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I'm home and watching my two year old son all weekend: Ask me anything! (1 Viewer)

Without breaking HIPPA (obviously), what's the coolest and/or grossest thing you've personally seen working in healthcare?

What is one aspect of human body processes that grosses you out? (Examples: I knew an ER doc who hated dealing with fecal matter and a CRNA who hated/grossed out by thick sputum)
 
HeWhoWouldPun said:
Without breaking HIPPA (obviously), what's the coolest and/or grossest thing you've personally seen working in healthcare?

What is one aspect of human body processes that grosses you out? (Examples: I knew an ER doc who hated dealing with fecal matter and a CRNA who hated/grossed out by thick sputum)
Click to expand...
Please do not answer the latter... I may unsubscribe.
 
Joe Harris said:
What are the circumstances that led to the drunkest you've ever been?
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I have two stories.

First was senior year of college. One of my buddies that had graduated the year before was visiting so we decide to have a boys night of video games and watching funny Youtube videos (yeah, we were cool). Because of how cool and edgy we were, said friend liked to drink brass monkeys (a 40oz bottle of malt liquor with orange juice mixed in once you drink about 1/4 of the bottle) on our guy's nights after watching Menace II Society one night. The thing about brass monkeys is that you need to drink them quickly before they get too warm and nasty to consume. Usually we would pregame with that and that alone and that would give us a nice buzz before we went out to the bars or a house party for the night. That night, however, we had polished off a 750 ml bottle of rum between the four of us before we had our brass monkeys. As we were consuming the monkeys, one of my other friends got a text about a house party, so we decide to head over.

Now, I went to Fairfield University, which if anyone is familiar with the area is about a 30 minute walk from the Long Island Sound or about a 5 to 10 minute cab ride. The houses along the sound were rented out to the seniors at the university for the most part and were one of the party hot spots for the college kids around the area. My friend calls a cab and we head over with the address he provided to the cab. We get out, but my friend says "Oh, this isn't the place, let's look around for it". Long story short, we wandered around the beach area following my friend looking for this house party for about an hour. With how much we had been drinking, I think all four of us at one point had peed in the sand somewhere, and if I remember correctly one of the guys found a shrub and took a #2. Not one of my proudest nights. Anyway, we're stumbling around the beach until we get to a house which my friend states is the location for the party. Wouldn't you know that it was the house that the cab dropped us off in front of? The three of us gave the other guy so much shit for the rest of the night and even to this day about it. We also don't allow him to navigate anywhere and have advised his wife that she should be in charge of directions if they are going anywhere.

Anyway, we get to the party, have fun, nothing of note really happens, but by now, is a mid November night in Connecticut, and it's damn cold out. It's 1am and we decide to call it quits, so another friend calls a cab to take us back to campus. Fairfield cabs were notoriously unreliable, and with all of us eager to get back to bed, decide to cancel the cab and leg it back to campus. Now, we're all still very drunk and dressed in nice bomber jackets or pea coats. It was a two mile hike back to campus. It couldn't have been any warmer than 30 degrees at the time, so we all decide to race back to my friend's townhouse on campus. Long story short, I won the race. The other two guys vomited on the run back, which slowed them down profoundly, and Christopher Columbus whom led us on this misadventure came back about 20 minutes after me, two Cumberland Farms footlong subs in hand. We relish in our drunk footlong subs and laugh at the misfortunes of the other two guys that came in sometime after.

The second story occurred three years later. We all graduated from college, I'm home, and my wife and I (girlfriend at the time) got in touch with another old college friend that wasn't present during the first story, and he tells us he's going to a lounge for New Year's Eve, and asks us if we wanted to join. Now, it's important to note that the already graduated friend from the first story is good friends with my local friend as we all went to Fairfield for college, but I knew both guys from two different circles of friends. Anyway, we arrive to the lounge and I'm surprised to see my local friend, but also his whole crew of Fairfield friends whom I was acquainted with for the most part but not super close with, including the graduated friend from the first story. So I see that he's there when I didn't know he was making the trip down so I know that it's about to go down. Now, I had eaten dinner before going to the lounge, but we had all paid for unlimited open bar for four hours, including top shelf stuff, which was a recipe for destruction for a bunch of middle 20 something's at the time. That in mind, I took advantage and was going at about a clip of two mixed drinks per hour, with my bad influence friends taking shots of Fireball and Patron every half hour. because shit, it was New Years Eve. So we all have fun at the party but my wife says she's tired and wants to head home to sleep around 1:30 or so. She was the DD that night, which was why I had the green light to drink so much. So basically, I ate dinner around 6:30 at home, got to the lounge a little before 8, open bar from 8 to midnight, about three drinks per hour for four hours, yeah, you do the math. I started heaving in my wife's car about three blocks away from my house. Long story short, I had to work the next evening (worked night shift at the time), and was hungover the entire shift. I was up the whole day before vomiting, only getting a couple of hours of sleep right before I had to go to work because I was able to call in a favor and get some Zofran (anti-emetic) in my system. My stomach couldn't tolerate anything for an entire two days after this night. This night is the sole reason why I will never touch Fireball again. I get nauseous to this day just thinking about it.
 
