witchypoo

back in the olden days (1980's). it was used much like saline is used today. it was used to cleanse and used as wet to dry treatments and to soak wounds like a foot bath or and hand bath or in one instance we used a sitzs bath for a sacral wound it was a mess but it did help.

PS if you want to work in a hospital you have to try more rural areas,of nys

Then either try working with an agency or try a assisted living or nursing homes, believe me I have trained more young nurses to move on to better things, and you can do as I did and get a New Jersey license and come here. I know we have many new grads here and I can tell you of a few open positions in our sister facility in Paramus if you are willing to travel

peaches does a nice job in uniforms for us full figured women.

I have been a LPN for almost 30 years and although the job market has been tight in the new york metro area because of some hospital closings i have always had at least part time employment. the LPN rumor of phasing out has been around since i attended school. We are the largest percentage of staffing in long term facilities and assisted living and in clinics and since you are in NYC. there are plenty of jobs available

My experience with Filipino nurses started some 30 years ago. They have always been smart, well educated, hardworking and just like most of the nurses I have worked with over the years some you get along with and others you don't it is strictly a personality thing. I have seen them exploited by some of the host employers, and found that helping them out of the company store revolving debt scheme our one employer had them under was far more fun for me and my co workers than for them. They were ashamed that we thought that they needed charity, till they came over to my apartment furnished in cast off 's and used stuff from friends and family. after our 3 to 11 shift we would side walk boutique, we would go out, In the morning we went to good will salvation army and other thrift stores to furnish their home, have curtain, and house hold good exchanges. My husband who i was dating at the time checked out car's before they bought them. and taught them to fix simple things on them. Our employer had been garnishing their wages to reimburse himself the cost of the motel they stayed in when they first came in. with loan shark interest rates, charged them for the used nursing home furniture as if it were new, he also paid them less. I was called to his office and asked why I did this,after all he could replace me with one of them tomorrow. and in my cockiest new york accent I told him because I was a grandchild of miner and I heard tales of company store but never thought i see one and since I was told it was wrong to exploit anyone I have to follow my grandmothers advice and help these girls, like her family had during the Molly McGuire days. We still laugh when we get together about going to dance clubs, trying to shove a chair in my pinto or the living room set from my sisters in the back of my husbands truck, rummaging through my grandmothers attic and finding those awful fiberglass curtains that nan recently sold on e bay can you believe it. or at Beth's wedding my husband and I were the tallest people there. How happy they were to see the Marco's regime fall. I do not know if i could leave my family and start over in another country, housed with complete strangers, working with complete strangers. I am grateful to know them and have has some of my best times in their company.:heartbeat

sweet heart you did not fail her. her children did her doctor did but you served her in dignity. And as much as it breaks your heart that we are not listening to her requests that are written down in a legal form, they can be overridden by a well meaning family member. It is unfortunate That this happens all the time. my mother has sat down with all 7 of us, the only dissident to her wishes is my one sister who believes that mom should be hooked up to everything, only my brother and I are listed as power of attorney, he lives with her and I am to advise him with my knowledge, this was agreed upon by everyone but my one sister who is angry because, we fail to see her religious views, about the sanctity of life. we told her if she dared to fight us on mom's wishes We'd make her life a living hell. Unfortunately I know first hand how hard it can be to rescind these orders once they are initiated. my oldest daughter had sids her monitor failed. I was in a hospital in another state trying to get the pregnancy I was carrying to term and she was with her dad and his mom. the baby was put on the respirator and other equipment, but was brain dead, and in organ failure, when we went to turn off the equipment the right to lifers came in with my mother in law to fight us. She stated We do not do this in our family. I reminded her both her son and i had thought about this and it was a extremely hard decision to come to but Holly would never come out of this. Holly died 4 days later while we fought in court. I thank God the local media chose to leave it a private matter and we were not made a public specitical. i think part of that was the fact i was 6 months pregnant and eclamptic. and the Judge told the right to life attorney. that his group was looking to save one child who would have no quality of life and kill another because of the undue stress they were putting already grieving parent through. our relationship with his mother never healed and was always very strained. I think I'm having dnr tattooed on my chest like one of my residents did so there is no question as to what he wants he wants no infighting from the ambulance crew about weather it is a state form or just a legal form.

