Blech

Okay so I have spent the last few days of work in orientation listening to speakers all day long.  I so want to get back to the ER.  I would rather be busting my butt than listening to this drivel.  Unfortunately the last time I worked in the ER a coworker decided to share the fun of her crud.  So doped up on antibiotics, musinex, Zyrtec and at night large doses of Night Quil.  What fun right?  I was hoping to get over this before work tomorrow but it doesn’t look promising.  So I am lounging on the couch watching movies and doing laundry.  Trying to reserve all my energy for work tomorrow.  While playing on my blog I notice that my moon crazy warning is telling me that its 90 % a full moon.  Which means the weekend I work i will be up to my eyes in weirdos in the ER…so hope to have some interesting tales then.  Off to watch Percy and by the way stay away from the movie Bitten its the worse vampire movie ever made..sheesh.

When life backs you against a wall

So I finally finished nursing school and have a great job that I love and life is great.  But as soon as life becomes easy or comfortable you get slammed up against a wall.
My dad is a very intelligent man and has been my go to guy when I need advice on life.  We never really saw eye to eye when I was a teenager cause back then I knew everything.  Now that I am older and realize that my dad wasn’t so crazy and actually knew a thing or two life throws a curve ball.  First this economy sucks and my dad lost his computer programmer job.  The company said they could hire 2 new grads for the price of him.  They would be more experienced in the new technology and be cheaper to have.  Problem is alot of the newbies don’t want to really work.  My dad always came into work early and left late and work on salary.  It took my dad 8 months of searching for a job to finally get one.  He was never picky applying for every job including Wal-Mart.  Where is he working?  A gas station in his local town.  What pisses me off is that has to make him feel degraded to have all that education but is now a gas station attendant.  Also having your neighbors ask you why are you working here daily probably doesn’t help.  No one will hire him because he is over qualified.  What the hell? over qualified? I would think getting a guy for half price would be like a great deal?

Next we thought my dad had a stroke with having right sided weakness.  He did some therapy and everything was working out.  Till he had a relapse and really lost alot of mobility.  His cognitive function has decreased also.  My father never said “I don’t know,” till now.  My brother said he stopped at a blinking red light waiting for it to change.  Alot of weird things that wouldn’t add up. He didn’t want to go to a doctor. He said he didn’t want to be poked and prodded.  I tried to respect his wishes. I live so many states away i was getting all this second hand from my mom and my brother. I kept telling myself it can’t be that bad.  I really didn’t have a clue just how bad it was till they came in for my graduation.  He wasn’t my dad.  He can’t walk up and down stairs, or keep up with anyone while walking in Wal-Mart, not to mention some of our conversations seemed like pieces of a puzzle were missing.  I finally broke down in tears begging him to please get check out.  Maybe it was another stroke or just a pinched nerve.  He could no longer ride his motorcycle, play the organ at church, drive the car, find a job, or other things he loves to do.  He was depressed…hell who wouldn’t be.  If you had everything you loved to do taken away wouldn’t you?  I finally got through to him.  “what if this was reversible and you could have a normal life?  Don’t you want to ride your bike again?  So he did his tests….and its not reversible its progressive. He has MS.  So here I am 600 hundred miles away and unable to help my family.  If I lived close I could help do the things he can’t.  Of all the people in the world why dad?  Not that I wish it on anyone but my mom could handle this better than him.  I want to go home and help. Just spend time with him before he can’t do the stuff he use to be able to.  I started a new job and can’t get up and leave right now.  Mom is devastated and my brother well lets just say he has his own issues right now.  I just want to cry.  If I could just be closer…to spend time with him before i can’t…i would go to the doctors with him.  They don’t ask the questions i would since I am a nurse.  What is the prognosis?  How long are we looking at?  Is the damage reversible?  I know my dad he would rather just live the fullest without meds and die before it gets too bad.  I want to respect his decision, but i want my dad alive too.  Is this selfish of me?  I worked in LTC and saw how the families would try to make their parents drag out their life.  Is this his depression or really a decision?  I feel like i have my hands tied.  I don’t want to lose the job i love, the money I need to sustain my family but I don’t want to lose my dad either…life can be soo unfair!

