Friday, July 20, 2007

Lost in Space

Well, blogger has eaten my last few posts- and after I was all fired up to be posting more regularily, too. Lets see if this makes it through the ether.

Work- still a learning experiance, as in experiance is what you get when you don't get what you want. The hard part about nursing, and I dare say medicine, is that you do your learning on actually live people. There are systems in place to prevent massive screw ups, but still, nurses frequently say that they learn something new every day. My conscience pricks me when I have to learn something that, had I know it before hand, my patient would have been that much better served.

Knitting- I have gotten this book, which is very unlike most knitting books that I enjoy. I'm more likely to like stuff with cultural details and classic designs, heavy on the colorwork and technique, light on the word for word instructions. But the kimono baby sweater sold me, as well as the very conservative, traditional yarmulke pattern. While I don't think much of the knitted underpants, overall it is a charming and pleasing book. (NB there are people in the world so wealthy that not only do they have a horse, they are going to knit and then full it a blanket out of KUREYON. That nearly un sold me from the purchase, but the baby sweater triumphed.)

In other news, the dog we brought home from the pound last month bit my son. It was not his fault, I was there. The pound took her back, they plan on offering her to people without children if she passes her temperment test again. Another instance of experience. I think I will wait a long while before getting another dog, and let the elderly chihuahua age in peace. My son is fine, he did not need stitches, and it could have been much, much, worse. I feel badly for the dog, as she showed a lot of promise. But, one cannot bite people because they walk past you with a popsicle in their hand.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

holy cow

Well, then, I seem to have been able to sign into my own stinking account for two days consecutively. Can you feel the excitement? Next on my list: mailing the water bill on time ( it is only due quarterly, and I never seem to get that sort of thing right).

Spent the day first at work, where I had a lovely, lovely interaction with a patient. His wife was on my last nerve, as yesterday when I came to do a procedure on him that needed a consent signed, she told me she would be unable to sign it until she had prayed over it. Ma'am? Your husband is in the ICU, on a vent, with a feeding tube and a whole bunch of IV access, and you need to pray over wet her I start another line? Now? do you need to pray now? Because I'm not allowed to get overtime for this, and It's two o'clock, and so, uhm, could you check in with Jesus in a sort of rapid fashion? Because you have already traveled down the critical care, maximum medicine road, and I think it would be really helpful if now that you have called us in in force, you let us do our thing.

This morning he was on his "sedation vacation" which is a cheery little phrase that means letting ventilated people, thus people with a big old tube down their throat, wake up some so we can see if they are strong enough to breathe on their own yet and if they are still in there. (Gross oversimplification. Probabaly also a really gross sensation.) SO he writes on his clipboard " I want the blood drawing line. Do it now." I say ok and say well, sir this is what I'm gonna do and I'll tell you what I'm going to do each step and if I talk to much, well, I DO talk to much, but if you were my dad I'd want the nurse to tell you everything. I did my thing and when it was over he squeezed my hand and wrote "thanks for listening.

I was floored. I was grateful. I was touched. I was thankful.

Tuesday, July 03, 2007