Oh and ps my excessive over time is anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes it is on occasion an hour but usually includes verbal orders from doctor's who are passing through and gave them to you because They doesn't like the evening "girl" so you just write them up for me ok susie. or a fall or other emergency that does need 2 nurses to get the paperwork done to to get the pt out 911.

i found the fastest way to stop the Memo's is to act like they do not bother you. My Don asked me last week if i was sick of being constantly written up for my excessive over time, i answered not really, i have a foot of bath room wall open and i'm using them to wall paper it. it was a master charge moment it was priceless. Then she came up to me at 4:25 to have me research some missing paperwork for pneumovac inoculations that are missing from some patients, {i work in ltc} from 2005 and 2004, they are not in the computer{ funny they were on computer generated sheets in the charts if you looked}. i told her i would gladly do it, and i did i punched out at 5:15 when she called me on the ot i reminded her that i was looking up the missing inoculations and inputting them in the computer just like she asked me to do as she was leaving for the day. Now i work from 8am until 4;30 i have a handicapped son who i have to get to school and i was hired this way, on weekends i now have to come in at 7 am and leave at 330 i do not have a problem with this but when i did this earlier i was told not to because it was too hard for payroll.{schizophrenic moment} i often do not go for lunch because the lunch room is near the boiler room and smells like fuel oil and makes me ill it also has mold issues. and my asthma hates it so it's lunch in the car or on the benches outside in nice weather but you may end up sharing it with a dementia patient. so i sometimes stay on the unit to eat. or will read in my med room, it is my lunch, and some days there is no time to eat unless you catch food as you run from event to event When will management understand we are not gymnasts we can only bend so far and do so much at one time .

I hate to be a kill joy, but unless you change the times on the orders and mar, if you get caught giving the meds to suite your schedule you are risking your license, you have a window in which to give meds and if you combine them in those time perimeters, you will have no problems but if you are combining lets say 4pm meds and 9 pm for your convience, then you are endangering your license. if lets say sara old lady wants all her meds before she goes to bed at 8 pm then talk to dr kildare and have him change the times if possible, most of our 9 pm are sleepers or poopers and that is usually not a problem, but lets say it is coreg which is usaully 12 hr apart that should stay at that type of interval but if given at lets say at 8 a and 8 p will fit in to acceptable parimiters, only you can protect your license. look i'm not perfect, i am anal, and i have been a lpn since 1980, and in ltc and psych all of my career, no one gave me my license i earned it and so did you, i have 31 resident on 7-330, i dont have a ward clerk and right now have no unit manager, i do the pharmacy corrections, labs, drg's, medicare charting, the doctors all come on my shift, all the meds and treatments and have the don screaming at me over the overtime 8 to 12 hours a week, but it is my license i look out for and if i can save yours i will. and i have patients i have to go back to to give them their meds,because they won't take them because they are delusional and think you are poisoning them, and in 45 minutes they will thake them willingly. remember it is your license

I too have to agree with cape cod, they work but you have to watch the pressure points. if they are too low in the chair they cause a wind swept positioning of the legs not a good thing either.

I have been a nurse for 28 years and the mom of a handicapped children for 21 and 17, and have been the care taker of a retarded relative since we started school together in 1965 my aunt held him back so he would go to school with his 4 cousins to protect him. That being said let me play the devils advocate, we all become ****** when our child is hospitalized, factor in the fact he is a child in an adults body, his mother is a forever parent, I do not know the childs cognative fuctioning but i do know that pain is subjective and he may be a pleaser and will not express his need for pain meds. she also came from a less accepting time, she had to fight for his education, services and she has to contenplate her own death and his future and with the death of her spouse it is amplified. she is not a witch who hates her field she is a frightened parent who is her childs only advocate. and yes she was educated in a diffrent era of nursing, whe is in her 60's most likely, back then the focus would have been atc pain meds. her stats are probably on the money. instead of alienating her learn from her start a conversation with you are an excellent advocate for your son or i think you have done a wonderful job with your son. I can tell you first hand it sucks to be the parent of autistic, with another rare genetic disease called laurence moon bardet biedl syndrome and having walked a mile in the shoes i thank God for that generation because they did not sit back and except the glorified babysitting of early special education programs. Rain man is fun to watch but stinks to live with. and he is 17 I have to face becoming his permant guardian, fight to get him an education and services, and know that the average wait time for a group home is 9 years bit daunting isn't it

