Fight For Alpha Dog

Look how sweet MacKenzie looks, but don't be fooled. The little bitch has decided that she is going to be alpha dog and she is making my other dogs miserable. She has decided that only she can go upstairs and sleep in my bed. She has also decided that only she can be near me. The other dogs must keep their distance.

That is not acceptable. My boys are so passive that they're letting her get away with this and they are miserable, so I'm fighting their battles for them.

See how feisty she looks because Kelsey is near her? Two seconds after this picture was taken, she attacked Kelsey. When she attacks the boys, she goes into the garage for one minute as punishment. A second offense within the hour is a two minute visit in the garage. She learns fast, there have been no third offenses within the hour.

She will probably end up being alpha dog, but with power comes responsibility. She will learn that the boys are not to be bullied and that we are a family. If she doesn't learn that, she will be living outside in a fenced in area by herself. I think that she will catch on.

I Needed New Glasses Anyway

Look at this little sweetheart. Could she really be responsible for what happened to my glasses?

Connie, can you fix these?

Garden Shot

This is my garden as of 30 minutes ago. It was over a 100 degrees today. Normally, I would complain about that, but today I didn't mind. This was my first day of wearing shorts and sandals this year and it felt so good. It's nice to have a day that doesn't suck.

Flooding And Smothering

Change of shift is the most dangerous time to be a patient. The nurses are all busy giving or getting report. That's why one of our patients ended up in the ICU the other night.

The patient came back from surgery at 11 pm, the beginning of the change of shift. Her IV was dripping by gravity upon arrival. Normally, we switch it over to a pump so that we can regulate the rate better, but we were out of pumps. One was ordered, but no one had time to go down to the basement to pick it up. We have a narrow window of time for report. If it doesn't happen within that window, than that means overtime for the outgoing nurses. There is no greater sin.

So, while the nurses were busy with report, this extremely elderly lady was left alone. As so often happens, the IV got away from us and an entire liter of fluid got rapidly dumped into her veins. Had she been young and healthy, this wouldn't have been a problem, but for her, it was nearly deadly. Her heart could not beat hard enough to cope with the additional fluid and the fluid backed up into her lungs.

Soon she was gurgling and struggling to breathe. That's why she had an unexpected trip to the ICU. She is doing better now. No, she wasn't my patient, thank goodness.

My patient was nearly smothered. She was in a chronic vegetative state due to advanced Alzheimers and needed frequent turning so that her pressure ulcers wouldn't get any worse. She was paralyzed and was completely contracted in a ball. I left her on her side, propped up on pillows. When I checked on her later, she was lying face down in her pillow. I thought for sure that she had smothered to death, but she was still breathing. What a relief.

I'm not sure about the wisdom of making a person in a chronic vegetative state a full code and doing whatever is possible to keep her going as long as possible, but it wasn't my call and I certainly didn't want to smother her. What I can't figure out is how she got face down. She was in a little ball, did she just roll?

MacKenzie

It's now official (I think). The happiest little girl I've ever seen is now named MacKenzie (unless I change my mind). The little girl is no longer afraid of me. She follows me all over the house, smiles at me and kisses me whenever I'm within range. She is the sweetest, most affectionate little creature.

She and Tommy play all day and the two of them chase the evil squirrels in the pine trees. She can even play with a ball by herself. She tosses it and runs after it. It saves me the trouble of having to throw it.

MacKenzie isn't too sure about Kelsey, but she will make peace with him eventually. Kelsey has a compulsive licking problem and won't stop licking her. It gets on her nerves. Mine too.

Walking all of the dogs is a challenge. I spend most of the time untangling the leads and stepping out of the leads as the dogs run in circles around me. They love the walks, I don't.

MacKenzie was an outside dog at her prior home, but she is adjusting to being an inside dog quickly. She learned the doggy door without any formal instruction from me. She's good at sleeping in bed with me and knows that I like her to lean against me.

The only major issue we have is that she's not quite housebroken. One of the spare bedrooms is filled with poop. She'll catch on eventually, but in the meantime, the upstairs is getting stinky.

Feeling Stupid

One of the nurses was telling us about the system for getting narcs in the new hospital. I heard her say that it would use tongue prints. What she really said was thumb prints. What a relief. I wasn't sure that I wanted to lick something that had been licked by so many people before me.

