bezany

I am a travel nurse living in an RV. I love it. Cheap rent, so I take the stipend giving me more money in the bank. My husband can often get work for the park which makes our rent free. There is something to be said for getting rid of all your "stuff" and moving into a small space. Rv parks are notoriously friendly. Make sure you tell them you are a travel nurse. The park I'm in currently offers a discount for travel nurses.

during charlie, the hospital where I worked allowed family. The accomodations were not good, many did not have beds and it was very crowded and chaotic. Food was in short supply. I would recommend having your child stay with relatives. Who will watch him while you work if you bring him along? Even if you work the night shift and plan on him sleeping you cant leave him unattended in a hospital!

You wrote the solution right in the paragraph: "The people I work with now love the crap out of me because I'm good at what I do, I'm good at understanding what THEY do, I'm good at getting everyone and everything to work together and I make the work environment fun and enjoyable with humor and good cheer." Patients dont go to the hospital to see pretty people either! Find a feather and beat yourself black and blue with it, then stop beating yourself up with your harsh criticism. Negative self-talk is destructive and hurtful. Imagine if a friend said the things about you or someone else that you say about yourself!!! You would be angry, hurt, and resentful. I work on treating myself just as good as I treat others, I believe that I am just as important to others as they are to me. Respect yourself and others will respect you, love yourself and others will love you, I promise. As far as the age thing goes, the nursing workforce is aging, you will probably be one of the young ones! Oh by the way, I resent that circus reference, I grew up in the circus, and I dont remember a single troll during my years under the big top!

The nurses at my hospital are represented by the National Nurses Organizing Committee which is a part of National Nurses United. National Nurses United is the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in America. Its purpose is to give registered nurses a national voice and organizing power.

I am a member of this union, you get a bonus for belonging to a union? Most hospitals in this area would not be pleased with it!

I have a fb page for my friends, and a separate one i keep mainly for family and peers. The friend one does not list my association with a hospital and i dont talk shop there at all. The friend page is heavily private. On a second note, I cannot imagine that it is ever appropriate to get "completely wasted" and certainly if it happened I would not be bragging about it either to my friends, family, or peers. I became a responsible adult when I chose a profession that requires respect and dignity of its members!

I would not want to be pulling narcs for agency staff, thats crazy! temporary codes can be given to agency staff and if i were in a facility where they didnt have access, i would be advocating strongly for that.

bedside scanning is a lifesaver, as long as we dont bypass it. At my hospital we scan the patient armband and then the med, we use an electronic mar. It is virtually impossible to give the wrong med if we follow the procedure. I still do a 5 rights and physically check the med both when pulling it from the pyxis and prior to opening the package at the bedside or spiking the bag.

My favorite of all time is: if the doctor doesnt come to see me right now, I am leaving! I want to say "do you promise?" But what I actually do is grab the AMA form. LOL

With patients like this, it really does no good to argue with them. I can humbly apologize whether I am right or not. I then ask them if there is something that would make their stay easier, remind them of how to get help, and offer comfort measures like a warm blanket. Remember that they are in the ED for whatever reason and I would hope that most of them would rather be anywhere else. We are getting paid to be there. I have been an ED nurse for 21 years and have yet to win an argument with a patient! I agree with documenting a note, for instance: "responded to call bell, patient states waited 30 minutes for response, confirmed call bell was lit less than 1 minute, checked proper functioning of call bell and REinstructed patient on use. care needs attended to and appropriate reassurance provided." Then maybe two more notes 15 minutes apart documenting "checked on patient, no new needs or needs addressed". At the end of the day, the customer/patient is always right because they have the power to complain, but with appropriate documentation and a few extra minutes of care and concern, the complaint may become a compliment!

I have done nights for a long time and I live 50 minutes from work, when I feel sleepy while driving, i find that if I get out of the car and walk around it a few times, it wakes me up enough to make it home. 1st shift after a few nights off is always the hardest.

Lovenox, omeprazole, metoprolol, amlodipine, dilaudid or percocet and restoril or ambien med surg tele ortho neuro night shift hence the sleepers for everyone!

I have worked nights for over twenty years now, i switch back and forth, i take a nap on my first day back to work and i stay up longer on my first day off. I try to do three in a row so that my days off are all in a row too.

I think my best advice would be to take an attorney with you who has experience before the board. Whatever the cost it will be worth it.

if you are working in a "drug free workplace" you have protections if you reported rather than being "caught", so i would suggest you lawyer up. The drug free workplace designation would be on signs in your facility probably in HR and it would be in any employment contract you may have.

