we had our iv lab today. practiced on the dummy arms and we all know that doing things with those dummies is entirely different than working on a real, live, heart pumping person.

so i brought home a new angiocath and talked my hubby into letting me poke him! :chuckle

he went for it so i tried it. missed the first stick in the back of his hand. didn't feel real confident before i even attempted it.

so then i tried it again in his other arm and I GOT IT!!!! :)

woohoo! i feel so relieved! now maybe i won't panic when i actually start doing this in the hospital next week.

Good job and a brave hubby too!

that was sweet of your husband! way to go!

Can I borrow your hubby? :chuckle

Congrats to you! That first IV poke is so stressful. I did the same as you except on my mom instead of my husband--he wasn't even going to go for that! After doing that twice on my mom I felt so much more comfortable when I started my first IV on a patient.

Hello Everyone!!! Relately new poster here!!! I think I posted one time about 8 months, ago. I need a spell checker...

Anyway, pardon my ignoriance.... But, I'm courious.... Can you really do this on a person that's "not" in the hospital?

I'm getting ready to start nursing in Fall '03. Maybe Spring '03 with luck... I have most of my pre-req's done except Micro. Therefore, I've often wondered how I was going to get in some practice on IVs... Is there anything that you have to be careful about when sticking your friends and family?

Hey, my daughter has veins like a garden hose and she let me practice on her.

Good one!

I learned how to do IV's this week too. I was not given an IV kit to practice with at home. I would love to poke my husband. I can't wait to go to my clinicals and do a real one. Hopefully, my instructor will stick me in SDS or ER so I can practice them all shift.

Shoot~

I know all through school, my hubby was my practice "dummy". I could poke, prod and just about anything! He was such a good help....and never complained...

Is is ok to practice skills like that at home without an instructor? I'm not saying you aren't good at it or that you would do anything weird or wrong, but I wonder if it's ok with your school to do that? If you're not sure, you might want to keep that bit of information to yourself so you don't get into trouble. I was told that a few years ago someone in our program catheterized her husband and was kicked out of school. Let me know?

Jill

:chuckle @ baby nurse. my friend, em, said the same thing....she wanted to "borrow" him too. he said sure, tell her to come on over. :chuckle

he thinks we are funny when we get into our 'nursing' mode. likes to razz us a little. helps prepare us for the real world.

as for whether or not we are supposed to do those types of things at home, i've not officially asked. :chuckle we were told we could practice whatever we wanted but that we were to keep in mind infection control (but we were going over caths at the time...not IV's)

and i wasn't going into this blind. we did have the lab today. complete with the lecture before the actual practice. i would never do anything that could put my family (or anyone for that matter) in danger. i stayed with they safe zones and far away from any arteries. :chuckle didn't want to clean up the mess. j/k

from the school's POV, they don't allow sticks there because it's a small CC that has no way to dispose of the hazardous containers.