Obsessed, again

Mermaid-San! I think she needs some beads. Pattern from Runo.

Some one asked how I make the faces- I follow her directions and I wing it. Re-did baby dolls head. I just couldn't get past the fact that he looked microcephalic. So I sewed him a new head, 25% larger that the old one. New pic next time I down load. Not sure what I'll use the old head for. Making dolls means that your WIP are pretty ghastly- dismsmbered bits, some of them smiling up at you.

What breed is Annie? I dunno. Sort of chihuahua, I think. Definitely a dog. We had the vet check on that. Although she does use a bunny cage as her crate....

Dog Blog

Or is it Blog Dog? Little Annie, courtesy of the Fresno Pound. Go look for yourself.

Finished the mobius, pics next time, after I darn in the ends.

Work already called asking for a 3 AM start. Uhm, no, thanks. We are also short tomorrow, and thus, I think I do not need to start the shift half asleep and depleted.

So Tired

I had a hellish busy day. It was 4 o'clock before I hit clear water, and only because the oncoming nurse is a fabulous human bean and took off all the orders from the chart that I had not taken off from my other patient. Bless her. The really sick kid, the one with the surgical belly and the fever and the tachypnea and the low platelets and the overall bad prognosis and the screaming lots and lots of screaming. Her, I had actually done all the order, and many of them had been taken off by the other nurses, bless them. Have I mentioned how much I love ward clerks? Have I mentioned that we did not have one? Did anyone else know that parking was something you did with a phone? What happens to that call if you are too stupid to figure out how to pick it up? Do YOU know where the blood orders are stocked? I do , know, but the place looked like a medically based yard sale, and a visit from the form fairy would have been helpful.

I am obsessed with doll making. Is that good?

Or should I knit, now?

Maybe sit on the couch, and stare, blankly at these nice people who are playing toys and stealing noodle out of the dish this guy brought me. Oh yeah, that's my husband.

National Get A Clue Day

Go read the Head Nurse
I think she has it. Perhaps, if that flies, then we could have National Don't Drive Like A Doorknob Day.

Another Day Off, Another Doll

Look, a sister! I think I'll make a brother, next. I need to lower the nose.

A Room of One's Own

Ok, well, not exactly a room. A table. Mom's table. Do. Not. Touch. Anything. On. The. Table.
Do. Not. Put. Anything. On. The. Table. We have some rules around here, ya know. I'm making another doll. Why? who knows?

Work really blows. The neurosurgeon was nice to me, though. It's always nice when a brilliant and famous person pours you a cup of coffee when he pours his own. My co workers suggested that I was over reactive when I FLIPPED out that no one hung the unit of blood that had been ordered at 4pm YESTERDAY. I guess I'm just funny that way. And the other patient, the central IV line that my very confused (head trauma) patient had when I left? Ripped out before I got to the parking lot. What is it about head injuries that makes people so very, very strong? I dunno- I mean I had him unrestrained, playing video games, and using the commode. (With his line in.) I got him back this morning tied down, chewing on his restraints, diapered, with no line. I looked at him, a big man sized person who was still really a child before his injury, and now, more than ever is child like, and I said "Damn, John, what happened?"
"I dunno, but I'm real glad to see you." There is no sincerity like that of those who live completely in the present.

The Harlot made me do it

Yes, I like so many, have fallen under the Harlot's spell, and bought that damn book. I have resisted so far (Over a year- I think that's a personal best for not buying a book that I was ambiguous about.) It struck me as a one trick pony, and I was a little annoyed at the model. She is just a bit precious for me. Once I actually bought the book and read that she is an opera singer, somehow she annoyed me less. I expect drama from opera singers. In knitting book authours, not so much. I did actually gag while reading the ficticious surmise of Herr Mobius's wife suddenly dreaming of inventing not only the circular needle, but the very same mobius technique in the book, all of which, of course was tragically lost. I'm feeling headachy just thinking about that bit. The book is a one trick pony, but it's a damn good trick. The cast on is the main thing, and a handy chart for number of stitches to cast on for the length of (circumference of?) the scarf you want. I'm using a bunch of odd ball purples and blues, just adding them in as I reach the end of each ball, and I will cast off in I cord when I get there. I'll probably buy the cast off yarn, because it would bum my cool to run out midway.

Work wants me in at 3AM. It is nice, because I get the night shift differential, and it assures that the nurse who does nothing who starts at 11 AM, has an assignment- mine. But thn there's the getting up at 2AM part and that blows. Plus, I would need to go to bed right after Son One and Son Two, and it somehow leaches all the joy of being a grown up to go to bed at the same timeas the kids.

