redhotzzz

IF anyone had ever told me that one day I would be ON MEDICAID, I would have called them a LIAR and said that as a RN, it just won't happen! BUT, my retina detached 30 days into a new ER job and I had to wait another 30 days til my health insurance kicked in. I knew from being and ER RN that what I was seeing was BAD...and talked to one of the midnight ERPs who I knew from 20 yrs ago at another ER. Someone there overheard our conversation and when my Mgr came to work in the morning she called me to come to work early and they told me surgery for detached retinas was often expensive and numerous and since I'd only been there less than 90 days they were going to severe their ties with me to save their insurance premiums. Don't say it's not legal, IN NC it's at 'at will state' and they can do any thing they want to. I drove home to my eye doc and he did a free eye exam and sent me to a retina specialist immediately on Monday (this all happened at 3pm on a Friday). The ONLY reason I even got Medicaid, was one of my son's counselors at high school is a friend and neighbor and she told me to go to DSS and tell them what happened. I refused and she came and got me in the car and took me there. I still owe her for doing it.....as I have had a total of 21 surgeries since April 2006....not all on my eye. IF I had had insurance I could not have paid all those copays and would have been left with so many medical bills I'd never see daylight for the rest of my career. Now I seek employment and because I am blind in one eye and am not sure IF I can start IVs one-eyed I hesitate to take an ER job. I have always been the one that others come to for difficult sticks. Anyway, you just NEVER can say NEVER, because I just don't believe to this day that I have Medicaid....and Food Stamps....what a joke those are! Try to feed a teen boy of 15yrs who is 6'4" and 191lbs. on a mere $200 a month. Food stamps dont' buy shamooo, deodorant, laundry soap, body soap or toilet paper ETC. Teens don't understand! How has my son handled going from affluent to poverty??? He took an overdose of all his allergy meds for New Years....thinking I was going to die and leave him. It was just after I fell and broke my leg and arm and my optic nerve is damaged beyond repair. We had no Thanksgiving, No Christmas but we do still have one another. I got him some great help and he's doing better now, but you just NEVER KNOW.....NEXT WEEK COULD BE YOUR TURN!

I beg your pardon, Woody, but WHAT makes you think that I am making unsupported accusations??? I can't wait to hear your reply! hotzz

I am followed monthly by a Pain Management doc and he has been my only advocate in helping me remain in a job and able to work safely. I suggest you follow up with the one you have an appt with. If I didn't have mine, I'd have given up 4 yrs ago. I found him by accident, too.....or by God's hand.

I ABSOLUTELY love who I am, but just found out last week, after my 36th job interview that was NOT for the ER that I have been in for 37yrs, that I have been tossed in the circular files by these nurse managers because they can't figure out why, all of a sudden, I want to make a career specialty change! I actually had one call me on the phone ONLY because she knew me from an ER when she was the unit secty and I was urging her to keep on going to get her RN!!! She asked me point blank IF or WHAT had happened that would make me want to change to a smaller unit and when I told her (which really I am not OBLIGATED TO UNDER THE LAW) that I had fallen and broken my leg and forearm and had titanium plates and bone grafts in BOTH and no rotator cuff left in my right shoulder....she said, "Oh my God! I will pass your resume on to my Manager right NOW and you will hear from here next week!" IF that had not been a former peer of mine, my resume would have gone to the circular file like all the others have, as you can't tell me that with the nursing shortage as bad as it is, it would take me 36+ interviews to return to work, no matter what different specialty I was wanting. With that much ER experience I can certainly handle Urgent Care or a MDs office and it really isn't anyone's business "that you will be bored here after being an ER RN so long"....I should be able to change specialties whenever I want to....and not be interrogated by ANYONE! I can still work, I just can't do the heavy lifting and pulling and pushing any more....it's ruined everything I have over time.

The amount in NC is $236 per child, to those who grew up into the system and who are selling their food stamps to buy incidentals, that is a lot of money! It's another $236 they can sell their food stamps for and spend on whatever they want to.

my personal 2 cents worth~~I'm a diploma RN, was a Paramedic for 27yrs prior to going back to school and didn't need that extra class time in a ADN program and I am in my mid 50s and have no desire to ever be in Administration...I'm a good worker bee and do charge fine. Give me one or 2 diploma RNs and a couple good CNAs and one dynomite ER unit secretary any day and I will run a fairly busy small town ER with that group over ADN or BSN nurses. Diploma nurses are put on the floors week #2 and get tons of clinical teaching! Not one employer has ever asked me which kind of RN I am, either. The only way I'd go for my BSN or MSN is if I wanted to teach or be in Supervisory/Admin jobs in my career (or IF I was just in nursing school now...a youngster). I was told in 1971 that they are getting ready to 'phase out' LPNs/LVNs and it has yet to happen. They also swore that I'd have to have my BSN before long to even be a RN and that has never come to fruition. First you have to keep enough plain RNs to have enough staff to do all the rest and that will probably NEVER EVER HAPPEN....esp with us 'baby boomers' all getting ready to retire!

