18 replies to this topic

[Abbeygirl]

Hey I have not been able to find anyone on the Chat Line in along time. I see names such as Dirk, etc. but no conversations going on. We used to have some good chats that was ongoing and we could talk and make each other laugh, well maybe smile when we needed a good laugh. I would sit in my dean by myself and talk back and forth with others and find myself laughing. My husband would come out and ask me what was so funny.

That really helps when you have been having a bad day or just lonely feeling. We need a more active line. The lounge is good for posting but you don't get an on going conversation and sometimes no reply at all. Our jobs are very time consuming and hard and we all need each other to help get us through some things. I know our families are wonderful, or mine is, and we love them alot, but sometimes they just don't understand some of the things we try to tell them. That is unless they are medical also.

Lets get our group back together.

[3boyzmom]

I SECOND THAT!!! I miss it too! Wonder where Nawlinsgirl has been?!?

[Dirk]

Hello !

For me it is the same ... I really miss the talk to you - I always thought, it is difficult because of the time shift.
The last time I have heared of Nawlinsgirl was 2 month ago.
She was injured - a problem with her wrist, and she told me, that there was planned a surgery.
I am really worried about, and wonder if she is doing well ....

Hope to meet you again .. some day..

Greetings

Dirk

[Abbeygirl]

Sorry about my spelling in some of these post. I think my brain is going numb from too much time off. I bet not too many of you can sit in your DEAN and type on a computer. Forgive me, but I did mean that I was in my den. Please overlook if error is noted. I type to fast and that is from charting at work where you have to type fast at bedside or be left totally behind. We had to keep up with MD while doing their assessments and they would skip everywhere. I would always go back and change errors. I really had to fly through the typing when trying to ship a bad patient and I had been working on them and did not have time to do the computer work as I went. I would usually grab a paper towel, etc and write on it and put on computer later. Then EMS would be there with their little hands out waiting for my paper work.

Anyway please forgive spelling. I do seem to be rattling on alot lately. I do need to get back to work or my brain is going to explode.

See that is where we need chat room. I could pour everything out to you guys. Would you not just love that. Not............

[3boyzmom]

Hi Dirk and Abbeygirl!

Why coitanly we would love to hear about it, Abbeygirl! You tell me yours, I'll tell you mine!

I didn't know that about Nawlinsgirl. I hope she's OK too.

I saw a retina specialist in Houston yesterday. (If you NEVER have to drive around the Medical Center in Houston, it will be too soon, trust me). I've probably mentioned that I'm blind in one eye. Recently my opthamologist noted a "funny configuration" of blood vessens in my good eye. So he referred me to the Dr. in Houston. He did angiography and said that a small area of the retina is not getting a blood supply, and there were some vessels that were leaking. So they did laser tx. I got SHOTS in my eye before the laser. How gross is that?!?!?!? (The doctor in Corpus that did the tx on the other eye 12 years ago didn't give me shots in the eye, he gave me Valium prior to the laser instead. I like that MUCH better, thank you).

Anyway, he said that it looks like a very early version of the same thing that happened in my other eye. That started out the same and cascaded into hemorrhaging, vitrectomy, neovascular glaucoma, tube shunt, etc, etc, ending in a collapsed retina and blindness. He also said, though, that he feels optimistic that the laser tx. will prevent further problems. (That's what the other doctor said about the other eye, too, though).

He said that he can't figure out why this has happened to me at a young age (I was 33 when it started in the other eye; I'm 47 now. At least he says I'm young ). He said that with no apparent underlying medical cause, which there is none known, and I have no symptoms of any sort anywhere else in my body, it just shouldn't happen. So he ordered a bunch of labwork. Just looking for trouble!

Re: yesterday's treatment- there are some things in life that you just don't do. Sticking needles in your eye is one of them, in my book.

Good to see you both. What's happening on your side of the world, Dirk? I miss "chatting" too. I guess this is the next best thing!

