Cheap For A Reason

I love cheap watches. When the batteries die, I find it easier and more fun to just buy a new watch. I also like not having to worry about something bad happening to my watches. If the glass gets scratched or if it no longer keeps time, oh well, I have plenty more.

Yesterday, I saw a great sale on watches. They were five bucks each, so I bought two. Since I was near a jewelers, I also took my collection of old watches with dead batteries in to get replacements. That cost six bucks each. It was cheaper to just buy new watches, except for one thing. Once I was home, I discovered why the watches were so cheap. The batteries were dead.

One of the watches came with a warranty that I found amusing. My favorite section said, "Ok, so what if you like fall on your wrist bungee jumping and the crystal breaks or you try to stretch the bracelet around you head in a fashion statement and it breaks? Guess what? It's not our fault..." It's nice to see warranties written in plain English. Too bad the batteries aren't covered by the warranty.

We Want You

I get these things in the mail almost everyday. Hospitals are always looking for nurses and sending out flyers. Contrary to popular belief, there is not really a nursing shortage. What there is, is a shortage of hospitals that nurses are willing to work in, for good reason I might add.

Most hospitals offer sign in bonuses or even cars, such as Ford Mustang convertibles. This hospital offered a modest $2,000. $5,000 to $10,000 is closer to the norm. It's still not enough, though. But that's the topic for a different post.

What interested me here is the photo. Some of the nurses are wearing leis and carrying pom poms. Is that how the nurses at this hospital dress for work? They look like they're having more fun than the weary, depressed nurses I work with. I guess the flier nurses are trying to pretend that their hospital is a fun place to work. I do plead guilty to being cynical by nature, so take this with a grain of salt, but I think that they are lying. In fact I know that they're lying. I've been in that hospital as a student nurse and as a patient and I never saw a lei, pom pom or happy nurse.

I also never saw a monkey. Take a closer look at the photo.


See the monkey? Is this something new? Do they have monkeys swinging from the IV poles in their hospital? Or, are they saying that some of their coworkers are monkeys? If they're saying that a monkey could do this job, it's not true. A monkey wouldn't do this job.

Sleigh Bells And Vagiana Searches

I don't know if it's a virus or what, but my computer is still making strange sounds. The sounds are totally random. I may be in bed or working at the computer and hear them.

It started out with a realistic meow that had me looking for a trapped cat. Then, it was a woman laughing. That was the worst. I'm sure that she was laughing at me. Next, it was some guy yelling, "mom." The latest sound is sleigh bells. I'm curious to know what's next on the agenda.

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Everyday I check the Statcounter to see what people were looking for when they found my blog. It's a constant source of amusement for me. For a couple of weeks now, I've been getting daily "vagiana" searches. Todays alone were "vagiana", "vagiana pictures" and "what kind of creame do you us on a dry vagiana."

I figured that there was some oddly obsessed person out there who couldn't spell vagina. I looked more closely and it turns out that there are lots of people doing vagiana searches. Today's searches were from Germany, Canada and Singapore. They are being directed to my blog because in one of my comments, someone mispelled vagina. I suppose I could delete the comment and end the searches, but then, I would also have to delete this post.

Ladder Rules

I have a rule that I'm not allowed to climb any higher on a ladder than I'm willing to fall. I broke that rule.

My house came with awning across the back of the house. Eventually the fabric fell apart from the hot sun, leaving ribbons of fabric blowing in the wind.

I didn't mind. I liked having more window exposed and the sun pouring through the house. What I did mind was the eyesore of flapping pieces of fabric. It had to come down. There was just one problem. One of the awning frames was about 16 feet off the ground and I'm not willing to risk falling 16 feet.

That's a problem that I've been thinking about for at least a year. The awning didn't magically disappear like I had hoped, which left the only alternative, making a death climb.

My last meal was a blueberry smoothie. I brushed my teeth afterwards so that if the paramedics came, I wouldn't have blue teeth. I had never used an extension ladder before, so I made my best guess how it worked and slowly climbed with a screwdriver.

I wasn't happy with what was in my fall zone. There was a pile about five feet high of branches that need to be cut into firewood. Some of the side branches faced up, the better to skewer me with should I fall. I tried not to look down and picture myself as a human shish kebob.

Whoever attached the bolts to the house did not want them ever to come undone. It took all of my strength to loosen them and one bolt I completely gave up on. It was permanently screwed in. The frame shifted around and dangled by the one bolt. I couldn't leave it like that, it was just too embarrassing looking. As a last result, I sat on the edge of the window and began swinging the frame back and forth hoping that the screw would come out of the wall. It did and the awning frame went crashing down, taking the ladder with it. Good thing I was sitting on the window ledge.

