Modified duties to return to work

So I gave my oc-health paperwork that I filled out and my physician signed off of to the hospital. Turns out they're suspicious of it. UGH, it never ends. Some other physician has to check out the paperwork and determine if my physician has to write a more "official" letter to explain why I need restricted shifts. In the paperwork it's indicated that I can work fri, sat, sun - evenings or nights. They don't understand why this is important - even after I explained to them that I would be taking narcotics mon-thurs since I get my seton tightened on mondays - and I can't work when I have been taking narcotics. Pretty sure my patients wouldn't want me as their nurse who's flying high (not exactly true) plus there's the thing of malpractice. Ya wouldn't want something to happen when I'm on those puppies! Plus once I have my seton tightened I'm in crazy amounts of pain and it's difficult to sit or walk - heightens the pain for sure.

So ya, don't know what I'm going to do. All I want to do now that I'm feeling better is go back to work. Unemployments/short term disability is done and so I need some money rolling in!!! Plus I have to pay for next semester's tuitio in a matter of weeks. Kinda hard to do with no money!

ANOTHER infection???!!!

The day we were supposed to leave my pain started to increase - always indicative of an infection. The tract felt like it was getting more and more swollen so i went to my family doctor's walk-in and saw the Dr there. She agress, another infection rearing it's ugly head.

Now I'm on Keflex - this makes my SIXTH antibiotic in less than 4 months. UGH when will this end??!!

I'm on vacation - I shouldn't have to deal with this crap. I however, am starting to wonder whether it IS the tract or whether I've developed another fistula because what I'm feeling is a hard lump at the top - but when I press on it (not hard cuz it hurts MASSIVELY) there's no discharge. So I'm at a loss. Hubby says to wait and try to let the antibiotic work and not head off to the ER here. Ya we'll see.

Anyone have any suggestions??? \the sitz baths aren't doign anything - certainly aren't helping with pain or burning or itching. Clearly they aren't helping with the infection. The keflex I've been taking now for 24 hrs - and that hasn't done anything yet. I just want the pain to stop. Ibuprofen isn't really helping. I don't want to be put back on the morphine if I can help it.

Fever seizures

Had placement today, it was my last - at least I think so. I've enjoyed it and today was no different.

My preceptor seemed to have enough trust in me to attend to one of the physicals today, and I nailed it.

We saw a little one who had bilateral ear infections - boy did they look painful!!! OUCHIE

Then we had a dad who brought his 5 month-ish daughter in for a check up cause his wife thought her cold had gone into her chest and was sounding congested - NP said nope but dad had also brought his approx. 2 yr old. And boy did HE look sick!!! He certainly looked MUCH worse than the one he came in for in the first place!

Dad indicated that kiddo had been fighting this "thing" for almost 3 weeks - had gone to an urgent care and the docs there had prescribed amoxicillin - which he had just recently finished. His nose was draining but not purulent - it was clear. When the NP touched him though, immediately she asked for a temp and it turned out that he had spiked one - 102.4 F (39.1 celcius) - and his poor eyes just told u everything about how sick he felt. We went out to get him tylenol and I went back in to give it to him - and take it he did. Then went back out. The NP was unsure what she was going to do plan wise because aside from the temp, his sinuses didn't look infected, no nasal drip indicating infection, chest clear - so what to do? And while we were discussing this amongest ourselves, the dad brought the kiddo out to the main area and exclaimed "he's having a seizure".

Sure enough, tonic clonic seizure (really rigid then the convulsions - and loss of consciousness - and his eyes rolled back in his head)- NP instructs the dad to put him down on the ground and she ensured that he didn't aspirate - tells the clerk to call 911 and stayed with him. Unfortunately there was no suction machine so I grabbed a kleenex so that she could wipe out his mouth - the seizure lasted approx. 2 minutes. When he started to have secretions in his mouth she turned him on his side and wiped his mouth again. Thankfully no vomitting, which meant that he kept down the tylenol. He also lost control of his bowels during this time. But that was the least of our concerns!

