Nurse Meets Newborn | Snoogle Total Body Pillow Review

Leachco Snoogle Total Body Pillow
Product Link | http://tinyurl.com/Leachco

After watching the movie, The Back-Up Plan with Jennifer Lopez, I had to have this pillow when I finally became pregnant. It looked so comfortable and natural to use. Since the tenth week of my pregnancy, I've had trouble sleeping. I usually sleep on my back and that's not possible anymore, due the shortness of breath I experience. Since it's recommended for you to sleep on your side, I felt this would help with that transition. The best sleep position during pregnancy is “SOS” (sleep on side). Even better is to sleep on your left side. Sleeping on your left side will increase the amount of blood and nutrients that reach the placenta and your baby.

The first night, the whole process felt foreign to me and I felt awkward forcing myself to sleep in this position. But with time, I got use to it and actually enjoyed it. What made me return this product was the scratchy and harsh material used. Every section on the pillow that touched my body, caused me to sweat very heavily. This heat and perspiration didn't help the SEVERE pregnancy acne I've been experiencing either. If the fabric was softer and lighter in texture, I would buy this product again in a heartbeat. I really think this product would be a better fit for women in their second or third trimesters of pregnancy because early on, you don't have enough belly (in my mind) for it to work as needed. Many times I felt smothered by all the fabric surrounding me.

Nurse Meets Newborn | Anxiety Fading

Today, I'm a few days from the 20 Weeks mark and boy have the symptoms changed for me. The nausea has almost vanished but I'm still unable to eat anything beyond four bites. It's as if food in general is just unpleasant to consume. I really love food so, leaving 3/4 of it on a plate is different. I'm still in "waiting for the other shoe to drop" mode so, I haven't bought anything for the baby's room yet. My goal is to wait until after 22 weeks to buy anything. Why? I dunno, seems late enough to just accept the baby is legit this time. I didn't mention it earlier but when I first found out I was pregnant, I did 10 different pregnancy tests all in a two week time frame. I did this because with me having fertility issues, false positives were a possibility. I was cleaning my phone out today and found the very first pregnancy test I did on 08/14, that seems like so long ago now. Seeing this picture, knowing how long we've waited and how far along we are, really eased my anxiety. I can't control the future and stressing about it only causes more harm than good. So as for right now, I'm just settling into the fact that this baby is coming and he probably will be a wild child due to all this kicking of my organs is he doing now. Oh and we finally agreed upon a name, Rocco.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Medical Surgical Nursing

Category: Medical Surgical Nursing 
Antacids are basic compounds used to neutralize stomach acid. Most commonly they are nonprescription salts of aluminum, magnesium, calcium and/or sodium. The ancient Greeks used calcium carbonate in the first century to treat dyspepsia.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Infectious Diseases

Category: Infectious Diseases 

Linezolid (Zyvox) is used to treat infections associated with Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococcus Faecium (VREF), more commonly referred to as VRE. VRE is a notoriously difficult infection to treat and often occurs as a nosocomial infection.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Infectious Diseases

Category: Infectious Diseases 
Tetracyclines work by inhibiting protein synthesis in susceptible bacteria. For this synthesis to occur, transfer RNA must bind to the messenger RNA ribosome. The tetracyclines obstruct this synthesis by binding to the portion of the ribosome.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Infectious Diseases

Category: Infectious Diseases 

Azithromycin has excellent tissue penetration, so that it can reach high concentrations in infected tissues. It also has a long duration of action. Taking the drug with food decreases both the rate and extent of GI absorption.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Infectious Diseases

Category: Infectious Diseases 
Ceftriaxone (Rocephin) is an extremely long-acting third-generation drug that can be given only once a day in the treatment of most infections. It also has the unique characteristic of being able to pass easily through the blood-brain barrier.