Not feeling lucky enough, I decided to go back up the ladder because the window needed washing. This time the window was closed so there was no escape route. Nothing bad happened. But, there are streaks on the window. Do I dare going up the ladder again?

Pearly Gates

The patient was an old man with multiple medical problems, any one of which could have killed him. Dialysis was keeping him alive, but he didn't see the point. He wanted to die and we were keeping him alive.

Too weak to even turn over, he was totally dependent on us for all of his care. He just lay there helplessly as we changed his diaper and bathed him. For a man who still remembered being young and strong, who once supported and took care of his family, it must have been demoralizing to find himself totally dependent on others for his care.

He wasn't going to get better. He had been slowly dying for some time and he was tired of it. He just wanted to die and be released from the torture we were putting him through. So, he began abusing his call light. He was calling every few minutes and his request was always the same, "Please kill me."

Of course, being human and preferring to laugh than cry, we would joke amongst ourselves. When the call light had gone on for something like the fiftieth time, I would say in a matter of fact voice, "I'm going to go kill him now."

He was going to die soon without our help. He became too sick for dialysis, so that was stopped. His body filled with poisons and fluid. By withholding treatment, we were allowing him to die, but it was a bad process. He alternated between confusion and periods of lucidity, but regardless, he still asked us to kill him.

On his last night, he asked his nurse to take him to Jesus. She told him that the gates to Heaven didn't open until eight a.m. and that he would have to wait. I'm guessing that she came up with that line because her shift ended at seven-thirty a.m. and she wanted him to leave her alone until the next shift took over.

At ten a.m., two hours after the gates to Heaven opened, he passed away. It's sad, but is it a tragedy when an old man dies?

Ready To Blow

I overheard the doctor talking to another doctor on the phone. She was describing the patient as looking like the Michelin man and might blow any minute. Air was leaking from somewhere and accumulating under the skin. She was a giant human balloon and with every breath continued to inflate. Would she go boom?

The patient had a colon resection a couple of days earlier and had a central line removed earlier that day. The doctor wanted the other doctor's opinion whether the air was leaking from the colon or if the central line had done some damage to the respiratory system. The doctor also vented over the phone about how she was not pleased with the surgeon who had brushed her off when she had called him for advice. It was his patient and he had told her it was her problem.

I couldn't hear both sides of the conversation, so I don't know what was decided, other than that they had to find the source of the leak.

I found it mildly amusing that the doctor came to our unit to have this phone discussion. There was no reason for her to visit us, other than to use the phone. The unit with the balloon patient also had a phone, but I'm guessing that she didn't want the nurses there to hear that she had no idea what to do. I felt a little sorry for her and pretended that I hadn't heard the conversation.

Later, it was decided to pop the balloon. The doctors were looking for a big needle to poke the lady with. I didn't hear a big bang when she got jabbed. I also heard that it didn't particularly help. The lady is still inflating and looks ready to blow. I don't know how this is going to end.

Ativan Adventure

I know that it's against the rules, but I did it anyway. We all do. What happened is that one of the crazier patients who was being guarded by an aide, started acting up and became difficult to control. The aide asked me if there was something I could give the patient to take her down a notch. I said that I would see what I could do.

I checked the records and there was nothing ordered that I could just jab her with. The doc only ordered pills and that requires a patient's cooperation in the form of swallowing. I was going to have to trick her.

I got a healthy dose of ativan, crushed it and mixed it with a spoonful of ice cream. I walked into the patient's room, handed it to the aide and said, "Here."

She replied, "Oh, no thank you."

I whispered, it's for the patient, that's ativan. She then took the spoon and gave it to the patient. (Aides aren't allowed to give meds, but she had the best chance of getting it down the patient.)

It's a good thing that the aide didn't want the spoonful of ice cream that she thought I was offering her. Otherwise, she would have taken the spoon, I would have walked out of the room and she would have eaten the ativan by mistake. Later, I would have found the aide passed out and the patient wilder and crazier than ever. That would have been really hard to explain.

Entertainment Challenge

I kicked the bucket today, literally. I was scrubbing dog off the walls and tripped over the bucket of water. Murphy tracks so much dirty water in the house, I guess that one more bucketful won't make much difference. The carpet should dry eventually, or rot.

