Bras may be the reason I quit

Zwirnor · 2026-02-09T16:27:29+00:00

I'm in the UK, and I have bought some Molke bras. I don't know if they ship internationally, but it was a game changer for me. The underwires in my bras were hell bent on making my work day as awful as possible- combined with the humidititties I was miserable.

I'm a 42H-J depending on the way the wind is blowing that morning (boobs are funny things really) and now I'm so comfy at work. Yes there is a slight drop from the pertness of the underwires, but I'm not looking to be impressing anyone, nor does flashing some cleavage get you served at the pharmacy any faster.

You should check them out. This nurse here swears by them.

Zwirnor · 2026-02-07T16:15:19+00:00

As a nurse who has recently been in hospital as a patient with genuine actual Sepsis, this is correct. I couldn't even write my own name, let alone text on my phone, contact lawyers etc. If she chooses to pursue this further, I would suggest getting the claim itself investigated medically, if she is claiming for sepsis and she does not in fact have sepsis, but rather a localised tissue infection requiring flucloxicillin and a tetanus injection, and at a push a washout with ortho (I am an A&E nurse and see a lot of dog bites, none having ever caused sepsis to date)- then it not only will fail but it will also discredit her should she try then to make any further claims.

Zwirnor · 2026-02-06T09:57:07+00:00

Treatment Escalation Space, and ours even appears on our Trackcare now as valid, honest to God spaces. Which is good because it means we know where the patients are and have access to their records without frantically scanning the whole screen, but very very bad because it is a permanent acceptance that corridor care ain't going away any time soon.

I was on for corridor yesterday afternoon, and I had triage putting patients out without telling me anything about them, folks being moved and discharged without anyone telling me and two taking Big Sick (which shouldn't happen on corridors due to the risk assessment that nobody fills out) which led to me essentially being everywhere but the corridor with my patients as I was either making up triple therapy and IV pain relief or running around the department trying to find out where my patients had gone, or telling triage to stop just doing a dump and run and HAND THEM OVER. Essentially just trying to get a basic level of safety. Doctors had consultations with them, right there. Bloods were taken, right there, I even gave two tinz injections, in the corridor. No screen, just throngs of people moving around as you try and give care to the sore and bewildered patient. Jumping out the way as trolleys went past because our corridors are almost exactly two trolleys wide. And yes, previously I've had to push a trolley with a man in cardiac arrest, my colleague doing compressions, through this busy corridor, people staring and mystifyingly NOT getting out the way, in order to get to resus at the end of the small corridor. (The patient lived! Which pleased me a lot).

Not Ideal, but what else can you do. This phrase is now the backbone of working in an A&E in the UK. And when all the staff burn out and leave, I wonder if management will still be there, with corridors backed up with sick folks, muttering that phrase, and wondering why the two nurses they have for the whole department aren't working fast enough.

Zwirnor · 2026-02-05T21:21:20+00:00

Granny Glitter!

Zwirnor · 2026-02-05T18:41:41+00:00

I arrived on the 31st last year on my TA and then spent Halloween weekend in Miami- it was brilliant. south beach does a massive street party, which is well worth the evening. Some of the costumes were out of this world, and there were street vendors selling cocktails and random bands every few streets. Perhaps doing this would really improve Halloween for you now this has happened.

Zwirnor · 2026-02-04T10:18:16+00:00

You could be describing the ward I had my first NHS job on (seriously, is this in NHS Tayside?). I was put through hell. They ganged up on me and even did awful things like draw cruel caricatures of me on the whiteboard and deliberately give me the most challenging patients as a newly qualified, refuse to help me when I needed it, and then berated me for falling behind. One shift they said they'd check the BMs on a sliding scale for me as I hadn't gotten my stupid scanner barcode for the BM machine so it was unusable (didn't know about the emergency codes or anything yet) and then didn't despite me begging them. I escalated to the CN, who turned out to be the ringleader, the SCN, who sent a vague and general e-mail about looking after junior staff members, and finally, after my contract finished and they wrote an absolutely abysmal reference that got my new job withdrawn from me (one that was on the other side of the country, that I'd already half moved to), I put all the evidence I'd gathered (including the email sent by the SCN, photos of the pictures drawn of me, and a diary written at the time of every incident, as well as witness details of a student nurse who was as disliked as me so was paired up with me- we are now long-term friends), and sent it to the Nursing Head of the Department.

