Was This A Misprint?

I bought a new blender that came with a recipe booklet. This abomination that they called guacamole was included. Whoever heard of putting potatoes in guacamole? And it doesn't even say to use a cooked potato. Pureed raw potatoes in guacamole? Have you ever heard of a travesty like this?

Dog Security System

Does this make me a redneck too? I love this idea. I'll just have to buy a few more dogs.

Mystery Delicacy

I ate this. I really didn't want to. The nurse who gave it to me said that it was salty and funky with a seed in the middle. She was right. Want to guess what it is?

Menamalariapause

I feel like I have malaria. I wake up at night dripping in sweat. I throw the covers off of me and fall asleep. The next thing I know, I'm freezing to death, so the covers go back on. Next, I'm roasting and wet again. The blankets go on and off all night. No wonder I wake up exhausted and feel like I've spent the night drinking and dancing on tables when all I did was try to sleep.

In the daytime it's even worse. The sweat makes my make up run and my bangs cling to my forehead. I want to start fanning myself, but I don't want to call attention to myself. Some of my coworkers have tiny fans on their desks for hot flashes, but I'm still in denial and not ready for that. Rather than admit that I'm starting to go through the change, I prefer to think that I have malaria.

Last year I started having minor power surges. I felt like my metabolism was revving up at times, but it didn't bother me. If these were hot flashes, I didn't understand why women were being such babies about it. It was nothing. And I was right, it was nothing compared to what I'm going through now.

Now it feels like my skin is on fire, so burning, hot and tingly, and this may go on for years. How annoying is that? I just bought the stuff in the photo. If it doesn't work, I may have to switch to hormones.

I wonder, though, how many calories I'm burning? That kind of heat must take quite a few calories to generate. Has anyone ever calculated how many calories are in a hot flash?

It's Important to Chew Before Swallowing

Richard dropped by at work and asked for some chux. Those are plastic lined sheets of paper that are put under leaky patients. Since he's a psychiatrist who never gets his hands dirty, it seemed like an odd thing to want, but I went to go get him some.

On the way to the cabinet, he said that they were for personal use. I thought for a second and wondered if Richard had some kind of leakage problem, but instead, I asked if he got a puppy. He said no and explained that he swallowed some dental work and needed to get it back. I'm a nurse and am used to discussing poop, but this was a little weird.

He started grabbing the chux and taking more and more. He took between 15 and 20 of them. I didn't say anything, but how many times did he think that he would need to poop to get his dental work back?

He left and then came back a few minutes later and asked how he was going to do this. I didn't know what he meant and suggested using a colander and hosing it in the back yard. He just wanted to know how he was going to "go" on a chux. This conversation just kept getting weirder and weirder. I suggested a bedpan and handed him one. He took it, but he looked kind of pathetic carrying a pile of chuxes and a bedpan, so I put his treasures in a big patient belongings bag. Joking, I said that it's easier to steal stuff if it's in a bag. He looked astonished and said that he's not stealing it, it's for his personal use. I didn't say anything, but he knows more about medicine than the law. It was theft and I was an accessory.

At least I now have some idea of how Richard will be spending his weekend. I'm kind of glad that I won't be around for that.

Stupid Nurse Tricks - Part Two

Idiot #1. The patient's IV infiltrated and her arm swelled from all of the IV fluid accumulating directly under the skin. The IV fluid was harmless; it was just a matter of waiting for the fluid to go away. To speed up matters, it was decided to put a warm pack on the patient's arm. The aide put a wet towel in the microwave until it was nice and hot and them plopped it on the patient's arm. Blisters from the second degree burn now cover her arm.

Idiot #2. The nurse needed to remove a large dressing from the patient's hip, so she grabbed one end of the tape and gave it a good yank. The skin came off with the tape. There is now a strip of missing skin that is nearly a foot long and an inch wide. She didn't tell anyone about this. She just covered it with a new dressing and hoped that no one would notice.

Death Shoes

I was shopping for work shoes and came across these. How cool would it be for a nurse to wear skulls on her schoes? As tempting as it was, I passed on them. Would it bother you if you saw a nurse wearing these shoes?

One other thing I noticed is that the shoes for tall people are almost always on the bottom shelf and shoes for short people are on the top shelf. Does that make any sense? Short people sometimes can't reach their shoes without help and tall people have to squat to get to their shoes. The positions should be reversed. Target does it correctly, but their shoes are crap.

