My nurse Sue....

Oh boy, nurse Sue.  She is one unique individual.  I recall having her when I was in the hospital with Aiden, and I remember telling my next nurse I didn't want to have Sue again during my stay.  Well, here we are 28 months later and I had Sue as a nurse again.  So not lucky!

She was the nurse who was in the OR when Eli was born, she did his weight and swaddled him and there was no real problem with any of that. 

Fast forward to Friday and she was my day nurse, coming in for her shift at 730.  She walks into my room and first thing she did was lecture me for holding Eli in bed when I was clearly dozing on and off and drowsy.  My mom jumped in and said "here, give him to me I'll change him" but that didn't stop her making me feel bad for even considering holding him in bed.  Little did she know I slept with him like that the first night.  After that lecture she said "what have you had for breakfast".  I replied, "my dad brought me Voodoo donuts and I plan to have one with coffee".  She was snotty and goes "That is not breakfast, I'll get you something better".  She stormed out and came back with a breakfast tray of a sad looking waffle, a browning banana and some cream of wheat.  I said "I'm not going to eat that".  She got really snippy and said "You aren't going to eat that? *looks at my mom now and says * "Are YOU going to eat that?"  Mom goes.... NO.... and the nurse got real bent out of shape that she went and got us food and we didn't plan to eat it.

She moved on from the food and then started my check up.  Did my vitals and such and handed me my little pill cup.  I noticed there was a large white pill in the cup, I asked if that was the prenatal vitamin.  She said yes.  I then told her "oh, well I declined to take that, the nurse last night confirmed with my Dr that I didn't need to take it".  Sue didn't like this and she said "so you won't take it?"  I said "No, I declined it".  She said "fine, just had it to me and I'll discard it" then she loudly sighed and threw it in the garbage.  I took the remaining pills.  We moved on.  She told me that she was reducing my pain pills, because Oxycodone was a "street drug" and that she didn't want me to become dependent on it.  So I'm going to reduce your pills from 3 to 2.  Also since you've gone almost 4 hours without asking for it {I was sound asleep mind you} I'm not going to give it to you every 3 hours, I'm going to move it to every 4 hours."  She didn't even consider the fact that I had been asleep and that is why I didn't ask for them on time.  I was in shock and didn't respond to this fact.  I just said "ok".

After my check up it was time to check on Eli.  She checked his vitals and noticed he needed to be changed.  Mom said she would change him and got out the preemie diaper.  Sue goes "why is he wearing preemie?  The newborns work fine".  I said "well the nurses yesterday brought us preemie because the newborn keep sliding off his flat butt".  She got grumpy and said again, very irritated "well the newborn worked just fine for me the other day". 

Now if all of that wasn't enough in the 20 minutes she'd been in my room she had to give me further instructions.  She went over the whole I'm your nurse until 730pm and I will come in every hour or two and check on you.  If you need anything please use the nurse call button.  Yada Yada.  Then she threw the bomb at me... "Your scheduled nap time is from 3-5.  I will come in just before 3 and make sure you have your meds, and then I will put a do not disturb sign on your door.  No visitors during that time {insert a look to my mom} so all your guests will need to leave."  I was shocked.  I said "Umm, so I have a scheduled nap time today?"  She said "yes the whole floor has nap time today".  Yeah... ok....

Then she left the room.  That was the first 30 minutes I was awake on Friday, what a nice treat.  It was one thing after another.  A few minutes after that, the nursing student who was in the room said "what in the world was Sue talking about - your pill is not a street drug and you won't get addicted.  It's not like you are going to cheek them and sell them on the market".  She just laughed with us before she left too.

My dr came in about 30 minutes later to see how I was doing.  I proceeded to tell her the entire story from start to finish about Sue's morning visit.  She said that she gets a lot of complaints about Sue and that I really need to say something.  She also mentioned that I can request a different nurse.  She just laughed at the story and couldn't believe all of it.  Next thing I knew Sue was back.

She walked right up to my bed, holding back tears and said "I understand you don't want me as your nurse.  I would like to know what I did that makes my patients not want me" I just told her the truth.  That she came in and lectured me about my donut, which I was very excited to enjoy for breakfast, then proceeded to reduce my meds without consulting me.  She just told me me what she was going to do and that was that.  She then tried to defend herself and back peddle and was all like "I was just meaning that having JUST a donut wasn't the best breakfast, I just meant it had no protein to it and we should have brought you a breakfast tray".  Then she tried to back peddle about the drugs and said "we get graded for pay based on a survey and I just wanted to make sure you had all the information you needed about your drugs".  I started crying because she was holding my hand and making me feel like complete crap for complaining about her. 

She left and a nurse manager came in.  She said down and listened to my entire story.  She was not happy at all with the situation and even told me they like to have 3-5pm be "quiet hours" on the wing but that doesn't mean no guests or that I HAVE to have a nap.  It just means they encourage our patients to rest.  When I got to the part where Sue came back in and confronted me she gasped.  She was appalled that Sue did that.  She said "that should have NEVER happened - that was not appropriate of her at all".  She got me a new nurse and said she appreciated me talking to her.

The next nurse was great, she helped get my pills back on the schedule they were originally on and ensured me that I did NOT need to take a nap.  After that though all my nurses seem to have heard about my incident with Sue and found it amusing.