Flag Etiquette

Perhaps I'm being too picky, but the sight of the flags waiving in front of the hospital bothers me. The problem is that the corporate logo flag is flying at the same height as the U.S. flag. Somehow, it just seems disrespectful.

Other businesses with flags out front, such as McDonald's, usually fly the U.S. flag on a higher pole.

Am I being too picky?

Entertainment For Dogs

MacKenzie has a new friend and no longer has much time for me. I haven't met the new friend and really hope that I don't. It lives in a hole in the ground. Whatever it is, when not in its hole, it hangs out under the rose bushes or climbs the sweat peas. I'm guessing that it is a rat or a family of rats.

MacKenzie has even been sleeping outside beside the hole. If she catches the creature, I sure hope that she doesn't leave it on my pillow as a present. I often wake up with shoes or dog cookies on the pillows. That is about as much as I can handle.

Update On The War

It is too early to predict who will win the war, but so far we are willing the battles.

The first battle involved nursing station number six. Management wanted us to use it. They insisted that we use it, but it now stands abandoned. We won.

The doctors are unhappy that the station stands empty. They even called a meeting over it. The problem is that it is the first nursing station that they come to when they get off the elevators. Doctors want someone there to help them. We are trying to train the doctors to keep walking until they find us in the back. Slowly they are starting to catch on and management has given up the battle.

Our next battle is to divide our unit into two sections. It is unmanageable for orthopedics and general surgery to be combined. Management will not let us get a divorce, so we have separated, unofficially. As much as possible, orthopedic patients are at station four and general surgery is at station five. We also do our best to keep nurses in the section that they are most familiar with.

Rather than have a charge nurse and a relief charge nurse rule over the entire floor, one charge nurse now stays at station four and the other charge stays at station five. Realistically, it is the only way to keep track over the floor.

We have trained the staffing office and house supervisor to call both stations and charge nurses whenever they want an update. They seem to recognise that it is better to get two good reports than one bad one. It took a couple of charge nurses to quit for management to see our point.

Things are better, but still, we want a divorce. It is unanimous. We want to go back to the way it was when we didn't have to work together. It is not that we hate each other, it is just so much easier to be totally separated. Plus, there is the problem of alpha wolf charge nurses having to work together on various joint issues. I would be so much happier if I didn't have to work with my counter-part. There is a good reason why alpha wolves don't live in the same pack.

Garden Joy

My garden has exploded into masses of flowers. It feels good to feel good. Why can't it be Spring all year round?

Pink Berry Addiction

I woke up the usual way today, with a dog tongue in my mouth. Who needs an alarm clock when a french kissing dog lets you know when it's time to wake up? I did set the snooze alarm a few times by rolling over, but there is no escaping the deeply probing dog tongue.

It was my day off, so I ran errands. My favorite nursery was engulfed in the intoxicating perfume of orange blossoms. It is more like walking through a garden than a store. I slowly wandered around, adding stuff to my basket, which worked out to about $200 an hour. That is pricey for an hour and a half of fun, but not if you consider the summer of enjoyment that I will get out of my plants, assuming that they live.

My next stop was at Pink Berry. I don't want to make libelous statements and be sued, but I think that they put heroin in their frozen yogurt. I don't know how else to explain my addiction. It's expensive. It costs almost five times what I can pay for the same sort of thing from Costco, but Costco's yogurt doesn't feed my addiction.

I settled into a big upholstered chair with my treat and quickly slipped into a state of ecstasy. As slowly as possible, I savored it, but too soon it was gone. My Pink Berry habit is a self-indulgent, $28 an hour habit. Cheap, by heroin standards.

The day ended with me digging as fast as I could to get the plants in before dark. I didn't finish, but that is okay. That will allow me to have more fun tomorrow. There are few things better than having dirt caked under my nails. I feel relaxed from working in the warm sun.

The weather is so perfect it is a shame that I have to work this weekend, but what choice do I have? I need money to live and feed my frozen yogurt habit.

A Symmetrical Chin

A big boil came to a head on my chin. I am so happy about that. Seriously, I am. I was able to drain it of all kinds of prurient material and now it is healing nicely.

Ever since falling and cracking open my chin while practicing ballet a few months ago, there has been a big lump on my chin. It should have been sutured, but I was too lazy to go get that done. After attempts to tape it closed failed, I glued it shut the next day. Too much time had passed and it became infected. But the infection was deep and walled off. I just waited and hoped that someday my body would absorb the nasty thing brewing inside or that it would work its way to the surface and form a head.

It is so nice to have both sides of my chin symmetrical again.

A Little Accident

This photo is of the man who crashed into my car on his motorcycle. We are busy exchanging insurance information in the photo.