[Abbeygirl]

Nope, Boysmom, don't want needles stuck in my eye, thanks anyway. Sorry you had to have that done. But if it will help slow the disease process down then I guess it is worth it. Next time ask for 2 bottles of Valium. One for the procedure and the other for helping you drive around in Houston. You are my hero if you drove in that place with just vision in one eye. I have both mine, or almost both mine, age you know, and I need someone reading signs in advance so I know which lanes to get into. If I wait until I can see them clearly, I would have passed them already. I hate driving in Atlanta, so I know I would not like Houston. I think people in Atlanta try to see how many people they can wipe out in one day.

Speaking of traveling. We went to Birmingham, Al last week to the American Idol Concert. My daughter drove my Jeep because my big foot won't fit in the drivers side of the Jeep. It was My daughter, Niece and myself. After getting over the total fear of falling down that steep flight of stairs at the BJCC Arena in Birmingham with this big boot cast I have on, you know my fashion statement, we had wonderful time. I went down those steps holding on to the backs of seats like a little old granny woman. Darn they were steep and there were no rails. I made it though. Then when I came out I couldn't hear a dog gone thing. All that screaming and loud music and dancing. It took me awhile to realize it was me doing all the screaming and dancing. I loved it. Needed the change. Is anyone else a Taylor Hicks fan??

You are right. I guess this will have to do for a chat room.

[3boyzmom]

I didn't drive in Houston myself. Just did the "backseat driving". My husband took me. He stayed right by my side through the whole thing.......until they brought those eye-needles out. Suddenly he decided he should go sit with our son in the waiting room. Huh! You couldn't pay me enough to live in Houston. You'd spend your whole life sitting in traffic.

Isn't Taylor Hicks that little yodeling girl? I've seen her on the America's Got Talent show. She's a doll! I understand she learned how to do that from a how-to tape. She's in the finals; I don't think she's going to win (I voted for the Millers myself; a brother team with a 12 year old harmonica player you would not believe) but all the acts that made it to the finals are awesome. I don't know if you watch that show but one of the judges is a horrible jerk. He goes beyond criticizing to downright belittling some of the acts. Anyway the acts are great. Taylor is a cutie!

I admire your going to a big arena with a big ol' foot! I have enough trouble negotiating big places with one eye; because of lack of depth perception. I can see where I'm going but always afraid I'll misstep and go rolling down the stairs. Same with climbing down bleachers. I can see the step, and I can see my foot, but it's hard to tell exactly where they're going to meet! When I worked the hospital I could totally miss the strip with the drop of blood when doing an accucheck. How is your foot these days?

I posted an answer on your school nurse post, saying that if that doesn't work out you might consider office nursing. You do have to walk a fair amount but you don't have to cover so much ground, at least it's in a small contained space.

Well have a good one. Gotta finish watching "The Office."

[3boyzmom]

OH NO! I just realize that the little yodeling girl is named Taylor Ware....DUH!!!!!

OK, then, I've heard the name Taylor Hicks but apparently I haven't heard her...
I've never watched American Idol, I'm assuming she was on that?

Well anyway....oops!!!

[Abbeygirl]

Actually Taylor Hicks is a handsome young man with beautiful blue eyes that can really sing and move. He won American Idol this year. He if great. Don't worry I will remind you next Jan. to watch American Idol. You will just have to remind me to remind you.

My foot is not healing. Or actually my heel is not healing. Still got my trusty boot and running from surgery. Going to hold off as long as possible. Thanks for asking.

I went today and filled out my paper work for my job as school nursre. I actually got placed in my Granddaughter's school. That will be great. I told her she can not have all the kids calling me Nanny or Nurse Nanny. She is my girl I am looking forward to it. I think it is time to slow down and smell the roses and maybe travel more. I get off all Holidays and 2 months in the Summer. Can't beat that now.

When I start crying and complaining about being bored just remind me of these words and great visions.
Thanks.

Don't worry about missing the accu check strip. The buy the ones that are hard to hit. Just remember that. That is their way of testing our coordination. You guess??

