MisfonzRN RN

MisfonzRN has 22 years experience as a RN and specializes in Ambulatory Care/Telephone Triage.

MisfonzRN's Latest Activity

1. 

   What's Your Best Nursing Ghost Story?

   MisfonzRN replied to steffck's topic in Nursing

   Just last Friday, my husband's 90 year old grandfather passed away. He was completely alert and oriented right up to the end of his fight with cancer. He died on Friday, July 13th at 12:05am. He was a veteran and was shot in the knee during WWII on Friday the 13th. When he was in the ICU last month, he was in room 13. The hospice facility in which he died was exactly 13 miles from his home. Here's the clincher: His wife died on Friday the 13th, 13 YEARS AGO!! Guess what his favorite number was.... Yesterday I was out on my deck reading when my almost three year-old son started talking to someone in the corner of the deck by the house. He kept on having a conversation with this person so I finally asked him who he was talking to. "Great Grandpa" was his response. "He's right over there." My husband told him to tell him he said hi, so he did. He said "Daddy say hi" and then he giggled at the unheard response he got. Later I heard him talking to himself on his toy phone and he said, "Great Grandpa was in the hospital, and then he died and then he came here." I asked him if Great Grandpa was still around and he said, "He's not here now."
2. 

   I was a ______ prior to being a nurse/student nurse

   MisfonzRN replied to nurz2be's topic in Nursing

   I always tell people I was a Nursing Home Administrator in my previous life. I went into it thinking I could change the world and really make a difference in the resident's lives. As it turned out, it's all about business. One day in the shower it just hit me like a ton of bricks (I call it Divine intervention) that I should go to nursing school. It was a huge undertaking, especially since, at the time, my husband was ready to have children. I went to school and was, frankly, bored. That was until my last class, Critical Care. From that time on I knew exactly where I belonged, at the bedside of the critically ill or dying patient. That's where you can really make a difference, at the bedside. I really wish I would have started out in nursing years ago.
3. 

   What's Your Best Nursing Ghost Story?

   MisfonzRN replied to steffck's topic in Nursing

   I now have an irrational fear of mylar balloons.
4. 

   New Patient Population in CCU

   MisfonzRN posted a topic in CCU

   I work in a 14 bed CCU in Ohio and we have noticed a drastic changed in our patient population in the last 3-5 years. When I started in this unit in 1999, we got a lot of patients with MI's, Unstable angina, post cath lab intervention patients, new onset Afib, and patients waiting to go for a CABG. Now, our population is much sicker and seems to belong in a medical ICU. We get the DKA's, overdoses, new CVA's, a lot of ETOH, sepsis, COPD and a lot of other bizarre stuff. We never get Unstable angina patients anymore, they go to stepdown and a lot of the time our patients don't even have a cardiac diagnosis. I was wondering if other CCU nurses noticed the same thing in their units. I realize that times have changed, but we are getting frustrated with this new, difficult population. Any thoughts?
5. 

   How do you give report?

   MisfonzRN replied to Jedi_Iatros's topic in Nursing

   I give a short medical history and history of this hospital stay. I then talk about events that happened in the last 24 hours. I go over IV lines and drips. I then go through the assessment and talk about anything abnormal. I also try and mention abnormal labs and what I did about them. I work in a CCU and if the patient is particularly critical or involved (ie lots of equipment, prisma dialysis, drips, balloon pump, etc), we often give report at the bedside so we can go over everything.
6. 

   What's Your Best Nursing Ghost Story?

   MisfonzRN replied to steffck's topic in Nursing

   I have a personal one that just happened recently. The story starts 25 years ago when my grandmother died. To make a long story short, my parents and I had gone to pick her up for Christmas and found her dead in her apartment. My mom and I were talking on the way home and both shared that we had had dreams the night before in which grandma had said goodbye. (Incidentally, her best friend, who was in the hospital at the time, died within an hour of when Grandma died.) Fast forward to December of 2005. I had a dream on December 15th in which my grandma appeared and said hello to me. In my dream she gave me a hug and said she was proud of me. I mentioned this to my mom the next day and she told me that it was the 25th anniversary of my grandma's death. My husband says I must have known, but I had no idea of the date of my Grandmother's death. My other grandma visits me, too, but that's another story...
7. 

   Scariest things you've seen

   MisfonzRN replied to mscsrjhm's topic in Nursing

   Point taken. We all make mistakes, but as a licensed RN, you are responsible for knowing about the medications you are administering. If you are not, you should ask, or look it up. Medication errors cause a lot of deaths in hospitals. Just my two cents...
8. 

   Scariest things you've seen

   MisfonzRN replied to mscsrjhm's topic in Nursing

   I work in the CCU recieved a patient from a med-surge floor c/o chest pain. The floor nurse had started a nitro drip prior to transfer. We use 50mg/ 250cc D5W. She had the pump set at 10mcg/kg/min. Mind you, this woman was 300 pounds. Luckily, the patient was hypertensive to begin with and did not bottom out. Scarry...:uhoh21: