Thank God for Nurses!

These pictures were taken Sunday morning. I put blueberries and whole wheat waffle batter into the vitamix and made purple waffles. We were out of syrup so the kids had to wing it with butter LOL They did fine. No complaints!

I generally come down with a sickness or illness (usually infectious) once annually - and it's usually a doozy. I was surprised to see this past Fall season come and go without me going down. I initiated better eating at the end of October and then at the end of November/early December jumped into Fuhrman diet 100%. Avoiding a year of sickness finally caught up with me because I had a UTI that started on Friday. By Saturday, I knew better than to avoid it so I spent 2-3 hrs on a Saturday afternoon in an urgent care with a straightforward problem. I left with a paper script (who writes these anymore?!) and took it to the pharmacy but then they wanted 40min to fill it. By then I needed to get home and make dinner. I elected to wait until Sunday morning (neglect on my part) to fill the script. Sunday morning, I had excruciating pain, frequency, frank hematuria and I became febrile. I immediately picked up my filled Rx on Sunday AM and took the first antibiotic in the car on the way home.  Fever, flu-like symptoms, constant suprapubic pain. I was a mess and very ill on Sunday, fever broke at 6am on Monday. I was ill yesterday, but afebrile. Attempts to notify my pcp that my uncomplicated UTI had become more complex was unsuccessful (and an appt can't be made without getting through the "med aide," which a lot of people call a "nurse," which is a slap in the face to real nurses who spend YEARS getting a degree, not WEEKS. This MA doesn't even come into the office until noon).  I don't need to spend anymore of my precious, valuable time on this earth talking about how broken the medical system is here in America. It's beyond words and everybody suffers. I just want to stay out of it ... hence --> Fuhrman diet (which is whole foods, meat used as condiments only, devoid or limited salt/oil/processed food).

I'm on my last day of antibiotic (I only got a three day supply) and I can only hope that will be enough.

I'm grateful that I feel better today. My energy is back and I feel "normal."

Just after that sentence a real nurse called me from the urgent care to discuss my urine culture and make sure I was feeling better. I explained my situation, she spoke with the doctor and that doctor agreed that I needed a week of antibiotics following the fever.  I profusely thanked her for calling to follow-up with me.

I appreciate and love nurses. Another prime example of the difference between a person who has had weeks of education and a person who has had years. The bottom line is that a doctor's office would normally love to hire a registered nurse to be in the office but they cannot usually afford one so they are forced to employ less expensive med-aides. I work with med-aids myself and I don't have a personal vendetta against them ... they are my friends, they are my coworkers and they have some training. However, they did not spend years in education and their training isn't either nursing or medicine. But to make patients feel better, offices will label a med-aid as a "nurse" to patients.

This diminishes the quality of care given by registered nurses and advanced practice as seen by the public.

It severely tarnishes our image.

I go to work later this week reminded of what it can feel like to be a patient. I have patients tell me that I go the extra mile and it makes all the difference for them.  I am reminded that I must remain vigilent with patient care and follow each complaint until resolution.

I know it was a nurse who called to follow-up who eventually corrected what might have been a resurgence of pyelonephritis from inadequate coverage while I was out of state.

And, oh man. I am grateful for that.

I have lost 22 lb since beginning my new diet and I am feeling great. I have noted that my pants are loose around the waist line. I don't feel skinnier otherwise. I have so much more of my attention focused on more meaningful aspects of my life.

Comments

[scrub uniforms]

Thank you for sharing this post. It was very informative and interesting. Having a real nurse discussing your health is a big comfort. When it comes to your health you cant cut any corners and need to get the best healthcare possible.

[Jen H.]

I like your idea that, because nurses can seek many different levels and specialties, we specify the type and degree of nurse a person is. I don't think it always needs to be viewed as a ranking system of hierarchy, necessarily, but it would clarify for the public WHO it is standing before them. In midwifery, our primary issue at this point in time is broadening the image to the public of the nurse-midwife in advanced practice (ACNM has taken on this topic as the main issue for 2013). This will likely be an entire chapter in my book on nursing in a few years ;-) As you can tell, it's a hot topic with me (i.e. rant about MA's being nurses above) LOL

[Jen]

I have been following your blog forever and a day but rarely comment. I had to say thank you for your post today and your comment regarding nurses vs. aides or medical assistants. My husband went back to school 5 years ago to get his BSN/RN through a traditional 4 year year program and after watching the INTENSE study he went through (and continues to go through now as a grad student) it is so nice to hear someone else who gets it. The fact that using the term "nurse" indiscriminately in the health care field devalues it is not something talked about often. My husband is a fairly new RN, he has been working as a staff RN for the last 8 months on a SICU. They generally refer to each other either as an LPN (which are rare on the staff anymore) RN or BSN/RN depending on their degree of certification. Nurse really doesn't even come into play just because it doesn't properly describe the level of education anymore. A nurse who's been on the floor for 30 years and has a certificate is also very different in terms of education from the nurses who went to school in the past 10-15 years. When someone asks what my husband does I automatically say he's an BSN/RN, not a nurse. And usually follow up with the fact that he's a grad student on the Acute Care NP path. Nurse just doesn't cover it!