The fact is you can take any medication even narcotics while under a monitoring contract, you just cant work impaired or while taking the medication, you have to have a doctor who is aware of your participation prescribing the medication and you may have to do extra urines. This rule is to protect the public as is the goal of most states monitoring programs. Even nurses who are not in a monitoring program are violating most states practice act if they work while taking certain medications. Most dont even know it, i had a nurse tell me the other day that she takes lortab for chronic back pain every day, i personally think that is unsafe practice and impaired practice.

most of the state programs for addicted professionals are in place to first protect the public and second to assist the professional in recovery. In the old days you just lost your license or the public was left at risk. I am grateful for the chance to keep my license and work safely within the confines of IPN. Do mistakes happen, probably occassionally, gosh us humans just cant seem to get it perfect. But some addicts slip through as well, i did for many many years. Better to err on the side of caution, as important as our well being is, our patients have entrusted us with theirs.

your group does not have to be affiliated with na/aa, you can start a nurse support group for nurses in recovery and still attend aa/na meetings. IPN in florida requires weekly attendance at both a facilitator led nurse support group and 3 twelve step meetings a week. I get different things from the two places and there is a clear difference. all of the things i do to work on myself are good and in combination help me to grow and become a better, more responsible and productive member of society. good luck in your endeavor.

thats awesome, a great poem for anyone in recovery or not there yet

The mission of IPN is to ensure public health and safety by providing an avenue for swift intervention/close monitoring and advocacy of nurses whose practice may be impaired due to the use, misuse, or abuse of alcohol or drugs, or a mental and/or physical condition. IPN is authorized by Florida Statute, Chapter 464/455, to assist those nurses whose practice is affected. I am grateful to have a program that allows me to continue practicing nursing. In the past, the board just took your license away. I am an IPN nurse working full time. Most employers have an issue with the narc restriction, once you get that lifted (usually a year as long as you dont mess up) and can be open and honest in an interview you are more likely to find employment. A positive attitude and honesty go a long way, i was hired because of my ability to honestly discuss my recovery and its positive impact on my life and my ability to be a good employee. Try a different approach and maybe get different results. Hang in there. I understand your frustration, but acceptance is really the key, the only alternative is really just to give up. IPN pretty much has us by the balls so work with the system is my best suggestion. and no,,,you cannot work impaired by any substance, they dont tell you that you cant take prescribed meds, just that you cannot work in nursing under the influence of them.

thank you for sharing, what 12 step program are you a member of?

I am a pickle, I was a cucumber once a long time ago. I am guessing that a lot of us on this board thought someone had stolen their story when they read Longhorn's post. I can tell you that I identify and it takes me back to when I had three years clean; I will celebrate one year clean this month. I had the same reservations, the same excuses, and I really really believed that my brief stint with diversion and using "pharmaceutical heroin" was over. I am sad to say that it was that kind of thinking, that denial, and that feeling that I had "graduated". Today I know I am powerless. I know that I am an addict. They say that relapse is not a requirement, but for this addict it was. It was the truth hitting me smack in the face. If you have never needed drugs so badly that you would risk your life and your career, do anything to get more, then you might not have a problem. But if you are like me, then you know deep down, if you allow yourself to be open, honest and willing, that you can never go back to being a cucumber. I like pickles!

Originally Posted by steelcityrn I personally have a zero tolorence for a nurse who has stolen medication and or uses drugs and is able to keep a nursing license. How lucky you are! Then I think it is safe to say you are not an addict. Those of us who are can fully understand the horror of knowing what we are doing is wrong, illegal, stupid, dangerous, and awful. We also understand the obsession and compulsion to use despite knowing all of these things. It really cannot be explained other than the fact that we have a progressive, incurable disease that if not arrested (the disease, not us) will kill us. Do you have tolerance for any ill person who is non-compliant? Do you treat the addicts and alcoholics that you encounter in your practice (and you do encounter them, whether you know it or not) with the compassion and respect that they deserve as sick individuals? Many of them have also stolen and damaged the lives of others. Does it make a difference that we are nurses? The disease does not discriminate. I would suggest that you educate yourself on the disease of addiction. Just a suggestion. Thank God for my fellow nurse addicts that freely share their experience, strength and hope, that I may identify, qualify, and carry on one day at a time!

There is not a nursing union in Florida. In fact if you go to work for Florida Hospital, you will sign a statement saying that union activity, organizing, etc. is prohibited and grounds for termination. Florida Hospital is owned by the Seventh Day Adventists and is part of the Adventists Health Care System. It is an excellent hospital system with 7 campuses in Central Florida. They have quite competetive salaries and benefits for the area. Nurses from the west and up north may be shocked at the wages in Florida, but that is in general what they pay nurses here.

Wow Jack, That is one of the most intelligent posts on this topic that I have ever seen. You are an amazing writer and I wonder if you have considered doing a book? I have tried to find books for addicted nurses and come up completely empy-handed. I am grateful for all of the posts in this topic. It is wonderful to see all the different opinions. It seems as though most of us are grateful for the chance to keep doing what we love to do. With 17 years of nursing under my belt, I had no clue about addiction, recovery, or programs for nurses plagued by addiction until I was "caught". As an ER nurse, I am ashamed to say that I passed judgement many times on the addicts and alcoholics that I encountered. I have a year in IPN (FL) now and 4 to go. It has changed my life. I learned more in intensive outpatient therapy than all my years of school and continuing education. I wish there were more education for everyone in the healthcare field. There is alot of misunderstanding and confusion out there about addiction in healthcare professionals. Certainly anyone in a position of management needs to be informed and educated about the program in thier state so that when a potential hiree discloses their status, it wont scare them and when a current employee needs an intervention and a referral they will know how to go about it. I dont disclose my status to everyone I meet but I do try very hard to educate any chance I have. Opportunities present themselves often for us to educate our coworkers, our managers, interviewers, and the public. I think it is important for each of us to do just that, I consider it indirect amends to the coworkers, managers, and employers that were certainly harmed by my actions. Wow I have gone on long enough. Back to "listening" (reading : )