New chemo staff

[Lyn]

Hi, I have been having chemo since 1998, since then we have shifted areas 3 times and everthing was like one big happy family, NOW, our head nurse left 12 months ago because she felt she wasn't challenged giving chemo and went on to bone marrow transplant patients, since then she was not replaced but the next nurse in line who transferred to our unit has been doing her job ever since, so admin eventually decided to advertise the position as a matter of politics and of course our nurse Nancy applied, but they advertised again and she had to reapply again, she didn't get the position because of the extra paper work and they wanted someone with admin to bad about us and her a brilliant nurse, well of course Nancy resigned and went to work back with the first nurse, so then her position became available and same deal, so next long term nurse Chris resigned and went to join the others so now as it stands I have two long time nurses who remain on casual because they don't want the office politics and all brilliant nurses and have to train the new chief, that leaves the latest one who has only been there about 6 months and now the level 2 nurse, want to know where I am going with this, well this unit has always been like having a visit with good friends, we would just go to the unit pull up an arm chair and all chat even the nurses, exchanges comments like we do on the forum, if the room was full we would sit in the lunch room and pretty much have a tea party, WELL, I walked up to the unit to be fronted with this sign, "Please wait in reception area until you are called for your treatment" this was of course from the new chief, my reaction of course was, what't this! and the only familiar nurse said oh, that is when we are busy, yeah right, more like frightened of me, so I had to tell my onc I wasn't impressed, the beauty of this unit was that it did not seem like a clinical visit we are all friends and try to make it an enjoyable experience instead it is going to be like waiting to go into the dentist, having this disease is bad enough with out it becoming an unpleasant experience and we have the sense to know that if there are no chairs available we will go sit elsewhere, I have even had my chemo in the lunch room when they are busy, was our way of treating this exceptional, or should I just follow the rules. I am sure if this carries on we will just become a patient and not a person. How do the rest of you get treated?

Love & Hugs Lyn

[Sheila]

Lyn
I am seeing the waiting game more and more when I go to Chicago...the fact is they do not have enough chairs for all the patients coming for chemo....I feel like they fight over me as I am an easy one with a 30 minute Herceptin infusion. But I too have to wait for a chair many times, and this is a brand new center for chemo....maybe the fact that cancer is now the #1 killer over heart disease has something to do with it. Or maybe with all the improvements in treatment, and early detection, people are living longer. I too get discouraged when I have to wait, and sometimes feel like a number, but then I look around and there is always someone much sicker than me and it puts me back into the importance of what these nurses are doing.
Hugs
Sheila

[Sandy H.]

This helped me to hear your story. I too was feeling like I am a visitor now. We are about to move back into our old department which has all been remodeled. The nurses are rotating doing adm. every 6 weeks. You can tell those that are treatment nurses and those that are adm. Those that like to do the treatments are much more caring then those that are use to shuffling papers. I can understand why they do this. A couple even said they couldn't wait to get back down stairs where they do adm. I was asking myself if we as patients where we go there so much if we get co dependent on them? I don't know the answer to that. We use to get survey papers to fill out but no more. That maybe because, everything has been under reconstruction the past 10 months. I will ask for some as soon as we get moved back into the new one next month. I only get weekly Herceptin and it takes me anywhere from 90 minutes to 2 hours to get out of there. That does not inlcude going and picking up my chart in the basement and going to the third floor! When I see the doctor once a month forget planning on doing anything else that day. I keep telling them I have to be somewhere and don't have the time to wait. Its mainly for them to decide where, my chart is, where the doctor order went, where I will sit, who will do my treatment. Some times I feel because its only Herceptin they don't worry about me its the chemo patients. Trust me I am not jealous of this!! Enough said as most of them do work hard in my oncology. There is always need for more nurses and doctors. Guess, I have released my frustration for today. Hugs, Sandy

[Lolly]

They are treating more and more patients at my center, we have an 8 chair room and it's usually full. However, they've got things organised so that if I'm coming in just for treatment I usually only have to wait for 5 or 10 minutes before someone comes to take me back. But, we have had some turnover also, they have been trying to find another nurse and a few have tried it, but end up moving on as it's not their cup of tea. So the 3 who've been there forever just keep doing the job of 5 and yet, one would never know. I thnk, no I KNOW we're lucky, hearing some of the other stories. It's a difficult job sometimes, and when they have a good nurse it's a shame they let politics get in the way of taking care of patients.
Hope things smoothe out for you there, Lyn. In the meantime, just keep on being yourself and "educating" the powers that be that YOU are the reason they're there.

Love, Lolly

[Lyn]

Hi there, well spoke to my onc today and he said he had nothing to do with the new system it is the new nurse Kate, seems like she just wants to treat us as a chart because it wouldn't matter if there were 10 empty chairs she wants us to wait on the plastic chairs until she says so, some kind of power trip I think, so I told him well I will have to sort her out and he laughed. He was offered a top job in the Bahamas, 300 bed hospital name his own package, he is tempted so I told him to make sure he gives me his e-mail addres. Well as I expected have to have a biopsy on my right breast, my onc didn't need to see the films after he looked at my breast and I said do you think it is inflammatory BC and he said think so we better get a biopsy, I said of what and he said the rash, inflammatory doesn't need lumps and bumps, explained get hot inflammed and spreads across breast then up, I wast tempted to start the Xeloda in the cupboard but out of dats, so me being me, I am going on my cruise tomorrow and having biopsy when I get back on the Monday so I will be able to take on yet another chore or ridding this devil from my body. Reading Maryann's story convinced me that a week out of my life isn't going to make much difference, so Bon Voyage, talk to you all in 7 days.

Love Hug Lyn