Well, I am very new to this blogging stuff but I want to give it a shot. I have a Myspace account and I really enjoy blogging on it but I wanted to have a spot where I could just go to whenever I felt like it and post my thoughts. So, let the blogging begin.....
Being an R.N. I hate my job, I love my job. I need to deceide!! I have had an inner struggle going on inside since I graduated as an R.N. on May 13, 2004. There are not enough words or space on the internet to describe the excitement and sense of accomplishment I felt when I walked across the stage to be pinned as an R.N. I went to the hospital where I am currently still employed and had an interview for a floor nurse position. During the interview I was asked why I wanted the position that I was applying for. I remember it like it was yesterday. I felt so overwhelmed that all my hard work to become a nurse was finally paying off and I was about to become an R.N. at a hospital......I started crying!!! Oh my God, they are gonna think I am nuts!! I told them I was just overwhelmed with excitement and the realization that this was really happening. Finally all the studying,working 16 hour shifts EVERY weekend, test taking, 12 hour clinicals, and stress was paying off and I was in the moment that all of that had led me too....becoming a staff R.N. I remember the nurse manager telling me(with tears rolling down her face) that I had displayed to them what they remembered feeling when they graduated and they were very proud of my accomplishment and they were sure that I would have a job there if I chose to accept it. I left there that day feeling so high on life that no drug could ever compare.
Today, well today is a complete 180. My job 90% of the time is not at all what I had invisioned it to be. If nursing was what I had invisioned 4 1/2 years ago, I know I would be skipping out the door every day to get to work. The sad thing is...I have never in my entire life worked so gut wrenchingly hard to get something I hate so much. I know, I know, that sounds so very bad. I hate feeling this way and if I could stop feeling this way I WOULD!!!!! My dream was to go to work, use my training and knowledge to make differences in peoples lives. I wanted to be the lady people seen in the starched white dress, white hose and white shoes that floated down the hall into your room and saved your day and possibly your life. I wanted to be the nurse that people had admiration for and respected. I wanted respect from Doctor's and co-workers. I know it seems to be alot to ask for but for anyone who has endured nursing school and all the sacrifices it takes to do it, would completely understand where my "dream" is coming from. In nursing school you are told how important your role as a nurse is and how one wrong decesion can cost someone their life. That One sentence makes me think....Damn, I should have some respect for what I do!! Guess what...?? Reality has hit me so hard I have tread marks!!! When I first started as an R.N. the Doctors knew I was a new nurse. Do they care? Do they cut you any slack? Hell NO!! They want you to know what they want, how they want it, when they want it and you should allready know WHY they want it! God forbid you tell them you can't read the scrawlings that they call hand writing. This will send them into a rage of telling you what a worthless piece of crap you are and how stupid you are that you can not read their legable scrawl!! I have had this happen. I am speaking on all of this from my own unfortunate experiences.
I had a doctor come to the floor one day to put a central line in a patient. very, very LONG story short......I had told him I had never assisted with this and I needed to know what supplies he needed me to gather for him(because God forbid a doctor lower himself to get his own supplies). He told me 3 things to get...and I did. When we got in the patients room he must have sent me out of the room 20 times to get supplies that HE didn't tell me he needed...I just should have known!!! Then when the procedure was done and he had reduced me to the level of a slug in front of the patient, he told me to go away and leave him alone. YIP...aaahhhh the appreciation and gratification of being a nurse is off to a good start!!
