Hi, my name is AngelfireRN, I'll be your nurse tonight.
I am not a waitress, nor am I your slave.
Yelling and hurling obscenities at me will not get you your pain meds any sooner than they are ordered. Nor will having your family member or entourage do the same.
Threatening lawsuits and having umpteen family members camp out in the halls or hold up the nurse's station will not get you preferential treatment.
Physically grabbing me as I go down the hall is NOT a good idea.
I do not give the orders, but I do have to follow/enforce them. This is something that you should take up with your doctor.
No, I will not call him again to ask him for more pain medicine. He has been called twice and has said no both times.
No, I will not give you his number so you can "straighten him out".
No, you are not my only patient, and I highly doubt that you are single-handedly paying my salary. On the off chance that you are, let's talk about a raise.
NO, NO, NO, I most empahatically will NOT come get you when it is time for your next pain shot while you are having a smoke break. I also will not bring it to you in the smoking room. (Have actually said that, I am allergic to cigarettes. I did it once, had an asthma attack, desatted to 83, and turned blue, according to the patient and my charge nurse, after the patient had to help me back to the floor).
No, I don't really care if your family has not eaten all day, they drove here by themselves, they are not sick, and no, I will not call for 6 guest trays. (This of course, is if the patient in question does not need all 6 family members present, and is not at death's door).
No, you may not have 3 six-packs of soda from the kitchen, there are other people that would like a snack, too.
No, they will not open up the kitchen up just for you, at 1 in the morning, because you don't like the snacks we have on the floor.
I could think of hundreds, but those will do for a start. I know it sounds mean, but this is why I got out of bedside nursing. When a hospital becomes the Hilton, I'm gone!
yesterday was my twenty year anniversary - i've officially spend more than half of my life as a nurse, which i think is a cause for celebration, all at the same hospital.
one of my patients, who i've recently mentioned in this thread, must have overheard because tonight he congratulated me then asked if that meant i was around forty.
me: i'm not comfortable with this... "yes"
him: do you have any children yet?
me: why are you asking about my personal life? "no"
him: do you want any?
me: what the...? how is that any of your business? "i'm happy as i am for now"
him: because i know a group of men int heir forties who are interested in having a relationship
me: seriously, what the...?! you're gross, i'm surprised you even have friends, i certainly don't need to be set up at all let alone by a patient, and just ew, ew, ew! "i didn't say i was single"
him: oh
me: excellent, he's making the apparently new connection that not all couple have or want-
To the patient who pukes after taking her 14 morning pills without eating anything, then wonders why in the world she has nausea every morning and why am I not doing anything about it......Eat a *******' cracker (or maybe even 2), for crying out loud, before you suck down the pills. Or do you LIKE to toss your cookies every dang morning????
I have REPEATEDLY told her, her family, her pets, everyone that she needs to eat something first. Especially since she is diabetic and takes pre-meal insulin on a sliding scale. But it's my fault that she's nauseated every morning....argh.
You never know where some people are coming from. I did clinicals on an organ transplant floor, and while I was there, they had a patient who rejected his kidney because he deliberately threw up all his pills.
actually he still had some decent veins...he was in his early 40's, good physique...he was just one of those guys who would scream and whimper if you pulled the tape of his hairless arm.
And how likely is he to scream and whimper if he's pulseless?
Sorry to nitpick, cardiac nurse here.....you wouldn't pace VT, and amiodarone hangs out forever (half life up to 13 days), so stopping the gtt just for a minute isn't likely to result in a recurrence of VT.
:chair:
Actually,an internal pacer/defibrillator could try to ATP VT to convert the rhythm before it shocks. :)
1. I think it's wonderful that you are the Great White Spirit and Jesus in one person...I also think it's 'neat' that you can, according to you, teleport to Philadelphia in 7 minutes flat...I do not know, however, if Risperdal Consta will interfere with your teleportation abilities...let me give it to you anyway and you can tell me later if it you were able to go!
2. I'm reasonably sure that our nurse practitioner will not give you another prescription for Vyvanse since you opened all the capsules and snorted the stuff inside...lucky for you that med is activated by the gut so you didn't die...THIS time!