She also gave us a little lecture about C diff, a common infection. She said that last year 3oo million people died from it. I started laughing and she wanted to know what was so funny. I asked her if that was in the U.S. alone. It was, which got me laughing harder. You would think something that catastrophic would make the front page of the papers, but then, who would be around to print the papers, much less read them?

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My patient told me that she takes pigitron. I asked her to repeat it several times and she was definitely saying pigitron. I looked up her records to see what she was really taking. It was pioglitazone. Now, I have to be honest, I have no idea how to pronounce that word either. That is why I pronounce it as actos, another name for the same drug. Too bad she didn't know that trick.

The Rapist In The Corner

It started out innocently enough, the old lady needed to pee, so the aide put her on a bedpan. The patient fell asleep, so the aide tried to gently slide out the pan. The patient woke up and began screaming "RAPE." There was nothing we could do to calm her down. She was screaming for the police, convinced that she had just been raped.

In her hallucination, she could see the rapist hiding in the corner of her room. She started screaming, "Don't let him get away." The patient was getting so angry at us. It was bad enough that she had been raped, but now we were going to let the rapist get away.

We thought for sure that given her mental state, she would quickly forget about the incident, but the next day she was still complaining about the rape. She complained to everybody and was becoming frustrated that no one believed her, not even her son.

It was becoming a stressful experience for all of us. We didn't like the accusation that we were somehow involved with her rape and were worried that someone might start to believe her. Days went by with her still complaining about the rape.

Then she developed a vaginal infection, which of course, in her mind, was further proof of the rape. It was just a yeast infection which we needed to treat with a vaginal cream. That was bad. The last thing we wanted to do was insert anything in her vagina. We were afraid that she would think she was being raped twice a day. We felt we had no choice but to only give her personal care with plenty of witnesses in the room.

One day while she was downstairs getting her head examined (CT of the brain) three nurses sat in her room and watched TV during their break. I walked by the room and glanced in to see what was going on. One of the nurses said, "We're waiting in line to be raped."

A New Dog

She's a different dog today. Last night she slept in my bed, snuggled up against me. Today, she was sitting on the couch next to me with her head in my lap. She smothers me with kisses at every opportunity. I have a real sweetheart.

Who says that money can't buy love? For $48, I bought tons of love.

Now, I just need to decide on a new name for her. The name, Lassie, doesn't work for me and given how much she must have been abused, it might have bad associations for her. We need to make a clean break with her troubled past and start fresh with a new name. I'm thinking of either Rebeca or Megan. Anyone have any suggestions?

Flight Risk

My new little girl, Lassie, is terrified of me. When I bend down to pet her, she cries and runs or hits the floor. Her previous owners must have abused her. I would like to track down those evil people and do something to them. It's a good thing that their identity is confidential because otherwise I would end up in jail.

To try and show Lassie that I'm not a threat, I've been lying down on the floor and rolling over on my back. She'll immediately run over, lick me and then plop down on the floor next to me. We're making progress and I hope that some day I can just reach down and pet her without assuming the submissive position.

While I was bringing in the trash cans today, Lassie slipped out the gate and took off. I called her name and she just ran faster, straight for a busy street. If she made it to the street, she wouldn't last five seconds. I also had no hope of catching her. I'm not in bad shape, but I can't outrun a young, healthy dog.

She then made a U turn, headed back and ran past me. I skinned my knee when I lunged at her. She started running up the hill down the middle of the street. I followed, running as fast I could while yelling, "Lassie". Whenever a car came along, I started flapping my arms in the middle of the street to alert them to slow down. I hope that they saw the dog and didn't just think that I had gone crazy.

It was totally hopeless. She was either going to get hit by a car or she was going to disappear around a bend and I would never see her again. I could not run anymore and decided to try one last trick. I laid down on someone's lawn and rolled over on my back. A few seconds later, she ran over to me and sat down next to me. Got her. I picked her up and carried her home.

I was shaking from fear and anger. I had been wanting to give her a bath since I got her, but had been stalling because I didn't want to traumatize her. Now, she was going to get that bath. Afterwards, I had to take a bath because I had as much soapy water on me as she did.

We've since made up.

Sex Shoes

While sitting at a red light, I watched a young woman walk in front of my car. She was disabled and had an awkward gait. Even with my windows closed and radio on, I could hear a loud clacking sound with every step. I thought perhaps she was adjusting to an artificial leg.

Once she was past my car, I could see her feet and saw the problem. It was her shoes. They looked like the kind of shoes that are worn for sex, rather than walking. They had a large platform bottom and heels that were almost as tall as a Barbie doll.

