passed out

In nursing school as part of our peds rotation we followed a pt from waiting room to OR to recovery. I woke up very early that morning as I had to be there around 5:30am. Did not eat breakfast. After being with the patient in the waiting room, stood through the surgery (cleft palate repair), and we were out in recovery... I was helping the RN assess the patient when suddenly I got that dizzy stars, oh I need to sit down, feeling. I immediately stopped what I was doing and said I need to take a break. NOW. The RN was looking puzzled but I took off for the locker room and barely made it. I sat on a footstool, ate some yogurt, drank, for maybe 20 minutes. I think the RN thought I was lazy (or eccentric, lol), but I was too embarassed to tell her what happened. I didn't completely understand myself as it had never happened before.

When i was pregnant with my second, I almost passed out under a warmer during a C/S. Then a few days later, i amost passed out and barfed while admitting a very unstable 25 weeker.

A couple months after I got back from mat. leave (and working 12 hour shifts, on very little sleep) I got a migraine. I lost vision in my left eye and had temporary expressive aphasia. Everyone thought I was having a TIA of something so I got rushed to the ED via wheelchair for a CT. It was great

So no passing out per se, but lots of other unpleasantries at work.

I was on med/surg clinicals the other day and I was watching an IV start. The 1st nurse tried but couldn't get it so another nurse came in. She went so fast and was kinda moving the needle around. I started to feel really dizzy, hot, nauseous, my hearing started going, I started seeing black, so I told them I had to step out for a second. I have watched IVs before so I'm not sure what happened. I think it was the way the nurse did it. I have passed out 2 times before and had the exact same symptoms. Very scary. I SOOOO did not want to pass out again so I left the room.

Those hot lights really get to me too, esp. when doing a lumbar puncture. I've almost passed out when assisting with that procedure, and I've been a nurse for a long time!