Learning

 
The last few days that I have worked I have learn alot of new things.  How to discharge patients by myself, how to admit and transfer patients and having 3 rooms by myself.  Even though I have 3 rooms myself my head nurse bales me out when I get behind.  Which seems to be alot sometimes because I keep getting new things I have never done.  Everyone seems happy to teach me anything I ask questions about.  Any where from how to to a nitro drip, a heparin drip, or simple things like where the heck do i chart this.?  I know it in  time I will get use to everything.  The nurses even giggle and tease me cause I still have the out of school positive attitude about the frequent flyers or TROLL. I learned  TROLL means To Return Often Loves Lortabs (painkiller). I even transfer a patient to CCU all by myself. I learned just how grouchy some people are…sheesh. One thing I really didn’t want to learn was life can be taken from you in a flash.  This was the first day I seen a Baby less than 3 months old die.  A code blue was called and nurses from all units were trying their hardest to get this baby to breath again.  I know I should have stayed for a learning reasons. I just like it was wrong to be in there.  I felt like I was more in the way.  I knew they would be asking me to help get items or to do something.  I knew I would have to tell them I don't know.  I am just in training.  So I decided to back off and  let the experience ones do all the work.  While they were working hard with the baby It kept all the other patients labs and med orders under control.  I was shocked by the callousness of the other patients.  Some standing and gawking and others yakking on their telephones.  Not to mention the all the complaints of "what is taking so long?" "Don’t you realize I am important?"  Even though I would like to shout at them " You have been here numerous times and have yet had anything serious enough for the ER.
The code was finally over and everyone parted ways. You could see the tears in the eyes of the family, the doctors and all the nurses.  It makes me realize just how hard this job can be. The next  day when talking to the nurses I found that most kissed their loved ones, their kids, and checked on their babies 12 times that night.  This job can be heart wrenching.

Shot of reality: Get a life

Jobs that try to find you on a social network,
For those jobs out there that have nothing better to do than troll facebook, MySpace, twitter or even blogger looking for “employees to catch” get a life. Its called freedom of speech. Taking comments out of context or people status is just immature. If an employee says your place business sucks then maybe it does. We all have a day that just doesn’t go our way. Some of us just aren’t chicken shit to express our feelings out loud. When someone says I had a bad day or a hard day…maybe they did…don’t be so effin sensitive. Its not like they even mentioned their jobs name.
Nurse that I can’t believe got a memo about not mentioning your work on facebook at work
Coworkers that backstab
If you ever turn me in for my status on facebook, hell hath no fury like a pissed off YANKEE bitch…
Nurse that’s all for dosing out vengeance if you mess with my paycheck

Medicare Abusers,
I really wish some of you that come in my ER would get a life. There is no reason you should be in the ER for a sore throat and sniffles. This is ridiculous there should be a law that doesn’t allow you to waste my tax money like that. Those that really need Medicare can’t get it or enough of it and the rest waste it to get free pain medicine for simple aches and pains. Which most of the time the cure is get off your ass! You should be a shame of yourself do you think we don’t know who the frequent flyers are? My opinion? Let make a special section for you where you have to wait 10 hours for us to tell you its called a virus…go home to bed stupid
Nurse that does pay her taxes

First day in the ER

If your looking for laughter today Sorry to say this isn’t it…
My first day consisted of a 800lb patient. I spent most of the day in there with him. I felt sorry for him. It was hard to understand just how someone can get that large. I don’t want to judge a person without knowing the life that they lived. This patient fell and was lying on the floor for a week before coming in via ambulance. The sister listened to the patient about not calling for help. Finally she called for help it took 2 hours and 20 some EMS crewmembers to get him out the door. The hospital wasn’t equipped to take care of this patient either. The beds weren’t big enough and there was no bedside commode to accommodate this patient. The smell of him was unbearable due to defecation and the urine from lying on the floor, the suffering of this patient due to obesity must be horrific. What kind of family member would not call?
It took 6 people to try to cath this patient…which consisted of using a speculum (used for vaginal exams )to find the penis. The stomach was so large it too 3 to hold it up. The patient was soo worried about the cost of the bill that he wanted to go home. Problem was the EMS refused to take him back due to the man power that they lacked at that time and unsafe house. So who the heck is right here? If they can’t take the patient home and the patient refuses care what the heck? I think that the lap band surgery should be included in Medicare… because no one deserved to be left like this…and this pt was no moocher…actually worked for a living.

