NurseNightmare On Trauma Drama Street: August 2011

Sunday, August 28, 2011

VOTE FOR ME!

I registered myself at the http://bloggerschoiceawards.com/ for three catagories. And so did my friend canwehaveanewwitchoursmelted so please vote for us!!! Because she is funny too.

Best Health Blog
Best Humor Blog
Freakiest Blog

Sign up and find us. We really need your votes!!!

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Save the ta tas

So a couple of months ago I found a lump in my breast. Scary as hell. Worst part is trying to get into the OBGYN. I got my appointment only to confirm that in fact there is a lump of some sort. I love how the doctor states its most likely nothing. And you can tell this just by touching my boobs? I find that a tad hard to swallow. So instead I begin to worry. He schedules my mammogram and tell me if they see something that he will want an ultrasound done as well. I have never had a mammogram. I knew it entailed squishing my boobs. Let me just tell you I think it was developed by a man. I swear they put them in a vice…see below pictures
Vice that a man uses

mammogram machine…see the resemblance?
No? Here is a better visual

SQUISH…get it now? They take your boob and squish it between to plates to get your boob as flat as possible. That’s best picture. So after the mammogram I had to have the ultrasound which make me even more nervous. I wonder what they saw. The ultra sound tech made it seem like she didn’t see anything. But if the doctor and I felt the lump what the hell is is? You would think that would ease my mind. But its not…Now that its over with…I have to wait a week for the results. I am going to be a basket case…ugh

Sooo I will update you as soon as I know.
So save the ta ta’s check your breast every month!

Friday, August 26, 2011

Day of our Redneck lives: Take me to the ER

The entire 10 yrs. that I have been with my hubby he has been to the Dr twice and that’s because I made him the appointment. He is stubborn and never listens to the nurse in the house. In fact see here of another episode of Days of our redneck lives. So when my husband calls to tell me he thinks he needs to go to the ER I listen. My husband was having tingling down his arm. So here I am asking the cardiac question wishing I could actually see him. Don’t feel sweaty~ check, Don’t feel short of breath~ check, no indigestion ~check, no chest pain~check. So I ask how long has this been going on? On and off for the last 2 days. But it’s now apparently worrying him enough to think about the ER. My husband doesn’t show much pain either. So when I arrive at his work’s parking lot he appears just fine. But I go with him to the Dr office. Why because it doesn’t seem to be cardiac and if I take him to the ER they are going to treat it as such. And for a man that had never been to the ER that isn’t a diagnosis to arrive to the ER for the first time. He would be overwhelmed and poked and prodded.

So we head straight to the doctors office. They would be opening in 15 mins. The doctor asks him the same cardiac questions only to conclude that he didn’t think it was cardiac too. However he wanted to do an EKG. They did find a delay in his heart but he wasn’t too concerned because it could have been there all his life. However to be on the safe side he wanted to run a few tests. Mind you my husband has never in his 42 years ever had any test done. Other than x-rays. First he had and EKG. The nurse decided to dry shave his chest. The chest hair he always says to me that it took 42 years to grow. Looks hilarious now. I got to rip off the EKG stickers…muahah.

Then he had to have blood drawn. First for that too…and he jumped. Which means he is bruised to no end today. Last is his stress test which is Friday. I kind of told him some of the things to expect. But depending on which kind they do he might end up with an IV. I didn’t want to scare the crap out of him. I was nice and told him that he will be running on a tread mill. I also don’t ever recall my man running….ever. He has to not eat from midnight on. Not a problem for him since he goes to bed early.

But the icing on the cake was when the doctor asked about his smoking or drinking history. No smoking he tells the doctor. I drink some. The doctor says some? Yea 8 beers a day. The doctor looked a little shocked. That’s a lot. Do you ever think you might cut back? He told him the same crap he tells me. I quit drinking hard liquor. He replies back well 2 beers a day is fine 3 is pushing it. Can you quit. He tells the doctor probably but I don’t want to. That’s when the doctor tells him that 8 beers a day classifies him as an alcoholic. I think that shocked him…because for the last few days he went from 8 to 4. Which is hard to believe. Hope its lasts…I will keep you updated on the stress test when we get the results back.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Drugs not hugs

Yes it’s time for another drug seeker moment…
So my day was running pretty good until a male nurse that I worked with informs me that I need to do a catheter on a female patient. There is an unwritten rule that female nurses get to to the female caths and male nurses get the male caths. I really don’t care. I just do the caths and go about my day. So I grab the catheter kits and walk into the room of a 30 yr. old that is having problems urinating. The male nurse is administrating her pain meds. She tells him is that my diladid? He reply’s “yes”. “Hmmm…it can’t be 1mg. I don’t feel it yet” “It’s not. It’s only 0.5mg,” replies male nurse. “Well that explains why I don’t feel it.” He leaves and I shoo out her mother and daughter to the hall so I can place the urinary catheter.