The woman didn't look like a prostitute, but I'm not sure why else a woman would wear shoes in public that aren't made for walking.

In the newspaper, I saw a picture of the woman who shot her preacher husband. In her hands was one of the shoes that her husband made her wear during sex. It was the same kind of shoe the woman crossing the street was wearing. The preacher's wife listed having to wear those sex shoes as one of the reasons she killed her husband.

What an odd world where one person willingly wears what another woman considers a reason for killing.

I'm A Mommie

Meet my new little girl, Lassie. She's a Golden-Collie Retriever. This morning, I got up early and drove to a shelter in downtown Los Angeles. Normally, I won't go over the hill unless a gun is held to my head, but Lassie was worth the sacrifice.

The shelter was in a section of LA that I had never seen before. It was old, grimy and depressing, like parts of New York City. CSI New York was there, filming. The area was a crime scene waiting to happen.

I had never been in a shelter before and it was horrifying. Instead of envisioning Hell as fire and brimstone, preachers should describe Hell as being a dog shelter. Nothing can be as horrifying. I'm haunted by the faces of the desperate dogs that I couldn't save. Perhaps, Schindler's List would be a more apt comparison.

Lassie was paralyzed with fright. She wouldn't come out of her little dog house. I was asked to wait in a holding pen while they brought her to me. I was just one more penned in creature, surrounded my barking dogs. It took forever because they couldn't catch her. Once I saw her, she just wandered around the pen and tried to avoid me. Shaking violently, with her fluffy tail between her legs, she finally let me touch her. Our eyes met and I knew instantly that I had a new dog. I could feel her sweet, gentle nature and how much she needed to be loved.

Before they let me take her, I had to sign a release of liability. They said that she was a growler and might bite. That made me nervous, but I signed the paper and took her anyway. My instincts told me that if she growled, it was only because she was scared. There was nothing aggressive about her and soon, she would have no reason to be scared anymore.

She ran to my car and jumped in. As the car started moving out of the parking lot, she leaned over and licked my arm. That was my first Lassie kiss. She was grateful to be escaping the doggie concentration camp.



Lassie likes dogs and my dogs like dogs, so there was no problem with the introductions. I took her straight from the car to the backyard to give her time to adjust. It was several minutes before Tommy and Kelsey noticed her. When they did, they walked out, wagged their tails, sniffed each other and all was fine.

It wasn't long before Lassie discovered the pond. I went inside for just one minute to get her a new collar and when I came out, she was in the deep end.

It's only been a few hours, but she's a different girl now. She's walking with her tail held high and comes over to be petted. I just need to train her to sit on the couch and sleep in bed with me.

Glowing Eyes

This, whatever it is, is available for adoption in the local shelter. I'm scared.

Why Is It So Hard To Get A Used Mutt?

The Golden Retriever rescue people have ignored my e-mail concerning Taylor. If I was looking for a home for a used mutt, I think that I would respond to inquiries from qualified people. I know that they do good work and want what is best for the Goldens, but I'm finding this group to be increasingly annoying.

I'm also starting to look at shelters. It's riskier because the dogs haven't been tested in homes and infections can run rampant in shelters, but Tommy came from a shelter and he's one of the best dogs I've ever had.

The photo is of a shelter dog. They say she's a collie mix and named her Lassie, but I think she's a Golden mix with some collie. If I don't hear from someone soon, Lassie will be mine.

The Home Inspectors

Today was home inspection day. It took me by surprise when the two inspectors got out of their cars, each with a Golden Retriever. Were they bringing me the dogs to choose from?

I had a hard time getting the inspectors to come in my house. Kelsey was barking and they were afraid. Doesn't everyone know that Kelsey is the world's sweetest, gentlest dog and if he's barking, it doesn't mean anything? They asked me to put him outside. This was not going well at all.

Once he was outside, they came in the house. One inspector demanded to know why Kelsey wasn't neutered. This was so not going well. I blamed the vet for saying it wasn't necessary. The truth is, I'm terrified of my dogs having surgery. As a nurse I know the things that can go wrong and since my dogs can't get out, I don't want to risk unnecessary surgery.

We went outside where the barking Kelsey was and I held on to him while they walked around. I was trying to comfort Kelsey by petting him and telling him that everything was okay. One of the inspectors said, "FYI, you're rewarding bad behavior." I started thinking along the lines that I could go to any breeder, get a puppy and not have to put up with this sh*t.