I wish that I could have the entire inside of the house repainted. The carpet and wood floors also need replacing, but there is no point in doing that now. They will just get damaged again. Murphy is terminally ill and has been sneezing blood for nine months now and my house shows it and smells it. The couch is completely saturated with pond water and blood. It will have to be replaced, but not until Murph is gone.

So, what was I thinking when I invited my new friend over for dinner? If it's warm, I could mostly keep him on the patio, but the temperatures tend to drop at night. Whatever I do, I have to keep him away from the couch. The smell alone would make him want to run.

The only place fairly presentable is my bedroom. The bed is the only clean, dry and comfortable place to sit in my house, but entertaining him there just might give him the wrong idea.

I hope he understands that I'm providing hospice care to a much loved dog and that my house normally doesn't look or smell like this. If he doesn't understand, then it will be a good test of his character.

I could just blind-fold him, pinch his nose and lead him straight to my bedroom. Would that make him suspicious?

Shine Unhappy

I really should know better, but I'm such a sucker for new hair products. A box called Shine Happy caught my eye. It promised to make hair shinier and silky textured with one application and would last four weeks. It also said that it would not alter hair color and was fine for all types of hair, whether natural or dyed. It was all lies.

My hair is less shiny than it was before and now looks and feels like straw. The product also stripped the color from my hair. My hair is now platinum blonde and I'm livid. If I wanted platinum blonde hair, I would color my hair platinum blonde.

It will take some work to get my hair back to the streaky mix of blonde shades I like, but it can be done. I don't know what I can do about the straw texture. It may just have to grow out. Grrrrr.

Yin And Yang

Maybe there is something to this yin and yang thing. Our mean and nasty 500 pound lady finally left and was promptly replaced with one of the biggest bitches I've ever come across. At least the new bitch is slightly confused, so that management won't take her ridiculous complaints seriously.

She was upset that she had a 109 temperature and we were ignoring it. That was her systolic blood pressure, but she doesn't want to listen to explanations.

She refers to us as "you people" when talking to us, for example, "You people mistreat old people and you're not going to get away with it. I know a bigwig here and when she hears about you people you're going to be in big trouble." (This isn't an exact quote, I'm paraphrasing because I can't memorize long tirades.)

The old lady in the next bed called us angels. It's so strange that we are either labeled as angels or monsters depending on our patient assignment. Our behavior is the same, the only thing that changes is the patient.

The complaints go on endlessly and I'm so hoping that she heals quickly without complications. I want her out of here fast. I wonder what kind of nasty character will replace her.

What's For Sale?

This ad was in the L.A. Times. What does it look like she's selling? At first I thought that her personal services were for sale and wondered what she could possibly do that starts in the three hundred thousand dollar range. I'm not up on the current prices for prostitution, but that sounds a bit high, even for someone as attractive as her.

It turns out that condos were for sale. I'm not sure what an apparently intoxicated woman with her legs spread wide apart has to do with selling condos, but then I'm not in the target audience. Perhaps they think that they can lull gullible men into believing that if they buy one of those condos a woman like that will magically appear in their unit.

The Bus Ride

I will never do that again. There's a good reason why people drive cars in L.A. Public transportation here is a royal pain.

My car that had that little incident on the freeway was finally fixed. How long has it been, almost a month? I could have called the auto body shop and asked them to come get me, but although I've never been on it, I thought that I would just take the bus. The bus goes almost directly from my house to the auto body shop. It sounded like an adventure.

I walked to the bus stop and waited. I didn't know the schedule, but it seemed like the buses should run about every 15 minutes. Who wants to wait longer than that? As the time slowly passed, I sat perspiring in the hot sun wishing that I had put on more sunblock. I was starting to wonder if the buses were running at all and cursing my decision to take the bus.

After 40 minutes a bus finally came. I asked how much it cost and how to let him know when I wanted to get off. He asked where I was going, I told him Creekside Road. He asked if I was picking up my car, I said yes, and he said that he would stop when we got there. Although I had left my tiarra at home, he knew that I was a princess.

The bus was empty, but quickly filled up to standing room only as the bus proceeded. Soon, I was surrounded by immigrant women with hoards of noisy children doing their shopping. I honestly don't know how they manage.

The entire journey including the wait for the bus took one hour and twenty minutes. I could have driven it in less than 15 minutes. That's why everyone in L.A. who lives above the poverty level drives cars.

