MNnurseMom

I had my daughter by C/S and my husband took her to the "recovery room" while they stitched my up. They then wheeled me into recovery and the nurse said, "let's see if this little girl is hungry". Yes she was! :) That couldn't have been but maybe half hour or so.

I also am an RN who just got my license in June. Before that, I had been an LPN for 19 years. I think I expected to feel something different after graduating. I realized though, that since I had been an LPN for so long, that I know a great deal of the clinical cares. I did learn more about the physiology of why a certain issue causes a certain condition, such as "why left sided ventricular failure causes back up of fluid into the lungs" and that type of thing. When I was in LPN school, it was a 9 month crash course in nursing because we would "never put in an NG tube, would never touch an IV......" Then came real life. Anyways, enough of my babbling. I think the "different" feeling comes on gradually. When you look back in 10 years, you will see all the new things you have done and how more experienced you are....how other newer nurses look to you for guidance. Then you will feel different I believe.

I was an LPN for 19 years before I just became an RN. About 15 years ago, when I was working in Long Term Care, we were lucky to have one box of gloves in the building for all the cares. You never wore gloves to change pads, clean people, or change a regular bandage. It had to be very oohie gooie before you wore gloves.

I saw the anger of a father once in the ER when I was at the Children's Hospital with my daughter. He was there with a gun waiting for his child to be seen. Unfortunately we were in the next exam room. A nurse came to our room, closed us in the room and my daughter and I sat in the far corner until they came in and said everything was OK. That was a frustrating situation for me.

I work in a LTC facility with approx 150 beds. We have a transitional care unit which is mostly Medicare. Then we also do all the MDS's for the other residents each quarter. No we do not do all the assessments, but we do a few of them. We audit the charts while we are doing the MDS. We also update the careplan while we do the MDS or write one if they are a new admit. There are 2 of us doing MDS's. I am 32 hours a week, the other girl is 18. Two hours of my time per week has to go towards rewriting a careplan that is a mess. There are times that 48 hours a week for the 2 of us to do all the MDS's isn't enough, but we are not allowed overtime. To me, that makes for messy MDS's and care plans. No we are not given the respect that should be given. Our job is VERY important for the facility. I would guess it will take someone more important than me to get that point across. In the mean time, I put in my 8 hours a day and go home, hoping I got everything done that HAS to be done that day.

I don't know if I would allow a student to care for me. I think if I was alert enough to watch what was being done........I would watch carefully if they were caring for my children. There was a student nurse that helped care for my daughter, but I was there and all she ever gave her was Tylenol. I know we all have to care for patients as nursing students, but I am cautious as I know mistakes happen all the time.

My daughter went through 7 hospitalizations in a winter a few years back. We were at Children's Hospital. The care there was beyond wonderful. We didn't receive any cards afterwards......maybe we weren't gone long enough between visits.....anyways, we did start getting calls and letters asking for donations to help those who couldn't pay for their hospitalizations. I finally told them that we are our own donation. The hospitalizations put up far into debt. They quit calling after that.

Mine shut off at 76!!! I thought Good Grief, 76? Why not 75? I did find out the next day that I had passed. We can find out in ususally 48-72 hours, but mine was about 32 hours.

I have to tell everyone what I did the 2 evenings before I took the NCLEX. I sat in the family room studying and every once in a while I would tell my husband something interesting I had learned. He finally said, "give me the book". He started reading me questions and then each answer. You have to think harder when you don't have the words in front of you. Also, that way I had to listen to EACH question, not just look for key words like I often do. When I would answer a question, he would make me tell him why I answered that way. So I really had to rationalize the things myself. It was very helpful. We did about 250 questions over 2 evenings. I took the exam the next morning, got 76 questions, and passed. Good luck to all.

