Sims?

Think I am going to talk about that highly addicting game? NOPE

Sorry to disappoint. Tomorrow at the ass crack of dawn I get to travel about 2-3 hours to Radford U and get trained on the Sims patients. What is that? Well if your a fan if Grey’s Anatomy you have already seen something like it. Its a mannequin that looks real, talks and has medical symptoms and issues. In fact you pretty much treat it like a real patient. It can even die on you and you have to perform CPR on it. Fun right? My luck I will be doing CPR tomorrow…lol I guess it can tell me it has chest pain and I have to demonstrate what actions, questions and assessment techniques to use. It sounds interesting…but it still gives me butterflies in my stomach. I hope I remember what the hell I am suppose to do. I know the knowledge is in my head somewhere. So I have to be there at 830am which means I have to be up at the crack of dawn. After 3 hours there I have to go back to college and take my test. Fun fun. This ones is on med administration (not to worried) Legal issues ( not too worried) Ethics, (not too worried) and last Nutrition (extremely worried) I mean hey while she was teaching it I was eating chocolate cookies and Mickey D tea …healthy? So not really sure if I will do well in that department. So I better get back to studying…nite

Narcotic use and diversion

okay i had to do a discussion paper for class on a nursing legal issue. This blog is for my nursey buddies that are already nurses or those that are just starting. I don’t think enough people are informed on this so here goes…my paper

Narcotic use and diversion in nursing is growing and is becoming even harder to identify. More training for nurses is needed to teach the signs and symptoms of nursing diversions. Drug abuse is the number on reason named by state boards of nursing for discipline action against nurses. Not only is this abuse but it’s also neglect on the patients behalf. Some nurses pretend to give the drug to a patient, preferably one that cannot speak for themselves, and take the drug themselves. I had wished that my facility had been more proactive on teaching us the warning signs of diversion and also the signs of nursing drug abuse, even if they are hard to spot. Stricter rules and regulations on accessing medications should be enforced. Unfortunately most places like long term care facilities do not have the newer equipment to avoid easy access. Being at one of those facilities I learned that my med cart was easily accessed and that was a hard lesson to learn. 32 Lortab were missing at the end of my shift. It was my cart and I was supposed to be the only one that had accessed it. The culprit was caught but only after drug testing, having my rites read to me by the police and 3 weeks of investigation, crying, sleepless nights and a full investigation from the nursing board. A fellow nurse while talking to me had stolen the narcotics from the backside of my cart, which opened from both sides. I never even knew she had had gotten them. I had to Protest against the old med carts and requested that they be replaced with better locking and one sided accessible carts, which we now have today. Reading other articles has helped me identify some of the diversion signs: Volunteering to administer medications for others, noticing that patients are not receiving relief from administered narcotics, frequent reports of waste, re-taped packets. Not to mention the physical signs: agitation, sedation, hand tremors and headaches. This nurse may offer to work overtime, but takes many breaks, tardiness, or many miss days of work. Most nurses are users not sellers and will use at work. They may inject the drug and administer the rest so that the patient shows some relief to keep down suspicion. The nurses need to be educated about narcotics use and diversion in order to report to the manager with their concerns. If they lack the education they may be helping the abusing nurse and are unaware. Narcotics need to be monitor and discrepancies should be reported. Don’t assume that the liquid narcotic is just off it could be diversion. This is your license on the line are you going to protect it?

Riddle me this

Okay so my first day of clinical went well. The hard part was trying to figure out how to do this care plan. Now don’t get me wrong I have done care plans for work, but this is no ordinary care plan. Its for the riddler or Nazi care plan lady.

Why do I address her as the riddler now? Cause she never answers your questions. I know this thing is going to be time consuming but if I don’t know how to do it how can one finish it? So when I ask specific questions you would think that I would get a direct answer but instead I get some sort of a riddle and I am suppose to try to figure out what the hell that means? Just tell me damn it! Grr… So all 8 of us in class are trying to meddle thru this. I am hoping to find someone that has had this class to direct me in the right direction. Its not like I am wanting the answers or a short cut just tell me how to do this so I can get it done.

Death

Being a nurse you are a custom to death. Especially when you work long term care where most of your pts have come here to die. What makes it hard as a nurse is when you work home health care and have one pt. that your work is centered around. Especially when they are a kid. Taking care of a pt since they were a baby and having them die at the age of 15 makes it feel like you have lost your own child. Even though your not suppose to cross that line of nurse/pt relationship. But spending 40-50hrs a week for 15 yrs makes it hard not to think of them as family. Your suppose to move on to the next case and act like they were never part of your life. How does one do that? Should you go to the families house? Or is that past the nursing relationship? These are the question a relative of mine is facing. How do I help her put the pieces back together?

Jump for Joy

Okay I have to toot my own horn…I freakin passed the Head to Toe exam. Yippee! I felt like a little kid at Christmas…I wanted to shout it at the top of my lungs and I couldn’t wait to tell someone…so I called just about everyone…lol Seriously thought about calling everyone on my cell phone…but I don’t think pizza hut or Wal-Mart would really care…I was really shocked we passed cause we even got the dag gone teacher that was failing everyone. I was so happy to hear I passed. I couldn’t believe the people that I heard say that they barely studied…are they on crack? We studied are butt off and it was rough…sheesh
Now all I have left is to pass the exam with at least at 70 and I will have completed this dag gone class. I am not wanting a 70 I just wanted to know what leeway I have. Anyway on with Rn transition class…I think my teacher is the Nursing Care Plan Nazi...I can’t believe what I have to turn in to her after our first clinical. I am not even sure I know what the hell I am doing. My lab partner kept looking at me…what the hell look..lol Even the teacher said you all have that deer in the headlight look. No shit lady…we have no idea what we are doing. I mean I have done care planning before but this is crazy. So as soon as I am done studying for my exam I have to get my butt in gear and get this care plan a going…Just have to make it till Aug5…come on summer I am ready for you to end!

