edna317

Or the little old man during a colonoscopy and conscious sedation: along with O2, constant monitoring VS, and medicating prn, I also could see the inside of the colon, when lo and behold, a whole bay leaf floated by. Could not resist..."Man, don't you chew your food?" He replied, "I don't have any 'teef'!"

Whiskey was a lock up drug Valium injectable and pills were not

Glass drinking straws. Matching numbers on glass plungers and syringes Metal bedpans that doubled as code blue buttons when thrown into the doorway when your patient crumps Green liquid soap Sharpening needles on a whetstone Keeping those white hose seams straight Train of cups Scultetus binders Trilene masks

You were ABSOLUTELY right!!

Got a loan from a local hospital for books and tuition for my ADN , the money kept coming as long as my grades were As and Bs. Had 3 small children and a poorly contributing husband at the time. Worked part time. Took me 5 years to pay it back. Best thing I ever did, by the Grace of God alone. Was obligated to work for that hospital for 2 years. Got my BSN tuition fully paid by the next hospital, no loan involved. Again, obligated to work for two years. I spent over 27 years at that hospital. Went back to work there prn after I retired.

I am 65. I work 12 hour shifts. Different strokes for different folks. There are plently of different jobs and shifts out there for you. Find your spot.

Is God for or against Assisted Suicide? Check out His textbook for the answer. Dr. Kevorkian does not believe God exists. I believe the fifth vital sign, pain and pain control, should be top of the list when caring for the terminally ill. I believe the terminally ill person should be allowed to let nature take it's course. I do NOT believe that people's dying process should be prolonged by extraordinary measures, which all us nurses know about. Have you made out your Advance Directive??

I agree that the best place for any urological procedure is in a hospital. Your request is one that is easily accommodated. Unless it is an emergency procedure, the cysto will be scheduled, and the nurses will be assigned anytime from one to 5 days ahead of time. It is perfectly acceptable for you to request male nursing personnel in your room. Just ask your Dr and/or his scheduling nurse to prepare accordingly. Remember this: The Doctors and nurses, other hospital personnel work FOR YOU. You pay them. I have been a (female) critical care nurse for 31 years with the exception of 2 years in the operating room. When it was "my turn" to work in the cysto room, and I had a male patient, I ALWAYS made sure there was a male hospital employee within eyeshot of the patient. This not only made the patient feel more relaxed, but it made me more relaxed in my care of the patient. This "policy" of mine was for my protection as well as the patient, to avoid a "he said/did--she said/did" situation. DO NOT put off this procedure any longer. Your health, both mental and physical depends on it. It is much easier to deal with the known than the unknown.

I feel compelled to tell this little story about myself in 1976: Newly out of school, working the midnight shift in a full, 10 bed ICU with only a nursing assistant to help me---talk about UNSAFE!!! The first patient I assessed had been admitted with symptomatic bradycardia, and had an Isuprel drip going (back then, no IV pumps--just eyeballs). He said, "Nurse, what's that fish doing up there in that bottle?" I told him that was not a fish bowl or a fish, that was his IV fluid bottle. After I got done with the rest of the assessments, and went back to document, sure enough his monitor alarm went off. Atrial fibrillation. I ran to his bedside and discovered that he had turned up the Isuprel wide open. I was sick. I shut it off completely, pushed it away out of his reach, went to the locker room, got my purse and coat and headed out the door. (I had 3 small children at home, who depended on me financially). The nurse assistant, a big burly fellow, grabbed my arm in a vice grip and said, "Where in the hell do you think you are going?". By this time, I was crying, and said, "I'm going home and never coming back!" He said, still gripping my arm, "Well, if you are going home and never coming back, then what have you got to lose?" He drug me over to the phone, dialed the physician, and stuck the phone in my ear. "Talk to the doctor!!" he said. I was still crying. The Doctor asked what had happened, and I told him, then he said, "What is his pulse rate" "78" I said. The doctor said, "You cured him!!" and hung up the phone. So I stayed. I retired from Critical Care nursing September 1, 2006. Then I went part time in Critical Care ever since. I have been a CCRN since 1985 with the exception of about 5 years or so. Now I have quit critical care again to take a weekend supervisor job in the same hospital I retired from. I have done this type of work only briefly about 15 years ago. Wish me luck. I hope you find your spot in the nursing field somewhere. I agree that it would be a waste of your education to let it fall by the wayside.

Sharpening needles on a whet stone, testing for smoothness with a cotton ball, squirting acetone through them to "clean" them, packaging them in cotton, tape, and resterilizing. Washing gloves, blowing them up, putting the blown up glove under water to check for leaks, drying, powdering, placing them in cloth and tape and resterilizing them. Matching plungers and syringes by printed-on numbers, wrapping in cloth and resterilizing them. Scultetous binders. wrapped from down to up for abdominal incisions, wrapped from high to low for fresh post partum. Shaves and 3H enemas for women in labor. V-pads, hand made and sterilized. Atropine tablets, dissolved, then injected IM. BIRD machines. Minidrippers for cardiovascular meds. No pumps. White nylon hose with seams. Capes to go with the starched caps. Only our last names on our name tags. No men in our student nurse classes. String of cups. clinitest and acetest tablets. Vital sign information given to the patients only by the doctors. Medication information given to the patients only by the doctors. Sugar in bedsores, covered by dressing in the hopes that the bacteria would like the sugar better than the patient's tissues. 8 hour shifts....that became 16+ hours when your replacement did not show up. 50+hemostats on incisions--no cautery. Newspaper over rubber sheets for incontinent patients. post op ether beds. Follow the bouncing ball oscilloscope one lead ekg monitor. Oxygenation of ventilator patients determined by hourly urine output--no pulse oximeters. Pans of iced water to keep the Cardiac Output monitor injectate cold. Refrigerated LR for gastric irrigation. alcohol baths for hypothermia. Bent glass straws, wooden wheelchairs, porcelain urinals and bedpans. Valium was not a lock up drug. There was no acetominophen. This is fun. I may remember some more. Call bells were really BELLS. You had to figure out which room it came from.

I was 31 when I started nurses' training. It was hard with 3 young children and not much sleep. It was worth it. I escaped the welfare roles and was able to provide adequately for my family. This reminds me of one of my classmates who was 55 at the time. She and I entered a two-patient room as student nurses with our caps and school uniforms on, one of the patients took a look at my 55 year old student nurse friend and remarked how old she was to be a student. Then he apologized profusely for his unkind remark, and she replied, "That's OK, honey, turn over and I'll take your temperature!!" As the years went by, I would hear of her sucessful nursing practice and how everyone loved her. She died a few years ago of Cancer. She is sorely missed.

I agree with the head to toe assessment. If you are brand new to nursing, keep a cheat sheet in your pocket for reference of what normal parameters are. Anything outside of these parameters deserves a second look and needs correction. Set your priorities: Breathing, pulse?? if you walk in a patient's room and there is blood dripping, you take care of that first before you try to assess the level of consciousness or level of orienation- person, place, and time. When in doubt, ask for help. You are not expected to know it all. I sure do not know it all, and I have been at it for 31 years.

I, too have been inappropriately tickled during a code. Gallows humor, I was told. I thought for sure I was going to be struck dead by lightening. I am still here. That was 26 years ago. I have been a critical care nurse for 31 years, and situations like that still occur. Prayer helps...a lot.