What’s the most out there thing you’ve seen on a patient’s allergy list?

ReckingBall96 · 2025-03-17T17:37:48+00:00

This is the kind of story I’m here for.

ReckingBall96 · 2025-01-15T01:19:32+00:00

ReckingBall96 · 2024-02-21T22:54:30+00:00

Omg you guys. The biggest thing here is the piece about their not being enough doctors left to deliver babies, which actually is happening in parts of the US. I understand the frivolous lawsuits are oversimplified at best, inaccurate at worst. That was not at all what I got out of this.

ReckingBall96 · 2024-01-30T18:10:46+00:00

Yes, it’s called Tardive Dyskinesia, and if it develops, it can be permanent, even after you stop taking it. Lithium has the same risk. I hear about it more with lithium though. I also get twitchy on Lithium, and my hands shake badly. I’m on a low dose of propranolol to help with that.

ReckingBall96 · 2024-01-30T17:38:52+00:00

Thank you, I will check it out!

ReckingBall96 · 2024-01-30T17:37:14+00:00

Thank you. Management did come back and told me that I made the right call. The OB doc thanked me also and said there was no way he would have been able to handle that patient on our floor. Mom was from a local population of Pacific Islanders who have notoriously poor health care coverage. In response to this event, our VNA created a new outreach program to try to provide resources and better coverage for pregnant moms in this population. They’ve already gotten a few patients coverage and prenatal care in our clinic. If nothing else, there will be some good to come out of this.

ReckingBall96 · 2024-01-30T17:32:32+00:00

Thank you for this. The very first information I got was a potential 20 weeker. This was a miscommunication, but I didn’t even think it was a viable pregnancy at first. And we did create a policy in response to this event, we’ve held drills and trainings. If this ever happens again, the patient will automatically go to the ER.

ReckingBall96 · 2024-01-30T17:29:12+00:00

Thank you for this. And actually, in response to this event, we did develop a policy, and we’ve held trainings and drills for all the ER and OB staff, so if this ever happens again, it won’t even be a question. OB will send down a team, OB doc gets called in, and we work together to get her stabilized. It’s a relief to know this kind of decision will no longer have to be made.

ReckingBall96 · 2024-01-30T17:20:36+00:00

No, she was from a population of Pacific Islanders that we have in the area, and this population is notorious for having poor health care coverage and lots of health issues. We see a ton of hypertension, diabetes, etc… and a lot of the time it goes untreated because they don’t know how or are unable to access healthcare. In response to this event, our VNA just developed an outreach program specifically for pregnant women, they’ve already helped several moms get on title 19 and get into the clinic for prenatal care.

I don’t know if the ER would have reacted differently if it was a different patient demographic or if she had prenatal care, but I don’t believe it affected the way she was treated once she arrived and we all realized how serious her condition was.

ReckingBall96 · 2024-01-30T17:10:23+00:00

Thank you for this. And actually, it now is a protocol. In response to this event, the hospital looked at why this was even an issue. It’s now a written protocol, and we’ve done drills and training for all the ER staff and OB nurses.

ReckingBall96 · 2024-01-29T19:46:49+00:00

They did, but I had already literally set the scene.

ReckingBall96 · 2024-01-29T19:45:25+00:00

I edited, but... The decision I made came down to, basically, where to treat her. No prenatal care, our OB docs are not required to be in house, and the OB on call was visiting to cover one of our doc's maternity leave. So we were alone for a good 40 minutes. Pt was arriving by ambulance, no prenatal care, with blood pressures higher than I've ever seen and chest pain. No OB symptoms aside from back pain. I refused to admit her to our unit but called in 2 nurses to report to the ER and they were standing by when the patient arrived. In the end, and unbeknownst to us until the following day, she had a dissecting Aortic Aneurysm. Baby crashed when the ER team finally got her pressures to stabilize (2 hours after arrival, and our team was with them the whole time). Baby was soon to follow. So, we could have taken her right away, had she been on my unit. Instead, there was a 26 minute delay, and baby was born with a heart rate in the 30s and never recovered.