What happened is that I was driving home from Home Depot with a trunk full of flowers when the cars in front of me stopped suddenly. I'm careful about maintaining a safe following distance, so I had no trouble stopping in time.

Just as I came to a stop, I heard someone honking their horn behind me. I glanced in the mirror and saw a motorcycle flying towards me. It was obvious that he was not going to be able to stop. There was no place for me to go to escape him; traffic was stopped all around me, so I just waited for the impact. I didn't believe that I would be injured. My concern was that since he was on a motorcycle, he could be badly injured or killed and I really didn't need that.

I don't remember feeling any thud, but I heard it. In my mirror, I watched him fall off his bike and disappear below the horizon of my mirror. This was so bad. I turned off my engine and got out of my car. Some guys jumped out of a truck and helped him stand and put his bike upright. I was so relieved not to have to deal with blood, broken bones or guts lying all over the road. I asked the motorcyclist if he was okay and he said that he was.

Since he was okay and his bike looked okay, the next priority was getting out of traffic. I asked him where he would like to go. He said that he didn't know. I said that there was a parking lot up ahead and he said that he would follow me. When I got in my car, I noticed a police car pull up behind me. I ignored it. I drove to the parking lot with the cop car and motorcycle driver following me, hoping all the while that the cop didn't think that I was fleeing the scene of an accident.

The cops were nice. They just made sure that everyone was okay and watched us exchange information. Well, they also ran our plates and driver licenses, but I guess that is part of their job. Neither one of us was wanted for anything and we both had proof of insurance, so it was a smooth transaction.

The motorcycle driver had a tiny cut on his nose, but was otherwise fine. His bike suffered no damage. The wheel of his bike went through my rear bumper, so that is going to cost some money to replace. The insurance will take care of it. I just hope that my insurance company doesn't raise my rates because of this.

The Poppies

This is the Lancaster Poppy Reserve. It was a challenge taking these photos. The view screen on my camera is dark, probably the result of MacKenzie knocking the camera out of my hands and onto the ground. As a result, these photos were taken blind. I just pointed, shot and hoped for the best.

The poppies were spectacular, but were not at their best due to the wind. Poppies close in the wind and boy was it windy. The gusts practically knocked me off my feet. It was also cold. At my house, it was in the mid-seventies today. At the reserve, it was in the mid-fifties. I wasn't dressed warmly enough and I was starting to get ear aches from the cold wind, so I walked as fast as I could and got out of there. I need to go back when the wind isn't blowing. The California poppy is a great choice for the state flower, don't you think?

On the way home, I drove past a human prison and a pet prison. They are right next to each other. I'm not allowed to have another dog, but I stopped and looked anyway. There was a blond cocker that I liked, but there were two holds on him, so I left empty-handed. Thank goodness. Now I need to try and forget about all of the other little doggy faces I saw that need homes.

Dumping Ground

A short walk from my house is where old couches, mattresses and cars go to die. Narrow dirt trails wind all through the hills. People drive up them and get rid of what they no longer want. Dead bodies are occasionally found also, but none by me, so far.

When I want to get rid of something too big to throw in the trash, I either break it up to fit in the cans or hire someone to haul it away. I guess other people just dump it where ever. It doesn't make for an enjoyable walk to see otherwise pristine land used as a dump.

The worst thing I ever found were fish heads, hundreds of them, with names stapled to their heads. I guess that will remain one of life's mysteries.

Elevator Moves

Every time I get on the elevator at work, I have to bend over and press my chest against the side of the elevator at about thigh level. This is something new.


The braniacs in charge of my hospital decided that only staff should be able to ride the staff elevators. That is a good idea. And the way to keep ordinary people off the elevators is to require that people swipe their badges against the elevator to make it work. That is a good idea as well. At the old hospital, there was no way to keep non-staff from riding our elevators, which made for longer wait times.

The problem is that the badge sensors are at thigh level. I keep my badge both tied around my neck and clipped to my neck seam, so that it stays securely out of the way. It is too difficult to remove it each time I get on the elevator, so I have to bend over and thrust out my chest.

We are required to wear our badges above the waist. So why are the scanners at thigh level?

Crashing Into A Crash Cart

Whoever designed the new hospital forgot that we have crash carts. There is no good place for them. The crash carts sit in the entryway to the nurse's stations. It is a very narrow space with the cart sitting in it. As a result, we tend to crash into the crash cart when walking into the nurse's station.

The main problem with this is that the flimsy plastic locks that secure the cart fall off when we walk into it. The locks have to be flimsy so that the cart is easy to to open in a code. The locks also must be locked so that we know that everything is in the cart. If the cart is unlocked, who knows what might be missing from it?