Shortly before my stop came up, someone signaled that they wanted the bus to stop. The driver looked at me in his mirror and yelled out, ma'am, you're stop isn't for another two blocks. I'll tell you when we get there. I hadn't signaled him, someone else did, but I got the blame. Not wanting to call attention to myself, I said nothing and just sat there like a good princess.

It was such a relief to get out of that bus and return to my life. Instead of holding me in contempt, the auto shop guy flirted with me, giggled and handed me the keys to my once again beautiful car. Now, that's how a princess should be treated.

Feeling So Dirty

No one would choose to be like this. It must have been out of her control that her weight got to the point where she could no longer stand. Even though she is as round as a ball, she can't even turn in bed. She is completely helpless and we have to call the lift team every time we need to move her in bed, which unfortunately, is often. She has severe watery diarrhea and naturally, is incontinent.

The folds are so deep that it takes one nurse to pry them apart and another nurse to do the washing. The folds that escape the river of liquid stool have their own special charm. Stuff is growing in them. The assortment of ointments we have been using don't work. The constant moisture in the folds has caused the skin to breakdown and split open.

Of course she's miserable. Who wouldn't be? She's bedbound, itchy and needs to take her anger out on someone. The nurses are the easiest target, so we get the bulk of the abuse. She doesn't know how to talk in a normal tone of voice. She just screams her demands and curses. She's called management so many times to complain that not even the wimpy, kowtowing managers care anymore. She's not even crazy or demented, just mean.

Her favorite demand is "Wash my vagina." This happens once or twice a shift. We have to stuff a wet wash cloth in her vagina, pull it out, rinse and repeat until she's satisfied. I'm beginning to think that her motive does not involve a desire for cleanliness. Her vagina couldn't possibly get dirty that fast. If we refuse, she screams and keeps the call light on until we can't stand it anymore. I wish that I could call in sick until she's gone.

An Awkward Question

What does it mean when on a first date, the gentleman asks, apropos of nothing, "Are you a highly sexual person?"

This is his way of asking which of the following questions:

a) Do you share romantic feelings for me?

b) Do you like to F***?"

c) I'm hoping that you're a slut. Are you?

d) I'm a man. What did you expect?

E) Other.

Yes, I went out on another first date. He's a nice doctor and I had high hopes. It wasn't exactly the Hindenberg on the disaster scale, but I'm feeling depressed.

The last time I did any real dating was in college. Sex was never mentioned on a first date. These are rough and tough times to be a lady.

So, does anyone else care to guess what he meant by that question?

Stolen Bees

Someone stole my beehive. It's not that I wanted it, but I'm shocked that anyone even noticed it, let alone steal it. The branches that it was dangling from have been cut. Who would take it and why?

Private Pockets

They had better not ask me to see what's in my pockets. That could get real ugly.

What's going on is that our sister hospital in the valley is undergoing their accreditation inspection. The inspectors are asking nurses to show them what's in their pockets. They will be coming to our hospital soon and so will probably do the same thing to us.

If they ask me, I will give them my death stare. Trust me on this. When angry, my eyes cause people to stutter and forget what they wanted to say. I will then pretend that I'm about to lift my top and ask if they would also like to see what's in my bra. Then, I'll offer them latex gloves and ask if they would also like to do a body cavity search. I don't care about the accreditors, but the administrators who follow the accreditors around would have a fit if I did that.

I have nothing to hide in my pockets, but it feels like a violation of my body and privacy to display the contents. Am I right to refuse to open my pockets?

Little Flying Things

Okay, this is the situation. I found this thing in a rose tree in my front yard. Are these bees, hornets or wasps and what should I do about it?

I would prefer to do nothing. I take no pleasure in killing. If they won't bother me, I won't bother them. So, do they present a threat?

Late For Work

Arriving at work, I heard the excited cries of my coworkers, "Melissa is here." That was unusual. Normally, only my dogs get that excited to see me. Everyone was excited because I was late for only the second time in my nursing career. Well, they weren't excited that I was late, they were excited that I had finally arrived. They weren't concerned for my safety, they just didn't want the added burden of having to take care of my patients. I totally understand that. Even after I arrived, we were still short-staffed.

What made me late was the same thing that had me late on that other occasion, a brush fire. Going through the Newhall pass, traffic came to a complete stop. With the smoke and helicopters flying around, it wasn't hard to figure out what the problem was. All I could do was call in late and wait.

