vivibae

I am a new grad working at a outpatient cancer center. I have been working there for 2 months. I have accessed several ports and there has been times where I didnt access it properly. Those times are the ones that I constantly go over my head what went wrong. I am having anxiety and losing sleep over this. I am trying to adjust my technique but I am not even sure what I am doing wrong. Can anyone give me advice on my hand/finger placement to ensure that I access the port in the correct area? I am right handed so I hold the Huber needle in this hand. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

I work as an chemo infusion nurse and I encounter more power ports. I am not sure what kind you have. But usually when we do not draw blood when we access the port we ask the patient to deep breath. If that doesnt work we ask them to raise their arm, the side that the port is located. The last thing I can think of is that they did not access the port correctly.

I passed NCLEX in Sept and started working in October. An old boss that I had in a Cancer center hired me as a registry nurse. It is nerve wrecking. All of my clinicals were based on a unit position in the hospital. My job is at a clinic and mainly its accessing port-a-caths for chemotherapy (which at this time I cannot administer because I have to be certified) and IV therapy. I do not have much experience with IV access. During school we had a fake arm that we played with but it is totally different when doing it on an actual person. I have attempted IV access a handful of times and can say that I was only successful less than half of the time. Unfortunately, for me most of our patients have port-a-caths so I dont get a lot of practice with inserting IVs. After 1 week of orientation I began accessing patient's port-a-caths. I was feeling pretty confident. Then one day I had a patient where I missed and since then I have been TERRIFIED!!! I know that I cannot let this situation overwhelm me, but it is difficult to not feel anxiety every time I go to work. What adds to the anxiety is that I am not familiar with the medications that we are giving the patients. We had little exposure to chemo medication because it was considered a specialty. I keep looking for other nursing positions in the hospital but I am also worried about being responsible for 5 or so patients. I am feeling very unsure.

So it is 48 hours from when you start the exam. I PASSED!!!!

I also took my exam on 9/6 @ 1230 and did the PVT and got the pop-up, although it calmed my nerves I dont completely believe it. Today is when I should get my quick results and I am still waiting. I am freaking out that the PVT doesnt work and that I failed. I am just wondering if its 48 hours from the start or the end of when you took the exam? I am a mess!!

OMG!! I couldnt take it anymore so this morning with my husband I tried it and I got the "good pop up". When I saw it I quickly closed it and started to cry uncontrollably, I turned around and hugged my husband. When I was able to speak, I had to make sure that what I read was correct so I went through the PVT again and made my husband read it. Yup, it said it. I hope this is true. I dont want to try it again because I am scared that it will change and I will have to enter my cc information. I have until tomorrow afternoon for me to see if it is. I just want to say that it is a comfort to find this website, so I know that I am not the only one going through all of these emotions and experiences.

Wow, this was posted back in 2005!! Well today is 9/6/11 and I just finished taking my exam. I got 75 questions and like pretty much everyone else here I had 6 or 7 SATA, several medications that I had no idea what they were and 1 math question that was very, very easy, (This is probably the only question that I got right). I did the entire exam within 1 and half hours. I minimized the time and question counter because I knew that would make me more nervous, but after a while I check on how many questions I already did. I was on 73, I minimized it again and after a couple of more questions the computer stopped. My heart dropped!!! I walked out of the building and called my husband. I right away told him that I FAILED!! He was at work so I wasnt able to talk to him that long so I started to call people that knew that I took the exam today, anyone that has time to listen to me FREAK OUT!! I am a nervous wreck. I want to try that Pearson Revue trick but I am too anxious to try. I guess all I can do is pray.

Hello, I thought that I was the only one that felt this way. I am actually crying right now replying to this post. I wish that I saw this earlier cuz I can see that the last post was in 2008!! I have only 1 more year of a BSN program. I have been feeling overwhelmed every semester. I only have 1 class because I took most of my pre reqs but I am still struggling with my classes. I buy extra books for the classes, I read, and read, and read, and do practice questions all the time. I have been doing well in all of my classes but now that I am in my final year, I have been struggling. I dropped a class and I am in the verge of dropping the one I am in now. I am doubting everything that I am doing. I just want to NOT be so sad!!!!

I originially didnt know how to reply to the first post. I signed up on Saturday and after reading my first reply I thought that I made a mistake. Thanks for backing me up berns10. :)

I have one more year of nursing school to go. Expected graduation is June 2011. I am having doubts now that I am so close to my goal. The first year of classes went by fast, I did very well getting straight A's on all of my subjects. I really didnt study for my exams or read the books and I still did great. I was on a HIGH and full of confidence. Then I took Med/Surg...Reality check. I failed the first session and I had to drop the second session of Med/Surg. What was difficult was after failing the first time, I made sure that I would be prepared for the 2nd session. I read, reread, bought the Success books, did practice questions in the workbook, online, NCLEX 4000 program. Yet I bombed the first exam. I became an emotional wreck, depressed, lost my confidence, and started to doubt if this is for me. But I continued on. I retook these classes and passed with A/B+. Peds came and gone, A. WOW!!! My confidence started coming back up. Then OB. First exam I did really bad. Anxiety, depression, doubt came flooding back. I can do this..... Prepare for my second exam, studied my butt off. I felt good going into this second exam and once again I did bad. I had to drop the class to stay in the program. Presently, we are on our summer break (2 weeks). I am feeling like crap. I dont know what to do with myself. I am afraid that I cannot continue. I am constantly thinking that I cannot do it but I already invested so much. I guess I joined this group to get some advice and guidance.