RNanne

LPNs in the 60's were like nurses' aides. In an emergency they could administer medications and give injections. Mostly they did the work that the CNA's do today.

A valid point, but does not address my statement about the lower middle class as soldiers. We have a volunteer army. My sons are soldiers and both have college degrees. Sorry if you did not get my point. You quote me and completely go off on another tangent???

I thought that we had an all volunteer army, don't we, not comprised of lower middle class children??? I don't agree with this war either, but we are there and must see it finished one way or another. Just didn't want to let this comment slip by. Thanks.

Edwards made his fortune suing OB docs for causing babies to have CP. This is probably not good science. The percentage of C-sections used to be 6%. Now with all the litigation, the percentage is 26% and there has been no decrease in the number of babies born with CP. So maybe, just maybe these litigations were inappropriate and unnecessary.???

Boy, can I relate with this subject. There was an instructor with students doing clinicals at the facility where I was working. She asked me why was there coloring in the tube feeding of a certain patient, where did a suprapubic catheter go and what was it and asked me to demonstrate a central line dressing change as it had been a looonnngg time since she had done one. I happened to know that she had never worked as a nurse, just went straight to teaching. Yikes, big time.

I once worked for the manager from hell. A real "company" man. Screw the nurses! He was a pathological liar and never came out of his office unless he wanted you to do something for him. I finally put in my resignation. The staff threw me the biggest going away potluck you have ever seen. All the great manager did was come out and get a huge plate of food and go back in his office to eat it. No thank you, sorry to lose you, etc. Nothing, not even a good bye. When I got ready to leave after the shift, I went into the office to get my coat out of the closet. On top of a file cabinet I noticed a whole plate of Oreos taken by the manager from the potluck. So before I left, I licked both sides of every single cookie. He never knew it, but I did and it made me feel ever so much better.:roll :roll :chuckle

Heck, I can remember when the food pyramid had seven food groups and now there are four, so dieticans change their minds just like everybody else. In this society we are becoming ever more obese, unhealthy, eating fast food etc. I don't believe that the lo-carb diet is unhealthy. It is a life change. I used to eat mashed potatoes and milk gravy and potato chips and all sorts of greasy snacks. Now I eat vegs, meat, no greasy snacks etc. What can be wrong with that. We are in more jeopardy healthwise to be obese and to be eating unhealthy than we will ever be eating a lo-carb diet. One can maintain a weight loss by changing your lifestyle and for me that is a good thing. I will not regain the weight, my mind is made up.

Angel Bear: We eat the waffles and syrup from the Atkins line and breakfast meats. Eat a lot of broccli and cauliflower. I wash the juice off of canned pears and grate cheese over to make salad. Cool Whip is low in carbs so I use that to make fruit salads. We eat a meat, vegs and a salad for suppers. Lo carb snack bars. We cut out milk and pasta, potatoes, breads. There is a lo carb bread out now also, so we do have that once in awhile. We split a large baked potato about once a week. Sometimes we have a sweet potato. I try to use about 15 carbs for lunch and about 20 for supper. Like I said, we use the Power Protein diet and don't restrict ourselves to as low a carbs as it says and thus lose weight more slowly than a strict diet. I love candy bars so use the lo carb candy bars for snacks. Even Russel Stover has bars out. I feel so much better and have lost one dress size. I don't have a lot of weight to lose so I don't mind losing slowly.

I have lost 10 lbs in 6 weeks. I am never hungry, I have so much more energy and I will never go back to any other way of eating. It has become a way of life. Over Christmas and New Year's I ate any darn thing I wanted and then returned to the lo carb. I had gained only 3 lbs over the holidays. There are getting to be so many foods that are lo carb that I don't miss much of anything except Cheetos and potato chips. I eat some of the lo carb candy bars which are very good so that my sweet tooth is satisfied. We use the Power Protein diet plan and aren't too strict with it. We just changed our eating habits and watch the carbs. IT WORKS.

Come on out to the Pacific Northwest into Eastern Washington. Not far from God's country in Idaho and Montana. You will think you died and went to heaven. Four seasons, relatively low cost living, glorious scenery, skiing, boating, swimming, lakes, blue ribbon trout fishing, big blue skies, and friendly folks. Nursing wages are comparable and there is lots of work.:)

I would be a costume designer for a ballet company or a textile designer. I would be a famous artist!!! LOL:roll

Yep, the medicare paperwork is awful. I would admit a client and do a 17 page assessment and write the goals and careplan. During assessment I would find that the client needed to be readmited to hospital. So I would write a hospital transfer (forget how many page), then readmit the client the next day with a 13 page readmittance, and then discharge paperwork in a day or two. Now that is simply unbelieveable. And all the paperwork has to be done in a short specified amount of time or medicare would lock it out. And that is just one client. Never mind the visit notes and new admits everyday and discharges about everyday. It drove me nuts. And I would have so many visits and admissions that most of the paperwork had to be done after work, before work and all weekend. I was only paid per visit and there were no benefits etc. I did love it though, the best nursing job that I ever had. :)

