nkochrn

Well, She wanted to prove the doc wrong and she has sure surprised all of us! It's been 2 1/2 weeks since he told her she only had "days" left b/c her WBC was 80k and her platelets were 10. She has been surrounded by family and enjoying the great grandkids as well as 20 years worth of home videos. The nosebleeds have started though and get more frequent every day. She's also developed several lumps/tumors. I am thankful she is still feeling fairly well and has little pain.

My 80 year grandmother was diagnosed with AML in August. She has been taking hydroxyurea and getting blood transfusions every 2-3 weeks. She did get 1 platelet transfusion a few weeks ago also. On Monday, her oncologist told her she only has days left to live. Her WBC is 80, platelets 10, and Blasts 96. Se has been feeling fairly well, which is making it hard to believe how close she can be to the end. Several family members are having trouble accepting whether the oncologist is right b/c she looks so good right now. My Mom and I have been stressing to them that this is an acute disease that can change very quickly. Does anyone have any advice on how to help them understand this?

Our facility has a pharmacy policy for OTC meds given to the staff, the staff receiving and nursing giving them have to sign them out. I get Ibuprofen frequently for headaches. I would talk to your instructor about the incident first and then maybe the two of you could talk to the DON for the unit. Tell her that you did not observe anything but maybe they could monitor that nurse specifically for a period of time and see if they are able to catch her.

This is what I need to talk to the actual nurse about b/c I'm not sure how she found out. I think he was out of town and possibly one of his friends is from town and posted the pictures but I haven't had a chance to ask her about it yet.

awesome, thanks so much! Do you have signs warning patients that they can not post pictures of staff or how are they made aware of the policy?

Every time I've looked into getting my BSN I have decided the cost is just not worth it. In my rural setting it just doesn't gain me much. I know there is always the chance that I could move to another area, but considering this is DH and I's hometown it's pretty unlikely. I have no desire to be a Director and can still be a supervisor with my ADN if I wanted to. I think last time I looked there were several pre-req's that I didn't think should be necessary but it's been awhile. I graduated in 2005 with my ADN.

Thanks for your reply, is there anyway I could see your policy?

We had an ED patient over the weekend that posted pictures on facebook from his visit. 2 of the ED nurses were in the picture and had no idea that they'd even been photographed. They were very upset to find out that it ended up on fb. One of them does not have a fb account. There wasn't really anything they could've done to stop it from happening, our risk manager is looking into this right now. I'm not sure exactly how the nurses saw the pictures because it was the risk managers understanding that the patient was from out of town and the nurses did not know him, so would not have been his friend on fb. I thought she could just report the photo but not sure, I will have to talk to the nurse that found it to find out the exact details since the risk manager doesn't have a good understanding of how facebook works. I've seen a few times that one of the OB nurses will end up on facebook and that's never surprised me, patients and families are always taking tons of pictures in that area. It's never seemed to be an issue before. Does anyone have any policies regarding this?

I had to stop one of the docs in the ED from putting an NG in a patient b/c I hadn't done it before and wanted to! They are not all that way, most of ours will help out a little if needed. I've seen a doc put a foley in a patient and also attempt to start an IV on a ped. Odd thing is that our one and only NP is the one that is least likely to help the nurses even though she worked as a nurse for several years.

I told ya that she had C-Diff!

In most systems even the IT dept. does not know what your password is, they only see stars as the characters are hidden, so if you forget your password they reset it, then make it expire on the next sign on, so that you will have to change it right away. Since this person was in a management position it would make sense that she may be able to reset passwords for that dept, but what she did sounds EXTREMELY illegal!

Yes, I really am a 40 year old Man!

I hadn't ever seen it until I helped with the advanced EMT class and they were taught how to do it. This was the first time I actually saw it on a real patient though. They use the MAD devices also. It seemed like the IN worked even faster than the IV, but he'd also had lots of morphine and ativan before EMS arrived to help prepare him for the transfer. A few weeks before this he'd been transferred by ambulance and had to be given 10 mg of Valium because the 400 mcg of Fentanyl he'd had in the ER wasn't enough and he was trying to crawl off the cart because it was so painful!

Does anyone have any experience with this? Thought I'd share a personal experience. My Dad just passed away from Melanoma, he was at home on Hospice and the roxanol/ativan combo just wasn't cutting it anymore. The ambulance was called to take him to the hospital for a palliative care admission. He had 4+ edema EVERYWHERE, so IV sites were very limited. The paramedic opted to give him Fentanyl intranasally and I am still amazed at how great it worked!

I took care of a family member, actually my husband's family member. Not taking care of family isn't always an option in a small rural hospital, but I try to avoid it as much as possible, since having to call my FIL and tell him his brother died!