bandas

A few months ago, I was asking the same question to myself. I came from a Pulmonary/critical care background, 5 years. After moving to a new state, I hired on at a hospital that was gracious enough to train me and I'm loving it. I can tell you that it will be a totally different world than what you are used to but change is good!

Yeah, we really thought at first that it was a psych issue. This was before the stroke was found. Someone came out of the room and said "that poor lady is crazy...she just pulled all the skin off her own hand!

Anyone dealt or heard of "alien hand syndrome"? Had a patient post-stroke that has this and I wouldn't have believed it unless I saw it. Her hand was like it was possessed. It had a "mind of its own". Her hand has now become known as "THE HAND" to her, as in "help me, THE HAND keeps touching me". She has completely depersonalized her hand. She kept hitting herself in the face repetitively, hard, and nearly broke her glasses. Also ended up bloodying her knuckles from hitting things. The worst part was when she grabbed her good hand with the bad hand and when she tried to pull her good hand out of her bad hand's grasp it ripped all of her skin off her hand. The hand has also tried to rip out her IV and midline. We all had to do some research on the internet once the neurologist told us what was going on. I just feel bad for her because she can't control it and its scaring her. It doesn't help that its being so mean to her! I've read that it is quite rare. It also depends on where the stroke was at on what abilities the hand has, such as flailing, grasping, pinching, or movements that seem even more purposeful. Wondering if anyone has any stories for me on this topic?

Zosyn, Levaquin, Vancomycin, lots o morphine, Solumedrol or prednisone. I work Pulm.

I'm a Pulm nurse so mucous, loogies...doesn't bother me at all. I can suction a trach with the best of 'em all the while thinking about what's for lunch. But start talking about bugs....maggots, cockroaches, worms...that gives me the heebie jeebies. Only had maggots on a patient once and I nearly passed out. But the wound beds where the maggots had been were amazingly clean, good granulation tissue, no necrosis! I also have a problem with measuring and flushing vomit, especially if it's chunky. I have dry heaved in more patient bathrooms than i want to think about. And I did have a patient that was NPO except for the big jug of Golytely that she was supposed to be drinking a glass of every 1/2 hour. She also had a horrible food addiction. She got ahold of the jug when I was out of the room and chugged it all. Then proceeded to poop, everywhere in the room. It looked like a murder scene, but with poop instead of blood. She over-flowed the toilet, covered it actually. I threw a towel on the floor to cover a lake of poop to get to the toilet and when I tried to step over the towel, I ended up skidding across the floor on the towel and poop. I went over the the patient and she had it smeared all over her body, and was just sitting in it. By the time I was done I had multiple poopy handprints covering my isolation gown. Needless to say, I didn't eat lunch that day. All my co-workers still laugh about that day. Gee, now I'm starting to think...just why did I become a nurse?

I'm a 31 yr old newer nurse, mom of 3, and married for 10 yrs. The floor that I work on has a good mix from 20's up to 50's and we pretty much all tend to get along really well. One of the nurses on my floor is the mother of a girl I went to school with. Of course, we are usually so busy that no one has time to sit around and just talk. Of course, I think that good work ethic is highly respected in our area and you wouldn't last very long without it. I always feel like you should be friendly, courteous, helpful...but these girls don't have to be your best friends if you just don't have much in common. Just put your all into your patients and go home knowing that you are doing a good job. As far as age...one of my best friends I found in nursing school. She's my mom's age and I love her to death. So stay open to friendships where you might not expect it.

I'm a brand new nurse. A few days ago I had a elderly patient who had orthostatic hypotension. He kept getting out of bed without assistance and nearly fell twice. I did the what I could think of: fall risk assessment; call light, phone, and remote within reach; urinal at bedside; offering BR q 2 hrs; room by nurses station; reiterating the importance of calling for assistance; TED hose on per Dr; had the patient sit on the side of the bed for a few minutes before getting up; and talked to the Dr. about the situation. He continually refused to put on his call light. He said that it was ridiculous to call for an aide everytime he wanted to get up and that he was just fine. He told me that he didn't care what I thought and would continue to get up on his own. Eventually I put a tab alarm on which he would promptly take off the moment I left the room. Later, I went to a floor pressure alarm. I was upset about doing this because I know he was really upset about it. And the thing is. it wasn't that he was confused and getting out of bed, but that he just refused to admit that he needed help. Even though he admitted that he had recently fallen at home and broke a hip. So I guess the question is: what could I have done differently to create a better and safer environment for the patient?