HeWhoWouldPun said:
Without breaking HIPPA (obviously), what's the coolest and/or grossest thing you've personally seen working in healthcare?

What is one aspect of human body processes that grosses you out? (Examples: I knew an ER doc who hated dealing with fecal matter and a CRNA who hated/grossed out by thick sputum)
Click to expand...
1. I saw a lot of shit in my seven years of ICU work (literally and figuratively), but the coolest (and scariest) would have to have been the time that one of my patients was in SVT on the cardiac monitor (an abnormal heart rhythm that is dangerous if you don't do anything about it). The treatment for that rhythm is a drug called adenosine, which essentially resets the AV node of the heart that causes the heart to beat regularly and constantly to keep us alive. In doing so, the AV node activity is slowed down for just a couple of seconds, almost bringing the heart to a standstill, or to a rate very low at best, to get the heart back in a regular rhythm. To do it right, it needs to be injected quickly and flush the IV line with saline quickly. To do this you need quick hands and good dexterity. The first time I did it, seeing the heart rate on the monitor go from the 150's to 160's, down to the 30's, to a regular rhythm in the 70's to 80's all in a matter of ten seconds, and watching it in real time, was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. The patient during that time also feels like they can't breathe as they are receiving the medication, so it's scary for just about everyone. In my career, this drug has about a 33% success rate to top it all off. If it doesn't work, we need to put the patient to sleep and literally defibrillate them (with less current than if you are dead for rescusitative purposes) with electricity back into a regular rhythm.

2. I'll keep this one short and sweet: Vomiting fecal matter. Have seen it a couple of times with total bowel obstructions. Imagine being the poor nurse delegated to drop an NG or OG tube to decompress the stomach of the poor soul and when you apply the suction, see poop literally flying out and into the collection chamber for the tube.
 
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Going to bump this again, I'm bored.
 
Where is the most non-obvious place you’ve pulled a poker chip from?? Bonus points if it was a black starburst;)!
 
DZPoker said:
Where is the most non-obvious place you’ve pulled a poker chip from?? Bonus points if it was a black starburst;)!
Click to expand...
Do you mean one that I misplaced and later found, or was able to make a purchase from?
 
JMC9389 said:
You remember correctly; my wife is a nurse as well. Bedside nursing is much, much tougher than my job now, even with the increased responsibility. Bedside nursing suckssssssss. They should be paid double what they make and should make more than I do honestly. They're the eyes and ears of the whole healthcare industry. Scrubs absolutely had it right; if you piss off one nurse, you piss off all of them. They're like the hospital mafia. No one is safe. Doctors, surgeons, patients and families. If you're rude to one nurse, you're a marked man/woman, and it's hard to get back in the good graces. If you think about it, they're the ones that make sure that you're getting the right medications at the right doses and making sure that the doctors don't kill you by overdosing or underdosing a medication, they're the ones making sure you're fed and hydrated, they're the ones talking to your family for the most part (trust me, an unsolicited all from a doctor or NP is almost always bad news, you don't want to hear from us unless you ask to speak with us), they're wiping your asses when you're too weak to get up and go to the bathroom, and they're holding your loved one's hand when they're in their final moments of life. Nurses are definitely more important than anyone else in the whole healthcare industry. That being said, it's hard and literally back breaking work. I worked bedside nursing for a year and decided that I was going back to grad school of some kind to get away from it.
Click to expand...

Same here...my wifey is a neonatology nurse (IC) and I'm convinced most/all people working in the care are Angels
Bless you all

Too bad many people only realize the above when they are in need...but imho the US health care is one big clusterf*ck
 
What personality trait of someone annoys you the most?
 
Do you ever regret not going for your MD?

What are you buying your wife for Christmas?

Have you had C19 and if not would you be opposed to taking the vaccine that has been warp speed developed?

T
 
BiGGyT said:
Do you ever regret not going for your MD?

What are you buying your wife for Christmas?

Have you had C19 and if not would you be opposed to taking the vaccine that has been warp speed developed?

T
Click to expand...
Excellent questions!

I thought that I might, but I really don't. I essentially do the same thing now as I would as an MD or DO, but with a lot less responsibility and less work. Yes, for a little less money, but I'm happy with where I'm at. I just took a really round about path to get there :)

I have a couple of ideas, but I haven't gotten any hints from her yet. I am trying to get my shopping done before the end of the month, though. I don't trust things getting here on him shopping online with what's bound to be an onslaught of orders that will be stressing the capacity of Amazon, UPS, FedEx, and USPS, etc.