YouTube Vlog | Pass/Fail Dosage Calculation Tests

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Infectious Diseases

Category: Infectious Diseases 
Sulfonamides do not actually destroy bacteria but inhibit their growth. For this reason, they are considered bacteriostatic antibiotics. They inhibit the growth of susceptible bacteria by preventing bacterial synthesis of folic acid.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Medical Surgical Nursing

Category: Medical Surgical Nursing 
Diphenhydramine (Benadryl) is an older, traditional antihistamine that works both peripherally and centrally. It also has potent anticholinergic and sedative effects. In fact, it is still often used as a hypnotic drug because of its sedating effects.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Medical Surgical Nursing

Category: Medical Surgical Nursing 
Levothyroxine (Levoxyl, Synthroid) is the most commonly prescribed synthetic thyroid hormone. One advantage it has over the natural thyroid preparations is that it is chemically pure, being 100% T4 (thyroxine).

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Medical Surgical Nursing

Category: Medical Surgical Nursing 

Cardiac glycosides get their name from their chemical structures. Glycosides are complex, steroid-like structures linked to sugar molecules. Because this medication group derives from the digitalis plant, they are referred to as cardiac glycosides.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Medical Surgical Nursing

Category: Medical Surgical Nursing 

Cardiac glycosides decrease the velocity (rate) of electrical conduction and prolong the refractory period in the conduction system. The particular area of the conduction system where this occurs is between the atria and the ventricles.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Medical Surgical Nursing

Category: Medical Surgical Nursing 

Digoxin augments vagal (cholinergic or parasympathetic) tone, which results in increased diastolic filling between heartbeats secondary to reduced heart rate. This further enhances cardiac efficiency and output.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Medical Surgical Nursing

Category: Medical Surgical Nursing 
The primary beneficial effect of a cardiac glycoside (digoxin) is thought to be an increase in myocardial contractility. This occurs secondarily to the inhibition of the sodium-potassium ATPase pump.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Medical Surgical Nursing

Category: Medical Surgical Nursing 
Cardiac glycosides are one of the oldest and most effective groups of cardiac drugs. Not only do they have beneficial effects in the failing heart but they also help control the ventricular response to atrial fibrillation or flutter.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Medical Surgical Nursing

Category: Medical Surgical Nursing 
Drugs that increase the force of myocardial contraction are called positive inotropic drugs, they are commonly used to treat heart failure. Drugs that increase the rate at which the heart beats are called positive chronotropic drugs.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Psychiatric Nursing

Category: Psychiatric Nursing 

Male erectile disorder (also called erectile dysfunction and impotence) is characterized by the recurrent and persistent partial or complete failure to attain or maintain an erection to perform the sex act.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Psychiatric Nursing

Category: Psychiatric Nursing 

Female sexual arousal disorder is physiologically characterized by persistent or recurrent partial or complete failure to attain or maintain the lubrication and swelling response of sexual excitement until the completion of the sexual act.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Psychiatric Nursing

Category: Psychiatric Nursing 

Dissociative fugue is characterized by sudden travel away from the customary locale and inability to recall one's identity and information about their past. In rare cases, an individual with dissociative fugue assumes a whole new identity.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Psychiatric Nursing

Category: Psychiatric Nursing 

Dissociative amnesia is marked by the inability to recall important personal information, often of a traumatic or stressful nature. This lack of memory is too pervasive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Psychiatric Nursing

Category: Psychiatric Nursing 

Malingering is a consciously motivated act to deceive based on the desire for material gain. It involves a conscious process of fabricating an illness or exaggerating symptoms in order to obtain compensation, funds and/or fraud.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Psychiatric Nursing

Category: Psychiatric Nursing 

Hypochondriasis results in the misinterpretation of innocent physical sensations as evidence of a serious illness. Persons with this disorder exhibit an overconcern for their health and become preoccupied with symptoms they believe may be serious.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Psychiatric Nursing

Category: Psychiatric Nursing 
Sleepwalking also referred to as somnambulism, consists of a sequence of complex behaviors that begin in the first third of the night during deep NREM sleep and usually progress to leaving bed, walking about and sometimes doing tasks.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Psychiatric Nursing

Category: Psychiatric Nursing 
Dyssomnias are sleep disturbances associated with the initiation and maintenance of sleep or of excessive sleepiness. Dyssomnias include primary insomnia, primary hypersomnia, narcolepsy, obstructive sleep apnea and circadian rhythm disorders.