I think anything with some good pathophysiology in it is good. If you can really understand what is going on in a disease process it helps immensely, at least on exams. I don't know about real-life nursing because I just passed boards and haven't started working as a nurse yet, one more week of freedom!

I used Saunders to help review content. I did many, many Saunders questions. However, I think that my Kaplan course was so much more helpful in terms of the style of questions presented. They were written much more like the actual exam questions than the Saunder's questions were. I think that Lippencott is also kinda similar to Saunder's. Kaplan also has a money-back guarantee and I believe that they have both online and actual physical classes.

Too bad has severe needle phobia, lol! :chuckle I thought he was going to hyperventilate the first time her gave her a shot!

Hi all, I just passed NCLEX on Thursday, 3 days after my 5 year old daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Wow, I have studied diabetes in school, but I never realized how all of the changes affect your life. My daughter is such a trooper and my own personal hero. We were very lucky that we found the disease extremely early. My husband, who has no medical background, asked me she might be diabetic because she kept licking her skin and rubbing her eyes. His boss' son was just diagnosed and had similar symptoms. I told him absolutely not, I would not have believed it in a million years. But as I started thinking more, I realized that she had been peeing and drinking an awful lot. But I had been so busy studying that I didn't really think much of it. So on Monday, I went and bought a glucose monitor and her fasting glucose was 256. At that point I pretty much knew. We met our Dr. at the ER where he said that she looked great and not like she had diabetes at all. Well, the blood work came back and she did. Luckily, she only had minimal ketones in her urine and was not acidotic. No one could believe that we caught it so fast. They told us that most kids are first diagnosed when they are in DKA and critically ill. She is doing great, physically. Now we are just trying to regulate the glucose levels. Her A1c was 10.1- her endocrinologist said that she has been running in the 400-500 range for the last 3 months. I got her home from the hospital on Wednesday night and took boards on Thursday morning. I am really amazed that I passed, because I was exhausted from 3 sleepless nights. I am just so glad that I had the medical knowledge to know that something wasn't right with her and glad that I trusted my gut to check it out. I was worried that I was just being a paranoid mother, as I tend to be usually. Now we are trying to get her in with Dr. Richard Guthrie- who is a well-known endocrinologist who works only about an hour away from our house. I have heard nothing about praise about him and I hope that he can help her. I also hope to find her a friend who is going through what she is, as she is very lonely and sad right now.

I just graduated from school on May 9th and was scheduled to take boards this last Thursday. On Monday, three days before the NCLEX, I took my 5 year old daughter into the ER and she was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. We were in the hospital with her until Wednesday evening. After many hours of indecision, I decided to go ahead and take the test. It was horrible. My husband, who has no medical background had to take care of her and he was scared to death because he is just learning to count carb points, figure insulin, and give injections. I was scared that he would give her too much insulin and kill her. The test shut off at 75 questions and I just knew that I had flunked. I was amazed to get on the computer this morning and find that I now have a license in my name. I even got my actual license in the mail today. This week has had such highs and lows and now I am exhausted. At least I don't start my job for 2 weeks!

I did Kaplan and I think that it really helped. I would say that questions on the NCLEX tend to be more like Kaplan questions than that of other review books I have seen. I have also studied both Saunders and Lippencott. Kaplan does help you to break the question down. Do you need to assess? Does the assessment answer make sense? What about Maslow's hierarchy of needs? Physical before psychosocial. Go with your ABC's. Airway, airway, airway!!! I took the test on Thursday and passed in 75 questions. Our class took Kaplan as a group, it was required and part of our school fees. So far 30 out of 39 have tested and all have passed the 1st time. We are hoping to be the first class with a 100% pass rate.