This was just one of MANY, MANY, MANY instances of doctors treating nurses like major piles of dung. I have seen many nurses come and go and have seen even more of them cry because of a doctors cruel tongues and unbelieveable self-righteous attitudes. Then you have the co-worker crisis. I know every job has it's problems with co-workers and I have personally worked with alot of buttholes in my time on different jobs, but when I became an R.N. I was disillusioned into thinking it would be different in a hospital. I thought everyone would work as a team and do what was best for the good of the patient. WRONG, WRONG, so very, very WRONG!!! I have always considered myself a hard worker and have never considered myself lazy. I do not like lazy people and I despise the insinuation. When I became an R.N. I became the laziest piece of worthless flesh ever!! I have had the displeasure of working with MANY c.n.a.'s that think all nurses do is sit at the nurses desk and chat with their co-workers(other nurses). I have overheard c.n.a.'s talking about how over paid nurses are and that they should get paid more than nurses because they do all the work. Let me just say HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! They have no frickin' clue! I will be the first to admit that c.n.a.'s have hard jobs and they usually work their butts off but it is in a totally different way than a nurse. I was an aide and I know it is hard work but not the same an being a nurse. The responsibility is in no way shape or form comparable. I have never seen a c.n.a. call adoctor or ring their hands while a patient goes south! It is all up to the nurse to handle that. I just can't sum up the difference between an aide and a nurse in a short space, but if you have 2 or more brain cells then you know the difference and I do not need to explain it. Needless to say, team work does not come easy even in a hospital when lives depend on it....thus making my job even harder at times.
Now, lets not forget the "patient". The patient is the whole reason I had this illusion of being a nurse and making a difference. No one could prepare me for dealing with patients. Just because you are a patient in a hospital does not mean you are "sick" physcially. Let me tell you what I mean by this. I was disilusioned that when I became a nurse I would help sick people get well. Not so much. I have found out that ALOT of my patient load is people who have nothing wrong with them but LOVE hospitals. People who are drug seekers. People who need a vacation from their jobs and personal lives and yes lets not forget the people who just are there because their caregivers need a "break". These patients take alot of time and the people who truly are sick, well sadly alot of times they get shoved aside. This is not done intentionally but the ones who are not really sick are the ones who run you ragged and demand your time. The patients who are really sick either can not speak for them selves or do not speak for themselves because they would rather be anywhere doing anything than laying in a hospital bed facing their impending death. The really sick people do not ask for much and are always the ones who are the most kind and thankful. When you are really ill and you know you HAVE to depend on someone for your well-being it makes you humble, being humble in turn makes you grateful and appreciative. The other classifications of patients are the rudest, least grateful and have no problem or guilt with treating their nurses like waitresses and servants.
I would like to share one truly disturbing patient with you that falls into this category. "Johnny" was a 40 year old male admitted with scrotum pain. Johnny complained of severe pain and was immediately admitted. When Johnny got to the floor he had a catheter. The doctor had put him on narcotics to help with pain management. Several tests were run. I came on shift at 7pm. I was told in report that "Johnny had many, many tests to find a reason for his scrotum pain and no answers had been found. The doctor had deceided to discontinue the catheter. After the cath was removed Johnny started having hematuria. Hematuria is blood in the urine and is not to be taken lightly because it can be a symptom of bladder cancer as well as other things. This finding was very disturbing not only to the doctor but to the nurses. We all knew this could be a very bad sign that Johnny could possibly be dealt a death sentence at a young 40 years old. I remember being very concerned for this patient and feeling sad for him. I had also received in report that he had been complaining of nausea/vomitting. Again, not a good thing. Johnny was the first patient I went to see when I got out of repot. He was laying in bed watching tv. I introduced myself and began my assessment. Johnny rated his pain at 10/10 and asked for pain medication. He also stated that he was nauseated and would like Phenergan for that. I immediately went and got his pain medication(strong i.v. narcotics) and his Phenergan (anti-nausea medication that has a sedation effect). He took all the medication. I noticed blood was smeared all over his room. He had blood on his floor, bedrails, urinal, sheets, toilet, sink and on his hands. I asked him about all the blood I seen smeared everywhere and he told me he was clumsy with his urinal and had spilleed it several times. I felt very sympathetic for this patient because he