KingDom64

Had a nursing instructer (on the subject of oral health) refer to gums, procouncing it like "gooms". Never heard it pronounced like that before...

I work in a nursing home--many years ago, had a lady (probably in her 60s) who constantly sought narcotic pain relief. Her all-over pain was always calmly described by her as a "10". One time the CMA was in her room and she requested a PRN pain pill for "terrible pain" rated at a "10". The CMA went out the door to the med-cart (parked right outside the patient's door) to note the MAR and get her med out of the lock-box. Overheard by the CMA was the patient's elderly roommate saying "I'm sorry you're having so much pain, dear!" Also overheard was the patient's hushed reply to her roommate: "I'm not in pain-I just like my happy pills". Yes, pain is whatever the patient says it is and should be treated, but there ARE those few people who will play you, too!

Last year I got a ticket from a park ranger at a lake for tinted windows. I had no idea the windows were too dark; totally unfair! I bought the car that way and the tint was only 9% above the legal limit. The next business day, went to the dealership that I bought it from, got the tint removed AND a letter from them saying they sold the car to me that way & it's been corrected---went to court, tried to fight the ticket and lost. (Judge said if I was "on trial for murder", I might be able to fight in court, but not in this case...he didn't even want to look at the papers I brought to court with me:grumpy:). Anyway, I guess I should've mentioned to the park ranger that I was a nurse; might have gotten a warning; maybe not.. (he was a REAL jerk!)

I've submitted and gotten validation reports back. One lady's MDS had a fatal error; it was because the date she was first admitted to the facility was entered in the MM/DD/YYYY format, and the validation report said it should've been entered in the YYYY/MM/DD format. ...When there's only one way to enter the date onto the MDS 3.0 form!!! (MM/DD/YYYY). One person's MDS simply will not print out, several keep spitting out mysterious error messages and erases info I work so hard to input.....You've gotta be kidding me!!!!!!!! There's many asinine error messages like that, a lot of them are stupid computer glitches. I've called and e-mailed our software company; no resolution to the problems yet. I told myself I would refuse to let these little problems get to me, yet lately I feel the stress just sucking the life out of me.....I'm ready to go work at McDonalds!

I've worked in a nursing home for years and I've seen all kinds of demented little old people do the craziest stuff: A confused little old man opened up the charting station door, takes out a staff member's soda can, spits a big loogey in it, replaces the soda can & shuts the door (be careful of where you put your drinks!) One time as I'm walking up the long hallway towards the nurses station, I see an incontinent, confused lady wander up to the desk, pick up the telephone and proceed to stick the phone reciever down in her diaper, then hang the phone back up and walk away... This one very demented lady is known to try to eat everything she can get her hands on; she will dig through the trash to eat things. (she gets plenty of food to eat; in fact, she's gained 75lb since she came into the nsg home 3 yrs ago). One time she apparently ate a discarded glove from the trash. Nobody saw her do this, but it was evidenced by the glove coming out the other side during perineal care one day!!!

These spreadsheets with the 3 options......I'm thinking option 1 is the best?? What is everyone else going with? I've had very little training on this whole thing and I'm the only MDs coordinator with barely any time to look anything over! AARgh!

I'm the one and only MDS person at my building and our census is low (about 80 at the moment) and we run about 8-10 skilled Medicare at any given time. Sometimes I feel like I'm overwhelmed!