Stress, Crying and It's all over

Where have I been..yea I know I have been neglecting my blogger. Been a tad bit stressed. I was getting ready for the boards. For all of you non nurses out there NCLEX boards is a test you have to pass. Even if you graduate from college as a nurse you are still not a nurse. The only way you get to practice as a nurse is take a test that can be as little as 75 questions or as many as 265. It starts out with an easy question and if you get it right the questions get harder. If you get it wrong it goes back down to easier. The goal is to answer so many easy, medium and hard questions. As soon as you do that the test shuts off…you could have done 75, 90 or all of them. Mine shut off at 75. Meaning I did really well or I was soo bad I failed. Then the next day you start looking on the board of nursing to see if you passed. This is a cheat way so that you don’t have to wait for them to send you a notice in the mail (2weeks later). You type in your name and search to see if your in the RN section. I kept finding my LPN license but that was it. Everyone else that had taken the boards the same day already new that they passed. I was devastated. If you don’t see your name one of two things happened…they haven’t posted yours or you failed. There is no you failed until they ship that letter. So I had my breakdown and cried…then I would be positive with the help of friends and then…cry again. I just knew I failed. Those questions were soooo hard. I couldn’t figure out what I was going to do. I knew I would have to retake it but where would I even start? I had already studied once before and it did me no good. I had to take some Tylenol Pm just to sleep that night. I woke up the next morning and told myself I would not start check till late that afternoon. I turn on my cell phone and start checking my emails and see if my man who was out on a bike ride had left me a text message.
i had 3 text messages: Are you up? Did you know your an Rn? I checked.
I was like huh? So I texted my friend back “what are you talking about?” She texted back” I check the site congrats RN” I texted back your kidding…you sure its me there are like 8 people with my same name…or its probably my LPN license. She texted back “duh i know where you live and its not your LPN.” So I ran to the computer and yup there I was…I just stared at that computer in disbelief for a good 5 minutes. Then it hit me!!! I PASSED I PASSED THANK GOD I PASSED…i texted back to her…she just sent back lol see! So now I wanted to tell my man first…i waited a little while and had no idea when he was going to get back from his ride. So the excitement was eating at me and lets just say about 40 people knew before him…lol sorry this was too good of news not to shout it at the top of my lungs…So I am officially and RN…and I start my new job in the ER on Monday! Had my last day at my work this past Friday….YIPEE

Christmas Eve A Blaze

Okay so I am very far behind but I couldn’t skip what happened on Christmas eve at work.  First we have to work either Christmas eve or Christmas day and they switch you to the opposite of last year.  This was my year to work Christmas eve.  So of course since half are on one day and the other half the next we are really short.  3 nurses 3 cnas for about 55 patients.  I would have loved to had just someone to answer the effin telephone.  Because if family couldn’t come in they were calling to talk to patients or to get updates on them. The sad part is most of these people you don’t hear from them until a major holiday.  Anyway it was an awful day.  I was the skilled nurse/ phone operator/ cna helper since we had 3 and many other tasks rolled into one.  I was behind on my skilled charting.  In fact I hadn’t done my 8am head to toe assessments openings.  But the rest of the nurses asked if they could help I told them to go home I would be done within the hour.  WRONG…at 430pm the fire alarm goes off.  What kind of idiot is doing a drill on Christmas eve.  Well no smoke no sign of fire.  The box says it's in the janitor closet.  So they check it out.  No fire.  By this time we have cleared the halls and all the pts are in their rooms behind shut door or in the dayroom behind shut doors.  Next we see 4 maintenance men and security from the hospital.  Then follows 4 firefighters and a police officer. Still no one can find this fire. They have the ladder truck on the side of the building checking for a fire on top of the building.  NONE…the alarm again sounds now it's in the utility room..and we can smell something burning.  We now have to evacuate 4 pts to the dayroom due to their rooms full of choking smoke. Next the whole wing of 28 pts evacuated into the dayroom on first floor and second floor. I have never seen people put into chairs and put into the dayroom so fast.  Not to mentions trying to come up with O2 for pts that needed it.  Or chairs for those that didn’t have any.  Don’tcha love budgets… Finally the fire is located…apparently it was a dryer with some type of plastic in it.  Causing it to overheat and the smoke must have been going up the wall and setting other sensors off until it started smoking enough to set the one off in the laundry room.  So needless to say it was 730 pm before I went home.  I was disappointed in the big wigs who didn’t stay to help feed patients and pass out trays.  It was 630 when the trays came up and not to mention no one had done there first round. So most were drenched…I stayed to help pass trays and do some feeding.  But hell I had been there since 6am and the big wigs got paged in when the fire hit the fan…so why didn’t they help catch us up?  They could have at least helped wheeled pts back to their rooms and help with passing trays out…heaven forbid…grrr