Cute Hat

The Dear John Letter

AND THE WITTY

Weekend Mystery

Richard and I were trying to find a day to go out and wonder of wonders, Richard is busy once again this coming weekend. Casually, I asked what he's doing this weekend, but he just quickly repeated that he was busy. This was at work, so I let it go.

As soon as I can talk to him privately, I'm going to pin him down. He has the right to date others. We're not exclusive, but I want to know what I'm dealing with. Whether or not I continue in this relationship depends upon who else I may be sharing him with.

He denies having a girlfriend or a wife. My feeling is that he does not want to lie, but he also doesn't want to quite tell me the whole truth. I suspect that there is another woman in his life and that he has some odd definition of girlfriend, that would exclude her from the definition of girlfriend. I'm familiar with that trick from past experiences with men.

If he doesn't have a girlfriend, then why would he be so evasive about how he spends his weekends? I doubt that he spends them dealing drugs, selling his body or stealing cars. What other shameful thing could be be doing that he feels he must hide from me?

Car Circle Craziness

A bunch of guys drove out to the desert and parked their cars in a circle with the headlights facing the center. Next, they all turned their headlights out. It's unclear why they did this or what they hoped to accomplish, but one of the dudes got struck in the jaw with a metal rod. He's now our patient and needs surgery to piece his jaw back together.

Boys will be boys, I guess. Has anyone heard of this activity?

Dirty Fingers And A Hamburger

One of my coworkers broke her finger and is wearing a finger splint. The splint must be kept dry which means that she cannot wash her finger. So, after she does her nursing duties, she washes only 9 fingers. She must have one dirty finger.

Another coworker cut his finger and must keep the dressing dry. He deals with his problem by wearing a glove all of the time and even washes his hands while wearing a glove. The glove does not come off until it tears.

It violates all kinds of rules and laws for a nurse to not be able to wash his or her hands. Management knows of these injuries and doesn't care.

How would you like to be a patient in my hospital?

---

An x-ray tech came out of a patient's room and asked, "Can I get a hamburger?" I just stared at him and wondered if he thought that I had some hamburgers lying around. It turns out that what he really said was, "Can I get a hand with her?"

Sleeping With Dogs Top 10 List

Top 10 list of annoying things that my dogs do when I'm trying to sleep:

10) Jump on and off the bed all night,

9) Walk in at least three circles before plopping down,

8) Howling or barking at who knows what,

7) Grooming themselves,

6) Licking my face or arm,

5) Shedding fur on every square inch of fabric,

4) Kicking in their sleep,

3) Snoring,

2) Passing gas and

the number one annoying thing my dogs do when I'm trying to sleep,




1) leaving poop streaks on my pillow.

Stupid Nurse Tricks

Our new patient arrived on a gurney pushed by three nurses wearing TB masks. The patient was suspected of having TB, so until we knew for sure, we were using TB precautions. There was just one tiny problem; the patient wasn't wearing a mask. She was coughing, spewing and foaming at the mouth as she was transported through the hospital corridors. At least the three nurses thought to protect themselves, if no one else.

---

When admitting patients, we're required to explain the pain scale and find out on a scale of1 to 10, with 10 being the worst, at what number they want to receive pain medicine. Some nurses will explain this rather abstract concept endlessly until the hopelessly lost patient gives them a number just to get them to shut up. I will only explain it twice before concluding that the patient needs a number chosen for them. If a patient is confused, I'll just write "confused" down on the form because the pain scale isn't used for confused patients.

I overheard my coworker explaining the pain scale to a patient. Actually, the entire floor overheard her explaining it because she was yelling. The patient had Alzheimers and didn't even know her own name, but that didn't stop the nurse from demanding that the patient give her a number. She even yelled, "If you don't give me a number, I'll be fired." The patient has a good excuse for her mental short-comings. What was the nurse's excuse?

I Got My Wish

Working Braless

Most of my scrubs are loose fitting. I could hide a baboon under my clothes and no one would know, so I don't bother wearing bras to work. And let's be honest, I don't have big enough mammaries to really require a bra. A camisole top or t-shirt under my scrubs is sufficient to protect my modesty should I bend over and someone sneaks a peak down my top.