She informs me that her equipment is correct like the text book and that she is easy to cath.
First off TMI…second off how many caths has she had or is she checking out herself in a mirror. Good grief. So a little alarm goes off in my head. WARNING: your about to encounter someone that comes into the ER way to many times. She then tells me she doesn’t like crying in front of her daughter and begins boo hooing because she is in pain. Procedure not started by the way. Boo hooing to the point that the entire ER can hear her. Including her daughter that is in the hall. I tell her that hopefully placement of the cath will help with the pressure and relieve her pain. Cath goes in…crying gets worse. 800ml of urine obtained. Which isn’t 2 days worth of not peeing. Which the patient informs is how long its been since she has peed. I tell her I will let the doctor know that she is in pain. I told him. He wanted to wait till CT is done so we can see what is going on. Okay I let patient know. She goes to CT and then comes back with no CT. Did I tell you this wasn’t my patient?? I hear blood curdling screams and shouts of no no no I hate this place. I run to the room to see what all the commotion was. Apparently the Doctor has pissed her off because he won’t give her more drugs to help with the pain so she can be knocked out for her CT. Because she can not lay like a dollar bill. I try my best to calm her to no avail. She is yelling about suing and killing herself and scaring the crap out of her daughter at this point. I still try to calm her down…no luck. I talk with the doctor. She has the choice of CT scan or leaving. I explain she is having bladder spasms. So he mentions taking out the cath. I walk back the screaming lady. “ Ma’am let’s remove the cath and see if that helps the bladder spasms,” I explain calmly and as nice as possible. She screams your not touching me !!!! I try to explain the importance of removing the cath. She said its helping her pee. I tell her that the pain escalated after the cath and hopefully this will help with the bladder spasms….to make the story shorter…NO was the final answer..which lead to the Doctor coming into the room with security. Because at this point the whole ER can hear her screams. He calmly tells her what her choices are. She tell him no one is listening to her. So he gives her the chance to speak by saying…Yes ma’am go ahead I will not talk and I will listen to you. Which causes her to scream see no one will listen…
Good grief. The doctor stuck to his guns. He had a feeling that she had done this before. So we were at a stale mate. He just told me to leave her be that when she was ready she will come to us to get CT or get cath and IV out. So I did…until the yelling commenced again and I joined security back into her room. At which point security informed her that she need to calm down or she would be escorted off the property or mental health would be called.
We left the room…and she took out her own cath and INT…lovely. I spent forever documenting on this idiot to cover my ass. She walked out with out signing her AMA forms. BTW her drug screen came back for: Pot, opioids, tricyclics and benzos…yup and she even told us she was a Nurse and didn’t take any prescribed meds. Wish this test would have been back before she left. We did find out she used a fake social security number…and yes she was an LPN in New york…lovely
DAMN IDIOTS

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Shot of Reality: People watching, Starbucks and Telephone calls

Dear lady in Starbucks,
This is twice that I have ended up sitting next to you and your 2 phones and computer. For the love of God would it be possible to use your inside voice while your on the phone? Not all of us want to hear your conversation. Btw I was talking to you on while you were on the phone about your conversation hoping you would take the hint. Congrats you just got up and when outside.
Sincerely Nobody gives a crap

Dear Lady in Starbucks,
Did you look in the mirror before you left? Guess not. 4 inch heels and a short tight dress makes you look like a hooker. A worn out one since that dress was not made for your jelly roll of a gut.
Sincerely was going to ask how much you charge for parties

Dear receptionist,
It didn’t bother me that 2 of you from the same office called to tell me when my appointment was and if I was still planning on attending. But maybe next time make sure you have my time right. The first one told me 8am and you 830am.
Sincerely I am glad my droid reminded me of the correct time.

