big bear

Thank you. Unfortunately, I am currently working in home health so it is hard to get different supplies since they are not as readily available and sometimes, we have to make do with the car supplies that we currently have. Although, as an update to this post, I was finally able to do a successful foley insertion. I talked with my supervisor and asked for more training and thankfully, an RN was willing to train and supervise me while I did the insertion. I am still developing this particular skills as I am currently learning right now that there are a lot of problems associated with foley catheters and it is not all skies and rainbows after an insertion. But, I shall continue to move forward and build my skills upí ½í¸€

Thank you so much for this. I am slowly trying to gain my confidence back. I do know how to change a foley theoretically, but it is still different doing it in an actual person. The weird thing was I did insert the foley all the way and did see urine coming out of the tube...but for some reason, I was meeting resistance with inflating the balloon. The RN said that there are times when the catheter can coil in there especially if patient has BPH so that could probably be why I couldn't inflate it. I am in the process of moving on though :) No use for me to get stuck in this as it is in the past. I just know it is going to make me a better nurse.

Thank you ashleykirsten112. I actually was confident when I went for the home visit and when the family member mentioned that patient needed a foley change that day cause it has been over a month...I didn't think much and went ahead and did it. I am going to RN school while working as an LVN so I know how to do the procedure and have practiced it on a dummy before, but I have not done a successful foley insertion in an actual person. I also don't do foley insertions a lot so that also contributed to my failure. With home visits, basically you drive to patient's homes and help them with whatever needs they have and do follow ups when they were hospitalized and sent home after. The only disadvantage, which I realize now is that you are mostly alone when doing this line of work. You don't have anybody to call to guide you or train you. Families rely on you heavily as well. I talked with my supervisor at the agency and was asking if I would have more training with that and she just told me to watch a lot of youtube videos and to teach and train myself. (I don't know how to do that exactly though). I did watch videos and I think I know where I went wrong. I held the member at a 45 degree instead of 90 so I was not inserting the foley on a 90 degree angle as well. Other than that, I can't think of anything else that I did different.

Hello all! This is just a rant. I am a new graduate LVN and am really struggling with foley insertion skill. I am currently working in home health and had this one patient that needed monthly foley change. I discontinued old foley and tried reinserting new one but had trouble inflating the balloon port. I was meeting resistance. I tried pulling out the foley a little bit and reinserting again with no luck. Family was there watching and I guess that got me more nervous. Couldn't really tell how I was feeling as I was more concerned with the foley and why I couldn't insert it right. Called the agency and finally they decided to send one of the RN supervisors to the home to reinsert it and she did it so quick and fast that she could probably do it with her eyes closed. I was so stressed out, sad and depressed as I have been really struggling with this skill. Also , being a new grad working in the home, I also didn't have a supervisor or another experienced nurse to call down the hall to see if I was doing it right or not. I feel like I am a failure with this. My self esteem took a real huge blow and it is taking a lot in me to nurse it back to where it was before this incident.

It is true that nurse(RN) have a lot of duties and responsibilities that they have to complete during a day's work but in my opinion, just as the RNs ask for help from the cna when they need to do treatment on the buttocks and need help turning, or need help with a difficult resident, in return, they should help the cnas out by answering the call lights because sometimes the resident wants their medications or a pain pill instead of waiting for the cna to get it when she's on another room assisting another resident and the call light goes off for 15 to 30 mins. I am not saying that the RN should do everything that the Cna does but at least help out a little. Some RNs just refuse to do that.

I am a new CNA and have been working in one of the best nursing homes in that area for almost 2 months. I already have 2 residents fall on my shift and that's because they went to the bathroom by themselves without asking for help. As some of you may already know, nursing homes are usually short staffed. I work the day shift and when it is less than 35 residents, the supervisor cancels 1 Cna so instead of 5 there will only be 4. The area that was assigned to me was a difficult one because 4 of my patients need 2 people Assist and in the morning I had to get 4 residents up for breakfast. As I was getting up the last resident, one of the resident finished eating breakfast and decided to go back to his room and go to the bathroom by himself. He had a stroke and so when he tried to stand up on his own, he slid down butt first on the floor and he started crying for help. When I got to his room, he was already on the floor. So I called the nurse and another aid to help him get up because he was big. The nurse suddenly asked me where his tab alarm was and I was surprised he had a tab alarm because it was my 2nd time on that assignment. The first time I had that assignment, one of the CNAs was kind enough to help me with him so in truth, this was the first time I am actually handling this patient myself. It is so frustrating to have a resident fall on your shift but sometimes, there is nothing we can do becaus ethe residents themselves dont listen to us. We tell them not to stand up on their own and to call for help but because help arrives late, they just ignore advices and go to the bathroom by themselves. You also dont expect other CNAs to help you with your assignment even if they know that your assignment is the hardest because they think that it is not their assignment ao why should they bother..they dont really care and some of them can be very rude when you try to ask them for help. It is really hard and instead of looking forward to going to work, I am stressed with thinking what assignement I will have for the next day and it is not healthy for me to be this way. It is just so sad. How about you guys? Have you had similar experiences?