Send A Man To Nursing School

Not much is so rewarding in life as applying a suppository to a trial attorney….

I’m just saying…

Night number one was a decent night. On a floor where the team work was great!

Night number two comes.
1730 I get a call. Well, actually a voice message cuz I’m in the shower getting ready for work. I call back and I’m told I’m to come in at 2300 instead of 1900. OK.
{scratching my head when she couldn’t tell me what what my assignment would be given they modified my shift to these particular hours}

I stop my prep and lay down on the couch to watch some videos, after sending SU an email at work (we’re working opposite shifts all weekend to see how that rolls) to let her know.
SU comes through the door a little later and sees me on the couch.
“What’s wrong? Are you ok?”
“Yup, was told to come in at 11 instead of 7.”

I make her dinner and lay back down, setting the timer to make sure I get back up by 2200.

Time rolls around, I go in at my 2300 appointed time, check the board for my assignment, and….
No assignment. Name is on the board but no assignment. So I go over to the staff managers office and ask what going on. She makes a call and tells me to go to the ortho rehab unit.  (Damn!  Was hoping for something like ICU again…)

I get up on the floor, get report on my six (ONLY 6!) patients.  Three NAs and 20 patients; where they are for the most part well up on narcotics.  Should be a decent, easy, short shift.  Spend 30 minutes getting report and some basic things in order.  Another 30 minutes of actually doing a couple of things for my patients, and then the phone rings.

It’s the charge RN telling me that the float NA that was assigned to the ICU has been released from the ICU (they didn’t need him after all) and since he’s fulltime and I’m PRN they are moving him to rehab and I’m to go home.

Two hours after getting there I’m walking out the door again.  So glad I only live 20 minutes away.  Some of these guys live an hour from the hospital.  If I had driven that far I mighta been pissed.

Still not sure why they just didn’t call me off in the first place.  Oh well.  It at least paid for the gas to go back and forth and keeps me on the night schedule/routine (nothing worse than getting called of the 2nd of the 3 days of nights and having 2 “first” nights).

Sweat dreams!  I’m off to sleep the day away to be ready for work tonight!

Life’s little lessons.  The words of experience….

About Icy Hot

1)  Never put on Icy Hot immediately after getting out of a hot shower, and

2)  Never, ever, ever, pick your nose after applying Icy Hot to your hands…

I’m just saying

Well, the holiday work wasn’t quite what I was hoping.  Nothing cool like ED or ICU or anything that involved caring for the fools who mix alcohol, fireworks, and automobiles.  Instead I had two nights of sitting.  Oh well.  (Can’t complain too much about getting holiday pay to spend half my time sitting on my butt watching TV (which just reinforced why I don’t watch much TV).)

Of course I got to spend 12 (+) hours sitting with patients who are on contact isolation.  Which means spending the night in one of those hot, nasty, yellow gowns with gloves on the entire time.  Certainly won’t be lifting one of those to bring home for nighttime sleepwear I’ll tell you that.

Naturally you can’t imagine the body parts that start to itch the moment you don that gown and gloves.  And when it was all said and done I just couldn’t “get clean.”  I’ve showered.  I’ve scrubbed.  I’ve gargled.  I still feel icky and crawly.  I’m sure it’s all psychological.  I sure HOPE it’s all just psychological!  lol

Nothing of significance to report from the shifts other than that.  Though I have been off work for over twenty-four hours now and it feels like I just left.  Woke up ydy afternoon with a nasty headache so I spent most of the rest of the day/night sleeping.  I’ve no clue what day it is…as Jimmy Buffett says “The days drift by, they don’t have names…”

I go back in tomorrow for a half day or so of classes and then I’m off for 8 days.

Did I mention I feel like I’m covered in crawlys?????  sigh  They just won’t wash off.

Anyway, SU and I had a great mini-vacation.  Wen to see Monticello, which oddly enough neither of us has ever visited.  It was a great first visit.  We didn’t get in on the “behind the scene’s tour” and there are two other Presidential properties nearby (Highland (Monroe) and Montpelier (Madison)) plus the Monticello/Jefferson vineyards make some damn good wine.  Best whites I’ve ever had.  That means we need to go back.  Our lodgings were fantastic and the weather was beyond awesome.  It couldn’t have worked out better and was a perfect retreat.

