Had a huge scare at work today-blood...

[christvs, DNP, RN, NP]

I've been an RN for 8 weeks now & today was by far the worst day for me. I was disconnecting a patient's IV line that was going to her morphine PCA pump from her IVF line & to make a loooooong story short, as I was doing it, her blood starting leaking out of her IV & went all over my fingernails. I did not have gloves on cuz I did not expect that to happen. It turns out I should've clamped her tubing shut before I got rid of one part of it. (but rest assured, I'll be wearing gloves for every SINGLE thing I do from now on-promise!) & she's

HIV + & the blood got on my nails & I have a few hangnails/little areas of broken skin around my nails, so of course I was freaking out. I went to the ER, filled out the incident report, got blood drawn, & am now taking the prophylactic antivirals-AZT, etc. And I need to follow up with blood tests in 6 wks, 12 wks, & 6 mo. I'm just so scared thinking about it. I know I should've grabbed gloves the SECOND I saw her blood coming out of her IV, but unfortunately my first instinct was so go to her & stop the bleeding & that was when I got some on me-before I grabbed the gloves. I learned my lesson, I just hope I'll be okay. Now I'm going to try to not think about this worst case scenario for the next 6 months. The docs/other nurses all say my risk of getting it is so low since it only got on my nails/hangnail areas, & cuz I also washed really well with soap & hot water after it happened, but still....how am I supposed to get this off my mind? Has this happened to any of you before? Any comforting words?! Thanks.

-Christine

[acgemt]

I wish I could say something to help you feel better. At least you are taking the necessary steps to protect yourself (medications, incident report, etc). I hope that everything works out for the best.

[RainDreamer, BSN, RN]

Oh wow Christine, I'm so sorry that had to happen. I don't have any experience with going through this, but I'm sure other people here have. I'm sure it'll turn out just fine, like they said your risk is low. But I wouldn't be able to get it off my mind either. I hope you can try to relax some about it. Hang in there!