Silkybo

My dream is to do a short term volunteer project with MEDICO, a non sectarian group in Texas that sends health professionals and students to do one or two week clinics in Honduras and Nicaragua. They charge a reasonable fee, most of the money being used for meds and supplies. You can go as a pre organized crew, like from your hospital or nursing school class (reunion anyone?) or join one of their pre planned excursions. Your accomodations will BASIC and the food is simple but delicious. My 1st trip to Honduras was as a student in my early 20's there to improve my Spanish skills. Instead, it tranformed my life, and I need to give back a little to this Marvelous land now that I am an RN and have a useful skill to offer. I did a lot of research, and MEDICO seemed to have the best combination of short, frequent affordable trips that didn't include a heavy religious bias. If anyone has travelled with them, I'd love to hear firsthand experiences

One of my faves is "Ativan, Ativan, also known as Lorezapam" sung to the tune of "Spiderman". Another is the catchline from the Offspring's Come Out and Play rephrased as "Ya gotta keep em all sedated"!

One of my most vivid: This was a few years ago when I was a brand new med-surg nurse. I dreamed our charge nurse let me know I was getting an admit, and the patient was already in the room. I walked into the room and found writhing in the bed a very large, bright red Chinese dragon, just like the ones on placemats and take-out menus. It had smoke coming out of its nostrils. I turned out of the room and told my charge I couldn't take the assignment. She replied, "now, we don't discriminate here." I answered, "but its a F***ing DRAGON and I have no training for that!" Now, in real life this charge is very knowledgeable and well respected, but kind of uptight. I told her about this dream, and she actually laughed, not her usual delicate giggle but a real guffaw. I had never seen her do that before, and she has always been less uptight with me since.

I stepped wrong off a loose concrete step in my cousin's garage. HURT. tried to stand up, absolutely not a possibility. My immediate thought was "oh, this isn't good." Since I was on vacation visiting family, had to be taken to local ER about 30 country miles across cornfields in the middle of the night. Was treated really well, X-rayed and splinted, informed of fracture, directed to follow up with Ortho. I decided to wait, fly home and get it fixed in my own hospital for reasons of money, insurance and professionaly courtesy. So, 4 days later I flew from the rust belt to the sunbelt, using airport wheelchair "service" got home and saw my orthodoc. He look at x-ray, says, holy scheizze, were going to the OR NOW. I nove have pilon fracture of right ankle reconstructed with multiple plates, screws and pins.....5 months off work, still digging out of financial quagmire. But I learned a lot whitch makes me a better nurse now....thats a whole nother thang.

I usually replay in such a way a to be superficially polite, but make then realize how condecending they are being. Wow, thanks Nancy Nurse, for pointing out that we try and leave our patients clean and dry. I'm awfullly sorry he got out of his 5 point restraints, chewed through his foley catheter with his gold teeth and and is bleeding profusely from his former CVL site during shift change report. Next time I'll ask admin to sent a gorilla, grizzly bear or possibly a velociraptor to be his sitter since I haven't found any diversional activities that will help with his acute withdrawl symptoms. Oh, and since Ive been cleaning up his excrement all nite, you may find the tubing needs to be changed in my other patient's room. So Sorry. Enjoy your day, and remember I get the missing link back in 12 hours.....bring it ON!

yes, In FL we can pronounce inpatients if the death is not unexpected....always been fuzzy on how that is defined, but I've made many pronouncements, then informed MD and supervisor, never been told my pronouncement wasn't valid

I think its the O'Jays....early 70's soul/funk band. I remember it, can sing it, not sure about the band. None of the lyrics engines I can find go back that far. I found out today I'm old enough to be the ER tech's mommy! Where was I when we went and got old!

crackacardia....the arhythmia caused by too much cocaine whackacardia....the (apparent) arhythymia caused by patient masturbating

I've always loved the smell and taste of Fletcher's Castoria, a children's rootbeer flavoured laxative...it has a new name now, I'm not sure what. Dopamine surely does smell of sweat. Rocephin and Fortaz are representatives of the catpiss family of antibiotics....awful. I always haaate making people drink mucomyst for acetominophen overdoses....yucky! Alll those pink antibiotic elixirs give me horrid childhood flashbacks....

a determined patient can CHEW thru their foley tubing. Not the soft rubber of the catheter itself, the clear plastic connected to the bag. I guess it helped that she had a gold tooth.

I have several print sets, matching tops and bottoms with such motifs as strawberries, tropical fish, etc. Fortunately for me, my mom is a professional seamstress and craft coach, and we design my scrubs together with special features like zip shut pockets to put meds in, or little epaulettes to hold your stethascope in place. NOT CHEAP, but custom to your exact specifications for fabric, style, size, and extras.private message for more info...she ships throught the us and canada.....Silkybo,RN

Whenever a death affects me a little bit more than average, cuz I got attached or it was sudden, I have to play Dont Fear the Reaper at cerebral hemmorage volume and sob my eyes out, and then Im better. Very few hard rock bands have the poetic depth of Blue Oyster Cult, and I can think of no other song that embraces death without being maudlin.

when I was born in 1969, my dad tried to follow my mom into the delivery room. The nurse barred his way, saying "you can't go in there, you aren't sterile!" my dad replied "damn right I'm not, how do you think she got that way?"

I have done nights for years, and have no trouble with it. However, sometimes I have to leave my vampire reality to attend an inservice or staff meeting or dentist appointment or baby shower or something and function in the daytime. EEK. Provigil is kinder and gentler than 6 shots of ulcerating expresso with a protonix chaser. Im all in favor of reality modification via the miracles of pharmaceuticals

My best advice is get comfortable. Sit down in a chair, adjust the patient's bed, kneel on the floor, whatever you have to do so you aren't in an ackward position. If your back is hurting or you are at a funny angle, its harder to get the stick. Also, take advantage of gravity. Have the patient hang their arm off the bed to fill up the veins in their lower arm and hand. Close your eyes when looking for the vein and find it by feel. Veins that are visible aren't always the best. Find your vein before you glove up. Ask for help if you need it. Sometimes if you have a tech hold the patient's arm still, or work the syringe to pull blood while you do the stick, it helps. Most of all.....practice! It took me a long time to get good at blood draws and IV's. We have a supervisor who can get blood from a stone, and I used to ask her to do a lot of my draws. Recently she said she misses when my requests were easy. "Now when you say somebody is a hard stick, they are REALLY hard!"