obviousely had been having quite alot of blood in his urine. I told him if he needed anything to please call me. I left the room. In the meantime the doctor had written orders to obtain a urine sample for testing. I went back into Johnny's room and informed him that the next time he voided I needed a sample of it. He shook his head and said "OK". I noticed Johnny was drinking one liter bottles of Gatorade and I thought to myself it would not take long to get the urine sample. I left the room. Thirty minutes later Johnny turned his light on and asked for more pain medication. He said his pain was worse and he needed something stronger than he was getting. He asked me to please call the doctor and tell him his pain medication was not working. I called the doctor, received more orders and gave a Johnny the medication. I am feeling very bad for Johnny at this point and going out of my way to give him good nursing care and still take good care of my other 5-6 patients who are all sick too. Johnny's light comes on again. "I need something to eat". I asked if he was still nauseated. "Nope, feeling much better". So, I call the nursing suoervisor pull her from her work to go to the cafeteria and get Johnny some food. She brings up a sandwich, chips, pudding and cheese and crackers. Johnny ate it all. Johnny's light is on again "I am still hungry. I also need to know if it is time for pain medication. Can you just bring in the medication whenever I can have it and that way I don't have to ask for it"? I tell Johnny I will get him some more food. I call the supervisor again. I tell him I can not just bring in pain meds when he can have them, they are ordered PRN(as needed) and he will have to ask for them when he is hurting. I remind him that I need a urine sample and he tells me he feels like he will be able to urinate soon. Soon the C.N.A. takes his vital signs and his blood pressure is 225/116. I immediately call the doctor. I tell the doctor I am concerned about his blood pressure. I tell him he is still rating his pain at 10/10 and has been eating but also complained of nausea earlier. I receive new orders. I take Johnny his second round of food, give him MORE pain medication and again tell him I need urine. Johnny asks for Phenergan because he thinks he is nauseated agian. Phenergan given. I leave the room and am trying to pass meds to other patients and assess them. Johnny turns on his call light. His I.V. has went bad. I have to stop everything I am doing and re-start his I.V. so he can have his pain medication. He has poor veins and it takes 2 sticks to get the I.V. I again remind him that I REALLY need urine, I ask him to try to urinate and then turn on his light and I will collect the urine. I am now officially very behind on my assisgnments I need to get done for my other patients. Johnny turns on his call light. "I can't pee". I tell Johnny he has drank ALOT of fluid and there is no reason why he should not be able to pee. I am immediately concerned that he is having even more problems , even more than blood in his urine. I am at this point concerned and decide to see if his kidneys are making urine. I now have to stop everything I am doing AGAIN, go to the Inpatient Rehab floor and get the bladder scanner machine. The bladder scanner is a probe that you run over the patients bladder and it will give you a read out of how much urine is in their bladder in cc's. I go into Johnnys room, bladder scan him and it shows less than 100 cc's. I become immediately concerned for him and tell him I am concerned that his kidney's are not functioning the way they should and he is not producing urine. I should call the doctor and let him know. Johnny then tells me to give him one more hour and he will try to pee again. OK, one more hour, if he does not pee...I am calling the doctor. I leave Johnny's room and try very hard to catch up on all my other work and check on my other patients. I feel bad that I have been in Johnnys room half the night but after all he is reaslly sick. He can't pee, he is having horrible pain, and nausea and he has had blood in his urine for the previous shift. I run my butt off to get caught up on my work and my charting....oh lord, the charting is a whole other story. They jammed it in our heads in nursing school..."If you didn't chart it, you didn't do it". In other words CYA!!!(cover your ass). I need to do some serious charting on Johnny, he has multiple problems and I need to chart all of his complaints, all the medication I have given, all the doctor calls and every conversation we have had regarding his pain. Well one hour is up and I go to Johnny's room. "Were you able to pee"? Johnny says he did and that it is in the bathroom in the urinal. I am happy. Finally something is going right and I can finally collect the urine sample I need. I pick up the urinal and pour the VERY small amount of bloody urine into the specimen cup. Wait, I think to myself. This urine is cold, cold, cold. I ask Johnny when he urinated and he told me "Just now". I am thinking to myself....why is this urine this cold if he just urinated and why is it such a small amount? I become very suspicious. I take the urine to the lab and ask them to take the temperature on it....it does not register on the temperature sticker. I ask them to spin it and see if it is really urine. Maybe he poured Gatorade into his urinal. Why would he do that? The lab spins the