The proper procedure is to get a whole new crash cart when a lock breaks. That is what we used to do until now. Now, the locks break several times a day and it is just too much trouble to exchange crash carts that often. So, now there is tape holding the drawers closed. It works, but there is no way to know if someone removed anything from the crash cart. I'm just pretending that everything is okay . Others are doing the same.

I'm wondering, though. This is not the first time that my employer has built a hospital. They don't reinvent the wheel each time. Our blueprint has been used in other hospitals. Didn't anyone notice before that there is no place for a crash cart?

Not Everyone Has One

Some time ago, I mentioned a patient that lacked a bellybutton. I'm not sure everyone believed me that such a thing was possible. So, here is proof that not everyone has a bellybutton. This is a photo of Patricia Heaton sans navel.

Lawyer Drivers

I got into my first car accident. I hit Lindsay's car while backing out of the driveway. He was very nice about it. The side of his car was scraped, but mine suffered no damage except for a dirt streak that washed off.

It seems odd that in an accident between a tiny car and a big van, only the big van suffered damage. Lindsay refused my offer to pay for repairs, but I'm going to insist. The last thing I want is to feel guilty every time I look at his car.

The accident happened because I forgot that his van was on my driveway. I just backed up as always. The visibility in my car is poor and I hate backing up in it, but I've memorized just how to turn the wheel so that I don't crash into the brick posts that the idiot who owned my house before me built on both sides of the driveway. I was so busy worrying about the brick posts that I didn't notice the big van.

On the subject of lawyer drivers, we were coming back from dinner when we were passed by a firetruck and two ambulances. Jokingly, I said, "Let's chase them." It was just a lawyer joke. Lindsay said okay and off we went in hot pursuit. That was my first chase, but Lindsay had done it before. He did say, though, that we weren't chasing them, we were following them. That seems like a distinction without a difference. Anyway, it was anti-climatic. They stopped at a house and went inside. We just kept driving. It was just as well, Lindsay didn't have any business cards with him.

Combination Lock Phobia

Ever since Junior High, I've had nightmares about combination locks. The dreams are basically the same. I need to get into the locker and can't remember the combination or even which locker is mine.

At work, I was given a locker with a combination lock. AAUUUGGGHHH!

A Big Bunny

I want one too.

Chaos

It was generally believed that things would get better in the new hospital once we went through our adjustment period. Instead, it has gotten worse and is in complete chaos. The doctors are operating again and filling us up with patients and we can't handle it.

The design of the new hospital looks nice. Almost every room is private and big, but the only way to give such space to patients is to make the nurses walk across what feels like miles of corridors. That means when a patient needs a nurse, it can take some time for the nurse to get there.

The design is also inefficient when it comes to access to medical supplies. Our supplies are nowhere near the rooms. Every time a patient wants a cup or a towel, we have to take off in our running shoes to retrieve them. The more time we spend walking the corridors, the more time that patients wait to have their calls answered.

The patients are so upset that one night in my unit alone, two different patients called 911. Neither of the patients were confused. They were just scared for their lives. The next day, the hospital administrators were notified of this by the 911 people. No one likes having a Sunday morning at home disturbed by a call from government officials about the patients in their new hospital calling 911.

For the last three days, I was the evening charge nurse over this mess. I'm known for my calm demeanor at work, but yesterday I lost it. My unit has three nursing stations and everyone was upset when they couldn't find me right away. I spent my evening speed walking between the three stations trying to put out fires, but when fires are shooting up in three different locations at the same time, it is too much. I was overwhelmed about not being able to be three places at once and angry that people expected it.

When the house supervisor complained about how my coworkers at the other stations were having a hard time finding me, I went on the offensive. I normally keep my mouth shut and just smile, but this time I turned into an angry lawyer delivering a fiery closing argument about the crazy design of the building. The supervisor backed off and gave me some much needed space.

The charge nurses from the other shifts share my feelings. One has already quit her position. We do have a solution to our problem, move back to the old hospital. It was designed by the founder of our HMO. He knew something about efficiency and what works for the nurses.

We know that is not an option, so our plan B is to divide up the nursing stations into different units. They would be be separately staffed with its own charge nurse. Station 4 would be orthopedics. Station 5 would be general surgery. Station 6, we would abandon because it is nothing but a waste of space. The charge nurses are all in agreement.

That is basically what we did in the old hospital. Combining the two units and having just one charge nurse to run back and forth between the stations is a big mistake. We can fix at least that problem. I'm going to talk to the manager about this change. In the meantime, I hope that someone else will be charge for a while. I've had it.