Let me just start by saying that any one day on the floor as an NA is easily worth a week of clinicals in school!

I have completed my orientation and have also had my first two days on my own.  Orientation consisted of two days with an RN (skills check off I presume) and two days with an NA.  My two days with an NA, for some reason, was with NA I’s (I’m an NA II which means I can do more procedures like placing urinary catheters, wound care, etc.).

Day 1: Was assigned to work on the ortho step down unit with an RN who I had twice as a co-assign during clinicals back in March.  Was a great day.  Followed her off and on and had 5 patients where I was the NA.  Great start to the process.

Day 2:  I’m assigned to another RN that was a co-assign a couple of times during my clinicals.  She’s excited that I’m working with her and blurts out “My favorite nursing student!!” as I approach.  This is heard by the unit manager and I earn a silver star!  (Stars are a form of “Atta Boy” used in the hospital and are attached to our badges.  You earn one for each recognition that comes from a client or co-worker).  Awesome start to day two!!!  Another great day of learning what needs to be done and working somewhat on my own.

Day 3:  (A Saturday) Upon arrival to the ortho unit I’m told that I’ll be with an NA other than the one I was assigned and the new preceptor and I are floated to the ortho rehab unit.  No problem.  I’m flexible and team player.  Unfortunately it kinda detoured at that point.  The NA usually works nights and this was a day, she isn’t that great of a communicator, and she isn’t well organized.  Throw in that all this work seems to be getting in the way of her social life and Wastebook (Facebook) experiences.  While spending most of the day trying to figure out what to do and when and being her personal bitch I try to make it a learning opportunity.  Then she tells me (after lunch) that she is only working an 8 hour shift and is leaving at 1500 (I’m scheduled for a twelve hour shift, my first twelve hour shift which I was looking forward to experiencing so I would know how I do…).  At 1500 she just walks away from any dangling tasks (after she napped through the charting - lol) and gives report to the oncoming NA and tells me to go home.  I go the charge RN on the ortho stepdown unit and ask if they have any work for me.  The charge RN calls the staffing coordinator and has me assigned to orient under an NA on a Med/Surg unit.  Off I go!  It is here, after a year of nursing school and 3 days or NA orientation, that I have my first ‘nasty crap’ case.  Client was on contact precautions and was performing projectile diarrhea excretions, suspected of being infected with c.diff!  Ewww.
Gagged twice but DID NOT throw up!  YAY  However, that smell was in my nose for 4 more days - LOL

Day 4:  My first night shift and I’m back on the ortho stepdown with a male NA.  Was a great night.  He gave some great tips on dealing with clients and organizing my work and time.  I also stayed awake better than expected, not feeling the effects until about 0500.  Slept like the dead the next day though! LOL

Fast forward three days and, even though I don’t quite feel I’m fully “oriented”, I have my first days on my own.  Two twelve hour day shifts, back to back.

Day 1 on my own:  AWESOME!!  Was assigned to the ortho rehab unit with about 9-10 clients.  It was a great experience.  I was able to organize myself to stay on task and time, had a great time with the patients.  Still lots to work out and learn, but not a bad start for being on my own.  Then it got to be near 1430…the charge RN tells me that I’m going to be floated but she’s fighting it.  1500 and she loses her argument and I’m to go to….wait for it….yep, to ICU!!
Exciting and daunting all at once.  I finish up what I’m doing on the rehab unit and do report to the oncoming NA.  Then I have a problem…I have no clue where ICU is!! ROFL  One of the charge RNs has to walk me down to it.  Last four hours of my first day are absolutely wonderful.  Did some minor things, including transferring a patient from the unit to the telemetry unit, and then I spend an hour holding down the leg of a guy who had had a MI.  They had put a temporary pacer in through his femoral artery and my job was to hold his leg until he settled down.  While what I did physically was minimal, it was SO nursing.  I was in that room holding his leg, comforting him and talking to him while his wife and son where there, and others (RNs, DRs, etc) are floating in and out.  Talk about being there during an absolute “worst day in our lives” time.  There is just so much more to nursing than putting on bandages and sticking needles.  This is why I’m here.
So, day 1 of being a real NA and I’m pumped, what a great first day.