urine and verify that it is indeed urine with a LARGE amount of blood in it. I am soo very suspicious at this point and time. Things just don't add up. Johnny is nauseated, yet he eats like a cow. Johnny is not urinating, yet he is drinking and drinking and drinking. Johnny complains of SEVERE pain, yet he looks fine. I get on the elevator and can't shake the questions. Most of all the biggest question....Why was his urine so very cold??? I hash it over in my mind and fight with myself. Call the doctor at 3:30 in the morning, tell him what is going on? I am suspicious of this patient but I can't put my finger on the exact problem. What if the doctor asks why I am bothering him? What do I say? Then I decide...this is all too wierd!! I am calling. I call the doctor and tell him EVERYTHING that has been going on for the last 9 long hours. I receive the strangest order. Insert a catheter, then call the doctor back. Why am I doing this?? I take the order and go insert the catheter. I am just SHOCKED when I immediately get the prettiest clear, clear yellow urine I have ever seen. I call the doctor and tell him. New orders........discontinue the catheter(after I collect a urine sample from the catheter bag) that I just inserted and discontinue the I.V. Oh and also discontinue all pain medication. Oh my God!! Is this doctor trying to get me killed here?? I start asking the doctor..why? Why am I doing all this??? Then I get the explanation that to this day has angered me to the core. I shall never forget Johnny for this. I will never forget spending 9 long hours being a servant to this man and feeling so sorry for him because of all this medical "problems". I will never forget how hard I worked to take good care of him, the very best I could and catch anything and everything I could so that he would have the good nursing care that all sick people deserve to get. I will never forget Johnny for keeping me on edge, hoping I was seeing and doing everything I could to be the eyes and ears for that doctor so that not one single thing was missed while trying to find a diagnosis that was owed to him and every patient I take care of who comes to the hospital scared, and putting their lives in our hands. I will never forget Johnny for being such a total absolute FRAUD. My jaw dropped as the doctor explained to me what was going on. Johnny never had scrotum pain. Johnny never had blood in his urine and Johnny was never nauseated. Johnny was drug seeking. He used the scrotum pain complaint to get the pain meds. Johnny was using his I.V. site to milk blood out of it to put in with his urine to make us think he had hematuria. Remember earlier in the story I told you his I.V. site went bad and I had to stop everything I was doing to put one back in? He had milked it so much...it went bad. As for the nausea.......there wasn't any. Johnny loved the feeling Phenergan gave him. He liked the sedative effect.
Now, I tell this very long story to make a very important point. Johnny was not the first and definately will not be the last patient who has used and horribly ABUSED the medical profession. Johnny has left a very bad impression on me towards my job. If it was just an isolated case then I could chalk it up as a wild experience and great story but the sad part is...I deal with people like this ALL the time. They are RAPING the medical profession on a daily basis. This is not the tye of patient I had in mind when I had the "glow" to become a nurse and help people. This in turn has made me very turned off by my career choice. I worked VERY hard to become a nurse....for what? To be treated like a fool by drug seeking patients while the really sick people who are laying in their beds facing the possibility of death are pushed to the back of the burner because they don't demand so much of the nurses time. Again let me say. The sickest people are the easiest to take care of. They are the most humble and most thankful. Johnny was neither. He was a junkie not trying to help himself improve but manipulating anyone and everyone he could to fulfill his selfish needs.
This is why I hate my job on most days. Thanks for reading. I am done for now but trust me, much much more will follow in the days to come. I need to find some peace in my life when it comes to my job. I read a sign recently that got me thinking. "Don't ever be so busy making a living that you forget to make a life". I have become quite comfortable with the good money being a nurse brings. My job satisfaction is very low. How do I maintain the good pay and have job satifaction? This is my toughest question. I have a deep belief in God. When my journey started to become a nurse (and it was quite a journey. Maybe I will tell that story in a future blog) God opened every door and allowed me to just walk right through each one with no problems. I worked diligently to be where I am but God made the path as smooth as I could have asked for. I feel I was led to be a nurse. I feel I am right where I need to be, meaning being an R.N. but do I stay at the hospital or do I move on? I am struggling with what to do. I am unsatisfied with my job. I dread going to work most days. I am trying to make the best of it that I can but I am praying for answers. Why am I so unhappy with my job? Why can't I take the bad and just deal with it and move on? I am wide open for suggestions. God Bless and watch for many more blogs coming your way!!!