While waiting, I was thinking about that other time a fire got in my way. I was four hours late to work. That had me a little worried because I had drunk a lot of fluids before leaving the house today and I could feel a growing pressure in my bladder. If this was going to be another four hour wait, I wasn't going to make it. I was starting to look around in my car for something to pee in, in case it became a crisis situation. After only half an hour, the freeway was re-opened averting a bladder incident.

Rose War

My hands and arms are covered with tiny stab wounds. It was without provocation that the roses attacked me. That's what I hate about roses. If you get anywhere near them, they jump out and stab you with their sharp, nasty thorns.

I wouldn't have them at all if there was much choice, but there isn't much else that is so easy to grow and blooms nearly year round. Being a nurse, it is especially important to keep my skin intact. Skin is pretty much the only thing standing between me and certain death from a deadly assortment of microbes looking for new digs.

I'm not nearly done working on the rose beds and it is tempting at times like this to just get rid of all of them. Until I'm done, I'm going to be walking around looking like I have been in a cat fight. Why does something so pretty and easy have to be so difficult?

Morning Blues

It's that time of year again. I'm spending every non-working, non-sleeping sunlit hour working in the garden. I'm about a month behind schedule, but the warm weather is holding out, so it should work out.

As the trees get bigger, my garden keeps getting shadier. I dug up some of the sadder looker roses and replaced them with camellias. Camellias don't do well here, the dry wind sucks the life out of them, but I'm feeling optimistic. They're in a protected spot near the swamp. If they fail it's only money, right?

I also bought a morning glory. I had one at another house and the only way to get rid of it was to move. It grew like something in a horror flick, requiring aggressive pruning and digging every week and where it touched my skin, I got a rash. In the hottest weather I had to go after it in long sleeves and gloves and it would still get me.

This time I'm putting it in a spot with bad soil, so maybe it won't grow so fast. It may still be a major mistake, but look how pretty the flowers are. Could anything that pretty be evil?

Blood Bath

Don't you just hate it when this happens? Blood was transfusing on a patient with severe dementia. When I checked on her, this is what I found. She had disconnected the tubing and was giving herself a blood bath.

When I tried to wash her, she kept grabbing me with her bloody hands. I got all bloody as well. Perhaps she just wanted to share in the joy of playing with blood.

We Hate It Already

It's been announced that no vacations will be granted between January and June of next year. Even the union is going along with it. Do they know something that we don't? Is a mass plague headed this way and they want to be sure that there is adequate staff to meet the crisis? Do they know of some terrorist attack which will devastate LA during the first half of the year?

No, the reason why no vacations will be granted is because of the new computer system we are getting. How crazy is that? If this system requires six months of training, it's going to be hopeless. Few nurses are nerds. If they can't be taught the system in a few hours, it is too complicated.

Several billions of dollars (that is not a typo) have been spent on this system. It sounds like they need to spend some more money on it to make it more nurse friendly.

They say that the new system will make us paperless. (Excuse me while I snort in derision.) I would like to get a pool going to bet that we will still be using paper, but I can't find anyone willing to bet against me.

I mentioned to management that if people can't take time off, then the sick calls will increase. (This was not a threat, but a projection.) I wonder if I could find anyone who would be willing to bet that the new policy won't affect sick calls?

Gum And Fetus

I don't like clutter, so when going in a patient's room, I look to see if there's anything on the bedside table that can be tossed in the trash. Usually, it's empty drinking cups or nurse debri, such as needle caps or bloody cotton balls. This time there was something small and white on top of the table. It didn't look like a biohazard, so I picked it up with my bare fingers. Big mistake. It was fresh, gooey chewing gum.

So, where did it come from? The patient had just come back from OR and it's highly unlikely that they allowed her to chew gum during her surgery. Her personal belongings were out of reach after the surgery, so it couldn't have been the patient's gum. It wasn't the gum of any of her visitors because she didn't have any. That leaves just the nurses and strangers off the street as suspects. Unless, it was left over from the previous patient and the table was not cleaned. We'll never know.

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We had a homeless patient living with us for about a month. We didn't particularly mind. He was easy to take care of, never complained or used his call light. There was never an issue until the day came for him to leave for a nursing home. Then, he insisted on wearing his own clothes for the transfer. Once the sealed bag with his clothes was opened, the entire unit reeked. His nurse kept complaining about the smell of "fetus." I thought it smelled more like feces, but then, what do I know? I've never smelled a fetus.

I asked a couple of coworkers about the "fetus" smell and they all agreed that it was bad. I guess the language mix-up could be worse. Imagine if they worked in a unit with expectant mothers and they referred to the baby as the feces.