Once the fire fighters arrived, he had just completed the seizure and was in the "post ictal" phase of the seizure which is where they are no longer seizing but have not regained consciousness. Or if they do regain it, it may only be for a second. Our little guy went from the tonic clonic to post ictal then back to tonic clonic. Before he started to seize again the NP was able to get him to respond and open his eyes and his pupils were equal and reactive (good sign) - then he started to seize again, but it didn't last long before he went back to the post ictal phase. The guys arrived and put oxygen on him (didn't realize that there was oxygen in the office - don't know where anything is pretty much in that office!) and a pulse ox on him. His oxygen saturation was 94% without the oxygen and with blow-by oxygen it went to 100%. I tried to put the oxygen mask on him but he swiped that away so I just held it next to his face. You just felt for the little guy and his daddy who was standing near by just staring and trying to get a hold of his wife who was at work.

I got his little girl's stuff all together and got her in her car seat and brought her to him. Then once the paramedics showed up, they took the little one and away they all went with dad and baby in tow.

Wasn't expecting that for the last day of clinical - tho that's sorta how one of my last days of clinical placements went when I was doing placement on my unit at my hospital - so maybe it's a good omen for me???

I may be behind in school work but damn am I getting good grades

Since I had the surgery it has put me MAJORLY behind for school work. I've been TRYING to keep up, but damn do these teachers load the work and readings for each week.

I had been having major pain and irritation to the site - not sure how normal this is. As of yesterday the discharge has turned purulent and smelly. Went to my GP and he swabbed the area and sent it off for testing. I should know more Thurs. He didn't want to put me on anymore antibiotics since I've been on quite a bit lately. All good in my book since we are at least doing testing.

Because of the pain I was prescribed Dilaudid - I'm allergic to codeine, demerol and percocet - throat swells so ya, not having any of them. The unfortunate side effect is that I got MAJORLY dizzy from it. THEN I was getting nauseous from it (and gravol or maxeran weren't helping) and subsequently vomitting for an entire day. NOT good when i'm trying to make up all this stuff. Because of the dizziness I lost 4 days - finally I just had to stop taking the pills and deal with the agony in order to get SOME work done.

Pain's still pretty bad, especially after activity. So off I went to the GP yesterday to see if I can get morphine instead. I know it makes me nauseous but at least I know that maxeran will cover it and I SHOULD be ok.

I have a follow up with the surgeon on sept. 30 - looking forward to seeing him and hearing what he has to say about this entire mess.

Hi Hoe Hi Hoe, It's off to work I go

Tomorrow is the first day that I'm due back at work. It's about 75% back to normal. I'm still having the dizzy spells but rarely now and I've stopped having the shaking spells, thankfully. I still have a cough but I will live. So tomorrow I find out if I can be a nurse again.

You never realize how much you value health until you're sick, and boy do I miss being healthy! I miss going to work though. Being sick has certainly put a dent in my finances, I've been out of work for like 3 weeks now. I don't work full time and therefore do not get sick pay - rather a bummers for me! I'll survive, bummers it has to be on savings considering we don't have a whole lot at the moment!

I guess even if I'm not feeling the best tomorrow I'll have to suck it up and go anyways. Especially since I have a vacation that I want to go on and can't if we don't have the money for it! Pray that I can make it through, I don't want to have to come home sick cuz then my co workers have to work short - the hospital won't replace a nurse if it's in the middle of a shift, only if it's like before an hour after the shift starts.

So Hi Hoe Hi Hoe, It's off to work I go....

Trying to recover

I've been home for a day now and while it's nice to be home, it's exactly what I thought it would be like... where the family thinks that just because I'm no longer in the hospital, it equals not sick, thereby all better.

I will make it crystal clear that that is NOT how things are! I'm dizzy all the time, which in turn makes me nauseous. It really sucks, and knocks me on my butt when it happens. I get all diaphoretic and feel like I could just pass out and fall on my head.

Last week my MIL got hurt at work - something fell on her and it hurt her back and neck. Now, I'm not one to say that you aren't in pain since pain is subjective - we all deal with it in our own way. But today she had the nerve to tell me that because she manages to do things around the house and she's "sick", then by that logic, so should I be. WTH!!!! It's like comparing apples to oranges...