Julie
Being an R.N. I hate my job, I love my job. I need to deceide!! I have had an inner struggle going on inside since I graduated as an R.N. on May 13, 2004. There are not enough words or space on the internet to describe the excitement and sense of accomplishment I felt when I walked across the stage to be pinned as an R.N. I went to the hospital where I am currently still employed and had an interview for a floor nurse position. During the interview I was asked why I wanted the position that I was applying for. I remember it like it was yesterday. I felt so overwhelmed that all my hard work to become a nurse was finally paying off and I was about to become an R.N. at a hospital......I started crying!!! Oh my God, they are gonna think I am nuts!! I told them I was just overwhelmed with excitement and the realization that this was really happening. Finally all the studying,working 16 hour shifts EVERY weekend, test taking, 12 hour clinicals, and stress was paying off and I was in the moment that all of that had led me too....becoming a staff R.N. I remember the nurse manager telling me(with tears rolling down her face) that I had displayed to them what they remembered feeling when they graduated and they were very proud of my accomplishment and they were sure that I would have a job there if I chose to accept it. I left there that day feeling so high on life that no drug could ever compare.
Today, well today is a complete 180. My job 90% of the time is not at all what I had invisioned it to be. If nursing was what I had invisioned 4 1/2 years ago, I know I would be skipping out the door every day to get to work. The sad thing is...I have never in my entire life worked so gut wrenchingly hard to get something I hate so much. I know, I know, that sounds so very bad. I hate feeling this way and if I could stop feeling this way I WOULD!!!!! My dream was to go to work, use my training and knowledge to make differences in peoples lives. I wanted to be the lady people seen in the starched white dress, white hose and white shoes that floated down the hall into your room and saved your day and possibly your life. I wanted to be the nurse that people had admiration for and respected. I wanted respect from Doctor's and co-workers. I know it seems to be alot to ask for but for anyone who has endured nursing school and all the sacrifices it takes to do it, would completely understand where my "dream" is coming from. In nursing school you are told how important your role as a nurse is and how one wrong decesion can cost someone their life. That One sentence makes me think....Damn, I should have some respect for what I do!! Guess what...?? Reality has hit me so hard I have tread marks!!! When I first started as an R.N. the Doctors knew I was a new nurse. Do they care? Do they cut you any slack? Hell NO!! They want you to know what they want, how they want it, when they want it and you should allready know WHY they want it! God forbid you tell them you can't read the scrawlings that they call hand writing. This will send them into a rage of telling you what a worthless piece of crap you are and how stupid you are that you can not read their legable scrawl!! I have had this happen. I am speaking on all of this from my own unfortunate experiences.
I had a doctor come to the floor one day to put a central line in a patient. very, very LONG story short......I had told him I had never assisted with this and I needed to know what supplies he needed me to gather for him(because God forbid a doctor lower himself to get his own supplies). He told me 3 things to get...and I did. When we got in the patients room he must have sent me out of the room 20 times to get supplies that HE didn't tell me he needed...I just should have known!!! Then when the procedure was done and he had reduced me to the level of a slug in front of the patient, he told me to go away and leave him alone. YIP...aaahhhh the appreciation and gratification of being a nurse is off to a good start!!
This was just one of MANY, MANY, MANY instances of doctors treating nurses like major piles of dung. I have seen many nurses come and go and have seen even more of them cry because of a doctors cruel tongues and unbelieveable self-righteous attitudes. Then you have the co-worker crisis. I know every job has it's problems with co-workers and I have personally worked with alot of buttholes in my time on different jobs, but when I became an R.N. I was disillusioned into thinking it would be different in a hospital. I thought everyone would work as a team and do what was best for the good of the patient. WRONG, WRONG, so very, very WRONG!!! I have always considered myself a hard worker and have never considered myself lazy. I do not like lazy people and I despise the insinuation. When I became an R.N. I became the laziest piece of worthless flesh ever!! I have had the displeasure of working with MANY c.n.a.'s that think all nurses do is sit at the nurses desk and chat with their co-workers(other nurses). I have overheard c.n.a.'s talking about how over paid nurses are and that they should get paid more than nurses because they do all the work. Let me just say HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! They have no frickin' clue! I will be the first to admit that c.n.a.'s have hard jobs and they usually work their butts off but it is in a totally different way than a nurse. I was an aide and I know it is hard work but not the same an being a nurse. The responsibility is in no way shape or form comparable. I have never seen a c.n.a. call adoctor or ring their hands while a patient goes south! It is all up to the nurse to handle that. I just can't sum up the difference between an aide and a nurse in a short space, but if you have 2 or more brain cells then you know the difference and I do not need to explain it. Needless to say, team work does not come easy even in a hospital when lives depend on it....thus making my job even harder at times.
