Trophywife81

INTJ here. For better or worse, nursing and I go together like two peas in a pod...

As others have posted, my facility runs fluids at TKO unless there is a physician's order to the contrary, such as NS @ 100, etc.

What about nursing, exactly, IS glamorous? Nursing is one of the least glamorous professions I can think of. The beauty of office nursing is the high-quality patient teaching you can provide--teaching that would be virtually impossible to give on the hospital floor. Also, as the previous poster said, you will get to work with patients on an ongoing basis, which can be very rewarding (or frustrating, depending on the patient). If patient teaching appeals to you and the job schedule works well for your family, I think you can find clinic nursing to be "more than meets the eye". Good luck to you.

I am a Texas native who, because of my hubby's job, moved to Orange County from Austin about 7 months ago. After dutifully trying to be happy and comfortable in Cali, both my hubby and I are having to face the facts--our quality of life has taken a nosedive in every single way.... In Austin, our morgage payment on our 1700 square foot house was just over $1300/month; in the OC we pay over $2100 to rent a 1000 sq. ft. apartment The overcrowding here is simply staggering...no matter where we go, no matter what time of day it is, there are always throngs of people around. It feels as though there is no privacy anywhere. And the people are rude, snooty, and unapproachable...just the other day I was about to say "hello" to someone in my apartment complex and then noticed how they were deliberately not making eye contact; this is not an isolated occurence here--it seems that it's impossible to meet people here because everyone (I think as a coping mechanism, due to the overcrowding) simply pretends you are not there. One last reason why I hate Cali, and then I'll stop ranting--as an LVN, I had copious career opportunities in TX...I worked on a step-down/tele floor at a hospital making about $20/hour and was getting GREAT experience in an environment that allowed LVNs to work to the full extent of their training (VNs are given a fairly broad SOP in TX). Here in Cali, I count myself lucky that I was able to find a job in a physician's office--doing work a trained monkey could do--for $15/hr. The jobs simply aren't anywhere to be found, despite my assiduous review of classifieds almost every day...and the few that do pop up pay either less or no more than what I earned in TX. Hmmmm, big dilemma: $15/hour in order to pay $2100 to rent in a snotty, overcrowded, overpriced, trafficky, and materialistic culture, or....$20ish/hour to own a nice house in a good neighborhood for $200k or less in a gorgeous, full-of-personality city populated by smart, laid-back people? No place is perfect of course; but I think there's a whole lot more to be had for a whole lot less if you stay out of California. My husband and I are making plans to go home to Austin as soon as we possibly can.

I worked as an LVN in Texas, where LVNs have a quite wide scope of practice; the hospital for which I worked employed TONS of LVNs. On the telemetry floor I worked, I routinely gave 5, 10, even a few times 20 mg of IVP Lopressor. Per hospital protocol, all pts on Lopressor were scheduled for Q4 vitals, and I frequently checked HR even more often and ALWAYS before giving the drug. I'm sure I'll shortly hear of all kinds of contradictory stories, but in my experience, 5 mg of Lopressor was virtually useless in treating tachycardia...the pt. was doing good for their heart rate to drop 3-4 bpm.

LPN=LVN We are called Licensed Vocational Nurses in Texas and California; all other states refer to their basic nurses as Licensed Practical Nurses.

I worked too hard and made too many sacrifices to become a nurse to have unlicensed personnel using for themselves the title that I EARNED...I can kinda, sorta look the other way if I see a CNA trying to soothe a dementia patient who may not know what a CNA is, but may likely be reassured by the presence of a "nurse".....however this individual deliberately chose to impersonate a nurse to a nursing professional. Definitely call the BON and the DON.

I have yet to see an LVN program that requires chemistry as a pre-req. If chemistry is not your thing (as it sounds like it isn't :/ ), then going through an LVN program will allow you to become a nurse sooner rather than later, and not be held up by this one particular class. Additionally, being an LVN prior to being an RN will allow you to earn a living wage while you complete your studies, and many employers will assist you should you choose to go the LVN-to-RN route. Keep in mind, however, that you will be more limited in where you can work as an LVN. Hospitals that use LVNs are few and far between (they are out there, just not as many as there used to be). Jobs in LTC, home health, and rehab are usually available for LVNs and will pay between $16-30/hour, depending on what part of the country you're in. Additionally, many of the best nurses with whom I've ever worked started out as LVNs...you really do learn so much as an LVN, and I believe starting out as an LVN provides a great foundation from which to build your nursing career. Good luck with chemistry--I hope you'll hit upon a solution that's right for you!

