NicInNC

All of the Novant Health properties in my area (which includes the hospital and many doctor offices) went to smoke free last week. It's not working though because like you said....security can't be everywhere at once. I walked into the womens bathroom the other day where I work and it was FULL of smoke. All our security guards are men, so they can't go into the womens restrooms.

The entire hospital property just went to No Smoking on April 2nd. It's not even allowed outside. This is for all Novant Health owned properties in NC.

They have banned them at my workplace. Doctors, nurses, lab, etc ALL wore them. Now we will get written up if we wear them.

I just wanted to update everyone on what I decided. I signed up with St. Baldrick's and shaved my hair off this past Saturday. I was able to do a "virtual event". If anyone wants to see the pictures from my event, just pm me! I didn't get the news or anything involved because I knew they would probably want my mom interviewed and I knew she wasn't comfortable with that. We ended up having a small "shave off" party at my parents house with my grandparents and a close family friend. My mom laughed more than she has in a long time. Thanks for all the suggestions that you all gave. BTW, I ended up raising over $810! http://www.stbaldricks.org/#

Why didn't he tell someone at this clinic? That would be the FIRST thing that someone should do. If he's so worried, then tell him to cal and talk to them about it. Let them give him the statistics and all. This doesn't make any sense at all.

I'm a phlebotomist and I SOOOOO know what you mean about someone flipping out! I have a very close call with a patient one day. I always anchor the skin real tight below where I'm going to stick and he jerked so hard that the needle came out and BELOW where I was anchoring. If he had hit my hand or arm, I would have gotten stuck. He said he was sorry and that he "always" does that. :angryfire It would have been nice if he had told me prior to that and I would have had someone come hold his arm down! Another time, I had someone rip a butterfly out. It flew into the air and landed on my gloved hand. If that had landed needle down, it would have gone through the glove. Sometimes things happen no matter how careful you are.

My nephew was exposed to HIV infected blood. He is a Medical Technologist in a lab. Not sure exactly what happened, but my guess was that he was holding the hematocrit tube too tight and it broke. Cut through his gloves and fingers. He was immediately put on HIV meds. They made him DEATHLY sick, but so far his test have all come back negative for HIV. It's been about 8 months since this happened.

Hi Kelly, I never thought about a radio station! What a great idea! If I had to choose one place for the money to go, I would LOVE for it to go to St. Judes. Those "infomercials" always left me crying and wanting to help, but I was never able to financially. I have two young children and I can't imagine what those parents and kids are going through. I've seen how hard this is on just my mom. You've got the wheels turning in my head now...thank you!

THAT is what I would LOVE to do. My kids school is having a Locks of Love day in March. Local haridressers will do the cutting. I wonder if I could also get people to donate money to the American Cancer Association that same day and also challenge people to shave their heads. I just feel so helpless with my mom and want to do all that I can to help her and others.

Do any of you know of a organization that raises money by shaving heads to support cancer patients? I am looking on the lines of this: http://www.stbaldricks.org/# I'm in North Carolina and can't find anything local. My mom was recently diagnosed with cancer, had surgery and just had her first round of chemo yesterday (She's getting Taxol and Carbo). For women, losing their hair is the hardest part of chemo and I'd like to do this to support my mom.

They did a nasal swab on my daughters and it was positive for Influenza type A. They were put on Tamiflu, but unable to finish it because they had a reaction to it. My husband took it, but he still ended up with type A Influenza also. I know for a fact that there are a lot of people testing positive for it because the lab that I work in is fairly small and they do in-house testing. One day last week, I hear all day long "Another positive influenza over here". I thought that all the positive tests had to be reported and avaliable to the general public. I would like to go ahead and get my girls a flu shot now (it's never too late), but they still have what seems to be lingering mild cold symptoms and I want to wait until they're completely better.

My girls had the flu twice already and have missed a lot of school. Next year, they WILL get flu shots. I work in the lab and the number of positive flu tests has been very high. My hubby has never taken a flu shot in his life. He's now been sick for a week. He said he's going to break down and get one next year also. The flu is bad right now here in NC. My daughter had 11 kids out in her class last week. The teacher said she was told it was the flu. I'm not sure if they had the actual nasal swab done or not, but there is a lot of sickness going around regardless. The mild weather isn't helping at all.

I had been going to school for Nursing, but decided to take a phlebotomy course this summer and LOVED it. I just got a job and will be working with infants to elderly. I stuck over 100 people during my clinicals, but we were never allowed to come in contact with children (except for watching heel sticks on newborns). I stressed my concern during my interview about how I had never stuck a child and they said they will be there to train me. I need tips on calming a child (we learned the book way, but real life way isn't always the same) and I thought about buying a bunch of stickers or something to keep in my pocket to give them. I'm sure the lab will have some though. Just wanting tips/advice. I posted here because I figured that those thinking about working in pediatrics would benefit from the advice also. Thanks!

I was one of the people that didn't believe in SIDS. I always thought it was an excuse for people that killed their own babies. Now I'm a firm believer that it really is a true syndrome. It's hard to imagine that our babies could have died. Ugh....scary. I'm glad your baby is ok too.

My daughter was either 3 or 4 months old when I went to check on her in her crib one evening. She was blue and not breathing. I grabbed her up in hysterics and she started breathing again. We rushed her to the hospital where they ran all kinds of tests. The hospital was a teaching hospital, so it was mainly students doing all these tests. No big deal. UNTIL....one student came in to do a catheter. My daughter had labial adhesions at the time. The idiot looked at us with concern and said that my daughter had no URETHRA. I just looked at him in disbelief, refused to allow anyone else in that hospital touch her, and walked out of the hospital. The next day, I took her to the pediatrician and the ped came in the door, slammed the file down on the counter and was outraged that they told me that my kid said I had no urethra. She was furious! She said I should have told the student "Oh, I know....she pees out of her nose" just to see what he would say. BTW...they never could determine why my daughter stopped breathing in her sleep. The pediatrician said that it may had been a case of SIDS had I not checked on her when I did.