liz75

If we were face to face I would grab you and hug you hard for luck... I take my boards this Thursday. Not feeling terribly prepared either but hey, remember, everything we have done for the last year or so was leading up to this final hurdle, just as we have been learning to become good nurses we were also being prepared to past the NCLEX. We have been studying and learning all along its got to count for something in the "end" Good luck!!

After I had heart surgery I got morphine while I was in ICU and I would have said that my pain was around 2 while lying still and maybe a 4 to 6 when moving depending on what parts of me I was moving (of course I didnt move much). But you know I really consider a 4 to be bearable pain. It is difficult to explain pain in terms of 1 to 10. The funny thing to me is that alot of doctors are reluctant to change their minds about pain meds once they start giving you something. Once they had me in recovery and off the morphine which was the day after sugery they went to darvocet and I started vomiting at every dose and still had pain so then they gave me percocet and I still had the nausea and vomiting. I got phenergen with it in the morning but within 2 days I kind of just waited until it had been 6 to 7 hours and my pain was back in full force to take the meds because I just couldnt stand the nausea and dizzy feeling I got from it. I did plead with the nurse over the percocet and ask her wasnt there something else I could take and she said doc says percocet and we will give you something for nausea if it gets bad. I didnt have anything else in mind but once I was d/c I had bottles of the stuff and I just took tylenol. Recently I went to afterhours clinic over a toothache so I could get antibiotics until I got to my dentist appointment. The doctor wrote me a perscription for darvocet and I threw it away- I dont want to see anymore darvocet or percocet ever again lol.

It is a 6 week course here meeting 2 evenings per week for 4 hours each night and we were required to spend 5 Saturdays in clinical working 7 to 3.

I am still a student, havnt worked in ED but I have to add to the commentary. I have a distant relative, hes early 20s and very messed up individual. He goes to the ED regularly to get drugs. I am always asking my sister (who knows him better than me) what does he do? She said once he came in there with a gun being very beligerent and that they sedated him just becuase they thought he was going to hurt someone and he may have I imagine. She says he generally comes in talking nonesense and telling them that he is going to hurt himself or someone else if he does not get a shot. I think he has also done the fake seizures too. I am so amazed that he gets meds most every time he does this and he hasnt been sent to jail or a psych ward. I dont know quite how EDs handle this sort of situation but kudos to you guys for what you have to go through. It is sad that they ruin it for people who might be in legitimate pain though.

>>>>crickets ...tumbleweeds rolling by