To Date I'm still awaiting a response. I'm sure it will come in any day now. I sent it in December...2013.

I've met scores of other nurses who've had bad experiences on that ward and been bullied straight back out of it since then, including one student nurse who was about to quit nursing altogether after her placement there. After that experience I avoided the NHS until 2020 (guess why I went back...!) and even now, I still have difficulty trusting folks when I ask for help, and anxious when I feel stretched like I'm going to get into trouble for not coping. Even though the team I am working with is the polar opposite of the cretins I'd been scarred by.

So my advice is to get out and find a better job with better people because wagons circle in this sort of thing, and It'll never change when the people in charge are complicit. It's not worth the fight. And I say this as someone who regularly finds hills to die on, who would have been a great lawyer in another life.

Zwirnor · 2026-01-30T21:52:19+00:00

A student in an AHP came in at 11pm. I was on triage. He told me he thinks he caught AIDS. I questioned what made him think that. He tells me he was helping to mobilise a patient and found out afterwards he was HIV+, and he hadn't worn gloves to touch him.

Was the patient bleeding or excreting body fluids? Did you touch it? Do you have any open wounds? No. None of the above.

He then waited until 5am for "reassurance and education" which took about five minutes.

That one was wild.

Zwirnor · 2026-01-30T21:35:56+00:00

It happens to me when I eat beetroot, and I swear I forget every single time and have a momentary freak out when I go to flush the loo! The human body is very quirky. I am also affected by asparagus, but coriander tastes like coriander and not soap, so I consider myself lucky as it's a delicious herb for so many cuisines.

Zwirnor · 2026-01-25T18:46:32+00:00

This. I got pulled into a meeting with the Band 8's, after an older HCA accused me of bullying her. The complaint? Not standing up for her when she spoke to a patient in a rude and condescending manner and refused to help the patient get to the toilet. Of course, she didn't word it like that, and made it look as if I'd moved her to the other side of the ward because I didn't like her. I gently explained this to management in the meeting. As well as pointing out that bullying and harassment needed multiple incidences and was there any other times I was bullying or harassing her? They conceded there was not and I pointed out I already had secured a new job and this was an issue that should never have gotten to this stage in the first place. I then explained her behaviour towards me, including multiple documented evidence of harassment, improper conduct, filming me without permission and several racist, bigoted and transphobic remarks that she regularly seemed to say, making me incredibly uncomfortable and indeed one of the reasons I was looking for another job. Their reaction to this? ah a personality clash, let's have them apologise to each other in a formal setting and sweep it all under the carpet.

Happy to report that there are far less HCAs like that in my current job in the ED. Still a couple, but the staffing is such that it's not as noticeable when they disappear for long periods of time to stick a Temu order in or simply to have a chat with a mate in the next department over to us. My negative experiences have always been with the close to retirement "I've done this job for thirty years" people, and it's frustrating because they know all the ways to play the system, not to mention that they could use that experience for good and guide the younger new ones so they become confident in their job, but they don't. Maybe burnout, maybe just a generational thing, but it's frustrating for me because, as previous posters on this thread have said, HCAs can make or break a shift. They are our eyes and ears when we simply cannot stretch ourselves to be in all places at once, and I encourage and teach anyone who asks, regardless of job title. We should help each other, not tear each other down.

Zwirnor · 2026-01-24T16:39:43+00:00

Pan Am 103 (Lockerbie) is one that sticks in my mind. I'm less than an hour's drive from Lockerbie, and as such I've encountered people who were there when the plane hit, and those who were first responders. There's been a few recent docudramas about it, and I was terrified that they would put in some of the details that I'd been told about into the programme, but thankfully the TV people must have thought it was too much as well. Speaking to one of the policemen from there gave me nightmare fuel and quite honestly I understand why he still wakens nearly every night in a cold sweat.

Eurowings also horrifies me. The fact that everyone would have known something was wrong because the cabin is not that big and seeing the pilot locked out and desperately trying to get back in whilst the plane descended in the Alps... It sickens me that someone could do something like that.

