Reabock

We had one of these cases a few months ago, the cause seemed to be the OTC med Abreva for cold sores. I never saw this pt before she was transferred,the same evening, as I was too busy with my own pts down another wing, but I can still remember hearing her scream in pain. We heard later that she did die. I did hear the Docs on the phone and SJS was their thought at the time. Very scary!

I tend to agree with you but question, who slipped up on the Q 1/2-1 hr HS rounds? Don't they routinely do those at your facility? Our Nurses or Aides check the pts at least Q hr thru the night.

Got to be the full moon coming on Monday, some nights just really Suck. Sorry it was so bad.

Someone sent me this link a feww days ago, its so funny! :rotfl:

BABE RN, no , never had a recurrence of the endo, nor any problems with adhesions, at least not yet and surgery was about 15 years ago. Did not even know I had endometriosis, just knew I hurt awful, almost doubled over at times with the pain. MD said it was "disentigrating fibroid" on the ultrasound which is why we did the surgery, found the endometriosis during the surgery which is why I'm glad I had an open procedure and not an LAVH. The folks having the LAVH's get back to work quicker though and seem to do fine. (Lap assisted Vag hyster= LAVH) never really had a problem with mood swings , but then my family thinks I am a Bi***h anyway , though I have mellowed over the years! The patch sounds like a really good option, maybe you could explore that route of HRT. It was not available when I started needing it and don't want to try something new when the old stuff is working fine. I never could understand those women that said they didn't feel like a woman without a uterus, DUH, thats not the only defining factor ladies!!! I felt so much better without it, have never regretted the surgery.

I had a total hyster and BSO at 36 for extensive endometriosis. Never regretted it for a minute, have been on Menest, a synthetic hormone ever since. Have cut myself back to 1/2 of a 1.25 mg tab every other day or so and have no hot flashes unless I forget for 5-6 days, and then they are mild. (I'm cheap and it makes the script last longer:D ) I am now 51 and don'tsmoke and have had my daughters friends tell her that I do not look my age so guess I didn't age overnight from having it done!!! :D I would opt to get everything out, why risk another surgery and possibly ovarian CA if its not needed anyway? Just my humble opinion. I was only off work for 4 weeks and only used 20 sick days, no real lifting in my job at that time though. Good luck in whatever you decide.

Ummmm, Yeah, that's the way it is . No order, no med! and , Yes, call the doc for an order no mater what time it is.

Yep,, I'm one of the "older" nurses. Took mine in 1981, with 1 year old baby at home. Two days, in Harrisburg at the Zembu Temple, in July, no air conditioning and 95 degree heat. My only stipulation for the motel where we stayed was that it had to have a pool!! It was the old 5 part test. Did the best on the psych one (hate psych) and the worst on Med-surg, (but did well on all overall) I have worked Med-surg for the last 23 years! Remember being scared to open my test results when it finally came in the mail late September, cried when I found I passed, I was so relieved!!

I just made out a card and will get it in the mail in the morning! Hope she gets better soon.

Lately I have been wondering why so many of our pts were on Telemetry, some inappropriately I feel, such as the 96 year old DNR, etcs. My thought is that it is one way to get a bit more revenue from the insurance companies as I know we charge more for a pt to be on Telemetry, and in our rural setting we need every cent we can get.! I have made my thought known to the Head nurse and she just rolls her eyes at me. But then I'm known for sometimes saying what others may just think. Just recently we had a LTC pt come in unresponsive, full DNR and was put on tele, DUH!!!!! In spite of me asking to see if ICU nurses were aware of pts DNR status, guess who came rushing out to check on pt when they did the inevitable and died with the monitor recording it all!!!

Mario, at our facility that is the color the OR crew wears, burgandy. They switched from green a couple of years ago and as far as I know, no one makes any comments about the masculinity of any OR male!!!:) On the floors we wear colored pants and plain or patterned tops. A lot of us sew and make a lot of our own scrub tops so most any fabric that coordinates with the pant color is okay and a lot of folks have done some cute seasonal prints. The patients have only positive things to say about us wearing prints, they love it.

There is nothing wrong with continuing to be a floor nurse. We need more Indians and less folks aspiring to be Chiefs sometimes. I know that was not politically correct but sick people need seasoned nurses to take care of them too! I've been a charge nurse, never aspired to be supervisor or higher, got enough headaches and grief for the pay in the trenches, now voluntarilly a floor nurse and much more than 40 years old;) I resist efforts to up my "status" again to charge. Too many resposibilities for the amount of pay and there are nights when I really enjoy the folks we take care of and then there are times I want to work at Wal Mart , but we've all had days like that!:roll And we can always mentor the new ones coming in.

