girl in greenwood

Since Meeegan asked - I am working tomorrow (Saturday) for 12 hours. I'm off on Sunday, though!

I forgot one thing on my list of stuff I've learned so far - working as a nurse is excellent for dieting if you can avoid the junk food in the staff lounge. I barely have time to sit and eat my lunch - and I'm not even up to a full patient load yet. Also, I'm down 10 pounds since taking the NCLEX. Just 20 more to go to get back to my pre-nursing school weight. It's like I was pregnant for two years, or something.

Tomorrow I'll be moved up to taking two patients. I handled one today pretty much independently and it went well. So I hope I don't have a meltdown with two tomorrow!

Labels: nursing

I've worked on the floor at BCH for 5 shifts and here are a few things I've learned so far:

1) There is a device for cleaning out gnarly wounds called a waterpick. I did not know such a thing even existed before last week.

2) Fentanyl lollipops (excuse me, transmucosal delivery systems) don't look like lollipops at all. They look like an instrument that is the perfect size to shove into a nostril, actually.

3) If you are a morbidly obese diabetic man, you may want to look into personal hygiene, before you develop an infection where the sun doesn't shine. Holy crap, I've never seen wounds like that before.

4) Apparently having a rectal tube (excuse me, fecal continence management system) installed feels like "having a Ho-Ho shoved up [your] butt". Or so my patient informed me.

5) If you inject heroin into your subclavian veins, Very Bad Things can happen. If that's not quite enough information for you, google necrotizing fasciitis. See? Very bad.

6) Working 2 12-hour shifts on consecutive days makes my hips ache by the end of the second day. But with support socks at least my feet don't hurt.

7) I really need to work on my time-management skills.

8) I probably need to make myself a more structured brain sheet/to-do list if I'm going to not forget stuff.

Labels: nursing

Hello Internet, I have not visited with you in quite a while!

My biggest news is that I started my new job as an RN at Big County Hospital (BCH from here on out). I had 5 8-hour days of classroom orientation the first week, which was shockingly exhausting. My brain felt swollen from acquiring so much information at such a rapid pace. The next week I had an all-day computer training which was excruciating - then I started out on the floor with my preceptor.

This is a little confusing to explain, but I am not training on the unit where I will eventually be working. I was pretty upset about that when I found out, but after I met my preceptor and got started, I was no longer upset. My preceptor is AWESOME. She's been a nurse for a long time, she's smart and funny and encouraging and kind - exactly the kind of nurse I aspire to be. She's been giving me both positive feedback and constructive criticism, which I really appreciate.

So working at BCH is pretty different from working at the Nonprofit Community Hospital. I have seen some shocking, shocking wounds, and I've only been at work for 4 days. Happily I turned out to be interested in gnarly wounds, and not the kind of person who passes out at the sight.

Okay. Another 12 hour shift tomorrow, so off to bed with me.

Look at these sea slugs from National Geographic. They're beautiful! You could use some of them as inspiration for interior decorating.

Labels: photos, sea slugs

Top 50 'Sesame Street' Moments

Too much fun!

*the way I pronounced Sesame when I was 2

Ooh, interesting. One thing we talked about a lot in school is that labeling your patients as "drug-seeking" or "lazy" or what-have-you affects not only the care you provide, but the care that those around you think is appropriate to provide as well. "Manipulative" is one of those words, but I hadn't really thought about it before. Honestly, I had thought that some patients are in fact manipulative, so why not call a spade a spade?

Then I read this piece from Maria. Here's a quote:

"Consider striking the word “manipulative” from your vocabulary. Just describe what people are doing. “She says that she will kill herself if I don’t give her Vicodin” is a lot more informative than “She’s manipulative”. Furthermore, brainstorming ideas and conferring with others (including the patient) to solve this dilemma is much easier when everyone knows the specific details of the dilemma. How does one solve a problem around an adjective?"

Aha! Of course. You can't make a measureable outcome in the care plan for manipulation. :)

I passed the damn test!