My "at work" fashion rules: 1. Scrubs that are comfortable, reasonably pretty, and that FIT WELL...I'm tiny, so I usually buy tops that are gathered or have a tie at the back , so that the top fits my waist a little better than those boxy unisex tops do. It's difficult NOT to feel unattractive when you're completely dwarfed by oversized, unflattering scrubwear. 2. Shoes that are comfy enough to carry me through 12+ hours pounding on a hard tile floor. Trust me, when your feet hurt, there's no getting your sexy back...:) 3. Stud earrings just large enough so that if my hair swings back, I've got a little hint of bling. 4. Clean, sensibly styled hair; a little foundation to cover any breakouts, a little blush, a slick of lipbalm. 5. Whenever appropriate, a smile on my face even if I don't feel like smiling. 6. An attitude that demonstrates confidence, care, and professionalism. Good luck on your second career, and thanks for this post--it was fun! :)

I haven't posted in a while, due to my life being turned upside down over the last few months....this post is nothing more than my "sob story", so thanks in advance for reading it. I'm a fairly new LVN, having graduated from a program in Texas back in May. Got a great job on a med/surg/tele floor lined up prior to graduation, and worked at it for about 4.5 months...it was definitely hard work and very stressful at times, but it was incredible experience and I had planned to stick with it for at least another 8 months. Then my hubby got laid off from his job, and received an offer from a very well-known company within his industry such that working for them would be a "feather in his cap" for his resume. However, it required us to relocate to Orange County, CA. So I quit my job, we sold our cute little house in Texas, and moved to Cali. Now we are here paying 2.5 times more money for RENT over what our mortgage payment in Texas was; I have still not received my license endorsement from California, and based on what I am reading of job-seekers on these forums, I don't even have much hope of finding ANY job, much less one similar to what I had in Texas. Jobs just seem so scarce, and the few LVN job postings I do see all want 2+ years of experience, even in LTC. On top of all that, I just can't seem to adjust to life out here....people seem so rude everywhere I go, it's insanely crowded in the OC, and the whole culture seems so "plastic" and materialistic. I'm extremely homesick. I realize that I'm probably just giving into self-pity, but it seems like everything I work hard for in life, I never get to reap the rewards of....what was the point of going to school to be a nurse if I only get to work as one for the short time I did? What was the point of taking on the student loan debt that I did to pay for nursing school? To add insult to injury, this was not the first time I've had to leave a job I liked for my husband. The first time was when I was employed as a high school English teacher, and I had to leave a job with a great school district to relocate with him. Incidentally, there's another example of how things just don't seem to work out for me--I spent four years of college working on my English degree and teacher certification, however I mostly hated teaching (although the school district mentioned earlier was a good employer and I did enjoy much of my time working for them). An English degree is pretty useless if one doesn't plan to teach, so thus it was back to school for me....and now I feel like I'm again at square one. A BA degree I'm not using, LVN training that I'm not using, but still paying off all the debt I took on to achieve those educations.... I'm not blaming my hubby, but I do feel that our quality of life has taken a nosedive, not just financially (taking cost-of-living into account and the loss of my income, we have dramatically reduced spending power out here) but in other ways too...we really don't have any friends out here, my career is at a standstill, and neither of us much care for the OC vibe. Am I whining? Should I just shut up? I just really don't know what to do, and I'm finding that I simply begin crying a little every day....and I'm not a cryer. :/ Thanks for listening.

Wish my most memorable pt. statements were as nice as yours! I was once caring for a 95 y/o post-surgical pt. who was experiencing confusion d/t all the pain meds she was on....after she started clawing at her surgical dressing, pulled her NG tube out, and then set to work on her foley, I and another nurse put her in wrist restraints. Then for the rest of the night, every time I was in that pt.'s room, all I heard about was that I was a "stupid B****", was the "ringleader" of all the mean people trying to kill her, and (my personal favorite) an "annoying heifer". What a night!

I'm a fairly new nurse (

Home health may also be a good fit for you. Good luck and congrats on earning your RN license!

I have a Bachelor's degree with a double major in English and history. It's a very "useless" degree! Thus after being frustrated with my limited options in using that degree, I went to LVN school and have not lacked for opportunities. I believe in the real world of nursing, having an additional degree does not really matter to employers--what they are interested in is your nursing license. However, if there is an area of study that you are passionate about (in my case, liberal arts), then there is absolutely nothing wrong with pursing that to the extent you desire, whether it leads to a degree or not. Just be aware that in nursing, a degree in an area outside of nursing is more for your own edification than for your employers'.

Don't know how I did it, but...I passed!