Now, lets not forget the "patient". The patient is the whole reason I had this illusion of being a nurse and making a difference. No one could prepare me for dealing with patients. Just because you are a patient in a hospital does not mean you are "sick" physcially. Let me tell you what I mean by this. I was disilusioned that when I became a nurse I would help sick people get well. Not so much. I have found out that ALOT of my patient load is people who have nothing wrong with them but LOVE hospitals. People who are drug seekers. People who need a vacation from their jobs and personal lives and yes lets not forget the people who just are there because their caregivers need a "break". These patients take alot of time and the people who truly are sick, well sadly alot of times they get shoved aside. This is not done intentionally but the ones who are not really sick are the ones who run you ragged and demand your time. The patients who are really sick either can not speak for them selves or do not speak for themselves because they would rather be anywhere doing anything than laying in a hospital bed facing their impending death. The really sick people do not ask for much and are always the ones who are the most kind and thankful. When you are really ill and you know you HAVE to depend on someone for your well-being it makes you humble, being humble in turn makes you grateful and appreciative. The other classifications of patients are the rudest, least grateful and have no problem or guilt with treating their nurses like waitresses and servants.
I would like to share one truly disturbing patient with you that falls into this category. "Johnny" was a 40 year old male admitted with scrotum pain. Johnny complained of severe pain and was immediately admitted. When Johnny got to the floor he had a catheter. The doctor had put him on narcotics to help with pain management. Several tests were run. I came on shift at 7pm. I was told in report that "Johnny had many, many tests to find a reason for his scrotum pain and no answers had been found. The doctor had deceided to discontinue the catheter. After the cath was removed Johnny started having hematuria. Hematuria is blood in the urine and is not to be taken lightly because it can be a symptom of bladder cancer as well as other things. This finding was very disturbing not only to the doctor but to the nurses. We all knew this could be a very bad sign that Johnny could possibly be dealt a death sentence at a young 40 years old. I remember being very concerned for this patient and feeling sad for him. I had also received in report that he had been complaining of nausea/vomitting. Again, not a good thing. Johnny was the first patient I went to see when I got out of repot. He was laying in bed watching tv. I introduced myself and began my assessment. Johnny rated his pain at 10/10 and asked for pain medication. He also stated that he was nauseated and would like Phenergan for that. I immediately went and got his pain medication(strong i.v. narcotics) and his Phenergan (anti-nausea medication that has a sedation effect). He took all the medication. I noticed blood was smeared all over his room. He had blood on his floor, bedrails, urinal, sheets, toilet, sink and on his hands. I asked him about all the blood I seen smeared everywhere and he told me he was clumsy with his urinal and had spilleed it several times. I felt very sympathetic for this patient because he obviousely had been having quite alot of blood in his urine. I told him if he needed anything to please call me. I left the room. In the meantime the doctor had written orders to obtain a urine sample for testing. I went back into Johnny's room and informed him that the next time he voided I needed a sample of it. He shook his head and said "OK". I noticed Johnny was drinking one liter bottles of Gatorade and I thought to myself it would not take long to get the urine sample. I left the room. Thirty minutes later Johnny turned his light on and asked for more pain medication. He said his pain was worse and he needed something stronger than he was getting. He asked me to please call the doctor and tell him his pain medication was not working. I called the doctor, received more orders and gave a Johnny the medication. I am feeling very bad for Johnny at this point and going out of my way to give him good nursing care and still take good care of my other 5-6 patients who are all sick too. Johnny's light comes on again. "I need something to eat". I asked if he was still nauseated. "Nope, feeling much better". So, I call the nursing suoervisor pull her from her work to go to the cafeteria and get Johnny some food. She brings up a sandwich, chips, pudding and cheese and crackers. Johnny ate it all. Johnny's light is on again "I am still hungry. I also need to know if it is time for pain medication. Can you just bring in the medication whenever I can have it and that way I don't have to ask for it"? I tell Johnny I will get him some more food. I call the supervisor again. I tell him I can