Dear Starbucks,
One of these days someone is going to find out what drug you add to your drinks. Until then I will be force to continue to drink your Venti ice mocha liquid crack.
Sincerely I will need a loan at the rate that I visit you

Dear mother in Starbucks,
I think your 9 year old accidentally put on your 4 year old daughter’s shorts.
Sincerely and people wonder why their kids get abducted

Dear wide and weird feet,
I have spent all day on my day off trying to find shoes to fit your fatness into. Why must I be cursed with short fat feet? Figures the only place to find said shoe would be the mall. Which charges me out the nose for shoes. 120 bucks for tennis shoes…these better make my feet feel fantastic.
Sincerely feeling a little screwed over

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

New blog: All about the alias

So I have decided to leave my old website and start a new one to avoid,just in case, issues with my job. Not that I don’t use hipaa guidelines or that they really don’t have a case. I just don’t need the drama at work. So back to the drawing board I went. I have had many alias in the past or pennames. This one being a new one created. I even gave one of my old alias to my former assistant blogger. Nursebiteme. Not that I think that she would ever rat me out. I just wasn’t taking any chances when she decided to back out of helping. It took forever to come up with a new name that would relate some how to nursing yet horror. Since I love all that is Horror. Living was more of my Zombie addiction. When I had MySpace back when it was the cool thing to have I could change my name with a drop of a hat. I could change my layout to suit that alias, attitude or hell personality. Nursebite me = my vampire addiction. When I wanted girly I had Nursebutterfly. When I was edgy I had NurseNeedles. I love Alice in wonderland, the book or movie. I did my whole layout dedicated to wonderland which led to the name Nursewonderland. Nurseridinghood had a duel personality when I started riding my motorcycle and the fact I love to read. Then there was Nursebones…yea I was reaching by this point. But Nursenightmare…is my newest alias. Why nursenightmare? Well somedays the ER can be your worse nightmare…or piss me off and I become your worse nightmare…lol But most of all its dedicated to my all time favorite slasher movies…Nightmare on Elm street…hence the name Nursenightmare on trauma drama street. Because no matter where you work at there is drama and my just happens to be where there’s trauma. I want to thank all of those that emailed me to get my new site address. I really had no clue who was reading or following me. It’s great to know my journal of my life is worth a read. And please if your new and have a blog let me know. I love reading other blogs to…just realize that I am one of those lurker types too.

ps: if anyone is having issues with font or colors please let me know...i am still tweaking the blog

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Hair removal: humor

I don't remember where I got this or who sent it but here goes....
Hair Removal....This is funny. (I don't have a clue as to who wrote this, but....WHAT A HOOT!
All hair removal methods have tricked women with their promises of easy, painless removal The Epilady, scissors, razors, Nair and now...the wax.Read on.........
My night began as any other normal weeknight. Come home, fix dinner, playwith the kids. I then had the thought that would ring painfully in my mind for the next few hours: 'Maybe should pull the waxing kit out of the medicine cabinet.'So I headed to the site of my demise: the bathroom. It was one of those 'cold wax' kits. No melting a clump of hot wax, you just rub the strips together in your hand, they get warm and you peel them apart and press them to your leg (or wherever else) and you pull the hair right off.No muss, no fuss.
How hard can I t be? I mean, I'm not a genius, but I am mechanically inclined enough to figure this out. (YA THINK!?!)
So I pull one of the thin strips out. Its two strips facing each other stuck together. Instead of rubbing them together, my genius kicks in so I get out the hair dryer and heat it to 1000 degrees. ('Cold wax,' yeah...right!)
