TonyafutureRN

I disagree also that you shouldn't work and go to school. I am going to school full time 5 days a week and still work at least 30 hours a week. And I have a 4.0 halfway through my LPN course. I have to do this to be able to afford child care during school.It's all in how bad you want it. Tonya

Some of your replies are so sweet you make me want to cry! Thanks, guys. As for the cost, I went to a bone marrow drive and one time I went with the guy I was dating to a drive, and nobody was charged. The people that were having the drives had raised money to pay for donating, I believe. I know it is expensive to do all the testing. They told me all my expenses would be covered for further testing, and my lodging, travel, and babysitter will all be paid for if I am a match and donate the marrow. Thank you all again for your support. Tonya

For the poster who was wondering about how to get registered, go to http://www.marrow.org and it will answer your questions. From what I read on the website,several million people are registered and they've only matched up 11,000 since 1987 so I guess it's hard to find exact matches and most people will never be contacted about being a match. But the more people on the registry, the more chances people who need transplants have to find a match. Thank you to everyone for your well wishes! Tonya

I had went to a bone marrow drive back in 1998, and I got a call yesterday saying there is a 38 year old woman with Hodgkin's Lymphoma who looks like a preliminary match. They asked for consent to do further testing on my blood,which I gave. If that checks out, I will have a physical and more blood drawn. If everything matches up and looks good, I will donate marrow (or stem cells) anywhere from 2 to 4 months. I guess some people would think I'm crazy for being excited at the possibility of having a needle put into my bone to help a perfect stranger, but I am excited at the idea of helping someone with cancer. Has anyone gone through this or known someone who did? If so,input please! Thank you! Tonya

I can't imagine wanting your baby to be born by surgery instead of delivering him/her lady partslly. Of course if a c-section was necessary, I would have had one, but choose it? never! I know a LOT of women who've had c-sections. In fact, of my friends, cousins,and aunt who've had babies in the past 5 years, more ofthem have had c-sections than vag.births. One woman's doctor didn't even seem to have a good reason, just siting some reasons she might have to have a c-section if anything went wrong, and saying her being overweight but her at a higher risk of complications, so he suggested just doing one from the get-go. Sorry, I'd have to have a better reason than that. Tonya, LPN in 2004, RN one of these days.

Today was the first time I had a patient die in my care, or a person die in front of me for that matter. It wasn't a surprise at all since she was a hospice patient and the hospice nurses had told the family the night before that she probably wouldn't make it through the night. It was still hard though. She was unconcious and had her eyes slightly open. The family asked me to read to her from the bible if I didn't mind so that was what I did all morning and what I was doing when her breathing started slowing down. I had a feeling the end was coming so I turned to 23rd psalm which her regular caretaker (I was taking over for her for a few hours while she had her dialysis treatment) told me was the patient's favorite. I read that over a few times after calling hospice and her next of kin. I guess this is something every aide or nurse has to go through at one point. I just thought I'd write this to get my feelings out. Take care everyone. Tonya

Yikes! I hate roaches too.I do home health as well but haven't really had a problem with this. I only saw a roach one time in one house. Most of my patients are in pretty clean houses and don't have a problem with this. I would be most scared of bringing one into my house and having them multiply. I'm not the best housekeeper and don't have enough time to clean like I want being in school full time and working weekends, plus my two little ones have a habit of getting crumbs everywhere, so I know they would have a field day in my house if they got here. :stone

Oh ok. That makes sense. Thanks. Tonya

Way to go RN2 92. I loved your post, it got a laugh from me. I had a question from the nurse who posted about the mother of the child with a fever dressing and covering up the child. I am in school, and trying to learn, but this is one of the things I'm constantly hearing contradictions on. We were just told in class that if someone has a fever, you should not try to cool them off externally (such as undressing in cold weather, cold baths or alcohol) because that triggers the body to shiver, producing more heat and raises the body temperature more. Then I've also heard from mothers and nurses that only cool baths or alcohol baths reduced their child's or patient's temperature. I was just wondering about this.

I'm with you, Frances. Drinking semen (or anything else for that matter) out of someone's rear is BEYOND disgusting. I didn't think anything was worse than the rodent thing, but that very well may be.

Thanks for writing to me guys. I have found that yoga and stretching help me feel better when my back is sore after working. I really wish I had more time to exercise during the week, but between my children, school, and homework I have no time to myself.Sometimes in the evening I do some crunches and biceps/triceps with free weights because that doesn't take much time. I really need to get up a half hour earlier and exercise but I can't seem to drag myself out of bed any earlier after studying until 10 each night. I know when I did this though, I felt a lot better throughout the day. I guess having my books open and reading them while doing yoga would kind of defeat the purpose huh? LOL:) Tonya

OOPS. This is posted in the wrong forum, I was reading a post in that forum and clicked the new post button without thinking. How can I fix it? Thanks

Since I'm back at school this term I haven't been working much. I had a home health patient today that was a paraplegic and I am really feeling it now. I was wondering if there are exercises you can do to strengthen muscles you use when you lift your patients, move them up in bed, transfer to WC, etc. I suspect some of my back pain is also from bending over the bed since I am kind of tall, and most people don't have hospital beds in their homes that raise and lower. I have taken classes in body mechanics and try to use those techniques, but I'm still having trouble. Any advice? Thanks! Tonya

My grandmother also said she thought the baby wasn't as early as we thought, but her reasoning was the baby had long fingernails. Of course she's also the grandmother who told me my milk had turned to water when my 3 month old baby had her growth spurt and wanted to nurse every hour. LOL. The reason I think she really was 33 weeks, is because we were trying to conceive when I got pregnant with her, and I kept very close track of my periods and my temperatures. I had a textbook ovulation chart and 2 early ultrasounds (at around 5 weeks and 7 weeks) matched my calculations right on the dot. The hospital infection theory, I can definitely understand that. My mom had surgery last year and her recovery was greatly longer than it should have been because she got a bad infection in the hospital and had to be on several antibiotics before it cleared. Thank you everyone for your responses to me. I hope to be a L&D nurse one day so this is all very interesting to me. Tonya

So do you think the dr shouldn't have let my baby go home? I hadn't really thought about that before I came to this board. I did have to bring the baby back to the dr the next day (fri), then early the next week so they could make sure she was doing well. I had 2 bags of IV antibiotics before she was born (my water broke 30 hours before delivery). Maybe that was why they weren't as worried about infection? just guessing. I had also had 2 rounds of steroids the week before to develop the baby's lungs (so did my cousin). I've read there's no proof that that works, but both of our babies came out screaming, maybe they did help. The 4 1/2 month baby, I was guessing it would be around 22 weeks (21 1/2 at least), since it said after conception, and you are 4 weeks pregnant 2 weeks after conception, and also because a calendar month is a little longer than 4 weeks. That's how I took it anyway. Another thing I'm trying to figure out is how the wife of one of my home health patients had 2 babies less than 6 months apart. She said the second baby only weighed a pound and some odd ounces. I didn't know babies that early survived before the technology we had today. I know I'm just rambling on. I need to go to bed. LOL Tonya