not just bring in pain meds when he can have them, they are ordered PRN(as needed) and he will have to ask for them when he is hurting. I remind him that I need a urine sample and he tells me he feels like he will be able to urinate soon. Soon the C.N.A. takes his vital signs and his blood pressure is 225/116. I immediately call the doctor. I tell the doctor I am concerned about his blood pressure. I tell him he is still rating his pain at 10/10 and has been eating but also complained of nausea earlier. I receive new orders. I take Johnny his second round of food, give him MORE pain medication and again tell him I need urine. Johnny asks for Phenergan because he thinks he is nauseated agian. Phenergan given. I leave the room and am trying to pass meds to other patients and assess them. Johnny turns on his call light. His I.V. has went bad. I have to stop everything I am doing and re-start his I.V. so he can have his pain medication. He has poor veins and it takes 2 sticks to get the I.V. I again remind him that I REALLY need urine, I ask him to try to urinate and then turn on his light and I will collect the urine. I am now officially very behind on my assisgnments I need to get done for my other patients. Johnny turns on his call light. "I can't pee". I tell Johnny he has drank ALOT of fluid and there is no reason why he should not be able to pee. I am immediately concerned that he is having even more problems , even more than blood in his urine. I am at this point concerned and decide to see if his kidneys are making urine. I now have to stop everything I am doing AGAIN, go to the Inpatient Rehab floor and get the bladder scanner machine. The bladder scanner is a probe that you run over the patients bladder and it will give you a read out of how much urine is in their bladder in cc's. I go into Johnnys room, bladder scan him and it shows less than 100 cc's. I become immediately concerned for him and tell him I am concerned that his kidney's are not functioning the way they should and he is not producing urine. I should call the doctor and let him know. Johnny then tells me to give him one more hour and he will try to pee again. OK, one more hour, if he does not pee...I am calling the doctor. I leave Johnny's room and try very hard to catch up on all my other work and check on my other patients. I feel bad that I have been in Johnnys room half the night but after all he is reaslly sick. He can't pee, he is having horrible pain, and nausea and he has had blood in his urine for the previous shift. I run my butt off to get caught up on my work and my charting....oh lord, the charting is a whole other story. They jammed it in our heads in nursing school..."If you didn't chart it, you didn't do it". In other words CYA!!!(cover your ass). I need to do some serious charting on Johnny, he has multiple problems and I need to chart all of his complaints, all the medication I have given, all the doctor calls and every conversation we have had regarding his pain. Well one hour is up and I go to Johnny's room. "Were you able to pee"? Johnny says he did and that it is in the bathroom in the urinal. I am happy. Finally something is going right and I can finally collect the urine sample I need. I pick up the urinal and pour the VERY small amount of bloody urine into the specimen cup. Wait, I think to myself. This urine is cold, cold, cold. I ask Johnny when he urinated and he told me "Just now". I am thinking to myself....why is this urine this cold if he just urinated and why is it such a small amount? I become very suspicious. I take the urine to the lab and ask them to take the temperature on it....it does not register on the temperature sticker. I ask them to spin it and see if it is really urine. Maybe he poured Gatorade into his urinal. Why would he do that? The lab spins the urine and verify that it is indeed urine with a LARGE amount of blood in it. I am soo very suspicious at this point and time. Things just don't add up. Johnny is nauseated, yet he eats like a cow. Johnny is not urinating, yet he is drinking and drinking and drinking. Johnny complains of SEVERE pain, yet he looks fine. I get on the elevator and can't shake the questions. Most of all the biggest question....Why was his urine so very cold??? I hash it over in my mind and fight with myself. Call the doctor at 3:30 in the morning, tell him what is going on? I am suspicious of this patient but I can't put my finger on the exact problem. What if the doctor asks why I am bothering him? What do I say? Then I decide...this is all too wierd!! I am calling. I call the doctor and tell him EVERYTHING that has been going on for the last 9 long hours. I receive the strangest order. Insert a catheter, then call the doctor back. Why am I doing this?? I take the order and go insert the catheter. I am just SHOCKED when I immediately get the prettiest clear, clear yellow urine I have ever seen. I call the doctor and tell him. New orders........discontinue the catheter(after I collect a urine sample from the catheter bag) that I just