I lay the strip across my thigh. Hold the skin around it tight and pull. It works!OK, so it wasn't the best feeling, but it wasn't too bad. I can do this! Hair removal no longer eludes me! I am She-rah, fighter of all wayward body hair and maker of smooth skin extraordinaire.With my next wax strip I move north.
After checking on the kids, I sneak back into the bathroom, for the ultimate hair fighting championship. I drop my panties and place one foot on the toilet. Using the same procedure, I apply the wax strip across the right side of my bikini line, covering the right half of my hoo-ha and stretching down to the inside of my butt cheek (it was a long strip)
I inhale deeply and brace myself....RRRRRRIIIIPPP!!!!I'm blind!!! Blinded from pain!!!! OH MY GAWD!!!!!!!!!Vision returning, I notice that I've only managed to pull off half the strip. CRAP! Another deep breath and RIPP! Everything is spinning and spotted. I think I may pass out...must stay conscious...must stay conscious.
Do I hear crashing drums??? Breathe, breathe..................OK, back to normal.I want to see my trophy - a wax covered strip, the one that has caused me so much pain, with my hairy pelt sticking to it. I want to revel in the glory that is my triumph over body hair. I hold up the strip!
There's no hair on it. Where is the hair??? WHERE IS THE WAX??? Slowly I ease my head down, foot still perched on the toilet. I see the hair. The hair that should be on the strip...it's not! I touch. I am touching wax.I run my fingers over the most sensitive part of my body, which is now covered in cold wax and matted hair. Then I make the next BIG mistake...remember my foot is still propped upon the toilet? I know I need to do something.
So I put my foot down.Sealed shut! My butt is sealed shut. Sealed shut! I penguin walk around the bathroom trying to figure out what to do and think to myself 'Please don't let me get the urge to poop. My head may pop off!' What can I do to melt the wax?Hot water!! Hot water melts wax!! I'll run the hottest water I can stand into the bathtub, get in, immerse the wax-covered bits and the wax should melt and I can gently wipe it off, right???
*WRONG!!!!!!!*I get in the tub - The water is slightly hotter than that used to torture prisoners of war or sterilize surgical equipment - I sit. Now, the only thing worse than having your nether regions glued together, is having them glued together and then glued to the bottom of the tub...in scalding hot water. Which, by the way, doesn't melt cold wax.So, now I'm stuck to the bottom of the tub as though I had cemented myself to the porcelain!!
God bless the man who had convinced me a few months ago to have a phone put in the bathroom!!!!! I call my friend, thinking surely she has waxed before and has some secret of how to get me undone. It's a very good conversation starter 'So, my butt and hoo-ha are glued together to the bottom of the tub!'There is a slight pause. She doesn't know any secret tricks for removal but she does try to hide her laughter from me. She wants to know exactly where the wax is located, 'Are we talking cheeks or hole or hoo-ha?
'She's laughing out loud by now...I can hear her. I give her the rundown and she suggests I call the number on the side of the box. YEAH!!!!! Right!!I should be the joke of someone else's night. While we go through various solutions. I resort to trying to scrape the wax off with a razor. Nothing feels better than to have your girlie goodies covered in hot wax, glued shut, stuck to the tub in super hot water and then dry-shaving the sticky wax off!!By now the brain is not working, dignity has taken a major hike and I'm pretty sure I'm going to need Post-Traumatic Stress counseling for this event.My friend is still talking with me when I finally see my saving grace....the lotion they give you to remove the excess wax.
What do I really have to lose at this point? I rub some on and OH MY GAWD!!!!!!!The scream probably woke the kids and scared the dickens out of my friend. Its solo painful, but I really don't care. 'IT WORKS!!It works !!' I get a hearty congratulation from my friend and she hangs up. I successfully remove the remainder of the wax and then notice to my grief and despair.... THE HAIR IS STILL THERE.......ALL OF IT! So I recklessly shave it off. Heck, I'm numb by now. Nothing hurts. I could have amputated my own leg at this point. Next week I'm going to try hair color...