Here's the thing about COVID and I. I think I had it in late March/early April. I tested negative though. I first felt muscle aches and overall felt more fatigued and tired than usual. Almost like a malaise on a Thursday night after working. I went to bed thinking nothing of it. The following day I was off from work and woke up feeling fine. I went about my day, watched my son, the whole nine yards. That night after dinner I suddenly got a very bad headache and felt the body aches coming back. Sure enough, I had a 101.8 F fever. I took some Tylenol and saw that the local concert venue was testing healthcare workers without a prescription the next morning.

So I woke up at 6am on Saturday with the worst headache of my life after barely sleeping on an air mattress because my wife didn't want me in the bedroom and hauled my ass 40 minutes down the Garden State Parkway to get tested. Even getting there at 7:30 a half hour before testing started, I was the very last car that was able to get a test. They started turning people away after me. Just to get an idea of how many healthcare workers were already sick/showing symptoms. Anyway, once I got my test four hours later, I drove home and slept in 1-2 hour blocks essentially for the following 6 days. That day, I started to get really severe chills, the worst I've ever had (teeth chattering chills).

From that Saturday until the following Thursday, I had a fever that went up to 104 F that I couldn't get down below 101 F with Tylenol. This was at the time that reports out of Europe stated that NSAID's made the immune response more severe and increased the severity of the virus, so I steered clear at the time not knowing. My fever finally broke after 6 days, and I couldn't have been more relieved. I was a day away from going to the doctor and maybe to the hospital. Of course, a day after I started to feel better, I got the call that I tested negative anyway :ROFL: :ROFLMAO:

I still think I had it though. For six days I had a pounding headache that was equivalent of feeling hungover perpetually that didn't get better. The chills and fevers that I mentioned. I was also shitting my brains out even though I was barely eating because the nausea was so bad sometimes. It was all liquid coming out. No respiratory symptoms though outside of nasal congestion though. I never got the chest tightness, shortness of breath, and cough that it is characterized by sometimes. I don't have any lung issues that I know of and I've never smoked though. It's the worst I've ever felt outside of the couple of times I got a norovirus/24 hour stomach flu, which I also had on a cruise in the beginning of the year. 2020 has sucked between having that and probably COVID.


CraigT78 said:
What personality trait of someone annoys you the most?
Click to expand...
Ugh, can I pick two? Indecisiveness and self-doubt :D

Jokes aside, I really can't pick between disloyalty and pessimism. I'm big on loyalty if one gets to know me in person. Treat me well, I'll treat you well, and vice versa. I expect the same courtesy in return if I treat my fellow neighbor with courtesy and respect.

I can't stand overly negative and pessimistic people. I try to surround myself with others that don't think that way.
 
As far as a COVID vaccine though, I am going to end up not having much to say about it. I think it's going to be compulsory for me to do my job the same way the flu vaccine is every year. I'm going to just say my prayers and hope for the best, though the fact that the first two trials to come out that demonstrate the vaccine has between a 90 to 95% efficacy, in the first two real tries at it, is absolutely astounding.

I will say this though. I will defer on getting mine until every single bedside worker in my building (nurse, LPN, CNA, even the PT's, OT's and ST's that spend a lot more contact time with patients than I do) gets it first.
 
JMC9389 said:
Excellent questions!

I thought that I might, but I really don't. I essentially do the same thing now as I would as an MD or DO, but with a lot less responsibility and less work. Yes, for a little less money, but I'm happy with where I'm at. I just took a really round about path to get there :)

I have a couple of ideas, but I haven't gotten any hints from her yet. I am trying to get my shopping done before the end of the month, though. I don't trust things getting here on him shopping online with what's bound to be an onslaught of orders that will be stressing the capacity of Amazon, UPS, FedEx, and USPS, etc.

Here's the thing about COVID and I. I think I had it in late March/early April. I tested negative though. I first felt muscle aches and overall felt more fatigued and tired than usual. Almost like a malaise on a Thursday night after working. I went to bed thinking nothing of it. The following day I was off from work and woke up feeling fine. I went about my day, watched my son, the whole nine yards. That night after dinner I suddenly got a very bad headache and felt the body aches coming back. Sure enough, I had a 101.8 F fever. I took some Tylenol and saw that the local concert venue was testing healthcare workers without a prescription the next morning.

So I woke up at 6am on Saturday with the worst headache of my life after barely sleeping on an air mattress because my wife didn't want me in the bedroom and hauled my ass 40 minutes down the Garden State Parkway to get tested. Even getting there at 7:30 a half hour before testing started, I was the very last car that was able to get a test. They started turning people away after me. Just to get an idea of how many healthcare workers were already sick/showing symptoms. Anyway, once I got my test four hours later, I drove home and slept in 1-2 hour blocks essentially for the following 6 days. That day, I started to get really severe chills, the worst I've ever had (teeth chattering chills).

