WILTW 7/18: I'm tired :\ (complaint department and other things)

[ixchel]

Good lord I'm worn out. It's weird because I honest don't do as much as I did while working, but here I am. It's not as much body tired, but brain tired.

Recent weeks have been eventful, though. Appointments, benefits crap, recovery crap, bakers cysts (OMG), and family crap. It's all that and arguing kids. I can't figure out who decided I have to adult, but that person needs a good throat-punch.

So, as a patient, I have learned...

1. Recovery from spinal fusion is excruciatingly slow. Yes, I mean "excruciatingly". I don't know how to do slow.

2. A doctor is as strong as his staff. I am so thankful for a great team.

3. My time off was extended. This is terribly bittersweet. It feels like I failed missing a landmark, but I'm glad it was obvious I needed to.

4. It is possible to develop bilateral baker's cysts. It is possible to have bilateral cyst rupture. It is possible to have synovial fluid in your feet bilaterally. This will hurt. HORRIBLY. For days.

As a nurse, I have learned:

1. People who have inpatient stays with histories of receiving meds late might bring their own. They might also bring meds from home if they decide staff doesn't administer enough. (Disclaimer: yes, I knew this might happen, but I had a person admit and defend it. They said the staff would never know. I asked what she would do when staff brought meds she already has taken. NO RESPONSE.)

2. I'm now terrified of patients being like that person. When an autopsy shows an overdose of med reaction, the family will blame us.

As a human, I have learned:

1. Even if you think you don't care about a person's opinion, she might still see you for all your faults and weaknesses and tear you limb from limb, destroying your heart in her wake.

2. If you leave your dog home for a week with brief visits from a sitter, when you get home, the dog might not let you beyond paws' reach for days. (Meaning, expect an extremely persistent animal laying on you constantly, and smacking you hard with a paw if you decide to do something with your hands other than hug or pet.)

3. This is a delayed thing, but we got a spacecraft into Jupiter's orbit and watching mission control live as it happened was the most awesome thing!

4. YOU GUYS. You need to watch Stranger Things on Netflix.

I am going to keep this short this week. I was thinking about going longer, but honestly, you aren't the complaint department! Onward and upward, my friends... :)

(I have veered a little from the nursing path, so I'm adding this quick reminder that these threads turn blue when they remain too far off the nursing path.)

What have you learned this week?

[OrganizedChaos, LVN]

I learned that we are going to be relatively staffed soon as we hired 14 people in the past month - but 12 of them are new grads, so the apocalypse of being one of only two or three people on a shift who know what I'm doing is coming. This is no bueno. Major no bueno. We already have something like 10 travelers working with us and while some of them are great, I can't wait for some of their contracts to be over.

My unit has blatant favoritism. I already knew this, but I extra know it now - when I was charge one day last week, and that was their excuse for training someone with only one year of ICU experience to do rapid response when I have three and my CCRN. If you had to train one of us, I would have thought I would be the logical choice, but I was wrong. He also does charge, so he could have easily done charge that shift instead of me. Then, I attempted to squish down my righteous indignation and called my CUL in a pleasant tone and mentioned I was also interested in being trained - and she proceeded to ask me when I'd hit my two year mark on the unit. Oh please. I was lucky I could keep myself from responding, "Why the heck do you care? You didn't care that XXX only has one year of ICU experience." I hate favoritism and I hate not being a favorite if favoritism has to exist.

It would be too difficult changing jobs right now, as I'm about to be in school full time in a month, and I'd have no guarantee of receiving the PTO days I have requested if I changed positions right now, so I guess I am stuck somewhere with no advancement opportunities. At least we have good benefits and actually got a good raise this year.

I am really over nursing. Just over it. It's bad enough dealing with the obnoxious families and needy people without being blatantly passed over by unit management for opportunities that I am more qualified for than the people they're giving them to. I know no jobs are perfect, but this one really sucks.