Friday, August 19, 2011

Stop Calling Me

Okay I am being stalked I swear…I keep getting calls to find out where I am and what I am doing and can I please come over. Leaving me messages on my home phone as well as my cell phone. You are my stalker…4 messages from you? I don’t want to why can’t you get this thru your mind? I want nothing to do with you on my days of being with my family. What do you think… I am sitting here at home awaiting your phone call? Praying that you want me to come over. I see you enough 3 times a week is plenty. Especially since I am abused and used by you when I get there. You lie to me telling me that I am needed when all I am is another body. I am busy with blogging or at starbuks…even if I am home does not mean I want to come over…get a clue…when I say I will be there 3 days a week and 12 hours a day only…I mean it….quit harassing me…NO mean NO! I don’t have time today its called blogging and I can’t help it that your boss won’t hire anyone else! DO NOT CALL ME! Don’t make me change my number!

I don’t not want to work other than the arranged times that we have set….Thank you and hire some more nurses cause the rest of us are tired of it. It’s not like your going to work on your days off if we are short…I don’t see you missing family get together….you always have the holidays off and more than every other weekend off to see your family…no overtime is not worth it. Especially when uncle sam takes most of it. So don’t call me….the answer will be NO i am not coming into work!

Thursday, August 18, 2011

New hospital: New headaches

erI know I have been in the new hospital now for awhile. I should have put the post up months ago but I was just hoping it would get better. So here goes. We went from a 15 bed ER to a 30 bed ER. With no more staff…well let me rephrase that with staff in waiting. Meaning techs that are waiting to take their boards. Now I am all for new grads since I was one of them but I think we have had enough time to know when the move was going to be. But its taken forever for them to get new nurses. I just don’t understand the facility was being built for at least a year why haven’t we trained our new staff? Because this place is ass backwards. So now we are in the new hospital were we have 4-7 patients a piece. When we had 3-4 patients a piece. Our charge nurse never had patients unless covering for a lunch but now have to take rooms. Meaning there is no one to bail you out if your drowning. Heaven forbid if you call in sick or take a vacation. You feel bad leaving your fellow nurses shorter.
There are 32 inch TV’s in everyone of the rooms but there are only 16 monitors in the entire ER. WTF? Okay I understand that you are going to put the less critical patients in those rooms but for those of you that are nurses…what do you give ankle breaks or migraine patients??? Narcotics! Hello how many have given narcotics to those that don’t usually get strong medications? So when their O2 sats drop from 97 to 82 there will be no way to monitor it. So you have to drag a vital signs machine in to check them every so often….hmmm more patients less help more work for the nurse. Does it sound like I have the time to freaking do that? Of course not. The tech is even more stretched with all the EKG’s and other commands that the doctors are barking out.
I Actually admitted a patient that had the initial vital signs and then the vital signs before they went up. Why? because that nurse didn’t have time to go back around to do it. Their was a chest pain and a shortness of breath patient that was a little more pressing. How safe is that? The boss knows but he has his hands tied. Apparently we aren’t seeing 7 more patients a day than from the old ER. Even though most of those people were waiting in the ER waiting. Now they are sticking their heads out of the rooms and barking orders as we run by. I need a warm blanket, can I have a drink, where is the bathroom, is the doctor ever going to see us? Sure your tooth ache is my major concern asshole.
Try working night shift where you suppose to stock these 30 rooms. Yea whatever. We use to have 2 hours of no patients. And now we have 20 or more at 3am. Why? Because we are located right off the interstate where any traveler can just stop on by. Yippee!
I use to love my job. Don’t get me wrong my long weekend sucked but now I dread everyday. What sucks is we are so short they beg you to come in on your day off on the other rotation. You are so tired from you shift you don’t want to even think about coming in on your day off. On the long week you worked 3 12’s and a 8 or 2- 12’s a 10 hour and an 8 hour shift. But now on our long week its mandatory to work 4 –12’s on your long week. The government sucks because when you work your ass off and get overtime, they tax the hell out of you. So it’s not even worth the overtime. GRRR.
I am so aggravated. They keep telling us it will slow down once the new wears off. Its been 2 months. NO CHANGE PEOPLE! Took make matters worse…I found out that we are the 2 busiest ER in the company and the least paid. Everyone else makes critical care pay. Which is 3 dollars more an hour…talk about feeling under appreciated! So that’s my new hospital rant. More stories to follow I am sure!

Code blue = Blue hand

So we had our first code about 2 days after the doors opened on our new facility. In fact I think I have seen more codes in this facility that all the years in the old hospital. This guy came in blue and nonresponsive. He was alert and breathing when EMS picked him up. He just slowly started to crash the closer he got to the ER. This was the longest code that I have ever done and the most things I have ever done in a code. I usually man a station unless I am the runner then I do a little bit of everything. We would do a few rounds of CPR and get this guy back. Intubate him and get him back. Then his heart would slow down again…leading to more rounds of CPR. Which I participated a lot in. I also go to place and NG tube (tube down nose) to help pump out contents from his stomach. First fast emergency one I did. I am use to setting up my stuff and having some organization. Anyway in the process of place said NG tube the “new” suction on the wall decided not to work…and well let just say in the process of trying to get it to work my shoes became covered in lovely, smelly, chunky green liquid. Great right. Finally with the help of the charge nurse we figure out the “new” suction’s issue. The company they went with fitted the canister with the wrong size canister…wow that was brilliant. Anyway back to the patient who was now stable with none one doing CPR. I was now inserting yet another tube, this one in his privates. While in sterile gloves he goes Brady on me…so the other nurses who were still in the room….began CPR while I quickly finished the procedure and then I joined back into the cycle of CPR on this guy. We were trying to keep him stable enough for Med flight to swoop in and take him to a Cardio hospital. Finally we get the right med combination and he becomes stable and Med flight shows up and takes him. We did the first code we flew out. Since now we have a helipad. I got to help load the patient. It was awesome!
The next day I couldn’t figure out what I did to the top of my hand. I was telling my charge nurse I figured I hit it on the door jam on one of the rooms. I had a huge knot on top of my hand. She chuckled…what? Show me how you did CPR. So I did…ouch I yelled. I got it…pushing down on this big guy with my hand on top of my other hand…I bruised the heck out of it. I knew I was exhausted from all the extra CPR we did. I didn’t realize I could injury my hand so bad.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Retail :where the customer is always wrong

(dirty dog in need of a bath)

