stalsrn

Thank so much for asking. I am saddened to tell you my mom lost her battle with cancer on November 4th. It has been a very tough time for my family. Thank God for little kids, they keep things simple. My oldest son told me not to be so sad, "it's the circle of life Mom, you are born, you live and then you die." Oh, if only life were that simple!!!!!! Anyway, we are taking it one day at a time. Thanks again for your concern. God Bless!

Thanks so much for asking. My mother is not doing well right now. She was in hospital for 5 days due to a collapsed lung. She is now home and going to radiation daily but she cannot do chemo right now because that would entail receiving 1+ liters of fluid which her MD is afraid would settle in her lungs and cause another collapse. She is still not eating and is so weak she cannot get herself up from the toilet. We are taking turns staying with her so she is not alone for long periods of time. On a positive note her spirits are up and she is awake more and has started using her computer and actually stayed awake long enough to watch a movie!

I am a surgical nurse so I see a lot of patients getting parenteral or enteral nutrition. My mother has been on and off chemo for the last year and a half. Last week she stopped taking Tarceva (MD orders) and will start radiation next week. She has not been able to eat anything solid for 3 weeks and has not been able to keep even water down for the last week. She takes a drink and throws it up within 2 minutes. We are trying to keep her phenergan and zofran pills in her (she refuses to have my dad give her a phenergan suppository) but she throws them up too. My question is if any of you wonderful nurses have any experience with chemo/radi patients getting parenteral or enteral nutrition and if it is helpful? My mother is soo weak from not eating and the chemo she has to have help to get into and out of the bathroom. Her MD said artificial nutrition is not helpful and will only give her an infection???? What say all you?

I too suffered acne, weight gain and those lovely raccoon eyes. I still work nights and really love it and have found that exercise is the key for me. Since I started going to the gym for 30 minutes every other day, even on work days, I have noticed a huge difference. I feel better on my days off and I have lots more energy.

Personally I went for a surgical floor only because I wanted to refine all the skills I learned in school and learn new ones. I have a couple of friends who went right into a special field, one went into critical care and the other into L&D. They are both happy where they are and so am I! If you really like where you are currently and you are comfortable there then perhaps you should give it a try. You could also see if the hospital has any opportunities for new grads to shadow on other floors or maybe do some of your clinical hours on a med/surg floor. I did my preceptorship on the same surgical floor I work on now so I already knew it was the right fit for me. Good luck to you!

Our hospital P&P states to strip JP q shift. I always do it during my initial assessment. Alcohol wipes are great and remember to hold the tube at the insertion site!

You are all wonderful! Thank so much for the answers. We only have salem sump NGT at our hospital so I guess the policy is right, although I will go with the MD's order regarding suction. Thanks again!

I was taught during my orientation to surgical floor to always put NGT, especially salem sump, to continuous low suction. Some of the other nurses are now telling me that continuous is not right, should be intermitant only. The policy for the floor states continuous which is what I always do. Yesterday a day shift nurse told me I was wrong and the policy was wrong! She said a MD told her to never use continuous and always low intermitant. What do you all think? What is the correct answer? Thanks in advance!

I had the same problem when I decided to go back to school. I choose the ASN route so I could work for awhile and decide if I truely wanted to be a nurse. So far I love it and have found that I can do the RN to BSN or MSN online and my hospital will help pay for it! I am not sure if I should go for the MSN or BSN as it is only a matter of a couple of semesters since I already have a social work degree and can get credit for all the case management classes I did back then. I know my hospital counts any nursing classes towards our clinical ladder and completed degrees count more hence more of a raise! Good luck to you!

Last night during shift report I noticed a pt had orders to recieve 500cc bolus of albumin with start time of 1530. The orders were signed on the chart and marked off on the mar. The nurse giving me report at 1930 stated that, yes it was almost done infusing and when done to just throw away tubing and all. So that is what I did. Well this morning after I had given report to a different day nurse she went to do her assessment and found a bottle of albumin tucked in the corner next to the sink in pts room. I never noticed it there and frankly did not look as I was told it was done and the pt did not get anymore. The day nurse was more than a little perturbed at me. I explained to her that the orders were signed off on the chart and on the mar so that means it was done (?). She said I was wrong and stormed off. I am a new nurse (6 months+) and I have tried hard to be a good nurse and I get so mad at myself when I miss something !!! What do you all think?

As a former social worker i can honestly say Nursing is much better!! I work my 36 hours a week, I am not on call 24/7 and I don't have to take my work home with me. I have done all kinds of case management and it was always the same, low pay, high stress! Not to mention the brick walls you end up banging your head on because you cant find resources for your clients! Not that nursing is not without its brick walls, its just that when I leave the hospital I know that someone else will carry on where I left off, with social work a lot of the time you are it! The client relies on you and only you! Good luck with your dilemma!

As a former social worker and APS worker I can say that all the advice is correct in this instance. The pts child will need to hire a lawyer at his own expense if he wants the tube pulled. He can try to have his parent deemed incompetent to make own decisions by a judge in a court of law. Even with a POA, if the pt does not have specific instructions then the court may have to be involved if medical and social work professionals deem that the POA is making irrational decisions. Your license may also be at stake if you go with the POA and it is later determined the pt was in fact competent to make own decisions. Definetly get your supervisor involved as well as the social worker and MD.

I think my hospital has about 300 beds and the cafeteria is open from 0130-0330 for night shifters. They tried to take it away from us and make us use a "floating" cart that would travel to different areas throughout the hospital. "They" thought they were going to make it easier on us and have a cart available with sandwiches and cold food that we could access during the 0100-0200 hour. Only problem was the cart would only be available on certain floors for 15-20 minutes so if you missed it on one floor you would have to track them down somewhere else in the hospital. They also thought it would be convenient to only accept lunch cards, no cash, checks or credit. The catch was you had to buy your lunch card at the cafeteria during working hours, 0600-1800. Needless to say the cafeteria manager recieved about 100 e-mails from night shifters and quickly changed the plan! We are back to regular hours in the cafeteria with our hot entree of the day, pizza, chicken strips, salad bar and usually two soups.

I work on a surgical floor and we do get pts back post op with epidurals quite often. Our policy requires we do Resp, pulse ox, pain scale, CMS, and site assessment every 2 hours. 2 nurses have to verify original program and any changes, such as bag changes, bolus injections etc... Personally, I hate having epidurals, it seems every pt I have ever had has had some body part go numb!

I work on a surgical floor at night. We generally have 4-5 pts till 2300 then may get a 5th & 6th if we have a nurse leaving at 2330. Our floor is set up with 16 rooms on the north side and 16 rooms on the south side with a nursing station on each end. We almost always have one aide on each side. The new "rule" is that the charge nurse can take 1-2 pts max, if the rest of the staff are at their six patient max. There have been several times when we have had to close our floor to admits because the staffing office scheduled too tight.