I honestly feel like I shouldn't be at home right now - I don't feel well. I feel like I'm going through withdrawls or something. I don't know if this is a SE of the prednisone since I've never been on it before but I know that I'm certainly not well enough to go back to work and therefore not well enough to do work around this house - not enough that anyone around here would take notice of anyways.

I really wish hubby had a job in his field so that we could move out - I'm absolutely fed up of the treatment that I receive living here. UGH!!!!

I need to get better quick so that I can go back to work so that I can save some money so that I can finish school faster and get a house of my own!!!!!!!!

Meningitis (in the back of my head) or just a migraine?

The last couple of days have been difficult to get through. I went to the Dr's yesterday to get a sick note as I called in sick last week - still not 100% but enough to go back. I'm fighting a throat infection thingy, with a bit of a cough and I feel it's going into my left ear - when the Dr looked in my ear, she said it was clear. She did, however, say that my throat was reddened.

So I went to work yesterday and developed a headache while at work - took some Motrin around 1900 hrs and went on my merry way - working/fighting through the pain. The Motrin didn't get rid of the headache but at least took the edge off so that I could still focus on what I needed to do. Being in the DRY DRY hospital didn't help my throat either, was coughing quite a bit, think it might have irritated it more and also could have increased my ICP, not helping the headache situation.

By the time I came home the headache was starting to increase again, so I took some more Motrin and my other nightime pills and climbed into bed (approx. 0030 hrs). When I woke up, HOLY BATMAN was my head killing me! I felt sick, sick, sick. I took some motrin and stayed in my bed, figuring that I just needed some more rest or something. But a couple of hours later I felt like I was febrile. Checked my temp, and sure enough I'm sitting at 40.1 C - remember that I had already taken Motrin... So I take some tylenol headache - which has ES tylenol AND caffeine... should have helped my fever AND my headache BUT IT DIDN'T help ONE BIT! Didn't even really touch the pain.

Two hours later I couldn't take the pain anymore so I went back to the Dr. She checked my temp - yep still had a 38.0 temp. Because I'm allergic to codeine, demerol, and percocet, there wasn't a whole lot she could wanted to do about giving me something to relieve the pain... but she gave me a migraine medication.

When I went to pick up this med - for EIGHT doses, it cost me $147.47!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOLY EXPENSIVE! I almost crapped my pants! But honestly, I would have paid anything to make the headache go away.

The first dose didn't do a thing for the pain, two hours later I took the second dose (and now I can't have anymore for 24 hrs!) and it took another 3 hours for ANY pain relief. On a scale of 1-10, I'd put it at a 6ish... but the pain gets worse when I sit up or stand up. SUCKY! Which on that scale is like an 11 when higher than a supine position.

I hope I get better quick cuz I don't want to have to go to the hospital, I am at one enough because of my job, I know how things roll there and things take FOREVER to get done!!!!

Febrile children Oh NO!

Went to bed last night and checked on the kids before getting in myself - to find out that my eldest - kiddo had a temp. I KNEW he did, just by touching him. When I finally found a thermometer (don't know where they all went, we own like 8 of them!) and checked his temp, it was 102.9 F (39.1 C) - poor kid felt like crud. Said he had a headache and his legs were hurting and he just felt crummy. Gave him some tylenol and tucked him back into bed.

Gave him tylenol and tucked him in for the night. Thankfully in the AM it was normal again. I was also thankfully that he wasn't feeling nauseous since he has a SUPER finicky/sensitive stomach and vomits VERY easily.

When he was young, I couldn't force him to eat because if I did he would vomit it all up and then I would be further away from my goal than I would have been if I had let him stop eating when he wanted to.

I also know that when kiddo says "mom, I don't feel so good" I need to find him a container to vomit in IMMEDIATELY or else it's going all over me or right in front of him, and that could mean on the floor or all over the car! Such was the last time I did drop off for visitation.

He has hockey tomorrow, hope he's feeling all together better. I hate seeing the kids sick.