PLEASE, I need some support!!

[Anise1]

This has been a very difficult week for me. My brother suddenly got VERY sick and he's the only family I'm really close to. It happened literally overnight, completely out of the blue, and his girlfriend and I are so scared (he hasn't told his side of the family yet-- he's my half-brother). We are waiting to get the tests back, and he'll go in for a biopsy next week. His doctor is talking about possible lymphoma. I am a nervous wreck.

So this is all the leadup to the fact that I took my CNA test yesterday, and although I don't have the official word yet, I'm sure that I failed. (Sometimes, you just know...) Everything was great except for ONE thing, and it was absolutely awful. Basically, what happens to me when I'm under horrible stress (such as my brother possibly being horribly sick) is that I'll become so anxious that if something starts going wrong, it may just go from bad to worse. I did great on the written test, 4 skills out of the 5 went perfectly, I remembered every step, every critical skill, the other steps word for word from the book, everything was wonderful, and then I got BP-- the one skill out of 27 I was hoping to not get. Well, the bed and everything else was set up very differently than I was used to, it was the one skill I'd never had a chance to practice in clinicals although I'd practiced it a LOT!! in class and on friends, and I just got more and more nervous.

The test subject was actually the observer RN's granddaughter, and I had a hard time finding her brachial pulse, so I pressed just a little too hard, and it accidentally pressed on... a nerve near her elbow, I guess... Well, that was it. I had practiced this a zillion times and never had anything like this happen before, EVER, but she said it hurt, and what with Grandma being the RN observer, that was the end of that. If looks could kill, I would have been carried out on a stretcher at the very least. So I'm sure I failed the test. I'm supposed to start a new job on Wednesday at a LTC and I certainly don't need to have passed the CNA test to start, and I REALLY want this to work, but I just feel so completely beaten down. Can I do this? SHOULD I do this? Do I have any business doing this? I did so well in class, I would do ANYTHING to make this work, I would work so incredibly hard, but I just feel like a failure right now. I don't know what to do.

[SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN]

What do you mean by you don't know what to do? There isn't anything to do. Start your new job and if you passed, great. If not, retake. It's a test of your skills, not a statement on your worth as a person.

:)

[kitte22]

Im really sorry to hear about your brother. I hope everything works out. :hgu: as for your cna test, keep a positive mind, everyone makes mistakes, it doesnt mean you cant do it and it doesnt mean you wont do it. You can do this! Say it to yourself. until you find out you passed practice your bp's on people you feel comfortable around. the bp isnt something your just testing on its something you will do everyday at your job you need to know how to do it proficiently (sp?) it takes practice just like everything else. the important thing is you got the bp right. take the job and if need be you can redo your skills test. I was a cna for 4 yrs and now im a new lpn, when you get stressed and nervous just stop for a second take a deep breath and stay confident in yourself, if your not confident in yourself other people will see it and they will question your abilities. you need to develop a healthy stress relieving technique, working in LTC can be very stressful especially when there are deaths. i work in a LTC and I also work for Hospice, when i get off work I get in my car and I blast music on the way home it takes my mind off of things a little bit. This works for me but it might not for you, especially with everything going on in your life you need something or someone to help you, if you dont find something that works for you you will get burned out very quickly. Dont be so hard on yourself, remember everyone makes mistakes. And like you said you dont need to have passed this to get the job. just redo it and move on. im sure you did great! everyone needs support...if you need anything else im only a message away...good luck to you! BE POSITIVE AND CONFIDENT!

[lorelei1973]

I don't know but I feel like there's a conflict of interest problem. If Grandma was overly influenced by her granddaughter's reaction to the point that she ended the test, I would say she demonstrated bias and I would report the situation to your testing authority. You say she said that it hurt, but did she scream out in pain? I can't imagine putting enough pressure on the brachial to cause an extreme reaction. Plus, the whole idea of evaluators bringing family members as actors really chaps me. It's not fair, no matter what happens. No one should have any relationship to one another. Seriously, the more I think about this the more I hope you a) PASS but if you don't you B) explain that you strongly believe that it was not a fair test (give the reason) and that if you have to re-test, you should not be charged. That's just horseshit.