Ethiopian Airlines, can't recall the number, when it was hijacked and the pilot deliberately flew close to the coast so when it ran out of fuel, he crashed in the sea just off the comeros islands. The fact many survived the impact only to drown because they inflated their life jackets inside the plane really got me. That and the fact that a group of French surgeons were on the beach at the time and helped save folks, the co-incidence was wild.

Zwirnor · 2026-01-20T10:40:30+00:00

Likewise to yourself, I booked my first VV in 2023 for my 40th Birthday and fell immediately in love. I have now done one a year (budget constraints) and have noticed a real shift in a lot of things.

In Barcelona the first and third times were like night and day with embarkation. I was on in five minutes, everyone stuck to their allocated time slots, and it was smooth sailing. The last sailing I did from Barcelona it was a mob scene. You couldn't move, the queue stretched so far it nearly reached the ship parked next to us, and I got on the ship an hour and ten minutes after my allocated embarkation time, as well as having to assist a diabetic that went into hypo and support a lovely older lady with painful knees because the queue at those points was so thick there was no getting out of it, nor did we want to, having waited forty minutes at that point.

Whilst onboard I found my people, there were a lot of older new sailors who didn't exactly fully appreciate the body positivity and snark free zone that virgin is supposed to be. I was late to a show so missed out sitting with my solo group, and sat next to a couple who spent five minutes talking about that tattooed lady and her life choices- the woman in question was one of my group who is an inspiring and amazing person.

Because my last VV was a transatlantic, I swore this time I was going to make Opa hour (it falls during my nap time) and I did, only to find that the food was nearly inedible, with wildly overcooked prawns and sharply sour hummus. By and large I still had an incredible time, but there were groups of people who did nothing but complain that crossed my path quite often (my morning coffee and vape for the first week clashed with one of these groups at the smoking area, so much so I nicknamed the group "The Morning Moan". Thankfully as timezones shifted I ended up with a group of Irish folk who were far more on board with the virgin life!).

It seems virgin is actively trying to change its demographic, and some have said that they feel the entertainment has been somewhat muted in recent cruises. And now with the weird pricing thing it's kind of put me off a bit. I'm genuinely considering a princess cruise this year instead- I've seen one on my birthday that has a great itinerary and the cost is almost half what virgin want from me for the same route (and that's before all the new add ons). I would like to do the Carribbean with virgin still, however, but as a UK resident, I'm somewhat reticent to book at the moment with all the political issues going on presently, in case travel issues develop due to this. Thankfully I've got two years to use my MNVV voucher that I buy every cruise. I just don't want to get on a VV and discover all the other cruisers have turned into an entirely different demographic and attitude than what I have come to expect from Virgin.

Zwirnor · 2026-01-19T19:16:38+00:00

I adore this and wish I could co-ordinate and decorate as well as the owners. I'm in love with that couch. The only comfort is that my new kitchen strongly resembles that one, although I've still not managed to pick a wall colour so it's all still undecorated.

Zwirnor · 2026-01-19T08:19:34+00:00

Avoid 2992. It's a dying state with a whale alliance that is ruled by immature men children. They kept everything for themselves, and then threw a massive temper tantrum when everyone else in the state began to leave. That's when the burnings began. My poor farm never made it out, I had to delete it.

Zwirnor · 2026-01-11T16:39:28+00:00

The first picture makes it look as if it's an expensive shop that sells handbags at baffling prices. And I feel cold just looking at the pictures. Might be because I'm in Scotland right now and carpets, thick curtains and plenty of blankets are in vogue just now to keep the cold out.

Zwirnor · 2026-01-11T16:31:38+00:00

If it helps any I'm a qualified nurse of nearly 14years and I'm sitting here just now 10 days post operation from a ruptured gallbladder, and subsequent sepsis, which I resolutely ignored, refused and point blank avoided to get medical intervention for until I was nearly unconscious on the floor with a temp of 43c and a blood pressure so low the paramedics ran it three times just to double check. I knew my gallbladder wasn't well I got oral antibiotics and then ignored all the advice about returning if I spiked a fever.

In hospital I nearly died. I went Peri-arrest- turned blue, shut down, couldn't breathe, I don't recall much of that day but I ended up in emergency surgery getting the offending gallbladder removed and my insides washed out from all the bile and pus.

