Working in unpleasant conditions

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Specializes in Pediatric Private Duty; Camp Nursing.

Something mentioned on a different post inspired me to ask this question: under what sort of unreasonable or undesirable conditions have you ever had to work? I've been rather lucky, I've never had any truly terrible situations. Each place has something I don't like but nothing too unbearable. I've been cold and I've been hot, and I've had to sit in a darkened room w no entertainment but my iPhone (no WiFi, just 3G), and I've had some uncomfortable chairs, and no access to a microwave in one place, and one place I had to hang out in a college dorm lounge on a weekend overnight and deal w drunk students coming and going. But what have YOU had to deal with?

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Specializes in pediatrics; PICU; NICU.

The worst I've had to deal with was in the home of a 4 month old trach baby. It was absolutely the filthiest place I've ever seen in my life. There was no clean place to prepare formula. There were bugs of types I couldn't even identify, as well as some huge roaches. There were thing flying bugs that hung around the baby's trach (parents would not keep a nose on the baby)! I think I went there 4times & then I told the agency I could not stomach the filth. About 2 weeks later, the agency informed the family they would no longer be able to staff them due to environmental conditions & the fact that no nurses wanted to walk in there.The patient I have now has a mom with a touch of OCD when it comes to her home being clean. There's a TV in his room & they set up a guest account on their home WiFi network just for the nurses. There's plenty of work to do but also a bit of down time so I can always play on my iPad (like I'm doing right now!).

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Specializes in PDN; Burn; Phone triage.
and one place I had to hang out in a college dorm lounge on a weekend overnight and deal w drunk students coming and going. But what have YOU had to deal with?

Hah. What was the story behind this?

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Did a scattering of PDN for a while and the only two that stand out were the a) certified hoarder's house. Not dirty, per se, but cluttered and dusty. It was, literally, a McMansion-sized house with only wheel-chair width pathways between rooms.

Second was a case that I talked about a few times on here. Recurrent bedbugs. Small apartment, parents had one bedroom, vent-dependent vegetative state kiddo had the other, the three other small kids shared the living room+kitchen set-up. Dad was mostly gone with work and mom becoming more depressed as it started to set in that her baby wasn't going to wake up. Very dirty, esp, the kitchen (mom would leave dirty dishes out for two or three days), but not criminally so y'know?

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

I had a case where the boyfriend and the mom argued allll the time. Uncomfortably so; once I pulled up to the police being there (having been called by the prior nurse!) It was a ranch style home and we were down the hall from the child's room so we sat in the living room. We were supposed to watch TV and keep the monitor on, go and run checks every hour. One time I turned on the TV and a Media flick was playing. I pretended I didn't see it... but when I came back 3 days later there was a note on the nursing notebook that nurses couldn't watch TV anymore and needed to sit at the dining room table. Then a day later the chairs were switched out for a hard wooden chair that said "nurse's chair". It got progressively worse until I left the case about a week later. I went to work for another agency and along the lines the day nurse from that case happened to relieve me on a new case. She said mom went so bat-loco once that she almost walked off the job. That day the house got raided and drugs were found in the basement. The boyfriend is in jail... and that mom was pregnant!

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Specializes in Pediatric Private Duty; Camp Nursing.
Hah. What was the story behind this?

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I'll PM you.

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Specializes in Pediatric.

I'll PM you.

I'd love to know as well! :)

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Specializes in Several.

I had one case in which I had to go in at 10pm. They were very strict about having ALL of the lights off. The first night I almost broke my neck after tripping over a bunch of toys in the hallway. That same night, I went to use the restroom and the floor under the toilet was VERY VERY soft...as if it was going to fall through at any moment. I worked the 3 nights I committed to but never accepted another fill-in assignment there again.

I also worked a case a few times in which the adult patient had his pantry in with his closet and the bathroom doubled as a kitchen. Not his fault, the family set it up that way. Needless to say, I didn't eat while I was there...I just can prepare my food next to a toilet.

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Specializes in Just started in HH.

One of the toughest experiences I deal with in PDN is the "CF-er," control freak caregivers. OMG, they drive me nutty, LOL! Coming in a close second are the parents who think you're also a nanny/housekeeper. Say what?!? I don't think so...:banghead:

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Specializes in Pediatric.
One of the toughest experiences I deal with in PDN is the "CF-er" control freak caregivers. OMG, they drive me nutty, LOL! Coming in a close second are the parents who think you're also a nanny/housekeeper. Say what?!? I don't think so...:banghead:[/quote']

Yes, that is so annoying. One mom leaves her other 2 kids with all us nurses constantly- sometimes you don't even know she left. I understand if a mom asks really nicely- and she won't be gone long- but this one situation is just insane. One time they (mom and dad) lined up 24/7 weekend nursing coverage and went away for weekend leaving other kids w us.

I told the director all of this recently, as this family is away and it seems like a good chance to get t off my chest.

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

I had a dad who was really, truly psychotic. He got mad at mom one night, opened a can of chocolate Hershey syrup (it cam in cans back then) and then walked all over the house pouring the syrup out on everything. She eventually ended up in a homeless shepter with the ent toddler and FOUR other kids. I was frightened of him but stuck it out for the patient until they left.

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Specializes in Going to Peds!.

Yes, that is so annoying. One mom leaves her other 2 kids with all us nurses constantly- sometimes you don't even know she left. I understand if a mom asks really nicely- and she won't be gone long- but this one situation is just insane. One time they (mom and dad) lined up 24/7 weekend nursing coverage and went away for weekend leaving other kids w us.

I told the director all of this recently, as this family is away and it seems like a good chance to get t off my chest.

They'd have come home to their kids with dhr. I'm Jane's nurse, NOT John, Joe & Susie babysitter.

Sent from my HTC One X using allnurses.com

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Specializes in Pediatric.

They'd have come home to their kids with dhr. I'm Jane's nurse, NOT John, Joe & Susie babysitter.

Sent from my HTC One X using allnurses.com

What does DHR mean?

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