jayhawk i feel and understand your fustration, i'm building my own group home for my son outside of cooperstown new york, he is 17 he has laurence moon bardet biedle syndrome with autistic tendencies. If i learned nothing from my aunt's mistakes with my cousin it was to plan for the future of my handicapped child, I won't be here forever. she didn't and when she became ill he was place in a emergency facility over 200miles from his friends and family, he was abused and became violent, it took us months to get him home. I will not let this happen to my child or anyones elses. right now the area where i own my property doesn't have the greatest services, for socialization or many job placements outside of wall mart, but i have ridden my broom with distinction before and i am loud. i'll build jobs services if i have to, and cry to every church group and vfw so they'll lend us their hall for dances and workshops, i'll work on charities since i do not trust the availabilities of goverment funding, I am not rich but i have been working on my plans since joey was diagnosed in 93 in that time I have purchased the house and land, slowl renovating the house we were going to have wind turbines but the town made that impossible so that income dried up. we can always build a few more house and rent them out to baseball fans for income. I'm not afraid of working hard and will continue to do so, so my child had the best i can give him.

They may require a physical and may have a uti, but what happens when there is nothing other than dementia. I have a lovely little fresh lady {she is rude to the point of being humorous, the filter is gone and what ever she thinks comes out of her mouth}. who has a body alarm. She went out to a doctors appointment, with an escort and an ambulance driver, they left her in her room because that is where she wanted to go, actually she told them to her house . I was not at the desk to tell the escort to either put her in the dayroom or by the nurses station, which is what is care planned. she had been fall free for a year and a half. she got out of the chair alarm sounding and fell before the aid got there and i ran down the hall. Luckily no broken bones, or injuries. not even a bruise, just the mountain of paperwork. {maybe we should use that to cushion the falls} . when asked why she told me because she was not home. the sob's drove right past my house,{and knowing where her home had been and where she went they did drive right past it} If she was a child we would have the right to use a seat belt or other safety equiptment. lets face it many of the residents are mentally like children. this woman is pretty much like a 2 year old { like when your child told your MIL that you thought the gift she gave you for your birthday was the ulgyest thing you ever saw, aka no filter}. we make care plans and precautions but different factors sometimes intervene. the ambulance is now told to avoid the street she lived on. and they are instructed that she is to be left at the dayroom, where there is supervision.

I realize this is an older post, however the lewd behavior is to be documented and care planned. A " family meeting" with the resident, administration, nursing and social services and set up boundries. He is entitled to see what ever programs in his room he likes. We are entilted to work in a sexually harrassment free establishment. He is just as liabel as any one else, who harasses you. It doesn't change because he lives at the home. A resident in tlc as long as he is a&ox3. Just because he is a quad doesn't make it different. and this needs to be explained to him. He should only be cared for by male staff or female staff if he were gay or it was a female. they too can sexually harass. if it is only ladies on days and guys on evenings or nights his shower times are changed, if he ever acts out on his behavior. such as attacking a staff member that the police will be brought in. case in point when i first got out of school in 79 vcr did not exist, it was playboy magazines a young male resident who had uncontrollable myoclonic sezures, would look at his mag and masterbate, on the sun deck. I had to explain that although he had the right to look at his magazines, he could not masterbate in a public area. He would have to take it back to his room. If he failed to cooperate with this the pokice would have to step in because it was a public lewd act. He explained he like being in the sun and really had no privacy in his room because in drawing the curtains he blocked visual observation for his room mates since it was a 4 bedder the only privacy was the curtain. our solution was to move him to the end of the room by the window, if his curtain was drawn by him. an his cassett player on a certain tape. he was given his space. we had total compliance after that now i also worked on a unit where we had and old untreated std resident. he was part of a goverment experiment in the 30's had severe dementia and he was strong, he would grab any female member of staff. one girl he pulled into this bed. He hurt her back adn caused her to miscarry, she ended up having to have her spine fused. She went out permenent disability which was bad since she was only 20. we finally refused to work with him. he was moved to a va wing which was all male staffed. It was heavely documented. Now because the std effected his mind he could not be held liabel but the hospital ended up paying s small fortune for her surgery her pain and suffering and pain and suffering

