I was caring for one of my 6 patients the other day, with a diagnosis of nausea/vomiting, dehydration, (and headache which was not on the diagnosis). The next day he starts having signs/symptoms of meningitis. This young man has a stiff neck, fever of 106 F. True we use standard precautions, but who knew? 

A couple of years ago, we had a gentleman who had been in the hospital for at least 2-3 days for flu/bronchitus or a similar diagnosis. On his DISCHARGE DAY, I mean, I am literally giving this man his discharge instructions after the doc seen him; a fax comes from lab that I luckily intervened  with his sputum sample showing MRSA.  The discharge was then cancelled and the appropriate antibiotics were initiated. Again, we used standard precautions, but ........   (I had a terrible bout of sinusitis after that, hmmmmmm)

We had a discussion at work about pregnant nurses caring for patients with a questionable diagnosis of TB. The patient's with this questionable diagnosis are roomed in the few isolation rooms we have for airborne isolation, just in case. One of our pregnant nurses was concerned about caring for these patients. The staff always took these patients so she wouldn't have to. I  guess someone complained and this nurse was told she had to care for these patients. After all, we never know who or what diagnosised patient we are caring for. We still cared for the patient's who had potentially harmful diagnoses, for this nurse.

While it is true we never know, at least at first, the true diagnosis of a patient when they first come in with "grey-area diagnoses" like nausea/vomiting/diarrhea/dehydration. Why not work as a team and not put our pregnant nurses in a situation she doesn't have to be in. The situations, we don't know about are bad enough. And even though there are face masks, gloves, gowns, to be worn, I just do not see the problem if the nursing staff pitches in and cares for the isolation patient's and the patient's that come into the hospital with signs/symptoms that could be potentially harmful to our pregnant nurses.

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?

Sincerely,

Patty :-)

Potatoes cut into bite size pieces -

- boil until done - drain

Onion - at least one large - diced

Butter 1/2 stick (or maragarine)            Sautee' onion in the butter

Make a rue with flour and sautee'd onions/butter. Add milk and 1 can of celery soup. Thin with milk until it is the consistency you like.

Combine potatoes and onion mixture. Add some cut up Velvetta and seasoning salt.

I attempted to have a small Thanksgiving dinner on Friday for just my little family, the kids, Roger, and I. Ok, here goes. ...........
I was up most of the night due to my nightshift schedule. Went to Black Friday at about 5 am. Home about 8 am. Slept (it wore me out!) until 12 noon.        OOPS!

 Found out I have no roaster pan in the house. Switched to plan B, the electric roaster. Awwwww..... that should work! My son and I quickly decided what we should fix first, second, third. Went on to make the home made noodles.

At about 2 or 3 pm we found out the giblets were still in the turkey. So while the hot turkey was in the roaster pan, (we rolled up our sleeves), my son held the turkey down while I took my long handled grilling tongs and it was literally like we gave birth to a turkey neck!  (I had flashbacks of the OB delivery room)    LOL      But, hey!, where's the giblets? ? ?      Got the flashlight out got the turkey legs spread wide open, looking in the turkey............... no giblets........... hmmmmmmmmm....
We then thought to look at the other end,.......... Awwwwwwwwww!   There's the package of giblets! So then we started the noodles/giblets. Meanwhile, we are making a couple of pies, pumpkin, chocolate, and then apple. The apple pie was made last and is in the oven with the dressing. I notice that the apple pie is leaking onto the bottom of the oven. I place foil onto the bottom rack to catch the apple pie leaks. I check the pie again later to take the dressing out and put the green bean casserole and yams in (the last two dishes of the Thanksgiving feast). I find that the foil didn't help much. The black smoke blew out of the oven when I opened the oven door. The black apple pie drippings had grown to a big black mass that was breathing and growing right before my eyes! I really wondered what , if anything was left in my pie!!!! Of course, it is really not the time to stop and clean right now, so I think I will just clean it after the dinner. I try to rearrange the foil to stop the dripping from continuing to add to this now live black breathing mass in my oven!!! Just after I add the green bean casserole and the yams and removed the apple pie, OMG!!! Some dripping dripped off the foil onto the element!!! There was buzzing, crackling, sizzling, flames, electric seething noises!!!!!!!!!! OMG!!!! The black mass still breathing and growing!!! My daughter just happened to be in the kitchen at the time and started screaming, I am yelling turn the electricity off!!!!! Turn the electricity off!!! Everybody has to run in the kitchen first, of course!! And I am still yelling turn the electricity off!!!! Turn the electricity off!! Finally, the stove's electric current is off. And there we are with the green bean casserole and yams left to heat up with noodles, potatoes, rice and broccoli on the stove top cooking. So we devise a plan. We will cook the stuff in the oven with the broiler element instead. ................................................
So later, after we removed the black film off the top of the green bean casserole, we stirred it up......... I don't recommend this way of cooking. The foil did help the two dishes from burning too bad. ...... It takes an acquired taste, which only my family has. LOL ...................... Well, all in all the dinner wasn't too bad and as always I cook too much for us to eat anyway. And we can laugh about our Thanksgiving of 2008!

Hope you enjoyed my story and
Here is praying and hoping you and your family had a
hearty Thanksgiving and have a Happy
and Merry Holiday season!!!!!!

Patty

medicalmingle.com/pattynurse2000

medicalmingle.com/pattynurse2000

Here are just a few of the fall tree pics. Hope you enjoy!  :-)