Why is it today’s generation of retail workers would argue with a fence post? I went out for a small task. Trying to find my dog’s awesome flea shampoo. Called Happy Jack flea shampoo. Mind you the local store was out so I decided to go down the road a piece and see if they had a bottle. Nope no luck. So I bought some flea drops which they also carry that is a great and not as expensive as Advantage. The cashier proceeds to state did you find everything okay. (rhetorical question apparently) I answer no. Neither one of your stores have the flea shampoo I use. I guess everyone is bathing their dog this month. He then asks oh what kind do you use? I tell him. Oh I don’t think that we carry that brand. Um yes you do I always buy it here. You guys have the kennel dip and anti itch shampoo but out of the flea shampoo. Oh he replied we must be out. GAUGH!!! Really did I not just say that.
So then I proceed to Petsmart since I am in the big city to get my other dogs whitener shampoo. They decided to discontinue the brand of shampoo I use. Lovely. So I stand their staring at the 4 choices of brands they do carry. Most of which appear to be the store brand…ugh. So I stick my head into the grooming dept and ask the lady what whitener shampoo do you recommend? She stares back looking at me like I have to heads. Um well I use this brand on my white pit-bull and it works pretty good. Thanks I mumble and step back out and look at the abyss of shampoos. I then ask someone else opinion. Who apparently has no pets. Why work in PETMART if you have no experience??? No one can understand that it took me 3 brands of shampoos before one actually whitened my schnauzer hair. I went to the front with 4 bottles of shampoo. Whitener for the white dog, oatmeal and conditioner for the other 2 and flea shampoo for them all…40 freaking bucks. Hello they are dogs right??? The once again the cashier asks did you find everything ok. I stupidly reply since I didn’t learn from the first store. Nope you stopped carrying my favorite dog shampoo. Oh I am sorry. Which one is it. Told her. Oh I don’t think we have ever carried that brand. At this point I was seething. I wanted to smack the crap out of the teenager. Well since I bought it 6 months ago that could be true I replied. Oh I have been her 2 yrs. now. Okay…I glare at her and she hand me my bags and out the door I go…to Starbucks to cool my jets and type this rant…grrr
Retail where the customer is never right and we just make up shit for the hell of it.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Nursing shortage Rant

It’s not like every nurse hasn’t blog, bitched or mentioned the nursing shortage. But the sad thing is a lot of it has nothing to do with the need of nurses. More of the almighty buck is more important than staffing nurses. I understand that it’s a business but if you make the floors to short there are more chances of human error. The hospital is being redone and our ER is expanding to a 28 bed ER from a 18 bed one. They were nice to hire new nurses for day shift but nights will no be receiving any more help. Nothing new because day shift always has plenty of nurse while nights gets to run around with their head cut off. Now don’t get me wrong there are nights that we are dead. Doesn’t happen often. There have been nights where we are completely full and some in the waiting. So now we are going to be bigger with 28 rooms and 4 nurses. I hate to say it you know everyone and their mama are going to come to the ER just to check out all the new rooms and stuff. We will be slammed for at least the next couple of months…ugh I dread it. And don’t even get me started on the new layout. Where you can’t see half the patients and everything is spread out. Plus the room won’t be able to hold the stock it use to have. Which means we will have to carry more crap in our pockets. Not like I don’t get stabbed when my fat ass sits down..ugh Oh yea we are right off the interstate now…more critical patients and less help. WHOO HOO! I wish I could take vacation for the next couple months…

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Those of you that are nurses or heck work in public at some point and time have ran into a pervert. You know the one that always make some sick comment while your trying to do your job. Last month I had a old man asked me to marry him. Then another nurse asked me to please take the meds to bed 1a because he was grossly hitting on her. Not that I pay much mind to that. So I said sure not a problem. Of course this guy is half drunk and he proceeds to tell me how hot I am and I bluntly change the subject to if he is allergic to this or that. Which I get a no. Then he proceeds to say if I smile at him much more he is going to just melt…ugh. He tries to get even more perverted when I cut him off and explained that I don’t believe my hubby would appreciate that especially since he is a pretty big man who gets jealous easily…**lie. So sue me I embellished a little. But he shut the heck up. But the icing that takes the cake is the pervery old man that was drunk and I had to cath him. Oh baby rub it hard when you clean it…ugh really? Gross…what I wanted to say was um I can hold it with 2 whole finger don’t think it will do much for me. Instead I just stuck the catheter in and he shut up. Glad he wasn’t into pain. Cause if he would have said I like it rough I would have vomited on him.
*lets not forget the perverts in the nursing home who try to pull u into bed or grab your boobs either..sheesh.
So guys tell me ur perverts that you have ran into? and how do you handle it?

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Shot of Reality: Hemorrhoids, Heathens and My Handyman

Dear Patient,
Hemorrhoids are not a sexually transmitted disease. Plus you can’t get them from your girlfriend.
Sincerely, trying not to snicker

Dear Overprotective mom (me),
Sometimes its best not to know what your kids are doing on Facebook or what language they are using.
Sincerely I learned my lesson.

