Road Nurse

My nursing gear

road nurse — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:32:38 +0000

Here’s all my nursing gear in my trunk:

All the boxes go in my trunk. Laid out on the floor is all of my wound care supplies–we do a lot of wound care, as you can see!

The boxes are arranged as follows: General supplies, wound care, IV/Lab, foleys, and ostomy care with some random supplies.

I think I could just about stock a hospital unit right now!

(photo taken with the new Iphone!)

Good Deeds

road nurse — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 01:16:11 +0000

I felt like I did good for a patient today.

10/10 neuropathic foot pain, and refusing all pain meds except neu.ron.tin. Says that he doesn’t want to feel stoned. I’ve been arguing with him over this for 3 visits…today, I finally thought of Lido.derm patches! Brought them up, and he agreed immediately upon hearing what they were. Hopefully by tomorrow, he’ll be out of pain.

Cancer patients can be so rewarding.

Accidents happen

road nurse — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:47:05 +0000

When I started this job, my friends and I took bets on how long it would take for me to get into a car accident.

Two months.

Edit: I guess I should probably remember to say I’m fine, it was just a fender bender. No worries.

Argh!

road nurse — Sat, 24 May 2008 21:19:53 +0000

My GPS is dead!

I’ve only had it for about a month, and now everytime we start it up, it says, “Updating GPS firmware,” counts up to 100%, says, “Firmware update complete”…and then does the whole thing again. And again. And again.

Garmin website doesn’t help. Circuit city doesn’t help. My IT husband doesn’t know how to help.

Anyone with ideas? I need a new GPS by Tuesday morning, because I can’t read a map at all!

Thievery!

road nurse — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:16:27 +0000

When you find yourself stealing your wife’s fentanyl patches, you know there’s a problem…

Done with Orientation!

road nurse — Sat, 10 May 2008 16:40:08 +0000

So, after 5 weeks, I’m finally done with orientation/preceptorship. I had my first day alone yesterday(Friday), and I think it went pretty well. Saw three patients, spent about an hour on the phone, got all my paperwork done…overall it went well. Once I got started, I was fine, however, making that first phone call was a little nerve wracking. I know that will get better.

Monday I have another three patients on my schedule–including a wound vac that I’m covisiting on, a daily wound visit, and a pain management case. Should be interesting.

Maureen

road nurse — Thu, 08 May 2008 01:06:28 +0000

One year ago today, my coworker Maureen died at work, after a 2.5 hour megacode. I miss her terribly, and the horror of her code gave me PTSD that’s finally starting to ease up.

She wouldn’t want me feeling sad about her today, and yet…

Rest in peace, Maureen.

Update

road nurse — Thu, 01 May 2008 01:30:03 +0000

Unfortunately, there isn’t much going on this week. Classroom, classroom, and more classroom.

Busy day today: meetings at Suburb Location 1 from 8-10, class at Downtown Location from 10-1230, one visit in Suburb 2, then back for class and paperwork at Suburb Location 1 from 215-4. Lots of driving from place to place, which I guess is the way of the Road Nurse, yes?

Black Cloud, Part 2

road nurse — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:41:50 +0000

So, remember how my first patient died?

8 days in the field, and already I’ve had a second unexpected death.

Jeez. Even my preceptor says I have a black cloud now.

Message for patients

road nurse — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:16:08 +0000

A quick note to my patients:

If we’re going to fill a mediset(pill box) for you, you have to take them in order. Taking whatever day’s and time’s meds whenever you feel like it doesn’t work so well…