inserted and discontinue the I.V. Oh and also discontinue all pain medication. Oh my God!! Is this doctor trying to get me killed here?? I start asking the doctor..why? Why am I doing all this??? Then I get the explanation that to this day has angered me to the core. I shall never forget Johnny for this. I will never forget spending 9 long hours being a servant to this man and feeling so sorry for him because of all this medical "problems". I will never forget how hard I worked to take good care of him, the very best I could and catch anything and everything I could so that he would have the good nursing care that all sick people deserve to get. I will never forget Johnny for keeping me on edge, hoping I was seeing and doing everything I could to be the eyes and ears for that doctor so that not one single thing was missed while trying to find a diagnosis that was owed to him and every patient I take care of who comes to the hospital scared, and putting their lives in our hands. I will never forget Johnny for being such a total absolute FRAUD. My jaw dropped as the doctor explained to me what was going on. Johnny never had scrotum pain. Johnny never had blood in his urine and Johnny was never nauseated. Johnny was drug seeking. He used the scrotum pain complaint to get the pain meds. Johnny was using his I.V. site to milk blood out of it to put in with his urine to make us think he had hematuria. Remember earlier in the story I told you his I.V. site went bad and I had to stop everything I was doing to put one back in? He had milked it so much...it went bad. As for the nausea.......there wasn't any. Johnny loved the feeling Phenergan gave him. He liked the sedative effect.
Now, I tell this very long story to make a very important point. Johnny was not the first and definately will not be the last patient who has used and horribly ABUSED the medical profession. Johnny has left a very bad impression on me towards my job. If it was just an isolated case then I could chalk it up as a wild experience and great story but the sad part is...I deal with people like this ALL the time. They are RAPING the medical profession on a daily basis. This is not the tye of patient I had in mind when I had the "glow" to become a nurse and help people. This in turn has made me very turned off by my career choice. I worked VERY hard to become a nurse....for what? To be treated like a fool by drug seeking patients while the really sick people who are laying in their beds facing the possibility of death are pushed to the back of the burner because they don't demand so much of the nurses time. Again let me say. The sickest people are the easiest to take care of. They are the most humble and most thankful. Johnny was neither. He was a junkie not trying to help himself improve but manipulating anyone and everyone he could to fulfill his selfish needs.
This is why I hate my job on most days. Thanks for reading. I am done for now but trust me, much much more will follow in the days to come. I need to find some peace in my life when it comes to my job. I read a sign recently that got me thinking. "Don't ever be so busy making a living that you forget to make a life". I have become quite comfortable with the good money being a nurse brings. My job satisfaction is very low. How do I maintain the good pay and have job satifaction? This is my toughest question. I have a deep belief in God. When my journey started to become a nurse (and it was quite a journey. Maybe I will tell that story in a future blog) God opened every door and allowed me to just walk right through each one with no problems. I worked diligently to be where I am but God made the path as smooth as I could have asked for. I feel I was led to be a nurse. I feel I am right where I need to be, meaning being an R.N. but do I stay at the hospital or do I move on? I am struggling with what to do. I am unsatisfied with my job. I dread going to work most days. I am trying to make the best of it that I can but I am praying for answers. Why am I so unhappy with my job? Why can't I take the bad and just deal with it and move on? I am wide open for suggestions. God Bless and watch for many more blogs coming your way!!!
Julie
2 comments:
Wish I could think up some extra brainy advice for ya sis, but nothing's coming. haha!
I do know, however, that you're an excellent nurse and you deserve every bit of job satisfaction you can find.
Keep doing what you're doing and God will sort it out for ya...or, if you just can't take it anymore you could always get a gun and shoot a few people...hahahahaha.
Hey Julie
Keep your head up.. I know how hard your job is and I am thankful we have RN's like you.. (wish there were some like that down here)
I have been in a lot of hospitals from Kansas, Mo, Ok... I have been blessed to get a few of good RN's but then I have had some bad ones..
Keep asking GOD to show you what way to go.. There was a reason you said so your self.
I look foward to reading your post..
Have a good day!
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