Good post for a reminder. I always make sure someone watches my wastes and into the sink and rinsed down, don't want any weird suspicions somewhere down the road!!! And is anyone else ever able to smell the Morphine . Most of them think I'm nuts when I say it has a very distinctive smell!?

Good answers, same as we do here, especially about flushing the saline locke site. If it flushes that hard I'd be afraid I was pushing a clot thru and would cause a problem, so usually restart the site. I also rarely get a flashback unless it is in a very large vein or an antecube site. Side note, we had a pt come from ER with a foot site tonite, don't see that too often!

I always wear a t-shirt under my scrub tops, no sense giving a free show! Also have made a few tops, very easy to do, in fact I have tons of fabric and need to get busy making some new ones. have never perfected pants though and generally buy the $9.97 twill ones in the proper colors at WalMart. I have gotten some nice tops from Jasco, ordering online but have noiced that some brands do shrink more than others. For a tall nurse, sewing and making a longer top might make more sense.

In trying to be a good mentor, I have passed these sites along to a student who is working as an Aide at our facility.

I am printing out the poster to take into work. I can say that I have enjoyed working with 99% of the male nurses I've worked with over the last 25 years, a higher ratio than I can say for the female nurses. My only complaint is that they don't stick around Med-surg nursing very long, all seem to go into the specialities or get out completely.

If you use the ear, be sure to use the appropriate connection, not the finger probe one on your Oximeter.

I have seen this too, several times over the years. Sometimes the person has a colostomy and sometimes not. It has a distinctive odor also, not like a BM and not like an infection either, not very unpleasant, but very distinctive. I have seen it in chux as well as Depends or whatever type of diaper you use.

I use a water bottle for humidification if the pt is c/o dry nose, throat or bloody nose at any of the lower amounts of o2. I think our CPT policy is to put it on at 3L and above but I will do it myself for pt comfort. I was told by CPT that you cannot use our humidification water bottles at the higher levels of o2, and not with any mask that is running at 10 or more LPM since it pushes to much fluid in and can really cause a problem. Try turning up the o2 sometime when its not on a pts face and see how vigorously it bubbles up and with a lot of pressure you can see what I mean. Check with your CPT dept and see what their policy is.

I love working 3-11 or 1445-2315 as we do. I am not a morning person at all and like to stay up till 2-3 AM, so these hours really suit me. I started out 3-11 over 25 years ago, only did days (8-4) for a few years when I was so burnt out on nursing that I begged them to let me have the "new' Unit Clerk position, took a large pay cut but I'm pretty frugal so that was okay. During "restructuring" about 7 years ago the "job was eliminated" so I was forced back into nursing again:confused: Whats up with that, now they are paying me more than double what they were before and I still only work .8. And the Unit clerk job is now filled on days and 3-11 which we never had before, and all the Aides they restructured out then have all been replaced:D . Big lies all the way around! 3-11 is a great shift unless you have small kids and no spouse at home to take care of them, and I love the ride home at midnite or whenever I get out, very peaceful, almost no one on the roads except the deer, bunnies and red foxes and they are cool to watch , I drive slow.

KAYCEE: I have a question, you said "since the blood was already drawn, we didn't need to get permission".... I presume to do the HIV testing? At our facility, HIV's are not drawn until the pt gives a signed consent, lab will not draw till the papers are done, also Doc has to order the test on the pt, no cost to the pt, of course, it is not an automatic order. Also, I agree with the others, no matter how insignificant the stick may have been, get checked, for the documentation and your own safety and peace of mind.

Our visiting hours are the same as Boggle's, in fact I would think we were working at the same place except the we are in different states, We now use sticky "Visitor" stickers for after hours folks and the only entrance open after 8PM is the ER so they have to go thru that door and get a sticker from the receptionist, these turn purple after exposure to light or sunlight for a while so folks can't use them more than one day. The ICU hours are different but if they are not busy, they tend to be more liberal also.

Like Kaknurse, we have no dilution policy at my hospital either, but since this thread first started I have been diluting it prior to giving it IV and leaving notes in the med kardex for others to do the same. Have had no complaints from pts since starting to do it this way, also copied the comments and took them in for the other nurses to read to enlighten them.:)

I just grabbed out a check stub to check it, gross was $1405 for 32 reg hrs, 32 PTO(paid time off) and 2 hrs overtime with $1.50 for 3-11 shift dif. Also get an extra 30 cents an hr when I do Peds (charge pay). I only do .8, which is 4 days per week instead of 5. We have direct deposit and I also have savings for Credit union taken out so net about $1010. Just had my yearly evaluation last week and will be getting a 71 cent/hr raise