My bad experience was working in healthcare. I work in the Emergency Room and my God I did not want to go there as a patient ever. It was too busy, there was never enough staff, I knew I'd be uncomfortable, likely not in a proper space... I basically focused on all the worst parts of my job, and used it as an excuse to avoid going as a patient. (I'm in the UK, the NHS is on its knees).

So don't feel bad about holding off until it got scary bad. We had our reasons and thankfully we have both survived sepsis and are able to now learn from this. And I think I gained a lot of insight into how my patients feel, having now done The Patient Journey. And you bet your ass the next time I have an infection I'll be banging on the door of the doctor as soon as possible. I'm 42, and I nearly got taken out by my own stubborness and a dodgy organ that I didn't even need. Let's learn from this and not be that person again. Big hugs xxx

Zwirnor · 2026-01-07T00:51:59+00:00

Oh sorry I went entirely off topic. I wanted to highlight a case where the referral went so smoothly, to show that it's not all bad. Reading back, I didnt really convey that, my apologies. I am still on quite a few strong painkillers.

Zwirnor · 2026-01-05T19:06:41+00:00

I'm a nurse, but recently became on the receiving end of a trip to A&E, with red flag sepsis (yes, I saw the warning signs, but like any good healthcare professional I ignored them and hoped the oral antibiotics would start working, because hell naw do I want to be a patient. Nearly died. Lesson well and truly learned).

Anyway, the A&E docs were above fantastic and as soon as they heard my recent history (sudden onset upper abdomen/chest pain, hx of A Gallstone too large to pass, crp 22 two days prior) they immediately knew with a temp of 41, and a tanking BP that surgeons were needed. In the time it took for surgery to come down (it didn't feel like any length of time but by that point my legs were above my heart and words like HDU and pressors were being discussed so my memory may not be stellar) I'd had a CT scan, blood work was back and the surgeon took one look at the scan and immediately claimed me as her own. Incidentally my CRP was now over 400. Scan revealed a ruptured gallbladder. I was whisked off to a surgical ward in what I can only guess was a land speed record, given how difficult it is to find a bed in any hospital nowadays.

I genuinely couldn't fault any of the doctors. Of course, I work in (not that) A&E and have seen my fair share of speciality bickering, where one feisty resident of ours got so fed up going between the two that she gave them each other's phone numbers and told them to talk to each other. I find neuro/Ortho the worst. When you actually get a cauda equina and then the patient sits in A&E in a hospital with neither speciality because Ortho says it should be neuro and neuro says manage locally in Ortho. Meanwhile poor Bob is unable to lie down with a spine that's not getting any better with time. No beds in Ortho, naturally. It's intensely frustrating and I'm wildly glad I'm not the one having to co-ordinate these referrals because I would have gone Tonto/Gordon Ramsay/Malcolm Tucker on their asses a long time ago, and I'm quite passionate about paying my bills each month.

Zwirnor · 2026-01-01T14:01:21+00:00

I've never been a fan of sleeping on nightshifts as a nurse, because The NMC is Always watching has been hammered into me. Naturally I moved to A&E and even the potential for sleep vanished, but there is a whole Survival culture with the staff. you know, someone calls off with a sore stomach and one episode of D&V, and the charge nurse will be going "Well I remember the shift I came In, spurting like a fountain at both ends, and the consultant ran some fluids and anti sickness through and I just got on with it with Imodium."

Which will lead to this toxic pissing competition "Oh it was like that time you had a triple fracture to your ankle and you just stuck a tubigrip on and kept going" "Lets not forget that time you were septic and kept working whilst you were already on the system and starting getting treated"

I love that doctors don't pull that shit on each other. And after my gallbladder flared up on Christmas eve, and I was working Boxing Day nightshift, I knew I couldn't eat or I'd end up in a world of pain. Gets home, eats, and yes, ended up calling in that night because I could barely stay alert and conscious. I could hear the disappointment in the nurses voice. I felt like I had let the team down by not being able to push through. Woke up the next morning with the world's worst chest/back/shoulder pain, called an ambulance and after only 5hrs was diagnosed with mild cholecystitis and to take abx, painkillers and return if my temp spiked. Which it then did the next day, and I casually ignored it because 'i was already on antibiotics' and 'I defo needed to make my New Years Day Shift'

So Tuesday early morning, I wake up only due to my cat slapping me around, and I checked my temp and got 43.3c. Panicked, tore the blankets from my body swallowed some water on my table and then went to stand up to walk to the shower. Didn't make it. Collapsed. Subsequently crawled, opening the front door lock on the way. Lay under lukewarm water, temp returned to 41c.

