T-Bird78

My sister called me one night, a few years ago, crying, telling me she had leukemia. I told her she did NOT have leukemia. She’d gotten some bloodwork done and was doctor had called her with them. Her white count was slightly elevated, so she googled it and went down the rabbit hole until she came across someone’s blog journaling their cancer story. That person had received their chemo tx and their white count was up. I told my sister that the chemo made her white count go up, and she said “exactly, she has cancer and her white count is up and so is mine so I have cancer”. I asked her if the doc had told her to fill a script for antibiotics for the bronchitis she was diagnosed with (she did) and to repeat the labs in 2 weeks (she was told that). I told her the white count is up due to the bronchitis infection, not cancer, and to never look up just one abnormal lab value with no context. ABX worked, she felt better, and repeat labs were normal. I like being right LOL.

I did my drug screen Tuesday, just waiting to make it official!

As one of my nursing instructors phrased it, when administering a suppository, pinch those hiney cheeks closed as soon as you insert it! When the pt won’t quit talking while trying to get vitals, that’s when you use the oral thermometer and keep it in there until the BP is obtained. I’ve been doing tympanic more frequently since COVID but will shove that thing in their mouth to get it to stop LOL. Always pee whenever you have the chance, even if you don’t think you need to.

I’m going to take it. The hour drive will be terrible, but it’ll get me started in my new career field and get the desired experience so I can apply for remote jobs in a year or so. I wasn’t scared of the what ifs, it was if the drive would be worth it. My body physically can’t take the long hours on my feet. I’ve had to go to the doc for foot problems, shoulder pain, and have an ultrasound for left rib pain tomorrow. I think I pulled a muscle catching a pt falling off the scale. The best part of my new job, though, is when it’s time to clock out, I clock out then and not whenever we finish with the last pt and get the end-of-shift stuff done.

After 15 years as a nurse, I decided to get into the billing/coding side of healthcare. As we all know, it’s impossible to get hired when you don’t have any experience, even though I took the coding course from a local university and passed the test and am a certified coder. The large healthcare system I currently work for has filters on their hiring reviews that only look for work history in that specific role and if you don’t have it your resume is rejected. I had an interview with a smaller practice and they want me. The only drawback is, unlike where I’m at now, their coders can’t work remotely and must go in to the main office, which is an hour drive in heavy traffic one way. My current commute is 15 minutes with just one turn so I’ve been very spoiled by that. My dilemma is, do I stay working as a nurse until I can get a remote coding position, or do I suck it up and make that drive for 2 years to get experience then try and find something else? I’ve been looking since early June when I passed my test and my body is worn out from being on my feet (plantar fasciitis, bursitis in the shoulder, and my scoliosis has gotten horrifically worse to the point I had to go to the doctor for pain). We have up to 56 pts a day with two providers and only two clinical staff, so we’re doing the intake and rooming and procedures and disinfecting scopes and sterilizing instruments and filling in for our phone triage when she’s out.

Agreed. Sad thing is the clinical director had been a nurse in a past life but was strictly an administrator with no training on our processes so she coudln’t work it.

I’ve only worked M-F 8-5 type hours because I wanted to have evenings, weekends, and holidays off to be with my family, especially with my kids being young. Yes, there are days you’re not leaving on time, but it is easier to plan your week. The downside is scheduling your own doctor’s appointment etc. because their hours are your hours. I had to wait 2 weeks to get an Ortho appt for acute scapula pain because of my own doctor’s schedules and being short-staffed limited my own availability.

I was on paxlovid becuase my NP at the u/c center told me it would make me feel 100% better the next day and I was hurting so badly I’d do anything for the pain (I had COVID last month and the best way to describe it is to compare it to the second dose of our vaccines, that full-body ache, only worse). I think the paxlovid needs to be longer than 5 days, and yes I got the rebound COVID. I don’t think it’s long enough to fight it off. And that taste is HORRIBLE and does not go away!

I worked for a medium-sized practice, 19 locations and 200+ employees. I called out sick and the clinical director called me back to ask why and if I could still make it in or not. I was literally on my way to the ER (hyperemesis gravidarum, and that ER visit turned into a 4-day hospital stay). Another time I called out because my son was sick, and a coworker called out because she’d been at the ER with her fiancé all night. Same clinical director called both of us, then made that coworker come in because my child being sick trumped her fiancé being sick (he’d gone into a-fib and had to be cardioverted!).