Originally Posted by crazdmomof4 OMG you two will be a riot in the LTC home. We have a new administrator who sings the "Friday song" over the loud speaker, and once nearly fired a nurse I adore for burning sage incense for a resident (or so I have been told). I would kill to see her reaction to you two. {you can come with us too, we can make it a whole unit} I don't think i did this quote thing right , but i do not think we wouldn't have a problem with the "Boss man" since we are the real boss man over him and my daughter has been taught to ride a broom with the best, it is in our dna. GG was president of ILGWU, GM was a civil rights worker in the 60's, and my hobby is Parent rights education for developmentally delayed kids. besides ren fairs and reading tarot cards and palms, That being said, It frosts my onions that everything is being directed at us is by lawyers and insurance companies, 99% of our goverment are lawyers and a great deal of their campaign contrubitions and lobbying jobs are from insurance co. It is not working nurses and assistants, if they ask any nurses It's a goverment nursing, {Not VA or County facility staff more like} state regulator positions who are usually so far removed from the field they have forgotten how hard the work is. A hospital is not like a nursing home, true they too have nursing shortages, our staffing is constantly being down graded, do more with less, be more effecent. Next time i'm asked to do something faster i'm using this line "I'm 5'5 and 235 i'm not the bionic woman, and i refuse to indanger my guys to impress the likes of you, it may garner me a insubordination vacation. but i'm getting to the point i really do not care. I'll take a day off with out pay. i hope it is a nice day. and i'll brag about my plans, because it really ticks off the bosses that you are not fazed by a threat of a day off Without pay. I'm still getting over being written up for being out for sick 4 days since november, I'm allergic to the air freshner they use at work i call it instant asthma attack. and this is well known, I went out 911 from it. {and they can't change it because of the company formulary for supplies and even though i have purchased antistench for my unit that doesn't make me ill it always disappears because it smells nice and clean not like floral pesticide.} if it is used i have to leave my unit for about a 1/2 hour. but it still can start me off and i'll miss the next day because it just pushed my already taxed system over the top to a er symedrol vacation. that was november, and january, January my allergist changed my meds, {just because i sounded like darth vader}i had an allergic reaction to a new med {I was a massive red hive and the benedryl they gave me made me comatose maybe i still could have given out pills we could have called it mystery medication cause i don't know what i'm giving you }so that was another day and the last I was sent home early on a sunday because i had a temp and the compazine wouldn't do it. called in sunday night for monday, was off tuesday and wed, came in thursday {still looked like death warmed over, based on comments by my fellow staff and residents.} Mind you I have notes for all these days from my doctors, and i was only paid for i sick day. because i only asked for i days pay. i was told if i did it again i would get a day off without pay. i commented about this and copied my md notes and attached them, and said if i was sick i would call in. and if they have a problem take it up with the labor board. just venting

