nerdtonurse?

nerdtonurse? BSN, RN

ICU, Telemetry

Member

About nerdtonurse?

nerdtonurse? is a BSN, RN and specializes in ICU, Telemetry.


Just me.

Latest Activity

  1. I need help processing my first hospice patient experience.

    What I'd suggest....scopalamine patch (wonderful for noxious secretions/"death rattle"), Ativan, and IV benadryl, along with the morphine. When I've had people with liver problems, they itch and scratch like crazy. You're doing great -- it's hard t...
  2. IV pain meds standards??????

    Just give the narcs. You're not going to change them, and they'll make your shift Hades if you don't. An addict will seek their drug/ETOH until they decide to stop, and nothing you do or don't do will change them.
  3. INR increasing...without anticoagulation?

    Also, if the patient has cancer, they usually have low albumin (either d/t the disease process or malnutrition); low albumin can affect protein binding, making more warfarin stay in the system longer. I know seems particularly tricky to anticoag som...
  4. Nurses With Low Self-Esteem: Please Seek Help

    I see this as a chicken and the egg situation. If you have depression, you tend to have feelings of inadequacy, poor self care, you feel like you're not worth looking after, you doubt your abilities, so I would tend to think these are a symptom of d...
  5. Physical Violence Against Nurses

    Folks, we are NOT paid to get hurt. Unless you've got meaningful security (as opposed to some guys over 80 that you'd worry they'd fall and break a hip), call 911. Tell administration they were threatening other patients and you didn't want that to ...
  6. Can you imagine having Spiderman as a patient?

    I haven't had Spiderman, but I've had the incredible Hulk, Houdini (4 point restraints, and somehow got her feet lose and when we went in, she was sitting with her back to the foot of the bed, arms twisted behind her, and trying to "cow kick" the hea...
  7. A nurse's favorite song?

    Particularly for my hospice patients, "Because you loved me" by Celine Dion. In ICU, "Highway to Hell" or "Another one bites the dust" depending on how the shift's going.
  8. Death

    The ones that get me aren't the "end of a long life" people, or even the "had'm a long time as a patient" people. It's the ones that for some reason hit a cord. "Paratrooper," who was at Ft. Benning at the same time my dad was stationed there. I a...
  9. But.... We've had to discharge people from hospice for addiction. When you place narcotics in the home, that's still your license, the hospice facility's MD's license, etc. And we've had people who took the emergency kit and had a party with the ne...
  10. Particular Patient Populations - Do You Struggle?

    DKA. Not the diabetic who's had a nasty GI bug, infection or surgery, or something that could reasonably make their sugars go wild, the ones we get every 2 or 3 weeks, usually young, and the biggest pains in tail you can imagine. They don't do fsbs...
  11. One thing I will tell you -- pee before a code, if you know it's coming. And yes, I've looked at telemetry, and said, "everybody who needs to pee -- now's the time." Compressions on a full bladder sucks eggs. I am the proud owner of a 1000cc blad...
  12. Is being a nursing student actually fun?

    Fun? No. Interesting, challenging, and ultimately worthwhile? Sometimes. Infuriating, disappointing, and gut wrenching -- occasionally. There were times when we were all cracking up laughing, and times when we were looking anywhere but at the pe...
  13. Low census. . .no work. . .

    Same here, that's why I have a fulltime job and a PRN job...right now, the PRN is making my check. And Pennywise...you're just freaking me out. I read "IT" when it came out and have been scared spitless of clowns and balloons ever since. :-)
  14. DNR versus AND

    The big thing I see is that people don't talk about death at all until someone's so sick they can't make their wishes known -- not a 20 year old that gets hit by a truck, but the 80 yo with end stage everything, mets'd CA, etc. I think the whole AND...
  15. Have you ever cried when a Pt died

    I'm as tough as they come, but I've cried. When you're in a room with 12 people, and they are all quietly crying, while a child is in bed with their dead father begging them to come back (and you can't leave because the wife has a death grip on you...