I don't work any more due to my Bipolar diagnosis but I don't miss it. I never worked in a hospital & don't feel like I missed out on anything. I don't know how you guys do it, I would lose my cool.

[calivianya, BSN, RN]

I don't work any more due to my Bipolar diagnosis but I don't miss it. I never worked in a hospital & don't feel like I missed out on anything. I don't know how you guys do it, I would lose my cool.

Most of us do lose our cool on a regular basis, that's how. I think at least half of the regular staff are heavily medicated. It's not uncommon to come up on a group of my coworkers talking about what antidepressants and what anti-anxiety meds work best for them, and how much Xanax they have in their purse at the moment, and do you want one?

I'm the odd man out in that the only prescription medicines I'm currently taking are an acid reducer and birth control. I ran out of my Ambien and never got a new prescription.

The other half of the staff are gym rats that brag on how they get rid of their anxiety by hitting the gym constantly. One (who averages 3-4 hours of working out per day, if he is to be believed) likes to talk about how he has to take a prescribed aspirin now because he works out to the point that his C-reactive protein is constantly elevated and the MDs just want to make sure he is taking an aspirin just in case he has a MI.

Nothing wrong with gym rats or people that take a lot of prescription meds. It just seems weird that you can just about take every single one of my coworkers and put them in one group or the other.

[chacha82, ADN, BSN]

I never should have complained about having 5 patients, as of late I've had 6 and it's miserable.

It is super frustrating when I have a ton of things to do, I ask someone to just take something to the patient (just ice, not bathroom, not get an EKG, just take them ice) and the nurse goes "No, I won't." Turns away to talk to someone else. At the same time, I know how she feels. It is hard enough to get your own stuff done without helping other people. Terrible but true.

I know the type of patient described above, brings their own meds from home. Family visits, shuts the door. When they leave the patient is so out of it they can't lift their head up. Scares me to death actually.

So tired of people saying night shift is easy. There is nothing remotely easy about it.

[brillohead, ADN, RN]

I learned that we are going to be relatively staffed soon as we hired 14 people in the past month - but 12 of them are new grads, so the apocalypse of being one of only two or three people on a shift who know what I'm doing is coming. This is no bueno. Major no bueno.

We have a dozen new grads orienting right now. September is going to be "interesting" around here...

[OrganizedChaos, LVN]

Most of us do lose our cool on a regular basis, that's how. I think at least half of the regular staff are heavily medicated. It's not uncommon to come up on a group of my coworkers talking about what antidepressants and what anti-anxiety meds work best for them, and how much Xanax they have in their purse at the moment, and do you want one?

I'm the odd man out in that the only prescription medicines I'm currently taking are an acid reducer and birth control. I ran out of my Ambien and never got a new prescription.

The other half of the staff are gym rats that brag on how they get rid of their anxiety by hitting the gym constantly. One (who averages 3-4 hours of working out per day, if he is to be believed) likes to talk about how he has to take a prescribed aspirin now because he works out to the point that his C-reactive protein is constantly elevated and the MDs just want to make sure he is taking an aspirin just in case he has a MI.

Nothing wrong with gym rats or people that take a lot of prescription meds. It just seems weird that you can just about take every single one of my coworkers and put them in one group or the other.

Lol that's so weird. I mean whatever floats their boat, yaknow? I just can't believe they are so open with what meds they take. I never talked to any coworkers about my depression/anxiety meds. Seems weird to me but I guess it's because I am Bipolar & would never say it out loud at work.

[aeris99]

This week I learned that the Somogyi effect is the body's response to undetected low BG. The body responds by releasing hormones which which elevates BG up over 200.

I learned that I don't know enough about diabetes or the endocrine system.

I've also learned that I may have just as hard of a time getting hired as an RN, as I did trying to find my first LNA job.

This is really scary as I now have student loans that will need to paid and that deadline is looming closer.

I've also learned that despite thinking that finding be a night weekend position would be easier, it is not.

[calivianya, BSN, RN]

We have a dozen new grads orienting right now. September is going to be "interesting" around here...