RN School crazies

Okay so school has been crazy and it got crazier today…first lets just say I got to be the Model pt. (not a good thing) I got to be in my sports bra and stretchy shorts in front of 15 of my classmates while my instructor showed them how to do a full head to toe assessment. That sucked! It took an hour a freakin hour. Just what I wanted was my flab out for the world to see and my neon white legs. Anyway I started my day at 830 and then ate a quick packed lunch, cause the next class was too soon to leave campus. I did the next class from 1 till 515pm. The teacher seems really nice. The part that gets on my freakin nerves is this LPN that just rubs me the wrong way. You know the type…has a family member with the affliction or knows someone that has it. Always asking dumb questions or stories to tell that are not related to the subject at hand. Well guess what not only is she in my health assessment class she is in my bridge class. She drives me so crazy that I am seriously thinking about switching classes. Well we were all crammed into this conference room for today only. It was hot and stuffy so the teacher turn on the Ac. Problem was that stupid LPN would get up and turn it back up because she was cold. Thing is the rest of us were hot and using our papers as fans. Finally one of the other students got up and turned it back down…not even 10 mins later she turned it back up…I looked at my lab partner and said if she touches that damn thing one more time I am going to break her fingers!

Course that made her giggle and the teacher glared at us like we were misbehaving. Anyway by that time it was almost the end of class and everyone was glaring at that LPN. Dagger glaring from 8 of us must have finally turn on the light bulb in this retards head cause she got up and turned it back down. Freaking buttass!

Redneck Lobster

 
Okay so Mejis man had this great idea lets cook some crawdads (crayfish) to eat.  Well my man was missing so I went to look for him and Mejis man and my man were at the family pond.  My brother in law proceeds to bug me to here eat ones of these…and he points to this pot on the camp stove of 6 crawdads. Ah no thanks…first if you knew how he cooked…no one would want to eat anything.  Course most things are over cooked…but there was no way I was eating anything that was possibly still raw.  I told him he was free to eat all he wanted. That I  really didn’t feel like being sick tomorrow.  So he proceeds to dissect one of these critters and sucking this white meat out of its claws…Hey Bro come eat some of this.  So now my man and him…followed by brother in law boy and my oldest are eating parts of this creature from the back creek.  EWW is all I can say…ahh come on its just like Lobster…and i bite my tongue…cause I want to say to my brother in law when have you ever had the money for that or class…and then Mejis comes down and we chit chat about our redneck men when out of the sky falls a head of a crawdad…her man smiling it wasn’t me it was the boy…so in about 5 min he has crawdad carcasses shoved in places I don’t even want to think of…poor things…anyhow that’s my redneck moment brought to you by BEER.

Redneck Man

 

Yes ladies and germs its that time again. Time to look inside my life of my afro-engineering hubby. My man can come up with some of the most interesting things…i.e. see pic of tomato plant bucket holder on my photoblog. He made a water slide out of a roll of black plastic…baby soap provided by me…since he thought i would be safe for little girls to use regular soap. lol Anyway his new project was the girls campout on the front porch. Why don’t they just sleep in a tent? Well first of all that would be too easy. Second he thinks the bears might eat them..lol I seriously doubt that they would…might upset the bears stomach…lol Anyhoo…I just had to take some pics of this interesting contraption now covering my front porch…thank God I am surrounded by other rednecks who probably won’t even look twice…here goes

this is from the entrance…they were still setting up the sleeping bags at this point

now you can’t see them

from inside their redneck tent…lol

Failed Drug Test

Ha Ha nothing like a title like that to get everyone jumping to this page…thought it was a joke did you? Nope I failed my drug test for nursing. Wanna know why? Well if you read my blog 3 hours and 3 shots to the ass later you would be able to deduct my dilemma. One of the shots was Valium and I tested positive for temazepam, which flags me… great. I explain nicely to the Dr. drug detector what had happen and he states that well diazepam doesn’t break down into that. So he continues to ask…Did you take someone else's medication. I politely thru my teeth state no sir I am a nurse and know better than that. Your not suppose to take anyone else's Rx meds especially narcotics. Its against the law. He continues to argue that I must have taken some one’s Restoril. Hey jackass before you go accusing people you might want to check your drug book. They are in the same drug family dill hole. So what did I get to do today…get my family Dr to send this arse my copy of my ER records…not to mention I had a few drug sites on hand just in case he wanted to continue to argue with me. GRRRR Some Dr’s seem to amaze me…how the hell did they get thru med school…but then again someone had to be in the bottom of there class right?

Germaphobe or Gross?

So here I sit in Outpatient waiting to pee in a cup for this lovely drug test for school. I have an appt. however they must have forgotten cause its 20 mins passed time and I have drank enough to pee in 3 cups. Lovely right? So while I sit there with my legs cross hoping pee doesn’t spew from my eye balls…I sit there watching the people around me. There is this little girl, turns 2 on the 4th I think I heard the parent say. She is sucking away on this dum dum lollipop. First thought going thru my mind is I hope I don’t have to do the heimlich maneuver on this kid cause the suckers are known to come off the stick. That is still not the worse of it. She drop it in the floor of the hospital. And the mother picks it up takes out a tissue and wipes it off and the child plops it back into her mouth. First off ewww. Now maybe at my own house the 5 second rule would apply. But in a hospital where people are sick, crap in the floor, vomit…ugh. Yes I know that they clean the floor with powerful products. But not every moment of the day after countless dirty shoes have walked over their clean floor. Would u let your kid lick the lollypop?