Faith still took the patient down to CT. Keep in mind Faith is around 4 months pregnant herself.

I helped Faith transport the patient down to CT and back upstairs since there is no transport staff for stat transfers on the night shift. The CT tech said it looked like the patient had an "old bleed" however the patient had no history of such a thing. Faith contacted the NP to let her know the CT was complete. It appeared the patient had possible cancerous metastasis to her brain. Hematology/oncology and palliative were consulted. The patient had originally come in for hyponatremia and had no CT scan of their head in the ED, only of their abdomen. Great assessment and advocation.