After last week's fun and games, I'm feeling rather boring!
Here is what I've learned:
1. Hepatitis, PVD and pyoderma gangrenosum are a horrible combination for medical history. HORRIBLE!
2. Chasing a person's heart rate, blood sugar and blood pressure all night long while this normally walkie/talkie person won't wake up, makes it a bit frustrating to have an extremely conservative hospitalist on board that night.
3. Going completely out of your way for a complex dressing change (moving slowly to let pain ease, knowing the lady in #2 will be crashing again soon) makes it incredibly frustrating to learn this guy complained about getting two changes in one shift. Dude. First time was for assessment and that shizz was nasty. Second time was because dude acted like he had compartment syndrome (he did not), and the bandage was again nasty.
4. I've been a city mouse in the country way too long.
5. My little girl does not want to be a nurse when she grows up, but she does very much want to learn nursing stuff. Her timing could not be more perfect. My son helped me study for my bachelors degree. Now she can help me with my doctorate!
6. That same little girl has been a wonderful wound care nurse for my biopsy site.
7. The original Siamese Twins had 21 total children. Their cause of death - one had a stroke and died a few days later. Apparently you don't survive having a dead person's blood running through you. Incidentally, they shared a liver.
8. Morphine is a hell of a drug.
9. It is actually possible for a systolic blood pressure to go from 90s to 190s and back to 90s in the span of a half hour without medication being administered and with absolutely no change whatsoever in patient or blood pressure cuff. (Would absolutely love to hear theories on this.)
10. People respond better to smoking cessation education when you cut them some slack.
11. Smokers can also sniff out a never-smoker from a mile away. I'm sorry to say it, guys, but many (if not most) of these smokers are tuning your out as soon as they hear, "quit smoking". It has nothing to do whether they're considering quitting or not. They know you don't know how hard it is to quit and they feel judged.
12. Scarlet fever comes with a white strawberry tongue.
13. If you're getting lidocaine SQ/IM, ask for a nurse to give it to you. I have gotten this stuff from doctors and they just go grab the biggest needle, draw a bunch up, and shove it in. This NP grabbed an SQ of reasonable size, injected a tiny bit, waited, then injected the rest rather slowly, making sure the first part was able to numb the rest. This is why nurses rock. We think of stuff like this.
14. Hope for Alzheimer's research: the brain of a mouse has lymphatic vessels, draining fluid and WBCs from the brain. Also, medications which enhance the "brain cleaning" system (preventing/decreasing the amount of tau buildup) are being researched. Unfortunately, those already known to be affected won't benefit from this research. But it is certainly promising for those of us being left behind by Alzheimer's sufferers.
15. Apparently a kid played a trick on his nurse mom by convincing her she won the Powerball. If any of you is that mom, I'm sorry. So, so sorry.
Alright, peeps. How about you? Learn anything good?
I learned something new today: how to palpate a cat's kidney. Now my cat has a whole new reason to hate me. More pills and frequent kidney checks. Got his bladder all sorted out, but he still has a problem with a lumpy, tender left kidney.
Sorry. Our cat with diabetes passed recently, shortly after her sister did (sister was the "well" cat so go figure). Sad they are gone, we'd had them for well over a decade. Now just down to four kitties, and two of them are older as well.
I miss having kittens. Would not mind getting a preggo cat and keeping her and babes (as long as not too many) if we could work out a deal with our vet clinic for spay/neuter/immunize.
Hope your kitty feels better Rose_Queen. =^••^=
I have learned more about cysts than I wanted to know - and watched a few cringe worthy videos of cyst I&Ds.
I have had a decent sized cyst on my back for probably a year at least. It didn't bother me so I didn't bother it. But the other day it became red, inflamed and painful. It looks like it wants to do an impression of Mount Vesuvius!
MD appt in the morning to see what should be done about it.
Confession - I'm kinda wimpy when it comes to pain...
Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
To be fair, it may be more accurate to say many of us are owned by cats. Just sayin'
I believe the saying is "Dogs have owners; cats have staff". And yeah, if it weren't for those opposable thumbs that cats are missing to open the cans of food themselves...
I have learned more about cysts than I wanted to know - and watched a few cringe worthy videos of cyst I&Ds.
I have had a decent sized cyst on my back for probably a year at least. It didn't bother me so I didn't bother it. But the other day it became red, inflamed and painful. It looks like it wants to do an impression of Mount Vesuvius!
MD appt in the morning to see what should be done about it.
Confession - I'm kinda wimpy when it comes to pain...
Our dog is awfully spoiled though, and seems to think she's in charge. When you think about it, many times we think we have trained our cats and dogs a behavior, they actually taught *us* to do their bidding. You're so right about the opposable thumbs!
Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
I have learned more about cysts than I wanted to know - and watched a few cringe worthy videos of cyst I&Ds.
I have had a decent sized cyst on my back for probably a year at least. It didn't bother me so I didn't bother it. But the other day it became red, inflamed and painful. It looks like it wants to do an impression of Mount Vesuvius!
MD appt in the morning to see what should be done about it.
Confession - I'm kinda wimpy when it comes to pain...
I had one of those a few years ago- never got to the point of going to the doctor, though. One day it started hurting really, really badly, so I reached back to touch it. It ruptured, spraying this nasty, grey/blood-tinged smelly slimy sludge all over my hand. Hasn't been a problem since- completely disappeared without getting infected and hasn't recurred since it ruptured.
I had one of those a few years ago- never got to the point of going to the doctor, though. One day it started hurting really, really badly, so I reached back to touch it. It ruptured, spraying this nasty, grey/blood-tinged smelly slimy sludge all over my hand. Hasn't been a problem since- completely disappeared without getting infected and hasn't recurred since it ruptured.
Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
I'd say it's half and half. The cardiac guys try to do their own sternal wound cases, sometimes they'll pull in plastics and do it jointly, sometimes they'll do something once and then plastics takes over. The ones I've done haven't been that smelly.
Now, back in the days before I did cardiac, we got some nasty smelling ones, the worst were the scrotal abcesses. Note to men: if it doesn't look right and doesn't smell right, get thee to a doctor before we have to remove vital parts and stuff you full of iodine soaked kerlix. It doesn't go away if you ignore it.
The "Ew what is that awful stench" ones tend to be gangrenous dead bowel. And we know it's dead as soon as the incision is made.
Nurse Leigh
1,149 Posts
Sorry. Our cat with diabetes passed recently, shortly after her sister did (sister was the "well" cat so go figure). Sad they are gone, we'd had them for well over a decade. Now just down to four kitties, and two of them are older as well.
I miss having kittens. Would not mind getting a preggo cat and keeping her and babes (as long as not too many) if we could work out a deal with our vet clinic for spay/neuter/immunize.
Hope your kitty feels better Rose_Queen. =^••^=