But today, Richard said that he was going to visit and I wanted to look nice. That meant wearing a fitted pair of scrubs which requires a bra if I want to have any kind of shape at all. I figured that Richard was worth the sacrifice of wearing that miserable instrument of torture digging into my ribs.

Guess what? Richard never showed up. I wore a bra for nothing. He was probably busy, tired and eager to go home and figured that he could just as easily visit tomorrow or the day after. After this, I'm just going to wear my baggy scrubs with no bra and not worry about Richard. But I'll still wear lipstick, just in case.

Never Mind

Um ... Remember my little argument with Richard? Well, we've made up. So, never mind what I said about him.

Someday, I may need to delete a bunch of posts.

Ice Pond

This was what the pond looked like this morning. I was wondering if someone had scaled my walls and poured detergent in the water. Or, perhaps the fish had all died and were decomposing. The water was white and foamy looking.

Looking closer, I saw a hard surface on the water. It was water in its solid form, ice. Will wonders never cease? That kind of thing happens in other parts of the country, but not here.

If it's going to be this cold, the least it could do is snow. Then, at least the boys and I would have something to play in. All of this cold air is wasted on 9% humidity.

Rattling The Wrong Cage

I happened to be sitting next to a doctor when he returned a page from a nurse. His tone of voice was surly when he explained why he wasn't going to help her.

The problem was that the primary doctor had made a referral to a specialist, but had asked the nurse to make the call. It is the policy at our hospital that all calls to non-primary doctors must be made doctor to doctor. But, most doctors being too lazy to do this, ask the nurse to do it for them.

If the nurse refuses, the doctor will get snippy and will sometimes refuse to make the call. If a patient is in trouble and the primary doctor is being a jerk, the nurse will make the call instead. Most doctors are nice when they get a call by the nurse instead of the doctor, but a few will become surly and lecture the poor nurse on hospital policy. We all know the policy and don't need a lecture, but what is a nurse supposed to do when the primary refuses to make the call and the patient needs help?

After the doctor got off the phone, he needed to vent about the nurse who had the nerve to call him in violation of hospital policy, especially after 4 pm on a Friday. Because I was sitting there, he vented to me. He was rattling the wrong cage. I've been in the position of having to make those calls and I wasn't sympathetic to his pain.

I explained why we sometimes have to call a specialist. If a patient is in trouble and the primary can't or won't help, we're not going to sit back and say, oh well and let the patient sink down further. We will get on the phone and keep calling doctors until someone will help. We don't appreciate the abuse that we sometimes receive, but we have to do what is necessary to help the patient.

The doctor venting to me seemed to think that we should just ignore requests that we call another doctor and if the primary doctor later asks why we didn't call, we should just say that it is the policy that he make the call. He also added that someday there will be a major lawsuit. I'm of the opinion that nurses should do what is necessary to avoid patient injury and a lawsuit, even if it means getting told off.

This doctor, by the way, was Richard. I don't know if I will seeing him again.

Again?

What is it about female patients? Why do they all need to pee every 45 minutes?

I had a room with four females, all of whom had had knee replacements. They were all at the stage where they could sort of walk, but the process of getting them out of bed, to the toilet, off the toilet and back into bed could take 10 or 15 minutes, easily. And for some reason, if one went, they all wanted to go, too. Do the math, as soon as the last patient got her turn, it was time to start over again.

We're not supposed to, but after everyone got a couple of walks to the bathroom, I started encouraging bedpans. It was the only hope I had for accomplishing anything besides walking people to the bathroom.

I bet if doctors had to provide bedside care of their patients, all of the patients would have catheter orders.

Basic Anatomy

Apparently unfamiliar with human anatomy, my patient wanted to know if her urinary catheter also took care of poop. When I answered no, she was disappointed. It was news to her that pee and poop come out of different orifices.

Even if she missed that day in school, you'd think that she would have noticed that on her own. And no, this lady was not confused.

The Picture On The Nightstand

After a long night of making love, he notices a photo of another man
on her night stand by the bed. He begins to worry.

"Is this your husband?" he nervously asks.

"No, silly," she replies, snuggling up to him.

"Your boyfriend, then?" he continues.

"No, not at all," she says, nibbling away at his ear.

"Is it your dad or your brother?" he inquires, hoping to be reassured.

"No, no, no!!!" she answers.

"Well, who in the hell is he, then?" he demands.