PITA. Pain in the a— Buy one get one free (when multiple pts have an appt together and demand to be in the same exam room at the same time)

I can kinda almost see the reasoning behind wearing one at work, but the whole “don’t forget to take it home” thing is concerning. Are they tracking you at home too? If they call you to cover on your day off and you say no because you’re out of town, could they look and say “no, you’re at home, you can come in”?

As someone pointed out months ago, if someone never claimed religious exemption for flu or Hep vaccines they shouldn’t be allowed to claim it for this one.

Well, this comment didn’t age well. The 10-year-old girl in Ohio who was RAPED by a family member (incest) was denied an abortion. She had to drive to another state (illegally) and get one in Indiana. That provider is now being investigated and possibly facing charges. My state is one of the first to ban them past 6 weeks, except in the case of rape or incest or if the mother’s life is in danger, but the rape/incest victim is required to file a police report in order to get one. Most people would do that anyway but some are scared to go to the police when they’ve been assaulted. The bigger picture with this being overturned is how far will this methodology reach. If this was overturned because it’s up to the states instead of the federal government, what other federal decisions will they overturn? Same-sex and interracial couples are now fearful for their marriages because those were allowed by the Supreme Court. Will birth control be banned because it prevents a fertilized egg from implanting?

This isn’t necessarily task-specific but apparently I’m the only one who fills ice trays in my office. Several of my coworkers don’t use the ice because they drink bottled water or buy lunch and get water from there, but I fill my Yeti every morning. I’ll crack the ice trays into the bucket, use the ice scoop to scoop some out, refill the trays with water, then repeat the next morning. If I’ve been out for whatever reason, I’ll go back to find the ice bucket completely empty and either both ice trays empty or one tray empty and the second tray half-empty where someone else popped it to get the cubes they needed for their drink. One of my coworkers even made the comment that she likes it when I’m back because the ice works better. I told her that anyone can do it and she said “I know” and walked off.

Go for it. One of my coworkers has been out on leave since December and just got her leave extended for another month. Our company allows up to 9 consecutive months in 12-month span for leave (yet has also cancelled long-term floats, so we’ve been short-staffed the entire time but that’s another story). You do what you need to do to make yourself better. Maybe while you’re recovering you can be looking at apartments in your area.

I finally got to see the podiatrist (only had to wait 2 weeks because of our staffing issues) and she gave me orthotic inserts. I had to buy new shoes since Dansko insoles aren’t removable. I’v got stretching exercises and a foot ball roller to do BID and am slowly breaking in the orthotics. I’m also on a medrol dose pack, so that’s tons of fun. It’s helping though.

I called a podiatrist and their first available is Friday, which I can’t take off due to short staffing issues, so I go in two weeks for their next available slot. I’ve worn Danskos for 10 years and they were wonderful at first. I’d tried wearing my old nursing shoes a few years back and my knees were killing me about two hours into my work day, so I’d gone back to my Danskos. It’s just been the past few weeks. I’d found an article online that said flats were bad for your feet, and the article quoted here said flats were great for your feet LOL. I’ll hobble along and see what the doc says.

Hey, all! I wear Danskos and have worn them for years, getting a new pair every year or so. They’re only for work and not worn out around town or on weekends. Anyway, after ignoring my own advice, I googled my foot pain and have decided I have plantar fasciitis in my left foot. I found some shoe inserts that’s supposed to help with that, but they won’t fit in my shoes because the original insole can’t be removed. Does anyone have any good insoles that will fit comfortably inside a Dansko or a trick to getting the existing one out? Thanks!

Some people just won’t listen. My aunt, uncle, and cousin were very anti-mask and even turned around and drove home after driving 2 hours to go somewhere and found out masks were required to enter. The place had some available for $2.00, and the two dollars was donated to a local animal shelter. They’d carry a mask in their pocket to “have” one but never wore it. Well, they all got COVID in December 2020 and my uncle died a week later, just two days after Christmas. My aunt and cousin attended his funeral maskless.