where i work the clients also get an average of 19 meds. as i said the beer's rule is mearly a suggestion. i have only one doctor that follows it and unfortunately she only has 4 of my clients. she 23 on my co workers unit and she actually finishes her med pass on time. I have doctor EGO and he has 12 clients, He has just increased one residents meds to a count of 32 meds, {i think he is working on a pharmacy vacation} on the 9 am med pass. and 3/4 of them are liquid so she has 6oz of meds that you can't mix together and you have to thicken to honey and give her a 1/2 teaspoon at a time and most are bid so it is not like evenings gets a break and i have been trying to get rid of fosamax on this resident she can't sit up with out support, she has to have her meds crushed. she doesn't fit the profile for half the medications, she has an entire half of the bottom draw just for her liquid meds, she really only requires dilantin, colace and lipitor, the rest are supplements and things like prilosec, which she would not need if she was not getting so many meds that upsets her stomach, he has her aricept and namenda, which her alzheimers is beyond because her husband asked about them and now her husband is waiting for a scene like out of awakenings or cocoon, she is like a 6 month old baby, but there is no talking with doctor ego cause you are only a nurse. I spoke with the medical director yesterday about it and he pulled the chart for a medical review, hopefully now that he is involved things will change. and i won't catch too much grief. but it is routiene for him to review 5 charts from my unit a month and when i am there i stear him to the useless med charts and unsigned and out of compliance charts. the doctors will usually listen to him. He can take away their privalages to practice at our home and 22 others and make life a living hell in 2 of the local hospitals. he is a political md and very well connected and 3 of these doctors are scrambling for admission privalages in the 2 hospitals the medical director has alot of clout in. and they were effected by 2 hospital closures. He also remembers me when i was a snot nosed nurse of 16 running the forensic psych ward at night. and he was the senior resident. he often chides me for not going on since i'm too damn smart to be under some of my supervisiors, and i remind him that i put many things on hold when my son was born. just a fyi my son is severely developmentally delayed. the director remembered something i once said to him. it was an impossible request and i answered "i'd get to that just as soon as i learned to walk on water" and he looked at me and i then said i'd clairify it for him "as soon as get done with the plagues and parting the red sea." when he was leaving my unit yesterday he told me I'm not making any promises, but i'll try to free you up a little, so start making matoz i'll try to part the red sea.

i love this thread so i thought i'd add something. back when i first graduated and worked in a county hospital in a ltc unit. our dress code required that we wear starched white dress to our knees, our caps our were organiza and highly starched and looked like a pilgrim women's cap and thick white stockings or panty hose, white shoes with a cuban heel. a real nancy nurse outfit. i had they 2 of the cutest lol, who would come up to me in the dinning room. miss savanah in her soft southern drawl would say to me now miss rae you're new here, you just make sure you count the silverware. these rich folk always steels them a suvioneer. you don;t go giving them no other fork or spoon unlessin you seez it on the floor. i was off for a day and an agency girl was on my unit. The next day when trays came up they had plastic forks and knives, and savanah comes to me and says see that miss rae you was off and that party just stole us blind, and the boss let that girl go.nope she just listen to her elders, she didn't listen to me i tried to warn her she just wouldn't listen tried to tell me i was retired and in a home, her room mate miss mattie soft spoken Island lady saw my uniform was stained from a resident who did not like beets and showered me with them, miss mattie said to me now miss rae wouldn't you be glad when the winter uniform comes out. the black hides a multiude of sins you better change before the misses sees you or you'll be on the train upstate to the home for orphans.

Lamas isn't that the guy so says "you look marlvolous". of course i have a wonderful recipie for lamas bread. but will they let us burn a yule log or will we have to take it outside like a bon fire? or try to make up settle for a cd i can hear the rec staff now "get out the stupid burning log cd for the crazy ladies in 1313." and "what the hell is a wallis" her daughter is bringing it in for the party, that is the booze punch that her daughter gives cheer in old english like romeo and juliette lol

The beer's rule is a suggestion for doctors to limit meds. that the elderly should have less than 9 meds daily, it is to prevent drug interactions, and that they can do very well with a limited amount of meds. it is a little more complicated than that but that is it in a nut shell.

oh i forgot i have a little joke one of my patients told me. it's cute:lol2: question: what do you call it when you have a client that rolls into other clients chairs and causes an abrasions? answer: a bump and grind. That is why i work in geriatrics so i'll always be the sexy nurse to some one lol "the night nurse is gone and the sexy one's here and she tells us such beautiful lies" from the song jimmy neumann

Tres we can be roomies. as long as you will let me watch late night tv since my body is accustom to at least watching letterman:lol2: i'll wear head phones and draw the privacy curtain, so you are not blinded by the light of the tv. i also will shower at that time because if i learned nothing else from dorm life 3 am is the only time hot water is available in abundance. i have 2 lovely kids, who will do my bidding:bow: and bring me all the contraban foods, we are not suppose to have like chocolate and chips and real coffee. who have been trained to bring chinese, pizza, and real cake cause the food here is dreck. and we do not want a room close to the beauty parlor it smells like perm solution for hours after they close. ocassionally i like to put on my ren fair gear and go to ren fairs so don't freak out, you can come if you want but you have to wave at anyone who stares at the car, like you are the queen of england, because elizabeth tudor is driving us. and i wear more italian/spanish style ren fair things and if you want to dress up too i'm sure we have something in your size. and i will always dress up for halloween. and i celebrate all the solstaces because it will drives the rec staff crazy. i want to see them find decorations for that one. i think of nursing homes like college dorms, very expensive rooms with limited space, with awful food and are clueless in setting up room mates. have some of the stupidest regulations, and you are trappped using monopoli money to buy things at inflated prices. most of the parties have dumb themes. i think a halloween party called witches and warlocks,is more dignified than one called scarecrows and pumpkins, i want a oscar and tony party cause i don't care about the super bowl. just a thought. rae