Dear work,
It would be nice if you didn’t schedule all of your in-services in the same month on my days off. I would like to have a whole day off. Its hard enough when you work nights.
Sincerely, Exhausted…PS at least I will be on vacation soon!

Dear Cell phone using moron in the white car,
Pick a speed. I don’t know if your one of those people who can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. But you are definitely one of those that can’t talk and drive.
Sincerely, My cruise control hates you

Dear Man,
I would be really nice when you decided to do “projects” or “jobs” around the house that you actually put all of the stuff away when you complete them. Its hard enough to keep the house clean.
Sincerely, your project messes make me want to choke you to death.

Dear Lazy at work,
I look forward to the new name badges that record how long you are in patients rooms or in your case the lack of attention you give your patients. Some of us are tired of doing your job.
Sincerely, smirking at the fact you will get busted

Monday, August 8, 2011

10 signs you have a nursing shortage

Top 10 signs you have a nursing shortage

10. Your boss comes up with synonyms like staff challenge to try to fool the patients
9. You have the bladder capacity of five people or have a leg bag catheter
8. You think that caffeine should be available in IV form
7. You're no longer allowed to call in sick only as dead
6. You're willing to pick up hitchhikers to give them on the job training as a CNA
5. If you're not a smoker, you're on some type of anti-depressant
4. You go to sleep at night and dream that you're still at work
3. Its shower day for the pts, you think hmm local car wash might get everyone done faster.
2. You're wondering why you ever gave up that pie job at Wal-Mart
1. Not only are you the nurse, you're a doctor, CNA, plumber, teacher, parent, psychiatrist, electrician, telephone operator, file clerk, and still underpaid for them all!
okay this is not as good as my other ones but then again i made it up myself. just trying to find the humor in our shortage

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Grouchy nurses you work with

You know everyone has worked with one. One of those I hate my job, I hate these patients and heaven forbid if you ask them a question. Not to mention all around stuck up bitchy to coworkers or even patients.. I really try to get along with everyone I work with. In fact I don’t mind working with any of my coworkers regardless of what shift they are on. There is one young nurse who has been an ER nurse for 3 years and she is a really hard worker. She can run rings around everyone and usually bales me out if I am in a bind. BUT she has a tendency to belittle her other coworkers and get smart with the patients. To the point it embarrasses the hell out of me if I am in the patients room with her. When I first started as a new RN I was afraid to ask her questions because she always made me feel stupid or awkward. I mean I am 10 yrs. older than her first off and second she always made me feel like my questions were really stupid. So I have learned not to ask her any questions and save my questions for the season nurses that don’t eat their “young” . I would like to confront her about her way of talking to the patients. She shrugs it off like “I was just joking with them.” When I want to shout at her “hey idiot this is a freaking ER. This is not the time to joke around” I have even had a patient complain to me about her causing me to apologize and try to play it like she is having a “rough” day. Even though she spends every moment of the day bitching about how she hates this job and blah blah blah. I still love my job. Now when we get to the new facility I will probably change my mind. Since we will be poorly staffed. But she is young and I hate to generalize but at least in this area young people don’t want to work. They want it all handed to them. GRRR. I had to work my ass to get where I am today. I paid for my own college, my own car and when I was growing up I had to buy my own 1st TV. Now the kids get it all. You wouldn’t believe the nurses that I went to school with that the parents were footing the bill. They were the ones out partying and talking through class. I wanted to choke the crap out of them. But anyway…back to this nurse. I like working with her because she does work. Just wish her attitude would change. Bad attitude can become contagious. Livingdeadnurse

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Code Blue: Baby blues

Of all the codes in the ED, baby code blues are by far the worse to ever encounter. It would be great to wish that no one in the ER would ever have to see one but that will never happen. We had one the other night and it was my 2nd one. My first one I was just a runner. The one that just gets items that the other nurses or doctors yell out. This time I was in the code. A place I would rather not be. In fact my mind went completely blank when the call came in. I couldn’t remember how to CPR. I just blanked out. How embarrassing would that be if I just stood there. Not knowing what to do! I shook it off, grabbed the computer and help set up the room. Everyone manned their stations and it appeared I would have to document and be the runner because we only had 3 nurses and 1 tech. When the baby of 16 months came in she was blue. The crew was not allowed to put in a line because they were a BLS crew. The ALS one was too far out to get their first. So all that was started was CPR. My charge nurse was leading the code. He was trying to get an IO in her leg. (IV that goes directly into the bone when a line can’t be gotten) The tech was doing compression but you can tell it was getting to him so the charge nurse took over while our other nurse was pushing meds. In the process of charting my computer crashed but since I always prefer paper charting I was kind of of relieved. It was the longest code of my life. Why? Because I was the one telling the doctor when we could push the next med that might just help this baby. She would ask how much more time till the next epi and I would have to tell her 2 mins to go. My watch felt like it was broke because it was ticking so freaking slow. After 35 mins of this code the doctor allowed the parents in while we were still doing CPR. She needed them to see that we were doing all that we could. We all knew she was waiting to tell them that it would be time to stop. The mother already realizing this was in tears and asked if she could hold her baby now. We called the code 45 mins later and she held her little baby. She rocked and cried while dad held her. Grandma wailed. Those of us that couldn’t contain their tears walked quickly out of the room and the rest of us with tears in our eyes tried to remain strong. Setting up chairs and passing out tissues. Its beyond sad when a little one is lost…its just devastating.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Crazy, Rodeo Patients