Redneck Lawnmower

Okay so the men on this redneck hill are always on lawnmowers…most times to mow in fact they kind of mow in sync. The 4 men of the hill will mow usually the same day. Some one will start up their mower and mow and then everyone else does. Scary i told mejis you can see how our men will age first you have her man, the youngest balding with a gut, my man with bald but slightly graying beard with a gut, his uncle more graying (or dyed hair) with a very large gross gut with man boobs, their dad Dyed black hair with gray chest hair smaller gut, no ass, man boobs and last his uncle, completely grey and white hair, balding not from shaving, 6months pregnant and completely deaf. Their tempers are very close from mild, severe with beer (our men), his uncle- always severe since his is drunk all the time, his dad talks grouchy (putting up with whiney or lack of sex) and escalate to severe anger when his sons piss him off, to uncle who only gets angry because you are not using the right redneck sign language. What is that you ask? Over dramatizing with you mouth or use of hand gestures cause he is too lazy to learn sign language.
Next we have the lawnmower riders: Where mejis’s man and mine use them for transportation of themselves and their beer. Well sometimes they transport children in the lawnmower wagons. The funny thing is its spreading to the children now. I notice my nephew and the neighbor boy have their own nonblade working lawnmowers and racing up and down the road and everyone's lawn. If we have family cookouts we have the lawnmower parking area…lol How sad is that? I even have a picture of myself and my man driving me down the hill after the Easter egg hunt. I really think for mejis’s marriage that she ride down the isle on one with her flower girl and ring bearer toting in the back wagon. That would be priceless.
Last we have the I run over everything you own rider: That would be my father-in-law.
If your trying to grow something it will get mowed down, flatten by wheels or completely destroyed. He has taken down our saplings, bushes and out DISH which wasn’t cheap to repair. Hence why we got our own lawnmower. His wife will even put up little fences which get bent in the process of trying to save the little flowers. Today…he took out their telephone line…yup snap the line in two…sheesh…look out!

Parrot Patients

Okay being a nurse you see and hear everything…and on a full moon something is always going on. The last full moon was exceptionally noisy, which is the title of my blog. It never fails on a full moon the patients that normally stay in their bed are climbing out and the ones that are quiet are usually loud. In fact while I was working I had 3 pts surrounding the nurses’ station because they wouldn’t stay in bed. One yelling “ if someone don’t take me to the bathroom I am going to poop all over, poop all over, poop all over (mind you he just went to the bathroom) Another was Hey…hey …hey…shut your ass, another… where’s the door where’s the door….another yelling from her room…help I’m dying …help I’m dying (mind you she’s being dying for 3 yrs now)…and last but not least the sound of the beeping of the call lights…that’s enough to drive anyone insane…let alone me. Its fun when you look down and you’ve charted pt lying in bed with 2 rails at bedside….lol makes it hard for my brain to think with all the noise…
It’s even funnier or sadder when you get home and you can hear all those voices to some creepy ass tune in your head….lalala poop all over lalala my ass….lalala I am dying…lalala can’t breathe again…lalalala beep beep beep….omg no wonder I get migraines…

Redneck Easter

I spent Easter with my patients. After went to my in-laws for the Easter egg hunt. Wow no Drama which was nice. After we left there my kids had their Easter and had to find 73 eggs…one is still missing..lol
The kids got more than they needed for Easter and my man got his own basket…me got nothing. My hubby proceeds to innocently say…”I didn’t know we were getting anything for each other…”
No dear I usually make my own basket and everyone else's…this year i just didn’t…sheesh
Oh and where is the redneck stuff you ask? Pictures are better than words
My man’s idea of hiding the Easter eggs
My Mr. Gimpy’s mejis’s man idea of an Easter basket