florida you have my:bowingpur sincerest accolaides, you are a super person:nurse:. as i said before administration and the state regulators have not got a clue what we do on a daily basis. our jobs are easy, we can be replaced a trained monkey could do my job but would he do it with out hitting some one, or throwing excrement. i share in your fustration. you can join me and my co workers in the zen movement read the instructions to completion first then proceed, sit comfortably preferably in you med room since it is the only quiet place on your unit,You close your eyes place your upper arms next to your body and lower arms slightly extended out from your body with palms of your hands facing up take you index fingers and have them touch your thumb now chant and keep repeating until you feel better i swear it works, now that you have had a laugh i hope you feel better.

now that is a idea, we can make the restraints more like baby car seats a 5 point hitch, over the shoulders across the chest and belly and hips locking in the crotch area, they couldnt slide to choke would have multiple strap adjusters for comfort and the wheel chairs would be more like a handicapped child wheel chair/ stroller so you can tilt it back for the forward leaners and butt schoochers, and they could be made to have leg mobility like a merry walker. or leg rest like a normal chair. I just caught holy hell because harry houdini got out of the wheel chair and fell:angryfire his son visited and turned off the alarm because that noise gives him a headache and he was with his dad so he did not need it on, so he left dad in his empty room and instead of bringing dad to the nurses station or turning the alarm on himself, he came to the desk to have us put it on :nono:and before we were told it was off the old man was on the floor and his son got to escort him to the er for evaluation, we grabed sonny boy before he got out of the lobby. and i'll have to deal with the broken hip. this sucks. I want a unit with a big circular desk so I can park the harry houndini's so I can see them.like a 50's drive in, the alarms are attached from the desk to the patient's back and the families sign a waver, if they shut off an alarm they have to do the paperwork. you have to bring them back to where you got them from i don;t know maybe the quarter thing like grocery carts have. or a fine for a over worked staff outting. with the families i have i think we can do a few broadway plays a year, with seats the front row. with a limo taking us. people can die from restraints but they also die with out them. and i do not see an improvement since we went restraint free, 20 years ago, you put straps on your baby to keep it safe in the the stroller or the car i can't see the reason why it would not work with the elderly which has more dignity a little strap vest, you can take off and walk them with or surgery that is a danger god forbid they are on blood thinkers that can stroke them or bleed them out, a 10' scar or an injury that could imobilize them for the rest of their lives. i don't know. i think i'd opt for the strappy thing if they put sequins on it cause i'll be a flashy old lady and i'll also have a psychadelic colored walker just to humuliate my kids. and my wheel chair will have a bumpersticker on the back saying my other car is a broom.

thank you , my other favorite is when you look like a soap star after a honeymoon scene, your sweating bullets and your hair is all over the place, you are dealing multiple emergency. your one pt is hypo glycemic and one other needs cpr and you had to defib him, so for the last hour you been your own personel emt crew, your doctor order for transfer have been taken by your house keeper because she was the only one free to answer the phone, she also called 911, You, your supervisior and your 3 aides have been a little preoccupied and your call light queen has called the administrator because her pill was late and it is only a colace and her aid promised her a box of tissues. just so you get the mental image of this patient check out brit coms on pbs she is a cross between Hythician Boucket and Dianah Trent, funny to observe hell to work for. the following day you get a a notice from the DON to organize your and your staffs time management better, I can not give you the responce i gave my DON.:argue:I can only tell you my union rep should be from the long shoremens association rather than 1199. and my mother would be embaressed, let just say it was removed from my files,