[3boyzmom]

How fun! I wish you a great time in school nursing! When you get bored, I will definately remind you why you are there. I have to remind myself why I'm in the clinic sometimes. It's not rocket science, it seems- I don't start any IV's, or do any procedures to speak of, or administer any medications beyond B-12 shots or vaccinations or maybe the occasional penicillin shot or something. Oh yeah I forgot about all the Procrit. That's all the time. Sometimes I think "I used to work ICU a long time ago. Then I spent the rest of my career in mental health, and I was good at it. I could work with some really difficult cases, and was able in that role to sit down and really interact therapeutically with people. What I do now anyone could do."

Then I think no, that's not true. Contrary to what many people think, clinic nursing actually requires sharp judgment and a quick assessing-eye. You never know what benign-looking situation can turn out to be something serious, and I've known my nurses (and occasionally even myself) to really prevent disaster.
Take the fellow who comes in during lunch when there's no doctor in the office, saying "I don't feel good, I think it's my stomach but I feel really bad." And there's something about the way he does look that makes you think "something's not right here" and toss him in a wheelchair and haul him down the hall to the ER, to learn later that he was having an MI.

Or the time when a patient confides that she is being abused at home, and you help her to call another family member to arrange to stay with them, and then call the abuse hotline.

Or even the time when a doctor makes a treatment decision and you say "I'm really concerned about that (whatever symptom or condition), you don't want to put him in the hospital?" so the doc says "well yeah, we could do that" and it turns out to be a very lucky thing for the patient. (and our docs are superb; it can happen to anyone when processing the volume of people we do- they depend on us to help and they don't discourage us from telling them if we're concerned about something).

Or handling 60+ phone calls in addition to the in-office patients, everything from "I keep burping" to "I'm having chest pain, what should I do?" (yikes).

It'll be the same for you. You'll use your skills that you've honed in the acute care setting and they'll always serve you. You'll pick up on something that someone else might've missed. And kids do get injured at school on playgrounds, etc, or have seizures or the like. It'll be unexpected and you'll have to switch into acute-care nurse mode.

But you know- we've put in our time. I feel mildly (only mildly) guilty when I see the hospital nurses working the 12 hour grinds, and all those weekends, and having to scrounge for someone to cover for her so she can go to her child's Christmas play, but I did my time (since 1979) doing the same thing. I think it's OK to use these years to be with our families every evening, weekend and holiday! We owe it to them and to ourselves.

Re: American Idol- I've always been aware of it, but it comes on a network we can't get on our satellite dish. (It's ABC, isn't it?) We get stations from all over the world, but can't get the local ABC channel. Something about the dishnetwork saying that we live close enough that we can pick it up on our regular antenna. We can, IF we go into one of the kids' room, and then it's fuzzy and snowy, so we just don't bother. I'll have to make it a point to try to catch Idol though.

Whew! That was a long story, wasn't it? I'll go for now. Talk to you later! (Dirk, join in this "chat" ) or anyone else who's listening!

Just an addendum re: our clinic- one of our docs is a wonderful oncologist. We do chemotherapy in the office. I don't do it, we have a certified oncology nurse. The other day she was about to go to lunch and she asked me to flush a patient's port when the last little bit of their chemo had infused. I actually got nervous! I've flushed mediports but it's been YEARS. It's a simple procedure and I know how to do it, but it's funny how it makes you feel when you haven't done something like that in so long. (you're thinking "What?!? What if I do it wrong?!?!?")

Anyway while we were talking the IVAC beeped "empty" and she did it herself since she was still there. I would need her to "check me off" anyway for competency documentation purposes. I need to do that and I know that once I do it once it'll all come back to me.

[Abbeygirl]

You know things like that is what I dread. Now I can handle very serios cases and move fast without even thinking about what I am doing and just being able to help the patient. I dread the day when I have to stop and think about something as simple as starting an IV. I guess I still resent having to slow down at this time, but I am going to have to. And like you say, I have done my time. I will let someone else have their turn. I just hope if it is ever me or a family member who goes in with a MI or worse that that someone is well trained and cares about their patients. Alot of younger nurses do not have that caring toward others. Especially the elderly. I guess they have been raised in a world where everything has been given to them and they have developed the attitude that they are the center of the world. I don't mean that to sound bad, but some of the younger nurses working in our ER are very self centered and I have witnessed them talking to the patients and their peers with alot of contempt. I over heard one young Sec/tech, age app 23 saying that if she was ever brough into the ER she did not want any of the elderly nurses touching her. She stated that would be just gross because they should not still be working there. Now keep in mind the average age in our ER is 40-45. We have nurses in their 50's, me included, that can move fast, know our stuff and do not look our age if anyone was guessing.