ADN= associate degree in nursing. It can be obtained at any 2yr community college or nursing school.

ADN= associate degree in nursing, which you can get at a 2 yr community college or a 2 yr hospital nursing program.

I absolutely can feel your pain! I have not even been given the chance to return to work because after 37yrs in the ER nobody has taken the time to ask me WHY, at age 54, I suddenly want to leave it and do a slower paced job. In AMERICA, we have the Americans with Disabilities Act and supposedly your immediate supervisors and managers are not privy to your health information if you have been cleared to work by your MD and Human Resources or Employee Health. They are not allowed to ask you about your disability and are supposed to offer you whatever you need to work safely in the environment you are working in~~~whether it be a slower time frame of reentry or special tools or objects to work with. I don't have a copy of the book, myself but I am about to find one. I, too, am being looked down at because in the past 18 months I had a detached retina with 14 eye surgeries and the opthamologist left my intra-ocular pressures up too high too long and now I'm blind in one eye forever. That caused me to fall off the bed, changing light bulbs in a ceiling fan to read the classifieds, and I broke BOTH my right leg and right forearm 11mons ago and I have had multiple surgeries in both and now have titanium plates in both. I was at a new job so I had NO STD, NO LTD and only got Food Stamps because my teen son gets social security from his dad's retirement and that pays our rent. I'm treated like I'd deaf, blind and dumb at interviews and have been on 36 of them and no job. I've resorted to going to walmart and grocery stores close to home, so I can walk there if I have no gas for my car. Those stores do the same thing~~they see a sparkling resume of 37yr of Emergency RN jobs and toss my resume>>>why would I want to stock shelves at walmart??? Has ONE of them ever asked me that???? Heck NO! Now I tell them the reason...as I hand in my resume. I feel the same as you do....depressed, rejected, and on the edge of cashing my chips in>>>really! I can NOT BELIEVE that anyone here would tell you that it's all your doing to bring your self esteem back up and then quote the bible!!! I am shocked~ and even more disheartened~ that this site is even for me if that is how caring other RNs are about their sisters! Here's a little quote I learned as a child...NOT from the bible that I know of but I live by it: "WHAT GOES AROUND ALWAYS COMES BACK AROUND TO YOU. YOU DON'T GET TO CHOOSE WHEN IT COMES BACK OR HOW IT COMES BACK, BUT IT DOES COME BACK AROUND". If you need to chat with someone, I am here for you. I will do whatever I can to help you and want nothing in return for it.....just friendship. I feel every bit of your pain. Those peers you have to work with....their 'what goes around WILL come back to get them. Keep your chin up and find me.

I lost the vision in my right eye to a detached retina 18mos ago and then fell off my bed (misjudged the edge of it due to no peripheral vision) breaking my right leg and right forearm. Now I have 1% vision in my rt eye which only makes it harder for me to see clearly. I do still drive day and night, but can't seem to get a job. I have been on 36 interviews and finally stopped telling the whole truth about WHY I HAVE BEEN OUT OF WORK FOR SO LONG. I have a job offer traveling and am an ER nurse of 37yrs....so I'll be starting lots of IVs. I don't even KNOW IF I CAN STILL DO THIS SKILL and want to know if anyone else is one-sighted and are you still able to start IVs? Any suggestions on where I could go to check my skills without alerting everyone to the fact that I can only see out of one eye? I hear there are LOTS of one-sighted RNs but I sure can't locate them. I really could use this travel job, but I am not going to take it until I know for certain I can start IVs. I'm the one everyone used to come TO to start difficult sticks, so this has me so depressed I can hardly function. I am winging it right now....and places like Wal-mart and grocery stores won't hire me when they see my resume of 37yr of being a RN. I have titanium plates in my leg and forearm but can use them and can fake that part....the lifting and pulling even without one rotator cuff (lost it in 2005 from the years of pulling and lifting). Any suggestions are welcome.