http://jen.ceejayoz.com/

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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…

Had a mixed day today, with half of the day spent doing visits and half in the classroom.  We started off early this morning (7am, new preceptor) with 12 flights of steps to go up.  Yikes-I was half dead by the 10th floor. Rock climbing is not so good for cardiac endurance.  Next time should be easier.  The second and third patient weren’t too remarkable–a hickman blood draw and a general nursing visit.

The afternoon started off a bit slower, with someone reading  us slides on SBAR reporting, then a chat regarding the private pay aide service we run.  After that we moved into the diabetes education, which I was thinking would be dull–3 hours on a topic I feel I know pretty well.  However, once we got into it I found myself quite interested.  The CDE was very knowledgable, and though I knew about half of what we talked about, the other half was new to me.  Example: alcohol is a hypoglycemic agent, because when the body runs out of sugar, usually the liver will take over and push some glucose out.  However, when you’re drinking, the liver is processing the alcohol, and apparently it can only do one thing at a time(single minded liver).  So, hypoglycemia!  Also learned how to use an insulin pen, which I’ve always wanted to do.

After the talk on diabetes, I went out with the CDE to a patient’s house where she had scheduled some diabetic teaching to do.  There, we met with an older gentleman who, though fairly knowledgable about his diabetes, was still having some new troubles with high blood sugars and a skin infection that wasn’t clearing up.  Chatted with him for about an hour, left the house with a new plan of care and some numbers–I now know who to call for education, that’s for sure.

10 hour day today–100 miles put on between two cars, and I only saw 4 patients! Hopefully a shorted day tomorrow.  Classroom training all day.