They loved my yard and started warming up once they saw the life my dogs live. They walked through my entire house and approved of the paw prints on my bed and couches. Once everyone sat down, Kelsey stopped barking. He must have found the two big, standing inspectors scary. Once they were close to his level, he was fine. They were able to pet him and see that he is a sweet, gentle dog.

Seeing that Kelsey was not a threat, they let their dogs off their leashes. The dogs were not up for adoption, they were just their personal dogs. I'm not sure why they brought their dogs. If they wanted to see how I interact with dogs, they could have just watched how I interact with my dogs. Strange dogs make me nervous, so I was on edge with the dogs there.

My dogs loved the new dogs, though. They were soon running around the yard together and one of the visitor dogs even got in the pond and laid down. The wet dog liked me. She sat next to my feet and leaned against me. It turned out that she was the test. The wet dog was extremely shy and would not go near strangers normally, but she liked me. That was proof that I was a dog person.

Because of the wet dog's personal okay, I was approved to adopt a Golden. I can have any dog I want.

I have sent an e-mail to inquire more about Taylor's personality. If it sounds like a good fit, I will adopt him. I hope that they deliver, because he's in San Diego. That's an even longer, harder drive than going to see Sarah. But if that doesn't work out, Henny or Billy would be fine too.

Another Nervous Breakdown

It's never a good sign when the nurse you are relieving at change of shift is crying and trembling. This time, though, it was not a sign of things to come. It just meant that she was a registry nurse.

This nurse had an unusually low crying threshold, even for a registry nurse. She asked me to witness her waste half of a tranquilizer. She cut the pill in half and it didn't break equally. The nurse started crying again and didn't know what to do.

Since the patient needing the pill was screaming and driving everyone nuts, that seemed like a lucky break to me. Just give the patient the larger piece and everyone will be happy. We aren't afraid of being "generous" here. It must be stressful for registry never quite knowing what they can get away with.

So many registry nurses appear to be on the verge of a breakdown that it cause me to wonder about cause and effect. Does being a registry nurse cause otherwise stable nurses to lose their minds?

Breaking Up With A J.W.

The searches that bring people to my site never cease to amuse me. Most are quite dirty. At least half of my searches are for "vagiana" and although that one is becoming tiresome, it's keeping my stats high. Today, I found a new search that made me laugh. It was "how does one get rid of a jehovah's witness boyfriend".

There has to be a joke in there somewhere. I've never dated a J.W., but apparently, they are different to break up with then other guys. I can't imagine why, though. Other than refusing blood transfusions and an unfortunate tendency to canvass neighborhoods and knock on doors, I thought that they were pretty much the same as everyone else.

Is it really harder to break up with a Jehova's Witness guy?

Two Escapees

How were supposed to know that the homeless patient had a home? He had been found on the street. He was filthy, dressed in rags, incoherent and tested positive for several controlled substances. He was also badly emaciated and suffering from a couple of serious infections. During the weeks he stayed with us, he was delirious and unable to communicate.

Eventually he got better and told us that he had a family. They were contacted and came rushing to see him. It was hard to believe that someone who looked like him could have a wife, kids and a house.

What had happened to him was a bad car accident. He had been in another hospital for months and one day, he escaped. He wasn't entirely in his right mind and no one, including him, knows why he did that. He ended up on the streets and began using illegal drugs and booze. He had a history of that kind of thing, but had never been homeless before. His family was frantic and had filled out a missing person form. Weeks went by without anyone knowing what had happened to him.

He is now doing much better and has been transferred back to the hospital that lost him. I hope they do a better job of watching him this time.

We also lost our other homeless patient. He escaped. He needed more drugs than we were willing to give him, so he took off when no one was looking. Oh well.

Which Dog?

Henny

Billy

Taylor

I've submitted an application with a Golden Retriever rescue organization and am playing telephone tag with the person who needs to make a home visit. It's almost like adopting a baby with all of the hoops one has to jump through. Anyway, soon, I should be the proud owner of a new dog.

These are my favorites of the 14 dogs currently available. So, what do you think?

Update:

I downloaded the photos again. I hope that they stick this time.

Dog Delay

The cocker spaniel from Hell was supposed to be mine, but my friend has had a change of heart. She doesn't want to give her up until she is sure that she has done everything possible to get rid of her aggressive tendencies. So, the cocker has an appointment next week with a trainer and psych meds may be tried as well. If everything fails, then she will be mine. But if everything fails, do I really want an evil cocker?

