NurseyTee

I think the advice given here was quite sound. Read the MD orders and follow them to the letter and you'll have no problems. As far as pushing narcs, it's simple, push it slow, dilute it with a small amount of NS to protect the vein especially if it's a corrosive agent. Pushing over several minutes will allow you to watch the pt and give a good result for pain relief. I seriously don't get it when you have orders from the MD and some nurses take it upon themselves to diagnose a pt as a drug seeker just because they are in pain and want to be out of pain. I personally try to give patients the benefit of the doubt because it's my job to help them. It's not my job to diagnose them with a drug issue. If I think they do have one, I can detail my thoughts or suspicions in the nursing notes and allow the MD to make the decision of what he thinks is going on. It's not the nurses job to be the narc police and decide a patient doesn't need what the doctor has ordered. Just do a good job, be a good nurse and follow protocol. I have watched patients who are in actual pain and suffering because their nurse decided that they didn't need the ordered medication. That is just wrong, and of course isn't the topic here, but I thought I would throw it in. Take care of your patients and follow the Dr's orders. Don't allow your patients to suffer, that's just wrong.

THis isn't exactly the same, but we keep a fan in our room at night for white noise. It helps us sleep. Anyway, since we moved into our new to us house about a year ago. I can hear music playing in the middle of the night if the fan is running. It's really strange. We always used the same fan at our old house and never experienced this. It doesn't happen every night, but it does happen often enough for me to notice. I've been woken @ 3am to the distant sound of music and muffled laughter only to get up, go outside and find nothing but the churping of the crickets. There were no TV's on in my house or radios. It still freaks me out when it happens. I have summed it up to the some residual energy in this area from long ago. Who knows. But my house is only 5 yrs old. We did find a funny looking rock in our backyard though that looks exactly like a tombstone with a simple Cross etched into the stone, nothing more. Spooky. Who knows what this land has seen.

I have had 6 children and suffered with n/v with all and hyperemesis with the last two. There is a difference!! Be careful with Hyperemesis! If you find you are unable to work, talk to your Dr. about this. This disease can be deadly! I lost over 50 pounds during both my pg's. If u find u are unable to keep anything down even with the Zofran, I would not wait until u r dehydrated, which makes the n/v worse! Get to the Hosp. and get some fluids and some IV zofran or phenergan. Maybe a couple of days of rest and fluids in the hosp. would do wonders for you. None of the little "tricks" to help the n/v helped me whatsoever with HG. I had to stop working and suffered with this my entire pg. I hope this is not your fate. Typically, even really bad n/v will resolve itself within a few months of pg. So I hope you will find relief soon. I found what made me feel better was sleeping and resting and even that wasn't fool proof. I would consider disability until your baby is born. HG is that dibilitating.

Cherokee -- I think most of us agree that the stories don't have to necessarily be in a nursing setting. I personally would enjoy hearing about anyone's encounters no matter where or when they took place. I love hearing about it. Chime in, everyone -- what are your thoughts?

I agree with all the posts so far. Good critical thinking and planning. I had one experience w/ calling the Doc at 02:30 in the morning. The pt. was in excruciating pain and the current pain meds ordered weren't helping I called to get a new PRN order to shorten the time between doeses or to increase the med. I got the PA instead of the PCP, he was royally ticked that I called. He stated... "and you're calling me at two thirty in the morning for THIS?" I asked him ... "what would you suggest I do with a pt. in a pain crisis?" He shut up after that and gave me the order. I was polite, but to the point that this is his job to intervene when the current orders are insufficient. With some Docs you can't win no matter what time it is when you call. As someone else stated before, have all your information at your finger tips, the chart, a set of all vitals, and a current PO. It will go smoother if you have all of your ducks in a row, as another poster said.

I'm so sorry for your loss. I too lost a baby, a little girl @ 22 weeks gestation on June 9th, 2004. That date and the day she was to be born are heavy days for my heart. I think it took me a good year to begin to move on carrying this grief. The hospital took care of buying the plot and burying her. The one thing I regret was that my husband nor I were able to hold her and say goodbye. I will keep you in my prayers, as that is what sustained me through the pain. Also haveing a very young child at home helped me too. I poured my heart into my children and that did help. Again, I'm so sorry.

As far as I know, the management position is yet to be filled, but she is actively pursuing it feverishly. The other bad experience right now is that people are making up new reasons why I was let go. You know, gossiping to make it more juicy. That is so painful to hear about. Now as for good news. I'm supposed to start a new job on Wednesday. I'm excited but a little fearful the same thing will happen again once I start pouring myself into the job. As time goes by, I feel more and more depressed about what has happened. It's difficult to swallow. I have never ever been fired from a job. I just wish this hadn't happened.

I went to my interviews today, and both went incredibly well. The first one informed me that the facility I just left had been sold and was listed in the newspaper this morning as such. wow! I was shocked! Does anyone know what happens to the staff when the place is sold to some one new?? I would appreciate any info on this. i still have a lot of friends still working there. Thanks!