3. If you have Child Protective Services called to your home and your children are removed from your custody because you, in a meth-fueled stupor, locked them out of the house but tied them to a bush outside 'to keep them safe', please don't be surprised when they really, REALLY don't want to visit you OR move home to be with you...trust me...they really are better off where they are now.
And how likely is he to scream and whimper if he's pulseless?
I take it you have never had a pt with VT that had a pulse then...
Ventricular tachycardia is defined as three or more beats of ventricular origin in succession at a rate greater than 100 beats/minute. There are no normal-looking QRS complexes. The rhythm is usually regular, but on occasion it may be modestly irregular. The arrhythmia may be either well-tolerated or associated with grave, life-threatening hemodynamic compromise. ....
Ventricular tachycardia can be referred to as sustained or nonsustained. Sustained refers to an episode that lasts at least 30 seconds and generally requires termination by antiarrhythmia drugs, antitachycardia pacing techniques or electrical cardioversion...
Specializes in Pediatric Intensive Care, Long Term care.
I used to be a PCA in a LTC. I really wish I could tell some of my patients:
To patient who refuses to get his teeth brushed which furthers his GROSSLY horrible halitosis....I wish I could tell him to STOP breathing so hard when I am trying to do care on him....better yet just stop breathing until im done because your breathe makes me wanna vomit.
I want to also ask them why they only remember curse words!! Seriously, all of the alzheimers pts I have had are still someohow fluent in bad language...they dont know their childrens names but they can still manage to call me a mutha****
yesterday was my twenty year anniversary - i've officially spend more than half of my life as a nurse, which i think is a cause for celebration, all at the same hospital.
one of my patients, who i've recently mentioned in this thread, must have overheard because tonight he congratulated me then asked if that meant i was around forty.
me: i'm not comfortable with this... "yes"
him: do you have any children yet?
me: why are you asking about my personal life? "no"
him: do you want any?
me: what the...? how is that any of your business? "i'm happy as i am for now"
him: because i know a group of men int heir forties who are interested in having a relationship
me: seriously, what the...?! you're gross, i'm surprised you even have friends, i certainly don't need to be set up at all let alone by a patient, and just ew, ew, ew! "i didn't say i was single"
him: oh
me: excellent, he's making the apparently new connection that not all couple have or want-
him: because they don't have children yet and-
me: "thank you but i'm not interested"
well, dear - you are better than me! i would have been ready to pull my hair out. well, either his or mine! i am in the catagory of being around that age (i'll be 39 in august) and don't have kids of my own. i by this point in my life don't to get started down that avenue. my 11 yr old stepson lives with us full time, and now that's as close as i am going, but that's not something i would like to feel compelled to explain that to a complete stranger.
I used to be a PCA in a LTC. I really wish I could tell some of my patients:
To patient who refuses to get his teeth brushed which furthers his GROSSLY horrible halitosis....I wish I could tell him to STOP breathing so hard when I am trying to do care on him....better yet just stop breathing until im done because your breathe makes me wanna vomit.
I want to also ask them why they only remember curse words!! Seriously, all of the alzheimers pts I have had are still someohow fluent in bad language...they dont know their childrens names but they can still manage to call me a mutha****
Nothing new. My mother's 75 and she said her grandmother was the same way after having a stroke, back in the 1940s.
talaxandra
3,037 Posts
yesterday was my twenty year anniversary - i've officially spend more than half of my life as a nurse, which i think is a cause for celebration, all at the same hospital.
one of my patients, who i've recently mentioned in this thread, must have overheard because tonight he congratulated me then asked if that meant i was around forty.
me: i'm not comfortable with this... "yes"
him: do you have any children yet?
me: why are you asking about my personal life? "no"
him: do you want any?
me: what the...? how is that any of your business? "i'm happy as i am for now"
him: because i know a group of men int heir forties who are interested in having a relationship
me: seriously, what the...?! you're gross, i'm surprised you even have friends, i certainly don't need to be set up at all let alone by a patient, and just ew, ew, ew! "i didn't say i was single"
him: oh
me: excellent, he's making the apparently new connection that not all couple have or want-
him: because they don't have children yet and-
me: "thank you but i'm not interested"