bakerbakerRN

You will do just fine! Just stay cautious and careful throughout your career and you will quit worrying so much over this.....as we all do in the back of our minds. One thing about the gagging though, use Mentholatum or Vick's Vapo Rub in and under your nose if you need to, or get some peppermint oil ....I have a couple of funny stories to share. Maybe you will feel better knowing we all have the same problems when we start out too..... As an PN student, I had an elderly patient who had megacolon. I had to empty his BSC and the smell was horrible, but I when I looked at it, I about lost it!! I mean it was the MOST MASSIVE turd I have ever seen, still to this day. What was even worse was he had 2 daughters who were RNs standing there and one of them was married to another RN who was also there. So I have 3 RNS watching me clean up Pop's poop and I just imagined them glaring at me with their beady little judgmental eyes. Luckily, I didn't embarrass myself in front of them and was able to make it to the bathroom and start flushing the toilet over and over so they wouldn't hear me gagging. Later, as an RN, I worked along side with one of them and told him the story and he laughed and laughed and didn't even remember it at all! A few years later, I was working in an ambulatory surgery area that also did other outpatient procedures as well. Had a very sweet little lady with megacolon and would come in for impaction removal frequently. Another nurse and I were both taking care of her and were giving her a break and the nurse and I were both eating some cake from someone's birthday. My college remarked only nurses would be able to remove an impaction and then immediately go eat chocolate cake and not think a thing about it. You will get used to it!

I'm already tearing up at the preview!!!

end of a long, busy, stressful day in the OR....last case of the day and everyone is tired and grumpy. The room is very quiet with only the sound of some John Mayer and the beep beep of the heart monitor when this circulator sneezes and accidentally farts (loudly). Needless to say, it lightened the mood of the room and picked up the tempo of the surgery and we came up with a new word....a SNART.

Discharging a patient home, I put her overweight body in too small of a wheelchair and she starts yelling when the wheels start rubbing the sides of the chair, friction causing it to burn her hips. She was a good sport and we both laughed!

House sit for a co-worker and steal her jewelry and electronics and pawn them because you have a spending problem and not enough money. Get caught and have a felony theft and "false declaration in pawn" and not report it to the state BON when renewing your license and then get caught lying to the BON and lose your license. Stupid Nurse tricks!!!! I guess I was the stupid nurse for trusting her to housesit.

I feel for you. You may find that some work environments are like this while others are not. I initially worked in a county hospital where this wasn't an issue at all. I was an LPN at the time and relocated to a larger city and the hospital I worked at there was cut-throat about titles. Eventually I finished school and became an RN and moved back home to work in the hospital where we were all a team once again.

Mr Jones was thirsty when he asked the busy nurse for a boost.

I was thinking of something else when I asked for a "pick me up"

Nurse Smith was a too little preoccupied with her upcoming yearly evaluation and salary increase.

Mr. Jones realized having a clean set of sheets was a very uplifting experience.

You do want to head to the OR, but usually will need some med/surg experience before. However, there may be places that will hire you without that experience. You can also try any positions in the perioperative setting which include Pre and Post OP care and Recovery Room. That's how I snuck in to the OR and LOVED IT! Good Luck!

I was wondering for personal and professional reasons, how long does it takes before someone with EDS and fatigue start feeling better rested and more energetic once CPAP is started? I found this article last night and realized how much of an understatement is it to say how important restorative sleep is and that there are so many diseases related to OSA. Seems to me that more patients should be assessed for OSA. I am guilty of fully assessing a patient's sleeping patterns. It's obvious it is quite important in that we spend 1/3 of our lives asleep. In particular, I agree with this sentence found in the conclusion...."It must appreciated that OSA is no longer a respiratory tract disease but a systemic one." Sleep and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus- ClinicalImplications by S Ramnathan Iyer http://www.japi.org/october_2012/08_oa_sleep_and_type_2.pdf