I know that in my area the hospitals have already been hiring for positions for months. I was actually hired at least 2 months ago, and I just took boards on Thursday. What are your expectations in a job? Are you requesting specific hours or specific areas. I did not get the position that I wanted because there were three other graduating techs who already worked on that floor who were offered the positions first. Sometimes as a new grad you are more likely to have to work your way into certain shifts or positions. Good luck and be persistent. Show your continued interest and you will get hired!

I'm a nurse tech. I was able to be one after my first semester of nursing school, although I didn't start until my 3rd semester. It is basically a CNA but I am able to do a lot of other skills that I learned in school as well. I can do Foley's, dressing changes, d/c IV's, trach care and suctioning. We do not assess, pass meds, evaluate, etc... At our hospital we have to test for the CNA exam within 3 months of starting but we don't have to do the classes, just the exam.

OMG, I have the same exact dream every once in a while. It is always Stats class, lol. Probably because in my young and stupid years I stopped going to Stats just because I didn't like it and never actually dropped. I ended up failing and had to retake it. Got an "A" the next time around! :wink2:

Possible...yes, easy...no! I don't mean to be a "Debbie Downer" but it is a very hard situation. The good thing in your case is that your children are older and a little more self-sufficient. In my case, I am in my 2nd year of nursing school and had a baby this last October. My other children were 2 yrs and 4 yrs. My saving grace is that I am a good student and had not been struggling previously to having the baby. In my school, I had to go back right away though. I was told that when I told my teachers that I was pregnant. And when I mean right away, I got out of the hospital on a Thurday and went back on Friday. Of course, I had a natural birth. You might want to go ahead and talk to your teachers, so that you can: 1) get a game plan for the next year, and 2) prepare for a safe pregnancy (like avoiding chemo precautions patients). Remember that your baby is number 1 priority. I still did all of my clinicals, but I did not get patients on chemo precautions when I was pregnant or breastfeeding. But there was plenty of other stuff to do on that floor anyways. That first couple of months were awful because I was so exhausted. But Christmas break was a good time to get some needed rest. Every week I would just think, "I can do this until Christmas" and I did. Now that I'm in my final semester and the baby is 5 months old, we are doing very good. She is a good baby though, no colic, so that helps a lot. So just stay determined, rest, and study up. When you go to school in the fall, get as many assignments out of the way as soon as you can. Get your reading done early. See if you can get any reading assignments before school starts. And yes, if you are determined you can do it. And you will feel all the more proud of yourself.

I just had my third daughter on October 9th, 2007. I was induced and had gone in that morning to get started on Pit. I'm in nursing school and had told my teacher that I didn't want any students taking care of me because it was a little too close for comfort. My nurse started the Pit but I was only have a few very irregular contractions so my OB came in and broke my water. Hard, regular contractions started immediately. I told my nurse that I wanted an epidural as soon as possible. She told me that as soon as I started making progress I could have one. She checked me 15 minutes after ROM and said that she would turn up the Pit again and check me in 15 more minutes and then would order the epi if I was doing ok. 15 minutes later, I was in horrible pain and started throwing up. The nurse came in and checked and I was at a 6. She called anesthesia but they didn't answer. So I begged for Stadol in my IV. She went out to get that set up and then came back 5 minutes later. All of a sudden I had tons of pressure, so she rechecked me and I was at an 8. That's when everything got crazy. All of a sudden people we running into the room with equipment and started getting set up for the birth. I started crying because I knew that this was going to be a natural birth and I felt like I had no time to get prepared. They called the doctor but couldn't get ahold of him either. A couple of minutes after she checked me I started yelling that I had to push. I was checked and was complete. Nurses were surrounding me telling me not to push and that I needed to pant through the contractions. That was virtually impossible. I trieds, but she was coming whether they liked it or not. About 15 minutes later the doctor came into the room, quickly gloved and gowned, sat down and caught her. They logged my entire labor at 1 hour 8 minutes. My daughter's face was extremely bruised and she didn't get all of the amniotic fluid out of her lungs so for about a day and a half she would choke and spit up a lot of fluid. In general it was a pretty traumatic experience. It just didn't happen the way I had expected it to, and I felt like I didn't have a chance to get fully prepared for the birth. I bawled and was in total shock that she came that fast. My husband had tears in his eyes and had begged for them to give me drugs. He, of couse, didn't know that they couldn't give them to me that late in the game. Oh and btw, I did have a student in the room who took care of the baby once she was born and she did a wonderful job. Of course, I couldn't have cared less who saw me at that point. I just wanted that baby out. She's six weeks old now and doing great. I had to go back to school the day after I got out of the hospital.