Nurse Meets Newborn | First Trimester

You have no idea how excited I am this phase of the pregnancy is over because it was the worst. I'm a nurse and I know that nausea and fatigue are expected, your body is creating a baby BUT going through them is a different story. I don't know about you but, I don't have tons of paid time-off so, I couldn't call out every morning I threw up. I clocked into my 12-hour shift feeling like crap, worked the entire day feeling like crap and then I went home feeling like crap. It totally sucked and no one told me. Everyone kept using words like  "magical" or "blessing" like I was a 5-year-old or something. Am I excited I'm finally having a baby? Of course I am, but the symptoms are cray-cray (yeah, I typed that). I was starving but nauseous, couldn't sleep but was exhausted and was always uncomfortable. I couldn't describe to my husband how I was feeling but I knew that I wanted to be left alone. When you are pregnant, you can't take a ton of medications either. So, your options are limited which is also super annoying. Don't even get me started on prenatal vitamins and how they exaserbated my nausea. I spent $30 on Rainbow Light Just Once Prenatal One Multivitamins and they made me so nauseous, I considered NOT taking prenatal vitamins in general. For four days, I stopped taking them because I couldn't function. Luckily, my husband found these vitamins at Wal-Mart, Spring Valley Adult Gummy Prenatal Multivitamins and they are amazing. They oddly taste really, really good and caused ZERO nausea on my end. I still can't eat more than 25% of my meals but I hope the second trimester will allow me to eat more.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Psychiatric Nursing

Category: Psychiatric Nursing 
Cluster C personality disorders include dependent, obsessive-complusive and avoidant personality disorders. These individuals show patterns of anxious behaviors, social shyness, need for orderliness and relationship dependency.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Psychiatric Nursing

Category: Psychiatric Nursing 
Cluster B personality disorders include antisocial, borderline, histrionic and narcissistic personality disorders. Persons diagnosed with cluster B disorders show patterns of responding to life demands with dramatic, emotional or erratic behavior.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Psychiatric Nursing

Category: Psychiatric Nursing 
Cluster A personality disorders include paranoid personality disorder, schizoid personality disorder and schizotypal personality disorder. Persons diagnosed with these disorders share characteristics such as social isolation and detachment.

Nurse Meets Newborn | Gender Finally Known

We visited our high risk MD dude for another round of tests and we found out we are having a BOY! Today marks 15 Weeks, 5 Days and the nausea has lightened up but is still here 60% of the time. Being pregnant is well, sucky to be honest with you. I've wanted a child for so long but I didn't expect these changes in my body. I'm a control freak and I like being able to predict what is going to happen. My pregnancy has caused mood swings, protect baby from all "weird" people thoughts, severe swollen feet and an inability for me to eat a full meal. I don't like 80% of it but I am liking the fact that I'm starting to protect this little guy and I feel having emotionally healthy people in our lives is essential. My husband and I have talked and we both are on the same page regarding our parenting practices and we just can't wait to see this little one already. Seriously little guy, get here already!

The first two months of my pregnancy, I took a pregnancy test every week to make sure I was still pregnant. Sounds weird but after the miscarriage, I thought that first ultrasound wasn't real. Every time I urinate, I check and make sure I don't see any spotting or bleeding. This past miscarriage has me just waiting for something bad to happen and super stressed in general. I've tried to ignore it but once you see your baby moving on a screen, it just make it very real. There is a person in there and losing him at this point would really suck. I'm not crippled in my anxiety or anything but it's always in the back of my mind. Anyway, my due date is late May 2014 but was changed because our little guy is developmentally ahead by a week so who knows. The ultrasound a few days ago displayed the little dude has a healthy and fully developed heart, two kidneys, proper brain presentation, intact GI tract, two legs, two arms and he seems VERY feisty. He was moving all around and stretching like a grown man, it was hilarious.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Psychiatric Nursing

Category: Psychiatric Nursing 
Waxy flexibility is the extended maintenance of a posture or position, usually seen in catatonia. For example, the nurse raises the patient's arm and the patient continues to hold this position in a statue-like manner.

Nursing Tip of the Day! - Psychiatric Nursing

Category: Psychiatric Nursing 
Tactile hallucinations are a feeling of strange sensations on the skin where no external objects stimulate such feelings. Example: Jack “feels” electrical impulses tingling as they control his mind and he covers his walls in tinfoil to block them out.