DAB

I had a good one tonight. Thick, green, tannish GT drng. (a little of the same consistency as pistachio pudding) with a serosanguinous topping. Almost gagged right then and I could suction while eating . . . of course there was the time when I liften up the abdominal fold of an obese patient and the smell of dead fish came whafting out . . . beautiful!

Hey Jen, Yesterday I wrote a perfectly lovely reply and I don't know what happened to it but it didn't get on this thread. Regardless . . . There are DD positions available in the states but you have to look for them. I rather stumbled onto my position first as an aide, then I went to school for my BSN, nursed in the hospital as a neuro nurse then in CV before coming going back to DD but this time as an RN. I consider what I do as a combination of community/skilled nursing with a lot of neuro thrown in. I really do enjoy what I do so if you want to pursue it, I'd encourage you to search around with local rehab hospitals, clinics, ped's offices, and community organizations that work with the disabled. I'd also encourage you to not forget about adult DD clients. Kids grow up and these adults while more limited that what the world calls normal, still deserve good, loving care. It sounds like you'd be one to provide that.

I can understand that! I came from an insanely busy hospital floor and the difference between the pace is 1000%. However, dealing with what I encounter presently at times is just as challenging if not more. The main challenge is communication and attempting to make my clients understand that while not everything I have to do is pleasant makes me want to both cry and laugh at the same time. That is the reason I too have been looking for an internet site to help guide, counsel, and learn from. One thing that is very fulfilling is building relationships, the trust factor we learned about in our psych nursing courses. It took me 6 weeks to finally get one of my patients to smile. Now she jokes with me and the other night she was feeling down and she came to me to cry. I honestly use psych nursing skills as well as neuro knowledge, basic pediatric nursing skills, general medical knowledge concerning all the parts of DD nursing, basic nursing interventions for health maintenance and illness prevention. This so far is a jack of all trades position and I not only love my career, I love the people I work with. People always say something like it takes a special person to work with DD individuals. I don't know about that but I do know that the people I work with require understanding and not feeling sorry for them. They don't feel sorry for themselves most of them want to be as "normal" as the rest of the world (if that can be considered normal!). The staff I work with is great!! They look past the wheelchairs, the physical and mental features, the spasticity, the seizures, the behaviors and after awhile you can hear in someone's yelling their own partcular song or in someone's eyes' you can almost see what they're trying to say. Of course you do have the times when if you don't laugh you'll cry. At one supper when one client has initiated a a food fight, after I removed her from the room and talked with her concerning her behavior, I walked back into a mess. We decided that thrown chicken and rolls should be an Olympic event. Anyway, what do the rest of you think? What would you like to see on an nursing internet site concerning DD? A listing of various DD's, theory, practice, links, family concerns, What do you think?

Thanks for replies so far. I am aware of DDNA and will be joining soon. For those interested, there will be a DDNA convention in St. Louis this coming May. Personally I plan to be there. Houlihan, I call the people I work with my clients. The majority need maintenance meds and/or special techniques/procedures to help them maintain their lives to the best capacity. While most of those I deal with are severely or profoundly disabled, I do believe that whatever they can do they should be allowed to do. Even if it seems little, for them it is a big job. I am also aware of the disability specialty in the UK. I'd love to hear more from disability specialists there about what they do and what we (I) could learn from these nurses. The reason for starting this thread was to find what interest there was in DD nursing. So those of you that have read this far, would you look at a DD site on the internet that looked at nursing from this particular perspective. Keep reading and responding, I'd love to learn from y'all your particular experiences as well as the questions you have about nursing those with developmental disabilities.

I am an RN who works with developmentally disabled children and adults in a respite care facility. I have found almost zilch out there on the net about working with DD individuals though I have quickly discovered that it is a specialty within itself. How about y'all? In your particular field have you ever been called to work with a DD person? How did you react? What did you do to help that person body and soul? I'm interested in finding out if there would be a call for a DD internet site for nurses. What about it?