I'm a PALS certified nurse, huzzah.
But under no circumstances am I actually clinically able to run a ped code. Here's to hoping I don't have to do so anytime soon. Here's also to learning the skills as a bystander, as opposed to being thrown headfirst into it...
Friday, July 31, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
wtf moment
My biggest fear in life is drowning. But there are a few things that while I'm not exactly scared of them, they still are able to give me the heebie jeebies like whoa.
Anyway, I was working the non-critical side last night, and I was sort of busy. I got a new patient in one of my rooms, but I didn't have time to open the chart and read it through before the PA asked me to step into the room real quick.
So I pop in and the PA asks me to hold the otoscope so she can use both hands. She's got a pair of forceps, and I'm thinking the dude has a piece of cotton or something in his ear. All of a sudden, she pulls out a GIANT EFFING BEETLE from his ear. Eeeegh. I'm getting chills even typing this. Ugh it's just so gross. He could hear it crawling in his ear. Yeeeeggh.
Seeing someone who just ran their fingers through a table saw? No problem. Oops, dog bite to your shin and your bone is trying to exit your leg? Sure. Giant necrotic non-healing diabetic surgical wound? Bring it on.
June Beetle to the ear? I might pass out.
I can live without ever seeing that again.
Anyway, I was working the non-critical side last night, and I was sort of busy. I got a new patient in one of my rooms, but I didn't have time to open the chart and read it through before the PA asked me to step into the room real quick.
So I pop in and the PA asks me to hold the otoscope so she can use both hands. She's got a pair of forceps, and I'm thinking the dude has a piece of cotton or something in his ear. All of a sudden, she pulls out a GIANT EFFING BEETLE from his ear. Eeeegh. I'm getting chills even typing this. Ugh it's just so gross. He could hear it crawling in his ear. Yeeeeggh.
Seeing someone who just ran their fingers through a table saw? No problem. Oops, dog bite to your shin and your bone is trying to exit your leg? Sure. Giant necrotic non-healing diabetic surgical wound? Bring it on.
June Beetle to the ear? I might pass out.
I can live without ever seeing that again.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
A challenge met
"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard...because that challenge is one we are willing to accept." - JFK
Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the moon landing.I've blogged before about my dear love for all things space, so it was a great day news-wise for me. I'm sure you all have read the articles in the news for the past week or so, and I doubt I have anything new to add that you haven't heard before.
So I'll bring you this bit of awesome instead...
Bart Sibrel is a moon landing conspiracy theorist, probably the leading one of them all. He's made a career of stalking former astronauts and insulting their legacy at every opportunity. He'll go up to them and call them cowards, liars, and any other jibe to provoke them. Never mind that Sibrel has been caught editing the audio/visual from NASA footage for his documentaries, which makes him more of a fraud than anyone he is accusing.
Anyway, Sibrel walks up to Buzz Aldrin - second man on the moon, if you're unawares - and goes, "you're the one who says you walked on the moon when you didn't...you're a coward, and a liar, and a thie---"
He doesn't get the last word out because Buzz only had one response for him:
He decks the crap out of Sibrel's face.
And THAT is why I believe we went to the moon.
Oh, and probably also because of the endless amounts of footage, evidence, moonrocks, photos, and hundreds of thousands of people who were involved in launching the most awesome rockets ever.
Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the moon landing.I've blogged before about my dear love for all things space, so it was a great day news-wise for me. I'm sure you all have read the articles in the news for the past week or so, and I doubt I have anything new to add that you haven't heard before.
So I'll bring you this bit of awesome instead...
Bart Sibrel is a moon landing conspiracy theorist, probably the leading one of them all. He's made a career of stalking former astronauts and insulting their legacy at every opportunity. He'll go up to them and call them cowards, liars, and any other jibe to provoke them. Never mind that Sibrel has been caught editing the audio/visual from NASA footage for his documentaries, which makes him more of a fraud than anyone he is accusing.
Anyway, Sibrel walks up to Buzz Aldrin - second man on the moon, if you're unawares - and goes, "you're the one who says you walked on the moon when you didn't...you're a coward, and a liar, and a thie---"
He doesn't get the last word out because Buzz only had one response for him:
He decks the crap out of Sibrel's face.
And THAT is why I believe we went to the moon.
Oh, and probably also because of the endless amounts of footage, evidence, moonrocks, photos, and hundreds of thousands of people who were involved in launching the most awesome rockets ever.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Oh, and can I get a work note?
I hate giving out work notes. Like, I'd rather give myself the stomach flu instead of passing out free get-out-of-work cards. I hate all those lazy, stupid, good for nothing asstards that demand I give them whatever they want.