Yeah, I had to take it to get into the RN program. I just really recommend going the the study guide page by page if you feel that you are rusty on stuff. The study guide I have is called the Test of Essential Academic Skills: Pre-Test Study Manual by ATI. The test is pretty much just like the manual, especially the math portion. I think that the math and science were the hardest for me. Just remember that you don't get to use a calculator (you should be given scrap paper) and that each section of the test is timed. Another thing is don't get stuck on one problem, go on. I did that with the math portion and it killed my time.

Ugh, I had the exact same thing happen to me last year. The records office at my school lost my transcripts from my other school. It would have meant me not getting in if I hadn't been very persistent about getting the situation resolved. Luckily, I did and will be starting my 2nd year in the fall. Good luck to you!

I still remember my first clinical, being scared to even knock and go into the room. My first patient was an extremely large woman, over 400 lbs. I had to give her a bed bath and the whole time in my head I just kept repeating "this is so not like the dummies at school". But I got through it and it was a learning experience. It's nice to practice in class and get the theories and principles down, but it really is so different in the clinical setting. A piece of advice that my CI gave me was "we don't expect you to be perfect and know everything...if you did you wouldn't need to be here." It made me feel so much better because I felt the need to be perfect. I was having panic attacks before each clinical and I wouldn't sleep at all the night before clinical or the night after. Every night after clinical I would just sit and go over all of the things that I could have done better. It was awful. Now I analyze, say yes I could have done that better, I will do better next time, and leave it at that.

LOL, I had a friend in clinicals who spent 20 min listening for bowels sounds- 5 min in each quadrant- because she couldn't hear any. Turns out her steth was turned to the bell side. I laughed sooo hard when she told me.

Thanks for directing me to the CDC guidelines. I tried to call my ob today but he and his staff were not in the office so I was planning on calling back on monday. I call my general practitioner's office and talked to his nurse. She gave me basically no info, just said she got an order for a test and that I could come into the lab. When I asked her the about how soon it would show up on a test she said she didn't know. (It has been 2 1/2 weeks). And then when I was trying to explain what happened she cut me off and said "just come into the lab" and that was it.

I'm currently just finishing my first year of nursing school. A couple of weeks ago at clinicals my patient (known Hep C), pulled out her IV as she was getting dressed and then stuck her bleeding hand in mine before I realized what was happening. So I washed my hands really good and checked for any open places on my hands, which there were not. I told my teacher who said don't worry about it. So I didn't worry. Then today, another teacher overheard me talking about it and freaked that protocol had not been followed and that something more should have been done. I had to go talk to the director of the program about what happened. And she basically has me so stressed and worried. I'm 4 months pregnant, and she just kept saying "we're even more worried because you're pregnant. So I called my doctor and got tests started, but I guess my questions are how likely is it that I could have contracted hep c with no needlestick, and how long could it be before a test could show up positive. Being pregnant is just not making things better, I'm so darned emotional right now!

We did cow eyeballs, sheep hearts, and fetal pigs. The pig was the worst for me, because we had to tie its legs back and the teacher told us that we had to break them to get them to stay back. Our group couldn't do it so our pig's legs kinda stuck up. The smell is bad, but after I while I found that I got a little more used to it. One thing that was sorta bad, was my teacher had me take pics of the dissected pig so that he could put them on the internet for us. So I did and emailed them to him. However, I never deleted them off of my memory card and then later went to wal-mart to get some other pics developed (forgetting about the dissection pics). I was using the machine where you can pick out your pics, and it is displayed on a television screen. Well, all of a sudden these dissection pics come up and all of these people are walking by looking at them. Man, I felt like a weirdo or some sicko!