I'm feeling you! It's extra scary because we used to orient new grads for six months and they've cut it down to 12 weeks... and there are so many of them... ugh.

It is super frustrating when I have a ton of things to do, I ask someone to just take something to the patient (just ice, not bathroom, not get an EKG, just take them ice) and the nurse goes "No, I won't." Turns away to talk to someone else. At the same time, I know how she feels. It is hard enough to get your own stuff done without helping other people. Terrible but true.

Random comment, but this is one reason I hate working at my PRN job. They actually have CNAs (only job I've ever worked that has CNAs), so the nurse to nurse teamwork is crap. They just expect the CNAs to do everything. I helped one person clean up a GI bleed frequently the last time I worked, and she acted like I did something really special and that I was some kind of weirdo for helping out. I walked into another room because they were rolling a 600 pound patient and they asked who tricked me into coming in there, which I also thought was bizarre. I hate workplaces like that. I'd rather not have CNAs at all - nurse to nurse teamwork is so much better when other nurses have to help because there is no other option. It's like having CNAs ruins nurses' abilities to help each other.

Lol that's so weird. I mean whatever floats their boat, yaknow? I just can't believe they are so open with what meds they take. I never talked to any coworkers about my depression/anxiety meds. Seems weird to me but I guess it's because I am Bipolar & would never say it out loud at work.

We have a few bipolar people, a few major depressives, and a lot of people with generalized anxiety. Just the culture of my workplace, I guess, but nobody seems to mind sharing - maybe because there are so many diagnosed people at work that it's pretty easy to find people to commiserate with. And there's always somebody to bum a benzo off of. I have seen coworkers sharing their benzos but I'm not brave enough by a long shot, and I wonder how in heck they trust each other that much. I'd be worried they were setting me up to take a fall for something, especially with the favoritism going on.

[OrganizedChaos, LVN]

We have a few bipolar people, a few major depressives, and a lot of people with generalized anxiety. Just the culture of my workplace, I guess, but nobody seems to mind sharing - maybe because there are so many diagnosed people at work that it's pretty easy to find people to commiserate with. And there's always somebody to bum a benzo off of. I have seen coworkers sharing their benzos but I'm not brave enough by a long shot, and I wonder how in heck they trust each other that much. I'd be worried they were setting me up to take a fall for something, especially with the favoritism going on.

That's just crazy to me. I would never talk to my coworkers about my mental health diagnosis or share meds & for the same reason you explained. You might be friend(ly) now, but what happens if you piss a coworker off? I'll pass!

[meanmaryjean, DNP, RN]

Honestly, I learned that when the President of the university (who was wearing owl socks btw) says we're going to be experiencing change and a lot of it in the coming year- it's 1000% better than when I would hear this from a hospital person. I'm really, truly excited about the changes and not dreading them. I work at a great place, and I'm so happy to have landed here.

I also learned that my able-bodied idiot sister, rather than get a job, set up a GoFundMe for herself.

[OrganizedChaos, LVN]

Honestly, I learned that when the President of the university (who was wearing owl socks btw) says we're going to be experiencing change and a lot of it in the coming year- it's 1000% better than when I would hear this from a hospital person. I'm really, truly excited about the changes and not dreading them. I work at a great place, and I'm so happy to have landed here.

I also learned that my able-bodied idiot sister, rather than get a job, set up a GoFundMe for herself.

That's crazy. I can't imagine setting up a Go Fund Me for myself or anyone if they were able to work but choose not to. But then people give their money away for weird reasons. Some people just don't think.

[meanmaryjean, DNP, RN]

That's crazy. I can't imagine setting up a Go Fund Me for myself or anyone if they were able to work but choose not to. But then people give their money away for weird reasons. Some people just don't think.

She set the goal as $5000, but in three weeks has only gotten ~$300.

[OrganizedChaos, LVN]

She set the goal as $5000, but in three weeks has only gotten ~$300.

Wow. Goes to show that anyone will donate money to any cause. Even a dumb one.