I understand my friend's reluctance to give up her dog. I could never do it. It must be an awful decision to make.

In the meantime, I've been doing a very bad thing. I've been looking at dogs on the Internet that are available for adoption. There are so many that I desperately want. It breaks my heart that there are so many dogs without homes.

I think it is just a matter of time before I end up with three dogs. We'll see what dog finds it way to my home and into my heart.

Two Homeless Guys

ER was getting ready to send us yet another alcoholic homeless patient and the ER nurse mentioned that the patient was in four point restraints. Nothing unusual about that. What caught my attention was when he said that the patient was alert, oriented and cooperative. So, why was he in restraints, I asked? The nurse said that was what the doctor wanted. This led to a discussion about what the law allows regarding restraining people. I might as well have been talking to a brick wall.

As soon as the patient arrived, I took the restraints off. The restraint order did indeed say to leave the restraints on even though the patient was alert, oriented and cooperative. I figured that the patient must have done something bad to get the doctor angry enough to write an illegal order. As the evening wore on, I started to understand why the doctor wanted the SOB in restraints. Not that he even remotely needed restraints, it's just that the drug-seeking bastard was giving us such a hard time that I wanted to tie him up, spread-eagled, just for revenge. Of course, I didn't.

The doctor made it clear that he could only have the meds that were ordered and nothing more. That didn't stop him from continually begging, demanding, whining and threatening me to try and get more. I remained professional and treated him like a human being, but what I really wanted to do was physically attack him. He even tried faking DT's. The severe tremors, which he knew we would normally have to medicate heavily, stopped as soon as he fell asleep. Did he think that we were as stupid as him?

We have another alcoholic homeless patient here too, but by comparison, he's a joy to take care of. His back is covered with boils filled with MRSA bacteria, he has chronic watery diarrhea and has to have his smelly diaper changed hourly. Parasitic worms have eaten away at his brain and he spends his days thrashing around fighting his restraints. He's too brain damaged to talk.

Given a choice, the nurses will choose to take care of the latter homeless patient because as disgusting as he is, at least he's not drug-seeking.

More Evidence

Two doctors were standing side by side looking at a chart. With arms entwined, holding the chart together, they were leaning against each other. From their shoulders to their hips, their bodies were firmly, but gently pressed together. All smiles and looking into each other's eyes with fondness and obvious affection, it was obvious that they were very good friends. Had they not been of the same sex, I would have figured that they were a couple or wanted to be.

One of the doctors is openly gay. It's the other doctor I'm wondering about. He was the subject of a recent post concerning his occasional threesomes involving two guys and a girl. I can't help but wonder if the openly gay doctor is the guy he sometimes "plays" with.

Perhaps I'm over-reacting. This happened in front of everyone and no else seemed to notice anything strange. But it seemed strange to me. I look at charts with other people pretty much everyday and do so without touching the other person. Other people do the same. The two doctor's behavior jumped out at me because it was so odd. We'll see what happens next.

Positive Touch

We have new gloves at work. They are much thinner than our old gloves. With the old gloves, my fingers rarely went through the gloves. Now, it happens just about every time I move a patient or change a diaper. I'm not exactly thrilled about getting blood and poop under my fingernails.

The name of the gloves is Positive Touch. I have to admit that is truth in advertising. Nothing has a more positive touch than bare fingers.

Since everything comes down to money, I figure we must have gotten these new gloves because they are cheaper. I have an idea for them to save even more money. We should stop wearing gloves entirely. The result would be the same as wearing the new gloves and it would save us the hassle of putting on gloves that become fingerless with normal use.

A New Mommy

It looks like it is official, I'm going to be a new mommy. My new kid is Amy and she is a tri-color, party cocker spaniel. She lives in a mansion in an exclusive area and like a lot of rich kids, suffers from bad behavior. She sometimes attacks her sibling, an ailing King Charles spaniel.

At my house, she will no longer be alpha dog and will be put in her place by my much bigger, but very sweet dogs. It will be a shock at first, but she will adjust and have a good, but less privileged life. Because she lives in a area populated by rattle snakes and coyotes, she has never been free to go outside off a lead. Now, she will have free run of a big yard, will learn to use a doggy door to go out whenever she wants, will have free run of my house and will sleep in my bed.

She won't be eating designer dog food anymore, but she will get a piece of chicken everyday. I'm not sure what to do about the fancy grooming she requires, but I will figure something out.

As soon as the transfer takes place, I will post pictures.