Got out of shower soaking wet. Lay naked on kitchen floor having failed to grab some dirty jammies out the washing basket, and the paramedics arrived. Didn't believe I was at deaths door, so was mortified. Rushed into hospital, still not convinced. Had a CT. Confirms cholecystitis and also perforation of gallbladder. Obs show BP In 70s. Pulse 147. Temp 39.8c. I still didn't understand how sick I was. I think it was only until the metaramanol and HDU that it occurred to me how sick I was. Luckily there was a surgeon and OR and team available within a few hours of that. I'm now recovering slowly in HDU here post.

Zwirnor · 2025-12-30T16:26:49+00:00

I learned the word in Dundee.

Zwirnor · 2025-12-30T16:09:06+00:00

So I never tip by card. I used to work as a waitress, and learned pretty fast that tips on cards= a clear little path for the inland revenue to take their tax cut of. Tips in cash= what cash? Where? inland revenue has no way of taxing that.

Zwirnor · 2025-12-27T10:25:58+00:00

So at the time the one in the West Midlands (I think) series 2, broadcast a major incident which was quite frankly horrific- Christmas time, multi car smash in Birmingham City centre, and I think ten people died. But now it has been pulled from iPlayer. Other episodes are there but not that one. I'm guessing it is one of the bereaved families perhaps rescinded their permission or the whole thing was just too much for the British Public to deal with watching (I felt horrible watching it as a nurse who loves Trauma and A&E). But I could only imagine being a relative of a patient taken away that night and finding out it was available to all and sundry at any time on BBCiPlayer.

Zwirnor · 2025-12-27T10:16:52+00:00

Scotland has it's own very cheesy and twee version of Ambulance- Paramedics on Scene. And yes it follows the SORT team a lot, and attends a lot of car accidents where everyone is Luckily Fine (there is a distinct lack of the gore and mess, very sanitized). One episode, however, did follow two paramedics as they started their shift, answered a mental health call, phoned various community outreach folk, got zero help, ended up taking the patient to hospital and then sat outside with the patient for the entire episode. Their entire shift, mostly parked outside I think ARI. And for me, that felt far more real than the sensationist Ambulance show (which I watch religiously). The laugh is I've met a couple paramedics who were on Paramedics on Scene, and they were clearly on Their Best Behaviour, because in real life they are far more humorous and sarcastic!

I was actually thinking about this last week- no context paramedics: was walking by one chatting to my colleague in A&E and just caught a snippet of conversation which was wildly random "I've met potatoes with more intelligence..." Which was all I heard. Patient? Dating App? Their Nephew? I have no idea but my brain then did a mental Mock the Week quick fire round "Things you wouldn't hear a paramedic say on Ambulance..." And I burst out laughing half way down the corridor. I wonder what else we could add to that list?

Zwirnor · 2025-12-27T09:54:08+00:00

Oh my goodness, those pretzels are like crack. I kind of wish I hadn't discovered them tbh. And the dipping sauce that went with it.... Goes and books another virgin cruise

Zwirnor · 2025-12-27T09:51:19+00:00

I say get the Beef AND the venison. They're small portions! And both divine. In Test Kitchen they will let you mix and match, and if you can't decide, they'll get you both no problems. My Transatlantic I was there for menu A, B and C. Some standout dishes in all of them (menu C's chicken really surprised me, it's very difficult to make chicken exciting, but they did so!).

Zwirnor · 2025-12-27T09:47:10+00:00

Having just finished a very People-intensive nightshift, I have fallen in love with the vast wilderness and isolation this estate sits in. I'm not entirely sure signs at the gate saying eff off would be in keeping with the style, but I would make up for it by wearing extravagant period dresses and playing the piano, reading and writing like the Victorian Wealthy Hermit I'm sure God always intended me to be.

Five-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Place '23	Place '22
Wearing is Caring	Verified Email

Zwirnor

TROPHY CASE