Thanks so much to everyone. I am moving on and have two interviews on Monday. (I went in to pick up my pay check.) and i did over hear someone in the office state to the Admin. that he had started a crap storm by "firing that girl". Some of the residents have gone to the local newspapers to complain that the company fired a "good worker that cared about all of the people". They didn't mention my name but as far as I know, I was the only one let go. I'm a little confused by this. Any thoughts?

To all my great friends here who tried to help me -- Thanks for all your efforts. I was canned anyway, even with the supporting evidence. I had hoped my history with this facility would bear some weight with their decision as well, but it didn't. I had poured my heart and soul into this place for almost a year and half. I would always come in when we were short or other nurses called off, I would come in early and stay late and most importantly of all, I adored my patients and their families knew it. The only thing on my side at the moment is there is an uprising from the families about me being gone. Two are threatening to pull their family member out of the facility because of this. I honestly hope they don't do that, moving to another facility and getting used to new staff is always so hard on the resident. It does make me feel a little better that they care that much though. I'm really going to miss all my people terribly. ive spent the last 4 days crying my heart out. Sigh! i'm on the look out for a new job now. Yuck! i hope I'm able to get another one

I forgot to anwer the gerry chair question. we only have one and it's being used by another pt. at the moment. You would think the place would spring for another one or two, but noooo. any one scouring the internet on this, please let me know if you find anything I can use to support my decisions.

Thank so much to all of you for your support. I am supposed to meet with adminisration tomorrow for final disposition. If any of you can find laws or codes that could apply to this situation. I would greatly appreciate it. I plan to copy them off and take it all with me to the meeting.

This patient all ready had an existing restraint that was ordered by the Doc and implemented, being the seat belt. I wasn't trying to restain her, I was trying to improve her quality of life and relieve her discomfort. Honestly, i wasn't aware at the time that back in the days some people used sheets as restraints and they were mis-applied just to keep the patient out of the nurses hair. this wasn't the case. i adore my patients and would never do anything to hurt them. i didn't document the use of the sheet since it wasn't an official item of use. I wasn't planning on implementing it for further use other than the 30 minutes we used it. I had tried to put her back into bed, but she kept trying to crawl out head first. I feel I've made a grave error here, and my job is on the line, just as the nurse who reported it was hoping for. She knows me very well and knows i would never do anything to harm anyone ever. I'm off work until the "investigation' is completed. Who knows what the outcome will be. I'm just emotionally ill over this. In my career i've never been fired and have always felt as a valued employee. I've also never encountered such back-stabbing and pure meanness to get a head.

i need advice from all you nurses here with so much experience in so many areas. I've been a nurse for appox 10 years and went to LTC about 18 months ago. I work really hard and I'm not a regular call off person. I pick up shifts all the time to help out when we're short. All in all, i feel pretty much married to this facility. I lOVE my job though and adore the people I take care of. The families really like me too and seems like they are always coming to me to get things resolved. Okay, now that u have some background on how I work. -- A few weeks ago we had an issue with a res. that is in a w/c w/ a seat belt to hold her in to prevent falling. she is leaning forward to the point of her face touching her knees and was c/o back pain due to her positioning. we tried putting her back to bed, but she kept trying to come out of the bed head first so we got her back up to prevent the fall. the c/o back pain d/t positioning continued and res. was asking us to hold her up so she could see and be more comfortable. We just don't have the man power to devote someone to holding her up. Lap buddy was tried but didn't work either. I decided to try to hold her waist up with a sheet tied loosely around her waist, it worked, was soft and she was so grateful she could sit up again. she was in it less than an hour and was put back to bed and never used again. She's back to the same position and c/o all the time for someone to help her. Now, we have a new position available for a night shift manager and there are a few girls in the running for it, myself included. Anyway, one of the girls also in the running for it picks up shifts from time to time but only with the stipulation that she work the same halls she typically does, which are also my usual halls too. If she comes in and I'm on my halls she throws a royal snit, as she did this past week. We exchanged some words on the topic and i heard her say something to her husband about getting rid of this problem. I wasn't sure what she meant and just went back to my duties. I saw her later that night meeting with all the aides down one hallway and thought that was strange, but just dismissed it. Anyway, to make this story somewhat shorter, some one called our corporate offices anonymously and complained that i was tying this resident up to her chair. NOT TRUE. from what I can accumulate from all this she wants me out of the way and is gathering up as much as she can to make sure it happens. I just don't function in this way, and I don't know how to combat this issue. i've told my side of the story, but I didn't tell about my suspicions with this other nurse and her motives. i honestly don't know how to fight this and I need some advice. there are other issues too but I didn't want to turn this post into a novel. I have seen this nurse do mean things to other nurses as well, writing them up for med errors that never happened, stuff like that. Please give me advice!

I could use something like this right now. We have a Montesorri school on site, but it is extremely expensive and is only open about 4 hours a day. That won't help me. I work night shift 7p-7:30am, My husband has been watching them at night and until he goes to work at 06:30 am. THen my adult daughter comes to my house and gets my kindergartener on the bus and watches my 4 yr. old. So far so good, but I wish there were something on site for us to choose from.