[Anise1]

I don't know but I feel like there's a conflict of interest problem. If Grandma was overly influenced by her granddaughter's reaction to the point that she ended the test, I would say she demonstrated bias and I would report the situation to your testing authority. You say she said that it hurt, but did she scream out in pain? I can't imagine putting enough pressure on the brachial to cause an extreme reaction. Plus, the whole idea of evaluators bringing family members as actors really chaps me. It's not fair, no matter what happens. No one should have any relationship to one another. Seriously, the more I think about this the more I hope you a) PASS but if you don't you B) explain that you strongly believe that it was not a fair test (give the reason) and that if you have to re-test, you should not be charged. That's just horseshit.

No, the test subject (the granddaughter, that is) definitely didn't start screaming, or anything like that at all. As soon as she said it hurt, I felt absolutely awful and apologized, asked if she was okay, etc.,; the atmosphere in the room changed to if-looks-could-kill, the grandmother RN said "if you did that to an older person in LTC, it would really hurt them!!" (kind of an odd comment when she hadn't been watching at that moment and really did not even know what had happened, come to think of it), more apologizing from me, but as I said, as soon as that happened, it was clear that there was no hope when it came to passing that skills test!! I still haven't gotten the official results, but sometimes, you just KNOW.

I take full responsibility for being very anxious at that point in the skills test, and that combined with the fact that we were always told in class, "well, you really do have to press firmly to find the brachial artery" probably did combine to cause some discomfort. I've actually been pressing on my OWN inner arm around the medial forearm/end of the ulna area ever since in an attempt to re-create whatever must have happened, and I guess there are a couple of ways to do it that are not very comfortable-- even though I've never had anybody tell me that I was hurting them before! I should have done better, and I'm not going to make excuses for the fact that I didn't. But even if I failed that test-- which likely did happen-- on reflection, I don't think there was any need for the atmosphere in that testing room to become so extremely hostile after the BP incident. People do make mistakes and I REALLY learned from that one.

I do have to say that I agree that the observer RN should NOT be using a family member as the test subject. The state TN contract that observers have to sign says that they can't *test* family members, but it doesn't literally say that they can't bring them in as test subjects-- and I think it should. With all respect, I don't see how Grandma can possibly be objective when her granddaughter is involved, and I don't think it's fair to anyone.

It's very hard for me right now because of what's happening with my brother-- especially because nobody knows anything for sure. The worst case scenario is that it's cancer. In a horrible way, it would almost be better to just know, because then we could deal with it. But in a way, maybe it's actually good that this entire CNA test incident happened (maybe I'll really be able to appreciate this eventually!), because it made me realize that I have to find a way of going on with my life, no matter what happens. It isn't going to help my brother if I fall apart, and it certainly isn't going to help me.

[adorblepuppy]

When do you find out if you passed. I think that would drive me crazy not knowing for a long period of time. We found out right after we did ours. I am in north carolina. I am sorry to hear about your brother. I hope things work out for him and you also.

[NurseCubanitaRN2b, BSN, RN]

I believe the granddaughter was overracting. "It hurts" bull crap, she was just trying to control the situation. I would definately report that to the testing authorities as one of the above posters stated. What was she doing there anyway? There definately is conflict of interest. If she didn't scream out in pain, then it didn't hurt enough. Good Luck

[Anise1]

an update:

i finally got my test report back (today!! that's how long it took. the cna test was saturday.) i opened the report, 100% sure i'd failed.... and...

i passed!!!!!

my score was 93%, and i didn't get any points taken off of manual bp at all. so miracles do happen. :) but i think more than ever that observer rn's should not be allowed to use relatives as actors. the reaction i got from that rn caused me a week of misery, being completely sure that i had failed the test and knowing that my training program and my employer could and would access my test scores and find out exactly why i'd failed and exactly what i'd gotten wrong on that test. it was completely unnecessary, and if grandma (rn) hadn't been using her granddaughter as the actor, i think there's no way it would have happened.

i suspect what actually happened (from what other cna's at the test site were saying that day, although at the time it kind of went in one ear and out the other) was that the granddaughter didn't want to be there or to be spending her time that way on a saturday at all and was overdramatizing everything. the rn probably realized that she couldn't just fail someone for that. in fact, i'd decided that if there were any problems with passing that skills test, i was going to file some major complaints with the state health board. i still think that someone should (maybe it could be done anonymously...) observers should not be allowed to have any prior relationship with anyone involved in the testing situation.

but anyway, i passed! yay! :)