thanks everyone... i really needed the words of encouragement. my rough patch.... well... tomorrow morning i have an appt with my don to be fired. here is the very long story of why.... i have been a nurse for 8 years... i have even worked as an adon in a long-term care facility. i know allot of my states regulations... but i have never been under scrutiny like this... i started working at this place about a year ago. the don is from the facility that i had been adon at and she knows my skills and capabilities.... since i started many nurses have come and gone. i work the weekends as an lpn charge nurse. the rn that was in charge of the building on the weekends "house supervisor", quit. i was the only full time employee left to charge the halls... and because of my back ground... given a job that i was in no way asking for.... sure we had other nurses, but they were from agency. i was delegated the responsibility of staffing/ house supervisor for the weekend crew. all on top of charging my own hall of 28 residents. i was pulled in 100 different directions for approx 9 months... no raise... no thanks. in the mean time there were 2 rn's that were hired... (i had to train them)... they couldn't charge their hall... always coming to ask me policy procedure questions... computer questions and problems with staff questions... i am a nice person... so i graciously helped... to my own determent. i completely spread my self very thin... i started forgetting things and missed transcribing a couple physician orders... i took my med error.... as any good nurse will... about 2 weeks ago.... i had a patient that was having severe pain in her knee.... i got an order for warm moist pack.... i delegated the task to my cna... that also happens to be a restorative aide.... this is in their scope of practice for our state.... i instructed the aide on how to make the pack... 2 towels wet with hot tap water wrapped in 2 cloth bed pads... the aide said that she was going to go to therapy to get the pack... i thought... ok... we are in the middle of construction... hard to find things... maybe hand towels are easier to find in therapy... so i said ok.. i went to take care of another patient... approximately 15 minutes later i heard a woman shouting.... i instructed the aide that was with me to go see what was going on since i had my hands full. she said it was the pt with the pack.... i told her to take it off... i washed my hands and immediately went to see what was going on. the cna had used a hydrocollator pack (hot stones in a water bath) and she had not wrapped it well. i looked at the resident's knee.... skin was pink.... no blisters... no red areas. i checked her twice in the hour i had left of my shift.... still no redness or blisters... the woman goes 24 hours without anyone having checked her..... (i was off as this was on a sunday) how that happened i have no idea.... so on monday night... 1030pm... a cna finds blisters on her knee. how??? from my warm pack??? on top of that i forgot to transcribe orders for the pack.... scope of practice.... i am now suspended from work pending investigation of neglect!?!? i am going to graduate in may of 2008 with my rn... i am afraid i will lose my license over this.... what do i do??? when i went in to get my suspension last week.... i find out that they are upset with me for reporting to the don that i took a dressing (actually 3 of them from 3 different patients) off of a patient that had been on for 11 days... i was sick one weekend.... so the dressing was from the weekend before that... it had my date and initials on it..... is this retaliation??? am i being unfairly penalized??? how does a blister show up 24 hours later??? not to mention the blister was about the size of a pencil eraser.... hydrocollator packs heat evenly... or so i am told...