I’m an LPN going on 15 years and if I’d known then what I know now, I never would have stopped. If you do choose LPN, check into a bridge program so you can get some work experience. LPN’s are vastly overlooked and our opportunities are much fewer than any other position. And don’t worry about how long you’ve been out of school. When I did my LPN program, I was 30 and the second-youngest in my class. Good luck with school!

Ah, the diminished PPE and supplies. I remember each office in my healthcare system being allocated ONE tub of disinfectant wipes at a time. ONE. My location alone has 8 exam rooms, 2 procedure rooms, two clean/dirty/processing rooms, 2 specialized testing rooms, plus the break room and waiting room. Hospitals got priority, of course as they should, but it got to the point that when we used the last wipe from the tub, we’d stuff paper towels in the container to soak up the remaining liquid just to get every drop of that liquid gold disinfectant that we could.

What about an increase in appendicitis in kids post COVID? My 9-year-old was diagnosed with COVID in late January, for the second time (he had it last March also), and nine days later we were back in the ED and he was diagnosed with appendicitis and transported to the children’s hospital for an emergency appendectomy. One of my non-clinical coworkers said she’d heard about an increase in appendicitis in kids.

I am really struggling with this right now. I’m the senior clinical staff member on top of being the most experienced in general, especially in our specialty. I have a new coworker, been with us 3 weeks, and she knows everything. She’s only worked primary care, never a surgical specialist, yet she actually waved me off when I told her I wanted her to follow me to preop a patient. She said “yeah, they just sign the form, I know that” and waved me off. She interrupts all of us when we’re telling her how certain docs like their rooms set up and talks over any of us when we’re giving her tips. I’ve learned to shut up around her and just let her ask me questions, even though she accused me of setting her up for sabotage. I’ll let her ask me how to do things, even though she doesn’t like my answer and tells me it’s wrong, but when the docs start telling her it’s not right maybe she’ll listen to me. LOL.

Actually, yes I have. I’m also “just an LPN” so I get that too. Anyway, I’ve only worked ambulatory my entire career because I wanted my evenings/weekends/holidays off to be with my kids. There was a comment on this site years ago that directly said ambulatory care nursing isn’t real nursing, so this forum has been down that road LOL. I was pulled from my office to work inpatient last year during heavy COVID loads, so I spent 7 weeks working inpatient. One of the floor RN’s was retiring and someone asked if she was going to retire or take “an easy job, like working in a doctor’s office.” I stopped her real quick and told her it’s not an easy job. The nurses on that unit had 5-6 pts each; we see 40-50 a day (up to 60) in my office. We’re a surgical specialist so we’re doing in-office procedures, minor surgeries, pre and postop care, room terminal cleaning, high-level disinfectant of scopes, autoclave instruments, phone triage, calls, prior authorizations, pharmacy issues, and so much more. I will say this: it’s a different kind of crazy. Inpatient certainly has its difficulties but it’s a contained bubble of crazy; ambulatory has so much fluctuation and outside influence. Other docs will call and beg us to work people in, we’re being double-booked, docs get held up in surgery and are late to clinic, the schedule says they’re coming in for one thing but they pull out a laundry list of 10 different complaints, and we get screamed at by patients about mask wearing and by families because only one person can come to their visit. We don’t get pooped on like inpatient does, but we’re not sitting around eating bonbons either. And when I tell people I’m a nurse, they immediately ask what hospital, when I tell them not a hospital but a doctor’s office I immediately get the ‘oh’ and they look disappointed.

I know this is an old post, but I’m taking a medical coding course online through a major local university. It’s a professional certification program and we test for our CPC if we pass the class. I’m done with nursing after a few years of wrestling with it and I’m looking forward to much less direct pt care. But yes, I have looked at cashiers with envy, people who call to ask about your car warranty as having an easy job, even the guy who drives the kid’s train through our local mall nearly got an employment inquiry from me. LOL. I’ve been ‘done’ since before COVID and have only stayed because we’ve been perpetually short-staffed but I’m counting down the days until I can get out. I know I’ll take a pay cut but the options of working from home and my sanity are worth it.