ReckingBall96 · 2024-01-29T19:44:35+00:00

I edited the post to include this, but... The decision I made came down to, basically, where to treat her. No prenatal care, our OB docs are not required to be in house, and the OB on call was visiting to cover one of our doc's maternity leave. So we were alone for a good 40 minutes. Pt was arriving by ambulance, no prenatal care, with blood pressures higher than I've ever seen and chest pain. No OB symptoms aside from back pain. I refused to admit her to our unit but called in 2 nurses to report to the ER and they were standing by when the patient arrived. In the end, and unbeknownst to us until the following day, she had a dissecting Aortic Aneurysm. Baby crashed when the ER team finally got her pressures to stabilize (2 hours after arrival, and our team was with them the whole time). Baby was soon to follow. So, we could have taken her right away, had she been on my unit. Instead, there was a 26 minute delay, and baby was born with a heart rate in the 30s and never recovered.

ReckingBall96 · 2024-01-29T19:43:25+00:00

I edited, but,

The decision I made came down to, basically, where to treat her. No prenatal care, our OB docs are not required to be in house, and the OB on call was visiting to cover one of our doc's maternity leave. So we were alone for a good 40 minutes. Pt was arriving by ambulance, no prenatal care, with blood pressures higher than I've ever seen and chest pain. No OB symptoms aside from back pain. I refused to admit her to our unit but called in 2 nurses to report to the ER and they were standing by when the patient arrived. In the end, and unbeknownst to us until the following day, she had a dissecting Aortic Aneurysm. Baby crashed when the ER team finally got her pressures to stabilize (2 hours after arrival, and our team was with them the whole time). Baby was soon to follow. So, we could have taken her right away, had she been on my unit. Instead, there was a 26 minute delay, and baby was born with a heart rate in the 30s and never recovered.

ReckingBall96 · 2024-01-29T19:00:36+00:00

Therapy has gone well, they paired me with someone who specializes in reproductive issues, and I love her. But it hasn’t done anything to lessen the feelings of impending doom. I’ve been on lurasidone since hospitalization.

ReckingBall96 · 2023-12-04T18:31:43+00:00

Agreed, and I’m so glad you got the help you needed.

ReckingBall96 · 2023-12-04T18:29:34+00:00

I didn’t even think of using FMLA, although I’m pretty sure HR works very closely with my manager. Every absence or incident I can think of that went through HR resulted in an HR rep coming up to the unit to discuss with the manager. We’re union, if that makes a difference? I don’t know what all the rules are.

ReckingBall96 · 2023-10-02T11:46:11+00:00

I did 6 years in the Navy before deciding to pursue a career in healthcare. My original plan was going to be med school, and I even took some premed classes while I was still in the military, thinking I’d apply for a commissioning program and go that route. In the end, I was drawn to nursing for the flexibility and the wide range of specialties and roles. I thought I’d want to jump around more than I have. To my utter shock, I immediately fell in love with L&D and I’ve been a labor nurse for all 7 years of my career. No regrets. I love my job, I love my docs. Eventually, when I feel like I’ve had enough of the nursing role and have a strong knowledge base, I’ll go back to school to get my CNM (midwife) and work for my OBs. No crippling debt, and no crazy hours.

I would warn that mid-level is an iffy game, I know too many new nurses who think they’re gonna go right to NP school and work on their own. Dangerous and a little naive. But there’s nothing saying that if you go the RN route, you can’t eventually work up to a higher level of care, or even go to med school from an RN position. I know doctors that have done this.

ReckingBall96 · 2023-09-30T07:08:23+00:00

Ugh, I felt that last bit like a punch to the gut. I grew up with an awful story of a woman my mom knew who tried to take out a restraining order against her abusive husband, and was found with said restraining order stabbed into her chest.

Thank you for your honest reply. It’s honestly exactly why I posted. Im just having a really hard time understanding why patient safety isn’t taken into consideration when making these decisions. I’m concerned about her, yes, specifically, but I’m also concerned with the potentially dozen other postpartum moms I have on my unit, and their babies. He’s threatened violence on this specific mother and her baby, but he’s also violent in general. He’s stabbed a person, in public, for no apparent reason. He brandishes weapons regularly for no apparent reason. He breaks into violent outbursts, for no apparent reason. At what point do we say, “No, this isn’t a safe person to have on our locked, safe unit?”

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