"That's me before the surgery."

There Is Hope For Me

It's possible that I may have finally found a boyfriend. For the first time since the year 2000, I went out on a second date and there is going to be a third. So, who is this guy, you ask? Remember that doctor I work with who promised to call and then didn't, well, he's reappeared.

He's been visiting almost everyday. That's one of the few advantages to having psychotic patients on the floor, a shrink has to visit them. Richard is the house shrink.

Our first date was a little shaky. My nerves got the best of me and I was a giggling maniac.

The second date went well. I got to show off my cooking skills with souvlaki, a garlicky lamb dish and we enjoyed a bottle of excellent red wine that Richard brought. And now, I know why wine makes me gag, I've never drunk fine wine before. This not only didn't trigger my gag reflex, but I liked it. I have a mild hang-over and have to go to work today, but it was worth it.

If things don't work out, it will be okay. I'm having a good time and have finally made it past my one-date hurdle. That alone is something to celebrate.

Kicking The Rails

Our crazy homeless guy has been going through fifteen thousand dollar beds like Kleenex. He entertains himself mainly by kicking the side rails. Even with his ankles tied down by leather restraints, he can still kick the rails. There are just so many kicks a rail can take before it breaks off.

I happened to be around when he broke bed number six. When the side rail broke, he ended up dangling from the bed upside down with his chin and upper chest on the floor. It was tempting to just leave him that way. His sitter was just sitting in her chair looking at him, not moving a muscle. The other nurses just came, looked at him and rolled their eyes. As much as I hated to do it, I had to free him. Released from his restraints, he slid to the floor.

Later, the lift team got him back in bed, but I'm not sure why we bother. Since this happened, he has broken his seventh bed.

This is costing us a lot of money. It seems that it would make more sense to just leave him on the floor. Our beds would be safe. He also wouldn't need a sitter or restraints to keep him in bed, which doesn't work anyway. Despite everything, he still falls almost everyday.

If we just left him on the cold, hard floor, he would be fine. He might try to drag himself across the floor, but he couldn't get far. Every once in awhile, we could just grab a leg and drag him back into his room. That sounds like a reasonable solution to our problem. Do you have a better idea?

Pee Flinger

Like so many of our elderly patients, except for a broken hip, he was fine when he came into the hospital. Now, he was a raving lunatic. Drugs tend to do that in the elderly. This is common and not really blog-worthy, except for the creativity this patient showed.

Most confused people just scream, chant and pull all of their clothes off. This guy took it up a notch by grabbing his IV pole and swinging it like a golf club. He knocked an information board off the wall which broke when it hit the floor. That cost us over $200. He also pulled down the curtains.

The most entertaining thing he did, though, was pee in his urinal container and then fling it at his roommate, splashing him with pee. The confused man is now in restraints and no longer has a roommate.

That did lead to an argument last night when the supervisor wanted to put another confused patient in that room. I didn't think that even a confused non-verbal person should have to be in a room with a pee-flinger, but the supervisor didn't see the problem. I won, but still I wonder about some people.

Even though the pee-flinger was in restraints, they are usually released when the patient is behaving and then put back on when not behaving. Do we really want other patients to be in the path of flying urine?

Christmas Present logic

For the first time ever, my employer didn't give us a Christmas present. It's always been a $25 gift certificate either to a grocery store or department store. With inflation, the value of the gift has decreased over the years, but still we want it. It's nice to know that our employer cares enough to give us something, anything.

I've known for a few weeks that there would be no gift. We are faced with some financial problems in the coming year due to pending Medicare cuts and our new computer system. I figured that they couldn't afford presents this year and I didn't give it much further thought.

It turns out that the reason for no presents has nothing to do with the financial stability of my employer. The official reason for the lack of gifts is because we would have to pay taxes on the gift and they don't want us to have to do that. Well, isn't that sweet and thoughtful? Heck, why don't they spread the generosity even further and not pay us at all? Think of all of the taxes that would save us. Rather than just pay no taxes on no gift, we could pay no taxes on no salary.

Birthday Dogs

Today is Kelsey's sixth birthday and Tommy's fifth birthday. Their real birthdays are a mystery because they are rescue dogs, so I arbitrarily chose a birthday for them. New Years sounded as good as any, so that is now their birthday. We will celebrate with a special dinner and extra hugs and kisses.