ixchel's 3/7/16 What Have I Learned This Week, with A Lil' Help From My Friends!

[Farawyn]

So, yea, where is our girl, ixchel?

ixchel is working like the Rockstar that she is, and asked me to fill in for her. I know, I know, it's already well into the new week, so this will be short and sweet. Or will it?

A couple of nights have passed since I've talked to ixchel. We usually go 24/7. Before I realized she was working like she was, I couldn't get in touch with her. I was actually worried. Like, more than a little.

I've learned that my online friends are most definitely my real friends. Lines are blurred. I text my RL friends and I talk to my Online friends. (I actually knew this- but this week's worry popped it up for me.)

I've learned I need my AN School Nurse Co-Workers, but that my RL Co-Worker, in the form of the Social Worker that shares my office, is gold. Like Ponyboy Level Gold.

I've learned that my friends know I worry, and humor me thusly, by checking in with me PRN.

Except ixchel. For days on end...

When ixchel needed help this week, of course I obliged. The problem is, I really haven't learned much. I called on some of my friends to help me out:

From Dogen: "Ummm... I learned that people with schizophrenia were targeted by the tobacco industry, and that they funded research saying the people with psychosis were somehow resistant to cancer and also that it was critical to their recovery to let them smoke. Both of these lack evidence, but are still widely held beliefs, such that psychiatric hospitals were exempted from a federal ban on smoking in hospitals.

But really, people with schizophrenia are 4.5 times more likely to get lung cancer, and have 30% higher mortality rates than smokers without a mental illness."

Hmmm...

From WellThatsOod: "I just learned that vomited strawberries looks like jam!"

From OldDude: "I've learned my fellow nurses don't mind stepping in to defend the perpetuation of reason and support of their peers from those whose statements are unreasonable and inciteful."

(We gotchu.)

Thank you guys for helping out. Love ya.

Sports start this week in my HS. So many kids, coming down in pairs and groups, making sure their friends are appropriately cleared. I've learned that these kids know what teamwork means without setting foot on the field.

Some of our posters have been through a lot lately. DLHWB with her patient that killed himself. Poopycat with her new grandbaby (grandkitten?) Students starting school. Illness. Deaths. Weddings.

We have been helping each other here. We get flack for the snark, but I'm feeling the love.

(Just call me Farawimp.)

The theme is friendship, mental illness and the lack of good treatment those patients receive, vomit and strawberry jam, and sticking up for one another...or anything else you have learned.

So, What Have You Learned This Week?

[OrganizedChaos, LVN]

I learned that all PDN agencies are the same, they just want warm bodies there to fill a spot. Also I feel being an LVN sucks sometimes. All the jobs I want are reserved for RNs & I kick myself for not going to school sooner. Now that I have to work & make the money I don't know when I'll go back to school.

[Twinmom06, ASN, APN]

3 of my friends had kids this week. 2 of them birthed themselves, and one of them got both his PhD AND his adopted son! I'm so stinking happy for them!

other than that...not much...

[BCgradnurse, MSN, RN, NP]

I learned I made the right decision in taking a new job. My current practice is going downhill fast, and this rat is fleeing the sinking ship.

I learned that my work friends will always be my friends, even though we won't see each other every day. I'm hoping I can recruit some of them to come to my new practice.

I learned that my kitty has weaseled her way into being fed at another house. No wonder when she disappears for 4-5 days she comes back fatter than when she left! Now they call me when she shows up for dessert.

[nutella, MSN, RN]

The term "hearing-impaired" is not well accepted anymore within the deaf community. Reason being is that this description focuses on what a person cannot do - also, not everybody who is deaf thinks of themselves as "impaired".

Pain assessment in a person who is deaf is done best with the Wong-Baker face scale as a numeric assessment is not best practice.

A certified deaf interpreter is necessary to interpret complex or complicated matters - just an ASL interpreter is not enough.

When your child has "issues" like a tourette's disorder and OCD it does not matter how well that child is doing in general - it is a drag when that child needs only intermittent medication. Plus there is a lot of misunderstanding -- no, my child who has tourette's and OCD and is in high school is not "just starting to work" after high school - she plans on college. And no - she does not wish to be in non-stop counseling - as a teenager she is fed up after seeing specialists since age 5.

Smart Water also comes in sparkling now ! My new favorite...

[Farawyn]

nutella, what does the deaf community prefer?

[nutella, MSN, RN]

nutella, what does the deaf community prefer?

As far as I understand "deaf" is ok.

Also, I refer to ASL as the "first language" or "native language" when this is the case to indicate that it really is like a foreign language in many ways. Things that make total sense in English can not be "interpreted" or asked the same way in ASL. Sometimes there is no word for it or it just does not make sense at all...

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

I learned that it is perfectly okay to reach out for help when you feel that something just ain't right with your mental hygiene. It is preferable to seek professional help than to live inside one's own head.

I learned that excellent time management can be empowering.

I learned that nasty-gram emails from the boss can be dispiriting.

I learned that I am capable of many things as long as my mind does not impose arbitrary limits via negative self talk.

[whichone'spink, BSN, RN]

I was reminded this week why I left my previous position, when I stayed to help out on my previous floor because they were short two people, with some sick patients. Glad to help, but I am just angry on their behalf. It's usually s***ty like this all the time.

[Purple_roses]

Whisper-coughs are highly annoying. It happens when a sick person in a crammed clinic wears her mask around her neck and hoorificely whispers to her nearby friend, which induces frequent, loud coughing, waking up the nearby wheezing toddler.

[Dogen]

I went to a lecture on marijuana and the brain tonight and learned:

1. Smoking MJ heavily under age 16 is linked to lower IQ. Light use under 16, or any use above 16, is not.

2. Chronic use does cause short term memory impairment, but it generally clears when usage stops.

3. A local company/UW spinoff has developed a CBD-derived medication that has been shown to eliminate glioblastoma multiforme cells in mouse trials. Human trials are a few years off.

4. Go to neuroscience presentations. Get cool swag for your desk.

[LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN]

I learned that my peers want me to be an alternate as a union delegate; I'm meeting today with the union to discuss what involved in contract talks.

I (re)learned that I still have a knack of figuring out diagnoses; 3/3 for flu, along with a prescription of Tamiflu to help prevent it was the reward from the provider I was working with.

I also re-learned ACLS...it took me 15 tries to not kill the last two in the simulation; then I learned that there are tutorials, including YouTube videos to help "save" the pts.