So I got called upstairs to CCU because security (Rent a cop) couldn’t help the nurses control a patient that was waking up from a drug overdose. He ripped his tube out and was trying to hit the nurses. In fact when me and my tech showed up there was 5 nurses and one security. I helped hold on leg while the tech was holding the other one. Let just say while the CCU nurse was trying to strap down the legs the tech and I went for a ride in the air. He thru our heavy butts just about into the floor. I felt like I was riding a bucking bronco. Finally the Nurse supervisor got an order for a medicine to help calm the patient. What a freaking 1mg of Ativan? Really…like that would do anything. But after the patient attempted to bite the nurse who should have known better about her arm placement…the sedative calmed him enough for him to think rationally. We were able to get his restraints back on. I did notice that rent a cop was standing in the corner looking like he was going to crap his pants.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Tied down and drunk

Had the cops bring in this patient that was very drunk and very agitated. In fact he was strapped to a back board with his hands tied behind his back. He was cussing and trying to spit at everyone. (Of course all he was doing was spitting on himself because the cops had some sort of mask that prevents them from spitting. Pretty neat wish we had them for the ED. Anyway he was here due to a huge laceration to his leg. Unfortunately he was too agitated to even look at the leg let alone let the doctor repair it. So Geodon it was IM in the leg to help him calm down. Wasn’t helping that the cops were irritating him even more. Doctor said I wish they would stop. So being the mouth that I am told them if they wanted to get back before time to clock out they would have to let the patient relax. That way the medicine could take effect and the doctor can fix the leg. They were happy to oblige.
Finally the med was effective. She wanted a urine on him so she could do a drug test on him. I let my new grad do the cath but he was having difficulty. I was teasing this new grad that I was training. I told him that my shift leader might be the vein whisperer but when it came to caths I was the cath whisperer…lol So without missing a beat the cop said..so you talk to penis for a living…lol Guess so…you know what they say nurses see more penis than a hooker does…lol So he did a number to his leg. Had to have sutures internally and then staples on the outside. He went back with the cops have out of it from the Geodon. Love Geodon!

Monday, August 1, 2011

Random dog crazies

My little black dog is still eating trash. She ran out of my daughters bathroom with her maxi pad in her mouth….ewwwww. Gross dog what the hell is wrong with you.
My new schnauzer is strange. Barks at absolutely nothing. In fact while the other dogs are barking at the neighbors. He will be facing the opposite way barking into the wind. Dumb dog
My black lab cleans his behind so much he look like he bleaches his anus. Bright white..and a black dog. You can see his butt hole a mile away. You needed to know this. OCD dog
My chocolate lab is the laziness dog of them all. In fact if you get up and head to the bedroom she thinks its bedtime and will go to bed. Even if we just woke up 10 mins ago.
My New schnauzer can reach his butt. Or can’t figure it out. Unlike the blk lab who can. In fact he is the only dog that can figure a way to crap and get his poop stuck in his fur. Or dribble it down his leg. On that note. We actually have a poop duty station. A box of wipes at the back door where the person who lets him back in inspects his butt region for any remnants of unwantables left behind on his behind.
My Little schnauzer sleeps completely upside down making him look like a rag mop because of his long hair…see below
My white boxer knows when I have vacuumed even if she wasn’t in the house when I did. Because the first thing she does is rolls around on the floor to replace the vacuumed hair or rubs herself on my brown couch to prove to everyone she was here.
My little schnauzer is afraid of the floors in Petsmart. So much it makes me wonder what he actually sees. Because where the floor is too shiny in spots he stops and acts like the floor drops off into a endless black pit. I have to pick him up and carry him over the area. Then he is back to walking like nothing ever happened. Weird.
apparently the white boxer is jealous that she wasn’t invited to the picture.
And last but not least…the little schnauzer loves to lounge in the car…and huff and puff after a hard day at obedience class. Even though I am pretty sure I worked harder than he did.