Thursday, November 12, 2009

ramblings...nursing, joints and narcolepsy

I should be working on my careplan... I keep putting it off and I'm not entirely sure why except that, oh yea.. I'm feeling a bit lazy. I also have a test on Monday I need to be studying for. Oh the joys of nursing school!

My hips and a few other random joints have been bothering me this week, just achy, could be worse. Other than having to wiggle my knee cap back into place every so often when I walk, I'm fairing better than I did last fall-quarter so yay =) After my final on Dec 8th, I'll only have 6 more months of school till I'm a Nurse and I can move back to civilization =) My old boss recommended I tell the employee health dept at my next job about my EDS, so that I don't have to use all of my sick days for it and get a written warning again...I don't know. I'm leary about that. I don't call in sick unless I couldn't walk, and even worked a day or two i really shouldn't have.. but We'll see how it goes. If i move back home, I'll probably get a job at my old hospital (they want me back =) but if T gets this job in the middle of no where-oregon (the boyfriend =), I'll probably be seeking a job there if I can get hired... (tho i don't wanna.. i miss my home city).

I'm also trying to goto curves more often which is good, except I'm not doing very well at it on clinical weeks. I have evening shift clinicals (THANK GOD!!! *BIG GRIN*) so I'm useless up until I need to go, and after...well, curves isn't open at midnight lol

sidenote: the only chick in class I really like... is failing out =( She's failed all 3 tests so far and the thought of being stuck up here alone, without her to talk to and chill with at lunch durin our 6 hr lectures, for my last 6 months... is waayyy not appealing. =( and she works way harder than I do, i feel bad.. i want to help her but I don't know how.. =(

Oh! other weird-medical-crap:
I'm having a sleep study done in December... to check for Narcolepsy. Sleep doc (neurologist) tried me on Mirapex for possible restless leg (umm nope) and all that did was make it even harder for me to stay awake during the day. So next up, night time sleep study plus daytime Nap study. I do seem to fit the critera for Narcolepsy, have most of the symptoms oddly enough. besides cataplexy (...which is good, I'd imagine itd be bad if i fell over when a pt startled me...lol)
Should be interesting... never tried sleeping with a whole bunch of crap attached to me before... My only concern is that its at night...and since i worked nights for 4-5 years, and was a night owl before that, the ONLY time i sometimes have trouble sleeping, is AT NIGHT! so we'll see. =)

i should go do my careplan.. had the same patients all 3 days last time, I'm sure i can come up with 3 nursing diagnoses for one of them... ! Dont wanna put it off to the last week of clinicals (next wk) if i can help it. I worked with an AWESOME nurse last time... and I did more IV piggybacks than ever before =) and i set up TPN twice, and d/c'd an NG..and a few other things =) My first nurse was very student friendly and explained all sorts of stuff, answered my obnoxious questions and taught me tons.. and praised me for seeking out rather complex patients to learn from. Which provided a great framework for my next 2 nurses, who wern't nearly as teach-y (can't win em all, its probably oober annoying having us smurfs around!) but I felt pretty confident with what I learned from my first one so it worked well anyway =)

I haven't worked for awhile, so i've been oober sore afterwards.. need to get use to being on my feet for 8-12 hours again and build up the right muscles to keep everything in place.

okay okay, enough procrastination.. school focus time..

2 comments:

elastigirl said...

ADA title II will protect you at your job. check with your employers disabilities office. you are entitled to reasonable accomodations and may even be able to use the family medical leave act when you need time off instead of using up sick days. i used FMLA at my job as a flight attendant, and it's been a lifesaver to be able to take time off but not be penalized for it!

Bendy_Clutz said...

Hi =)
At what point after your hired do you go through the process? And what is the process to go through...? In about 6-7 months I'll be done with nursing school and will hopefully be hired at a hospital =) So, any tips would be greatly appreciated cuz i dont really wanna go through what I did at my last job (getting written up for using all my sick days, tho my boss figured most of my problems were related to my previously-broken-foot-that-took-FOREVER-to-heal, which is why she
mentioned that i should use, im assuming the FMLA? instead of sick days..? (she said something about going through some process where you get a medical note from a doc that doesnt use sick days but i really have no idea aside from that)