From that Saturday until the following Thursday, I had a fever that went up to 104 F that I couldn't get down below 101 F with Tylenol. This was at the time that reports out of Europe stated that NSAID's made the immune response more severe and increased the severity of the virus, so I steered clear at the time not knowing. My fever finally broke after 6 days, and I couldn't have been more relieved. I was a day away from going to the doctor and maybe to the hospital. Of course, a day after I started to feel better, I got the call that I tested negative anyway :ROFL: :ROFLMAO:

I still think I had it though. For six days I had a pounding headache that was equivalent of feeling hungover perpetually that didn't get better. The chills and fevers that I mentioned. I was also shitting my brains out even though I was barely eating because the nausea was so bad sometimes. It was all liquid coming out. No respiratory symptoms though outside of nasal congestion though. I never got the chest tightness, shortness of breath, and cough that it is characterized by sometimes. I don't have any lung issues that I know of and I've never smoked though. It's the worst I've ever felt outside of the couple of times I got a norovirus/24 hour stomach flu, which I also had on a cruise in the beginning of the year. 2020 has sucked between having that and probably COVID.



Ugh, can I pick two? Indecisiveness and self-doubt :D

Jokes aside, I really can't pick between disloyalty and pessimism. I'm big on loyalty if one gets to know me in person. Treat me well, I'll treat you well, and vice versa. I expect the same courtesy in return if I treat my fellow neighbor with courtesy and respect.

I can't stand overly negative and pessimistic people. I try to surround myself with others that don't think that way.
Click to expand...
Sure sounds like COVID.

Did the headache feel like your eyes were being pulled from the inside? That's how my wife and I described it.
 
CraigT78 said:
Sure sounds like COVID.

Did the headache feel like your eyes were being pulled from the inside? That's how my wife and I described it.
Click to expand...
Not quite that kind of headache.

This headache felt like New Year's Day 2014. Worst hangover of my life. Imagine that, but for 6 days straight in addition to palpitations. I spot checked my resting heart rate once in a while, and it was between 100 and 110 at the time. My baseline is usually between 55 and 70 bpm. I have a lower than normal baseline heart rate that I can thank my soccer playing days for.

My resting heart rate usually only gets that high if I pick up aces and flop quads or make my runner runner nut straight or flush and I'm taking my opponent to Value Town!
 
pltrgyst said:
How did you choose between becoming an NP or a PA?
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Coming out of college I already had a BSN in nursing to my name. Traditionally, most PA's enter 6 or 7 year programs that combine their undergrad and graduate studies to prepare for the PA certification exam. Most PA's that are younger go this route and have no real bedside experience outside of the mandated 600 hours of clinical experience needed to sit for the certification exams that may or may not be useful.

An NP can do this as well, but I don't advise going this route either as they really have no bedside clinical experience either. I worked 8 years as a bedside nurse before I did what I'm doing now for almost two years now. I worked and went to NP school part time for four years until I finished the program. All said and done, I had over 15,000 hours of bedside nursing experience before I became an NP.

That said, the scope of practice and job description is very similar, if not identical in some places at the end of the day.

In other words, all NP's have been nurses at some point, PA's have not, even though they pretty much do the exact same thing.
 
WedgeRock said:
....and now you know what it's like to be @CraigT78 at a meet-up. Now I ask you: in that condition, would you catch a nap on a dog bed?
Click to expand...
Fuck no. I could barely sleep when I had that COVID headache. I slept on and off for 1-3 hours at a time around the clock. 1-3 hours of sleep for every 4 hours or so awake. I was exhausted to do anything more than take a shower which made be feel better for maybe an hour before I felt like hot garbage again.
 
JMC9389 said:
Fuck no. I could barely sleep when I had that COVID headache. I slept on and off for 1-3 hours at a time around the clock. 1-3 hours of sleep for every 4 hours or so awake. I was exhausted to do anything more than take a shower which made be feel better for maybe an hour before I felt like hot garbage again.
Click to expand...
Clearly you should have tried a nap on a dog bean bag bed.
 
JMC9389 said:
Coming out of college I already had a BSN in nursing to my name. ....

That said, the scope of practice and job description is very similar, if not identical in some places at the end of the day.

In other words, all NP's have been nurses at some point, PA's have not, even though they pretty much do the exact same thing.
Click to expand...
Always interesting to hear an individual's progression.

My wife spent 15 years as VP of Communications and Public Affairs for AAPA; her sister-in-law is an NP/PhD recruiter and administrator for Chamberlain University Nursing, so I've heard a lot of stories about both vocations. So much depends on the state you live in...
 
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