I can actually do this!

[Indy, LPN, LVN]

Today was my first day on the floor, and to my surprise, it went well! I had two patients, one on a natrecor drip whose lasix produced the only outstanding feature for him: his 2 liter output in 8 hours. The other had a heparin drip, an antibiotic, and IV lasix.

What I learned today:

-when someone vomits grits and coffee up together, it momentarily looks just like poop. Which is NOT what I want to see at 8:20 am.

-the thought, however brief, that my patient may be vomiting up poop, actually made me think "that's interesting" just before thinking "oh god no"

-asking a particular physician for a renal-friendly pain med may instead get you 3 different types of stuff, one that's not renal friendly, one good idea and one narcotic. Two of the three say NOW on them.

-when you ask a doc for something right before lunch, you should probably look at the orders before going for lunch in case there's orders that say "NOW" on them. On second thought, ahh nevermind.

I can do this job, but I'm tired. Next week, I get to start the 12 hour shifts!

-Indy

[pricklypear]

Hey Indy! Glad your first day was good - and full of learning experiences:coollook: ! Hope all the rest go as well. I can think of all kinds of stuff I learned the hard way!!

[jenrninmi, MSN, RN]

Sounds like you had a pretty good first day! Good luck next week! You'll do great!

[Indy, LPN, LVN]

I had the same two patients today. The one who threw up yesterday, got NO coffee today so no throwing up.

I'm starting to get less intimidated by drips- considering today I had amiodarone, natrecor, heparin, NS, and levaquin, wow. NOT all on the same patient.

Next week, however, I will HAVE to work on my charting. It's not that I didn't do it. I did; but I kept finding one more thing that I didn't do or didn't initial each time I looked at it, including the last time at 3 pm when I was handing it to the next shift nurse. I don't think I had it all together today, it was the same 10 pieces of paper. Where the heck was my brain?

There'll be days like this I'm sure but I am gonna have to put my to do lists in timed format or something to keep from screwing up my documentation.

-Indy

[pricklypear]

If you're anything like me, it'll take way more than 2 days to get used to all the places you need to initial, sign, fill out, fill in... I think you're doing a great job of keeping track of the things you need to work on! There's a lot to learn!:) Don't be too hard on yourself, and expect too much of yourself so soon.