any H1N1 on your floor yet?

we have seen alot recently. i work in a 32 bed micu. over the past months we have had one here or there just within the past week we have 7. all young in there 20s.

Yes, we had several confirmed cases on our psych unit. One person required transfer to ICU.

I'm working in the hematology and BMT unit and we had one confirm case of H1N1 unfortenatly he died after we tubed him. But, in this case it's hard to know what was the cause of death was the pneumonia or the AML...

we do a flu swab, but do not specificly test for the H1N1, since the treatment is pretty much the same.
our local school had 335 students out with flu symptoms. that is 35 percent of enrollment.

we get people calling the ED asking if they would test them for Swine Flu....we tell them that we would do a flu test, but not diferentiate. And they arn't satisfied, and they call somewhere else. It almost seems if they are going to have the flu, they want it to be the H1N1 so they can be a statistic!

About 2 weeks ago, I had a person walking through the hospital, as I was walking out the door to go home, sneeze very hard in between the 2 sets of doors you have to go through to get out. Well, I can't ever hit winning numbers in the big lotto jackpot, but woohoo!!! I developed a fever, cough, and my shoulders hurt in an odd way..so after I was swabbed and made to stay home from work, I am a confirmed case of H1N1, and not allowed to go back to work until 7 days are up, and I am free from fever for 24 hours. I dont know if I count as having it on our floor yet, but I am sure if I got it, it is going to show up other places in the hospital.

I am still running a fever, and my shoulders still hurt like I was lifting 100lb weights for 5 months straight, but the n/v/d have passed, and no more head swirling around. I can go back to work Tuesday if I am afebrile from Monday on. Until then*sigh* I will be right here in my house

Sun,

Curious about what happens when you've been ordered home. Does that take away any sick days you have? Or, what? Wondering if you would be docked pay... say, you had used up your sick day alottment already and were sent home and told to stay put.

At my facility we don't have sick pay, per se. We have it all come out of PTO. In my situation, my director didnt think it was fair for me to use up all of my PTO(paid time off) because this was more than likely as a result of catching it at work. I signed up for a gap coverage when I started, which is supposed to pay you for an extended illness. So for now I am using 36 hours EIB(extended illness benefit). We earn EIB at 2.8 hours a pay. I would much rather use the EIB for a work related illness, which I qualified for as soon as my swab came back positive. This way, I still have my PTO in tact for my vacation in January.

I am not sure what would have happened if I didnt have EIB or PTO. It could have been a case of having to have taken this week without pay.

I had to take a week off w/o pay when I was diagnosed w/ H1N1 (can't use PTO time until after 6 months, haven't been there that long, and definitely don't have enough time accrued). For me, it started out w/ sharp pain in my left shoulder/chest area, hurt like the dickens to take a deep breath. Then developed a cough, then even though I was breathing and kept checking my sats (which were ok), I felt like I wasn't getting any oxygen. I was thinking bronchitis, pneumonia, or even a pneumo. Within 3 days, felt like a truck had run over me, spiking temps, coughing up stuff. Went to the doc, and voila.

I didn't get the vaccine b/c I thought it was still too new, wasn't comfortable w/ it, and besides, I rarely get sick during flu season. Let me tell you, the side effects from the Tamiflu were worse than anything I have ever experienced. When the vaccine becomes available in our area, I am taking my family to get vaccinated. I don't want to take a chance of them experiencing what I did w/ the med