Battle Hymns of a Hot Mess Mom

Everyone starts somewhere, at whatever career down to learning how to walk and while everyone starts somewhere sometimes it’s scary to be the patient of a baby nurse. She first forgot to give me my meds so I was an hour late, and then she forgot to actually change my scop patch. She then told me my platelets threshold was 15 when I know it’s 10. It’s a white knuckle experience cause you know they are nervous, they have already identified to you that they are new and you have already seen/ experienced the errors. Now comes the anxiety that is simply please don’t kill me or adversely affect my care. And the second is omg I don’t want you as my nurse again. There is obviously a shift in the nursing industry- after Covid nurses were burnt out. You see it in the nursing strikes from Kaiser as well as nursing strikes in smaller hospitals. There are memes about their consistent shortage and the patient overload. I applaud this nurse for coming into a really rough industry but as a patient I’m also scared of her.

She will likely administer my platelets tomorrow morning and I told J to please be awake and watchful of what meds she pushes in and how fast she pushes platelets. At this point my premeds have been engrained in me. (Tylenol, 50mg IV Benadryl and hydrocortisone IV 25mg. I am to go no faster then 125ml/hr preferably slow to start at 75ml-100ml for the first 30 mins). I know throughout my journey I have continued the theme of self-advocacy in your own medical care. It’s not baby nurses that can forget; seasoned nurses also can forget as well. In fact I had to challenge my first nurse during premeds when she said 25mg of Benadryl. I asked her to please double check my records as my standard of care has been 50 mg IV of Benadryl.