Yet another hobby?

Meet the doll family. I have no Idea why I am doing this. There is a yard of fabric soaking in tea and a pinch of red koolaide right now,making skin toned fabric, so that I can make more of these things.

Work- well, lets see. go read Jo.
She has a good post on the hobbyist patient. Luckily, as a pedi nurse, I rarely see these. One Munchasen by proxy I will remember till the day I die. ( This means that the mother slowly poisoned and disabled her own child, so that she could be seen as a hero for saving the child. ) One teenager who refused to walk for so long that she needed actual rehab because she was now too weak. That, and a can of ass whupp, and psychatric help that was in the hands of those far more skilled at that kind of thing that I. A few here and there, but nothing like what adults can do to themselves.

Damn, yet another hobby

I found the coolest site. A Japanese dollmaker who has generously put up a doll making class -complete with patterns- online. Her site is here.

I haven't made a doll since I was a little girl, and I have to say it was fun. Obsessively so, as I started yesterday and finished after work today.

Work- no drama today. Two kids, one with a rare syndrome and one with- oh wait- another rare syndrome. Both, luckily, with parents who have decided to stay in it for the long haul. Can't write about them. But keep this in mind- you may see a funny looking kid somewhere, the store, your kids school, the park- they are just kids in there. Under whatever scars or bandages or odd features they have, they probably still like Pokemon, or Hello Kitty, or whatever else kids like. They can most likely hear you talk, see you look, and have opinions about things. You, the outsider, don't need to know what they have, how they got that way, or what their chances are of ever being any other way. Just smile, if you are the type to smile at kids, comment on the spiderman tee shirt that they are wearing, or the baby's pretty blue eyes, or the darling toy they clutch, and go about your business.

Not Another Hobby

A new dragon! One more way to play with wool.

I started the day with Kelly the Dog peeing on the bedroom floor. On a pile of magazines and other crud. I had been meaning to clean, and so I did. But, hey, now I'm much cleaner. She's not usually much of a pee-er. (That's Annie who hasn't really embraced housebreaking.) But Kelly is a big food snatcher . Since she got caught , and yelled at, she did the correct doggie thing and peed. Just to show us how much she cared. One more day off.

Work- haven't heard about my transfer to the pedi floor. I am taking the next chemo class next week, tho. If I get a three day position, I think I'd work on the moon. I might even go to adults, if I had to. Welllll maybe not that far. If I have to wipe butts, I want them to be cute little butts, not big old wrinkly butts.

Baby Dragon

I have found a new obsession. You need to, too. Go to www.graftonfibers.com and get yourself a felting kit. You will not be sorry.

Bitch nurses

I have spent most of my adult life, and all of my childhood, thinking that nurses were somehow, someway, good people, just because they had chosen to be nurse. I have had that opinion, despite evidence to the contrary, for so long that it is like one of my toes, or the phone number to my childhood home. I have explained the lazy nurse as tired, the sharp nurse as stressed, the uncompassionate as inexperienced. Today, I have changed my mind. My current unit has finnally made me wake up and smell the vomit. There are nurses who lie about having given meds. There are nurses who chart things that they never did. There are nurses who leave patients to lie in shit, gargle vomit, and moan in pain. There are nurses who belittle coworkers, mock physicians, and overall game the system to a breathtaking degree. It makes me weep, only I'm so damn angry that I'm tachycardic and hypertensive, and so it's that mad sad crazy kind of weeping that I never want my children to see.

Then there are nurses who buy lunch for hungry family members, wipe butts with tenderness, discover and correct med errors with grace, finness, and tact. There are nurses with the skill to see the small changes in a patient that are the road to doom, and make sure somebody elses sees thos things, too, and writes some damn orders to prevent said road trip.There are nurses that change beds compulsively, bring in toys for little patients, and sit by you and hold your hand when there are not enough drugs in the world to take away your pain. There are nurses who sit by people who do not speak the same language, handing over one tissue after another, only because they can see that person is crying and they want to let them know that you are not alone. There are nurses who will close your dead eyes with tenderness, wash your cold body, and hold onto your mother or wife when they see you like this. There are nurse who will scream for the team and ambu bag the breath back into you, shock your heart into a decent rhythm, and all but stuff your soul back into your body if they think that you are not done here on this earth.

My only problem is that both kinds of nurses seem to live on the same planet, work in the same units, and get the same pay.