Originally Posted by NurseNancy

here i am at 0500 and awake. i went to bed real early yesterday so no wonder.

yesterday was a stressful day. the shots REALLY hurt. 4 separate sites. 3 discs, i nerve root and 2 shots, one on each side with numbing meds then the cortisol. some pain was shooting down my (bad) leg. i hope in the coming 24-72hrs that the meds take hold and reduce the swelling.

my muscles were getting very tight in the procedure room as i dealt with the pain.
when i was done and wheeled into recovery (they gave me fentanyl for pain, could have fooled me. i don't remember it working last time either) my BP was 185/72! i started crying. i think just from the relief of the stress. there was a nurse standing at the foot of the bed who put on the BP cuff and took my vitals. i even remember asking her my BP reading. she only asked me 2 Q's. what was my pain level # i forget the 2nd. she also put my IV in and only spoke to tell me what she was doing. simple. end of story.

she never acknowledged that i was crying. never said ONE word to me. didn't put a hand on me in understanding. never said a kind word. never said "it's a common reaction to cry at the end of this procedure. she could see for herself how high my BP was and never talked to me. she would have had to be totally unaware of me as a person to not know i was crying.

just another reason to make me feel that this new "breed" of nurses is more interested in tasks than in the whole person.

i asked them to let my friend in to be with me. she went to the waiting room and came back and said "she must be uncomfortable about coming in here. she wanted to read her book". whaaaa? she's a nurse! she wouldn't have been uncomfortable. so then i was feeling upset at my friend and just laid there, alone. the BP cuff took my pressure by itself. nurses came by to ask my pain level. i asked what my BP was and it was coming down. dah, i was calming down, by myself.

later when i told Jan about it her take on the conversation was different. she got told she could go in but i had to lay flat and i was resting. so she decided to let me rest. hello, why else would i have asked to have her with me? am i just being oversensitive here? because each place i've been there's been a lack of people skills. it can't be my imagination, can it?

i've been in nursing too long. we're taught how to GIVE care. how to observe, how to read our patients and help them. what the heck is happening. i decided on fri to stay home and rest. i'm going to make some phone calls. it's also really galling me that the radiologist who read my lumbar film didn't pick up on any of these disc changes when my pain dr (an anesthesiologist himself) saw it in 2 seconds on the CD.

and that's the way the report will be in my records. that all was stable from last yr. that's crazy. that's another call i'm making tomorrow. i want the report re-read by someone else and the report corrected. so if everything was stable why did i get 4 injections into narrowing nerve roots?

so i'm even more nervous going into this surgery. it will be in another hospital who i hope will be held to better standards. so far i've experienced this with the procedures i've had there. if not i'll be making more phone calls. and this time to CEO's. you know how i can get when i'm on the warpath.

so today i get an eye exam and get my hair cut. then i'm coming home to rest. my back is sore but the back pain is almost gone. hope it gets better from here.

gosh, wish me luck. at least cathy will be with me. and she's a bear of an advocate.

thanks for all your well wishes. i know you guys will stick with me thru thick and thin. i appreciate you all.