Day 2 on my own:  Get to work and find I’m assigned to the surgical/bariatric unit.  Never been there, but no big deal, I can figure it out.  Check in, get my phone, and get report from the outgoing NA.  I have fourteen patients with 3 on contact isolation, one of which is mostly a total care and the other is a complete total care (as in this person can do nothing for themselves including feeding).  The day was a steady stream of calls from the HUC (unit secretary who relays patient calls/requests to the staff) that was one fire upon fire.  Vital signs are done every four hours on all but one of the patients, due at 1000, 1400, and 1800.  It’s about 1130-1145 and I’m in the total-total care patients room with the charge RN helping me clean them up from a BM and I tell her that I am soooo way behind, I’ve only done 4 of the 1000 VSs and haven’t even started to get the AccuChecks (blood sugar testing) for lunch (and the lunch trays are starting to arrive).   She is exasperated (though not at me) and kicks in to help me get AccuChecks done.  Time for the 1400 VSs and again I’m behind but eventually get them done.  I’m made to go to lunch at 1600 (I had decided I just wasn’t going to get lunch but the charge RN insisted).  Get back and am trying to start on the dinner AccuChecks and a head start on 1800 VSs.  Forty-five minutes later and I’ve done zero ACs and 2 VSs when I get a call that the almost total-care client is requesting to go to the bathroom (he’s also contact isolation).  Based on the timing of things and history that pretty much means that they have gone on themself and is a two person job to turn and roll.  I go to the charge RN and tell her I’m again behind and fighting fires.  She steps in again and helps.  1940 and I have finally finished everything on my plate from about 1900 and I haven’t given report to the oncoming NA or done ANY CHARTING.  Call the SU and tell here what’s going on (ie Honey, I’m going to be late…) and proceed to do turnover and charting.  One long day.

So here I am.  Still have some skills check-off’s to get done and a week off before I go back this Saturday.   Still pumped and ready to do the holiday night shifts!  Hoping I get ICU or ED- he he

SU is celebrating a birthday this week and we’re taking off for a couple of days.
I’m getting things ready for the trip and get out two suitcases.  She sees them and says “Hey, you wanta just share one suitcase?”  I respond that I would but usually she takes a whole one and she says “Nah, I can get by with half.”  OK

Half hour later…SU comes up to me and says “Damn-it!  You know me too well.  We’re going to need our own suitcases….And now that’s your new nickname ‘Damn-it!  You know me too well.’”  She’s now just calling me Damn-it for short

And that’s not just a saying.
First real bad poop case on Saturday afternoon.

Last day of orientation tonight.

Hope to get a recount up on here in the next day or two…stay tuned.

Finally received my schedule yesterday for the second half of my floor orientation.
Working this Thursday through Saturday and then again Monday night.

Weee

The best part is that all of my orientation is on the ortho recovery unit where I was trying to get a static position anyway! YAY

Once orientation is complete I can be floated anywhere in the hospital, but my understanding is that the ortho unit is kind of my “home base.”

Works for me.

Today I will finish my hospital/health system orientation.

By Monday I should have my schedule for the unit(s) orientation that will occur over the next 10-14 days.

In some ways I feel “WOW, this is so cool and wonderful!” and in others it’s “OMG, they are really going to put people’s lives in my hands??  How silly of them!”

Pissed off that the first two-three days of orientation the weather became springlike and SU was off work.  Now that I’m going to have a few days free again the weather is back to miserable and SU will be working nights (meaning she’s asleep during the day when I want to do things and make noise).
Sigh

Also, I have to go buy some scrubs today.  Though I’m a little annoyed that as a male I’m pretty much limited to solids.  As an NA we have to wear ceil blue.  Tops can be floral print, so long as ceil blue is the primary tone so we can readily be identified as an NA.  So, unless I can find a “manly floral” I’m stuck with solid.  Not happy.

SU is laying in the dentist chair.
The lidocaine is starting to take affect when she has the realization that it feels like she could have an allergic reaction (though it doesn’t).
Wit that she looks up at the dentist and hygienist and asks, “Is any one here ACLS certified….besides me??”

Today starts the week long orientation for the PRN NA job at the hospital.

Getting paid to sit and listen to the things they have to tell me so I can’t say “They didn’t tell me!”
LOL