The latest edition of our GNA had an article in it about how to keep our more mature nurses at the bedside longer. Stating that more and more were opting to leaving at earlier ages for less stressful jobs. At their meeting the main topic of discussing was how to handle the harressment and abuse nurses had to face from their fellow nurses and administration. Evidently it is everywhere and bad. I know it is at our hospital. The article discussed the younger nurses and how they tried to push the more mature, experienced into rolls that were beneath their experience. It was very interesting and sadly very true. They also stated that most administration knew of the treatment but did nothing to stop it. They want the experience at the bedside, but do not want to make waves due to fear of losing their future nurses.

Would it not be a great world in the young would come into the field with their knowledge and work like we did to gain their experience. Instead they come into the field wanting to be the leader. They have book knowledge and that is a dangerous thing sometime. As I have said in the past "The person who does not know what she does not know is a dangerous person." The turnover rate in our hospital is high due to people moving from one department to another to get away from bullying. They will eventually find it in the new department also.

Office nurses are very much needed. A good one is priceless. My personal MD does not have a good nurse staff because he relies on MOA's and LPN's, not that there is anything wrong with a well trained LPN. His is not good on the telephone and messages do not get carried through with and you have to call several times to get them to take action on a problem. He has a large patient load, but does not want to pay a RN. He has told me many times that I was too expensive for him. That should make me feel good I guess, but he still needs someone in there who can be his second set of eyes. He can't catch everytihing. So I think your job is very important. So you don't start an IV very often, you can still teach and educate and that is the most important thing we can do for our patients.

Oh well, like you said before sorry this is so long. Just get my brain to working and it pours through my fingers into the computer. Sorry.

I want to clarify. I do not place all young nurses into the same basket. You know how you act and treat others, so I will let you place yourself in the basket you belong in. Please think about how you act and how you treat others. Learn from the more mature, experienced nurses and you will be glad you did. Hey, most of us are fun guys to be around, also.

You know things like that is what I dread. Now I can handle very serious cases and move fast without even thinking about what I am doing and just being able to help the patient. I dread the day when I have to stop and think about something as simple as starting an IV. I guess I still resent having to slow down at this time, but I am going to have to. And like you say, I have done my time. I will let someone else have their turn. I just hope if it is ever me or a family member who goes in with a MI or worse that that someone is well trained and cares about their patients. Alot of younger nurses do not have that caring toward others. Especially the elderly. I guess they have been raised in a world where everything has been given to them and they have developed the attitude that they are the center of the world. I don't mean that to sound bad, but some of the younger nurses working in our ER are very self centered and I have witnessed them talking to the patients and their peers with alot of contempt. I over heard one young Sec/tech, age app 23 saying that if she was ever brough into the ER she did not want any of the elderly nurses touching her. She stated that would be just gross because they should not still be working there. Now keep in mind the average age in our ER is 40-45. We have nurses in their 50's, me included, that can move fast, know our stuff and do not look our age if anyone was guessing.

The latest edition of our GNA had an article in it about how to keep our more mature nurses at the bedside longer. Stating that more and more were opting to leaving at earlier ages for less stressful jobs. At their meeting the main topic of discussing was how to handle the harressment and abuse nurses had to face from their fellow nurses and administration. Evidently it is everywhere and bad. I know it is at our hospital. The article discussed the younger nurses and how they tried to push the more mature, experienced into rolls that were beneath their experience. It was very interesting and sadly very true. They also stated that most administration knew of the treatment but did nothing to stop it. They want the experience at the bedside, but do not want to make waves due to fear of losing their future nurses.