Here is a story I have about a personal experience with a family member who was dying. It was my father. As an LPN at the time as well as a daughter, it was a hard thing to endure. I know this story is long....I wrote it for an English class.......but hope you can see this also from a family's point of view. (Names have been changed.....except my father's) "It was a busy Tuesday morning, much like the usual morning on a nursing unit. There were medications to pass, elderly to get up and to the dining room for breakfast and Arlene and I were running around, trying to keep on some sort of schedule. As I approached the nursing desk, I could hear her mumbling to herself. "What is the matter?" I asked, noting the frustration on her face. "Oh it is that family in room 145. I cannot make them happy this morning." "Why?" I asked. "What is their concern?" Arlene sighed a heavy, frustrated sigh and said, "Oh Josephine is in pain. I told her family that she had all the pain medication she could have. She doesn't have orders for anything else. The family said the medication isn't holding her and that she needs more. They can't seem to get it through their heads that I can't give her anymore." I asked Arlene if she had called the doctor for stronger medication. "She is dying Arlene, maybe she has more pain than you realize." " I will call him when I have a minute." was the reply. "Oh, here they come again, I wish I could hide. They act like I have no other residents to care for." As Josephine's daughter approached the desk, I could see tears in her eyes. I felt my heart tug and I was drawn back to that awful day in August of 2000 when I received the phone call from my mother. "The nursing home just called and they say your father had an unresponsive episode and we should come right away." "What happened?" I asked. I realized mom didn't know anymore than that and I went to tell my boss I had to leave and go see my father at the nursing home across town. I called my brother who lived out of state and told him about the call from mom. My brother asked if it was serious, should he be concerned. I told him I didn't have any details, but my gut reaction would be to get on the next plane and come as fast as he could. My heart was racing and I felt an uncontrollable panic as I raced toward the nursing home. My father has always been a strong force in my life. I felt like I couldn't drive fast enough to get by his side and make sure he was being cared for as I felt my father should. When I arrived at his room, my father was laying in the bed, looking frail, vulnerable and not at all comfortable. If you had known my father as little as 2 years before, you would not believe it was the same person. My father was brilliant, an internationally renowned surgeon of Urology. He has published papers all over the world, has saved hundreds of peoples lives and was respected by most everyone who had known him. He was a fisherman, a civil war buff and he built model trains. More than that though, he was a son, a husband, a cousin, a father, a grandfather and a friend. Right now though, as I stood at his bedside he was my daddy and I felt a need to help him get comfortable. You see, my father and I had this special bond. Diabetes does horrible things to one's body. It causes cardiac, kidney and skin problems for one. When my father's kidneys finally failed in 1992, I gave him one of my kidneys. He had given me life, shouldn't I do the same for him? The surgery was a great success, but didn't cure the diabetes and the problems continued. He had strokes that robbed him, not of one side of function, but tiny motor function which required him to quit doing the surgery he so loved. Then if that wasn't enough, the diabetes caused him nerve pain that finally robbed him of his ability to walk. The final blow was when his memory started to fail, and we were told that he had something called cerebral atrophy, which causes parts of the brain to harden and quit working. He couldn't even tell me he had pain. "Dad, are you in pain?" I asked as he thrashed in the bed. He couldn't tell me. I knew from the past that he was uncomfortable. I asked when he had last had pain medication and was told it had been about 3 hours. I sat by his bedside, talking to him, touching him and letting him know we were there with him. He didn't seem to understand and continued to thrash. He would thrash around until he was sideways in the bed. At about 200 lb., it was hard to get him back in the bed the way he should be laying. Various family members were in and out of the room. I finally called to the nurse for more pain medication for my dad. He was thrashing around even more now, and with strong upper extremity ability, grabbed me, pulled himself into an upright position and then, unable to support his own weight, fell into my arms. I screamed for the nurse, unable to move, to help my dad lay down, to do anything other than to cradle my poor father in my arms and feel helpless. The nurse arrived in the room again, looking a little frustrated. "My father needs some more pain medicine right now!" I choked out through my tears as my father's head lay on my shoulder. "I am sorry, but he can't have any more pain medicine for another 15 minutes." was her reply. "Give it to him NOW." I screamed, unable to hold back the rising anger I was feeling at that time. "He needs something now!" The nurse looked at me and said calmly, "I know he is your father, but it is my nursing license at risk if I give it to him early." "I don't give a "darn" about your license right now!" I spit out at her. At that moment I didn't care about anything but my dad. I was not a nurse that could empathize with her situation at that moment in time, I was a daughter whose father was dying and this nurse did not seem to care. The person I was looking towards for communication between me and the doctor. She walked out of the room. Finally after what seemed like an eternity - though it was less than 5 minutes, she came back in and said in a calm, sympathetic voice, "He has an order for Ativan, should we try that and see if it helps?" We tried it and it did help until he could get more Morphine. My father died Thursday evening with his entire family at his bedside, in a calm and peaceful manner. He took a little of each of us with him, as well as leaving a little of himself behind in each of us. Us, the wife, daughters, sons, grandchildren, and friends of Dr. Clyde Blackard. I wish I could have "fixed" things for him so that the last few days weren't so hard for him to endure. I will always have the memory of the day with that nurse, fighting for my father as he would have and had done for me before. I looked up from the desk. "Arlene, I have a moment, I will take care of this for you." I could see I was not going to get any argument from her. "Hi Mrs. Miller, I hear Josephine is having a lot of pain." "I am putting a call out to the doctor now to see if we can't get something stronger for her so she is more comfortable. While we wait for doctor's call back, can I do anything else for you? Anything you need?" Her daughter looked at me with a tired face that now housed a smile, and as she turned back towards her mother's room I heard her say, "No, thank you though. I know everything will be OK now.""