Having worked Homehealth for a number of years, I know that constipation is a problem. I found it in the geriatric population as well as those on pain medication. Lots of the geriatrics have "institutional" bowels in that they have taken laxatives for so long that they have lost normal bowel function. I agree with those that have posted some wonderful natural aids to BMs. I have had folks that passed out on the toilet from Valsalva. had severe constipation, rectoceles, inability to defecate secondary to poor rectal muscle tone, etc. I developed a teaching model that I always used. Just take all that you know, add to it and teach away. I loved Homehealth in that you could do so much teaching. And I agree that the Medicare paperwork is a killer. It is the reason that I no longer work in Homehealth. It was tooo much.:chair:

I have worked in LTC quite a bit. Why not try depression in the elderly or pain management. Depression is so common and not always identified or treated. They have so many losses a lot of the time. Also have a lot of pain issues that do not get properly addressed. Good topics, both:zzzzz

Boy, can I relate. In LTC : Have had to quit two jobs for new DON's. And one for a new ADM. One DON was sooo nice to the managers and was really only picking their brains for the scoop on everybody and everything. What a snake she turned out to be. Doesn't your new DON know that the staff nurses are the backbone of the place and if she stirs things up and introduces her own pets and gets rid of existing nurses it will be detrimental? It doesn't matter how "nice" she seems to you. I have been there and it ain't fun. The DON I speak of got fired about 6 months after she came and by that time the damage was done. Everyone had quit and easily found new jobs. The new ADM started using student nurses to do med passes, assessments etc. And he cut out one full time position, took all of the subacute patients off the subacute wing and placed them all over the building. Now we were short a nurse, had subacutes with IV.s, trachs, orthos etc all over the building. And students don't do narcs, call MD's, follow through with xrays, labs etc, do IV's etc. The last day I worked we had two RN's and a student for 80 patients. I value patient care and my license more than that!!!

This is just my opinion: but when we pick up the slack for others, the management or administration never notices that someone is not pulling their weight. They think that everything is just swell. When everyone quits taking up the extra, it will be glaring that someone is not doing their job. I don't know why we have to think that we are responsible for others or someone else's work. We are responsible to them, but not for them. Just do your own work and let the sluffing off be someone else's problem. Why should it be your place to go and talk to that person. It will just create hard feelings in my opinion. Just do your own job and don't worry about hers. It ultimately is a management problem. I speak from experience: I have taken up other's responsiblilites and it finally just caused resentment in me. Hope things work out. Been there, done that.:)

I am very creative and wish that I had majored in art instead of nursing! LOL:p I had a dancing school for 13 years where I taught ballet and jazz. Had a tap teacher that I hired. I have had a dolly pattern business and made patterns and took them to national wholesale markets. I make original dolls, bears. I sculpt faeries in polymer. I crochet. I do watercolors and have sold a few. I do home decorating and do other's homes also. I love to sew and embroider. I love to garden and poke around in the yard. All this and working 12 hours days!! Now that I am not working anymore, I don't do anything. Go figure that one out!:chuckle

When I worked home health and had a patient such as this, I would cover the skin opening with a hydrogel pad, which will absorb drainage and applyed an unna boot. Unna boots will help with the edema and the weeping. Also needs diruresis big time.

P_/RN-- Yes, and all the fathers got home at the same time and after supper all the folks came out in the yard and everyone visited and the kids played. Such an innocent peaceful time. And only the women that wanted to worked. If you didn't want to work you stayed at home.

Oh yes, I do remember the endless summer days. Rounding up all of the animals in the neighborhood, dressing them up and having a circus that all the moms came to. Pushing the cat around in the dollie buggy. I remember when the whole neighborhood watched out for the kids. You could just as well get swatted by the neighbor as your own parent. There was no disrespect, sass, or calling adults by their first name. I am glad that I grew up when I did. By the way, we had a Ford convertible with a continental kit on the back. So swell. :chuckle

The story of the guy with the bow and arrow reminds me. We had a guy come in from hunting. He was taking a poo sitting on and over a log. As he was sitting there, picture it. Some hunter took the vision for a deer and shot the guy in the butt. I am laughing as I write it.:roll :roll :chuckle

I had the shingles, related to stress. Only had a few spots but the pain was unbearable. I didn't know what was wrong. I just had a side ache and it got so painful that I ended up in the ED. I was given antiviral, but the pain went on for about 6 weeks. Doc said I had postherpatic nueropathy and was going to put me on Nuerontin. I told him "no siree". I finally used capsacin and cured the pain. I guess sometimes the nerve has to have surgery to relieve the discomfort. I know everyone does not have all the pain, but I did and have had patients that did. The stupid nerve doesn't know that the shingles attack is over!!!! LOL:chuckle :chuckle

Brownie, I live in Spokane and was working for an agency. I had a wonderful repeating position at a facility here in town. Of a sudden the state came around and found that the DON was not a registered nurse. Just curious if this is the same one. She really did have a set of brass ones. Scarey, huh?? They got a new manager and all came all right, but you wonder what some people can be thinking!!!!

As far as I know, it is Christmas that we celebrate. It is a Christian religious holiday. My word you are testy! We can mention every thing else but Christmas. When everyone has rights, no one will have any. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and I don't see any other religious holiday not mentioned. Just Christmas. Don't take it so personal. We are all entitled to our opinion. This is just mine.

Cheerfuldoer Have you noticed that they are even saying "Happy Holiday". or your "Holiday Shopping instead of Christmas.??? Where has our moral compass gone.?? It is Christmas, for crying out loud. grrrr.