Would it not be a great world if the young would come into the field with their knowledge and work like we did to gain their experience. Instead they come into the field wanting to be the leader. They have book knowledge and that is a dangerous thing sometime. As I have said in the past "The person who does not know what she does not know is a dangerous person." The turnover rate in our hospital is high due to people moving from one department to another to get away from bullying. They will eventually find it in the new department also.

Office nurses are very much needed. A good one is priceless. My personal MD does not have a good nurse staff because he relies on MOA's and LPN's, not that there is anything wrong with a well trained LPN. His is not good on the telephone and messages do not get carried through with and you have to call several times to get them to take action on a problem. He has a large patient load, but does not want to pay a RN. He has told me many times that I was too expensive for him. That should make me feel good I guess, but he still needs someone in there who can be his second set of eyes. He can't catch everytihing. So I think your job is very important. So you don't start an IV very often, you can still teach and educate and that is the most important thing we can do for our patients.

Oh well, like you said before sorry this is so long. Just get my brain to working and it pours through my fingers into the computer. Sorry brain has been idle for amost 3 months.

To the young nurses who may read this. I do not place all young nurses into the same basket. You know how you act and treat others, so I will let you place yourself in the basket you belong in. Please think about how you act and how you treat others. Learn from the more mature, experienced nurses and you will be glad you did. Hey, most of us are fun guys to be around, also. You can even use this chat site to get information when needed. We will be there for you.

[3boyzmom]

Well, you know, I think it's like riding a bike. You don't really forget. (you may lose your confidence briefly but I think you can get it right back as soon as you do something). Like the mediport; I know exactly how I did it the last time I flushed one. But tell me to do it right now, and I'll think "Do they still do it like that? Is it different now and I haven't heard?", etc. Once a man came in for an appointment and he had a relatively new G-tube; the family said they disconnected it from the machine because they didn't think they could get the machine in the car (where was Home Health, or Discharge Teaching at the hospital, that they weren't sure they should do this? Or to tell them how?) They clamped it but didn't irrigate it when they disconnected it at home. So I'm thinking to myself "surely you still flush them, don't you? I would think so. The last time I flushed one, did I use tap water? Sterile water? What?" So I just reasoned, even if they aren't telling people to flush them anymore (which they surely are), I can't hurt anything by doing it, and it'll be on the "safe" side; and why not put tap water in, because other things that go in there aren't sterile, etc. Just had to reason it out to myself. But yes, I would still prefer to be confident about it right from the start and just DO it and not worry about it.

Re: office nurses- I'm the nurse manager, we have 5 other nurses. 2 are RN's also, and 3 are LVN's. I never cease to be proud of them. When a nurse works with one doctor long enough (4 of them are assigned to their own doc) they learn how he thinks, what he prefers, what he will do in certain situations, etc, and they really ARE his second pair of eyes and even his "brain" sometimes. It's a super-simple thing, that you would think "DUH" about, but I always think of my late dad when I go over a patient's meds. He came home from his doctor one day and said "There was a new nurse there- she went over every one of my medications with me. The other one used to say "do you still take all the same meds?" but this one listed each one of them and even asked me some questions about them." He was so impressed. That made a huge impression on him and he really trusted her. Felt completely different about her than he had the previous nurse. And it's really not a small thing; if you say "are you still taking the same meds?" 9 times out of 10 a person will say "yes", but if you go down the list one by one, you'll find that it's totally out of date ("oh no, he told me to stop that one. My cardiologist cut the dose in half on that one. I went to the rheumatologist and he gave me some new ones.") An up to date med list is an important thing.

Also when I said "roughly 60 calls a day", that's EACH nurse, not total. It's a very fine-tuned juggling act. And our policy is that we return each and every call the same day. We also try to work in patients to be seen the same day if they're sick, if at all possible. (With my mom's old doctor it used to work like this- she'd be sick, call to get in, and they'd tell her she could come in 3 days later. She would always say "I'll either be well or dead by then.")