I have gone through all the same feelings, frustrations, and anxieties as you. I had chest pain/tightness the first day of classes so bad I was sure I was having a heart attack. It goes away as you learn to relax. I have finished all my laundry for the first time since my summer classes. You will get through it if you just perservere. I know this too because I have my LAST final tomorrow and then graduate on Wednesday. My family did finally start to help at the end. Was it because I asked them??? No, it was because my husband finally saw how bad things were in the house and delegated to my family. I felt I should be able to do it all myself as well as study, work. You can't do it all. Don't feel that if your house is a little untidy it is the end of the world. Do what you can. When you are done with school, you will be so glad you stuck with it. Good luck to you!

I have my finals on Monday. Here is our scale. 77-84 = C 85-92 = B 93-100 =A If you get less than 77% in either theory or clinicals, you fail. If you get 98% on theory but 76% in theory, you fail. So your final grade is an average of your theory and clinical grades, but you have to be above 77% in each part individually. Was that as clear as mud?

I too understand how you feel. I have been an LPN for 20 years and now will graduate from ASN program in 2 weeks!!!! I never thought I would make it this far. Our final test is not cumulative (luckily) but I am so nervous I won't pass it or something like that and not graduate. I worry a lot about boards. I feel like my books are growing roots into my lap. I am fearful of going into work as an RN instead of an LPN. I am sure I felt the same way when I started as an LPN, but I survived it to get this far. You will too. Give yourself a chance. Good Luck and congratulations!!!!

I remember back to when I first started using tampons, I learned by putting vaseline around the applicator, it helped it slide in easier. Also, go slowly, noting the way it naturally wants to go. Like someone else said, you point it towards your spine, sometimes a little to the left or right. I know the first time I put one in was at a birthday party (in the bathroom with a friend telling me how through the door). I didn't have my period at the time so there wasn't that pressure to get it right. You can try it a few times when you don't have your period to get the hang of it. Just don't leave it in.

Chris's response was so wonderful, wish I had had that 4 years ago when I started the program. You might want to print out her response and post it in the back of your notebook. When you are discouraged, you can read it again and remind yourself why you chose the career you did. Good Luck.