Young nurses- it always amazes me when someone comes right out of school with a goal of being a supervisor. What?!?? Can she possibly have any idea what she's asking for? I've been at it since 1981 (as an RN, 1979 for LVN) and I STILL wouldn't want to be a hospital supervisor. No thanks, too much pressure and too much riding on your REALLY KNOWING WHAT TO DO. I know what you mean, don't anyone take it personally because if you're a good one, you know who you are, and there are certainly a lot of them. But there is a little subculture of the kind of people you're talking about.

Older nurses- (how weird, to be in one's 40's and thought of as an "older" nurse!) Aside from the attitude you describe from other nurses, I always wonder about this- when nurses have worked at the same place for most of their career, and they're extremely valuable, you would think, I've seen this often- she finally decides to quit for whatever reason, and I'm thinking "they'll offer her a raise or ask her what it would take to keep her" because I'm sure you remember that employers USED to do that. But now it seems that most of the time they not only DON'T make an effort to keep her, they don't always even acknowledge her resignation. Her last day just comes, and that's that. I figure it's because of $$$$$. If she's making say $27 an hour by that time, and a new grad is making $18, well, you do the math. What do you think? Makes sense to me.

Well aren't we just the chatty ones! I enjoy it though!

[Abbeygirl]

Hi. Been gone for several days. Went to Florida with 2 friends. Just a girls getaway. We had fun. What has happened while I was gone? Were in the world did all the spam come from? I guess this is not a secure site anymore.

Dirk you appear to be up on all of this. Why can they not stop them from using this site? Other than just using my computer the rest of the business is above me. I know I have been getting alot of spam pop-ups. I can hardly use my computer anymore for clearing them. They have not gotten to my E-mail yet, but if they get this far it won't be long before they do, right? I had to change E-mails one time before because every day I would have app. 250 sites that I had to delete. That is very time consuming and most were nasty mails.

My grandchildren use this computer and I do not want them to see these things, but they did the other day. That just makes me very mad. I had them blocked until recently. What happened? What can I do to stop them now? How did they get around the block. I guess I really don't much about computers except the basics.

[3boyzmom]

I sent an e-mail to "nursechat" because I realized I haven't seen him or Nawlinsgirl either one here for awhile, to ask him if there's anything he can do about the spammers. Probably not though. I used to visit a forum for families of the mentally ill (my oldest is mentally ill) and it was a great site for a long time, but finally spammers just literally took it over. I think it's shut down now.

JUST IN CASE anything like that happens here there is another site called RN Village that is a nice site. It used to be very active but has trickled down to almost nothing. It's set up well, and easy to use. I like the way you can reply to posts because they don't go one after the other chronologically; for example if twelve people have responded to a post, and you want to reply to what the 3rd responder said, you can get in right under her post and post. And everyone can clearly see and follow it. It'd be great if that would get going again.

Ah, a two day trip with the girls sounds like heaven! About 10 years ago I did that with 2 friends, went to Las Vegas. I'm not crazy about Vegas but it was so fun with "the girls". So much laughing and silliness!
I've taken one-day road trips with girlfriends before, like to concerts. Those are fun too. The last one I saw was Billy Joel and Elton John (not the hard-rock ones I went to as a kid!!) Hank Williams Jr. is coming to San Antonio in September, I'd love to see that show but probably won't make it. As a teen I'd sneak off to Houston to concerts with a bunch of friends while my mom thought I was sleeping over at a friends' house--Oh I was a BAD kid!!!

[Dirk]

Hello !

I am really sorry to see, what happens to this great place.
I really miss the talk to you, and to Nawlinsgirl.
I met her recently in the messenger - and she told me, that she isn´t able to work until now. I asked her, to stay with us - but I think, that she isn´t able to be here the next time. Perhaps she isn´t able to write because of her aching wrist.


On my homepage I don´t let spammers leave their rubbish - senseless topics (and every kind of advertisement or other spam is senseless if I want to talk about nursing) will be deleted and the spammer will be signed as spammer and blocked ...
That is, what I do with forum-spammers.
If nursechat would like have one of us as a moderator it would be easy to take care for this page.

Perhaps we can create an own page, to talk about everything.

What do you think ????

DIrk