Usually I'm pretty easygoing while in the ER. Plenty of people have true pain, and I'm more than willing to write them up for a day off if the doc forgets to do it. But I will not tolerate the low life mouth breathers who demand demand demand.
I had a patient today who was in a very minor car accident. Natch, he was asleep in the front seat when it happened and didn't even wake up right away. Nevertheless he and his wife blow into the ER like they own the place. I knew it would be bad when the wife asked me for a phone book so she could call a lawyer. Which I didn't get her, btw.
He spend the whole time in the room bitching. Holding his arm and whining like a little girl. Whatever. Xray is negative, no marks on him at all.
I go to discharge him - after hearing him on the phone with his doctor making an appointment for this coming monday - with some muscle relaxers and motrin prescription and he blows a fit because we didn't include vicodin. I get through the rest of his discharge paperwork, and he goes, "I need a work note. I can't work with this pain." Whatever, dood. I'll give you a note through the weekend. I don't feel like arguing with your lazy entitled self.
He flips his shit. Starts with that condenscending voice, saying, "I'm the one in pain here, I need a work note for longer than that!" I tell him that I will give him a note through the weekend, but the ER does not give out long term notes. In a sweet innocent voice, I also brightly mention that since he is seeing his doctor on monday, he can surely get a note from the PCP if his injury is severe enough to warrant not being able to pull your own thumb out of your butt. Well, I didn't say all that, but I thought it.
He goes off on me, saying that I have no idea how much pain he is in, and he can't tolerate it. Mind you, he's waving his arms around like a crazy person to emphasize how much he can't move his arms. And at this point, I'm pissed. I tell him that I don't feel comfortable giving him a work note for that long, especially in light of the negative work up. He tells me that "it's not your job to feel comfortable. It's your job to get me a work note, or call someone who does feel comfortable giving me one."
I walked out of the room halfway through his rant, called up the PA, and told him to tell the dood the same thing I told him. The PA walks into the room, and in one breath goes, "We don't give out long term work notes. You can get one from your PCP. And if you continue to raise your voice at my staff, I'll have you escorted off this property. You're discharged, thank you."
He stormed out...without his work note.
Which I promptly trashed.
I sort of hope he has a major accident on the way home, and actually needs that work note.
I hate people sometimes. It's asstards like this that ruin a perfectly good night of helping people who actually need to be helped.
Usually I'm pretty easygoing while in the ER. Plenty of people have true pain, and I'm more than willing to write them up for a day off if the doc forgets to do it. But I will not tolerate the low life mouth breathers who demand demand demand.
I had a patient today who was in a very minor car accident. Natch, he was asleep in the front seat when it happened and didn't even wake up right away. Nevertheless he and his wife blow into the ER like they own the place. I knew it would be bad when the wife asked me for a phone book so she could call a lawyer. Which I didn't get her, btw.
He spend the whole time in the room bitching. Holding his arm and whining like a little girl. Whatever. Xray is negative, no marks on him at all.
I go to discharge him - after hearing him on the phone with his doctor making an appointment for this coming monday - with some muscle relaxers and motrin prescription and he blows a fit because we didn't include vicodin. I get through the rest of his discharge paperwork, and he goes, "I need a work note. I can't work with this pain." Whatever, dood. I'll give you a note through the weekend. I don't feel like arguing with your lazy entitled self.
He flips his shit. Starts with that condenscending voice, saying, "I'm the one in pain here, I need a work note for longer than that!" I tell him that I will give him a note through the weekend, but the ER does not give out long term notes. In a sweet innocent voice, I also brightly mention that since he is seeing his doctor on monday, he can surely get a note from the PCP if his injury is severe enough to warrant not being able to pull your own thumb out of your butt. Well, I didn't say all that, but I thought it.
He goes off on me, saying that I have no idea how much pain he is in, and he can't tolerate it. Mind you, he's waving his arms around like a crazy person to emphasize how much he can't move his arms. And at this point, I'm pissed. I tell him that I don't feel comfortable giving him a work note for that long, especially in light of the negative work up. He tells me that "it's not your job to feel comfortable. It's your job to get me a work note, or call someone who does feel comfortable giving me one."
I walked out of the room halfway through his rant, called up the PA, and told him to tell the dood the same thing I told him. The PA walks into the room, and in one breath goes, "We don't give out long term work notes. You can get one from your PCP. And if you continue to raise your voice at my staff, I'll have you escorted off this property. You're discharged, thank you."
He stormed out...without his work note.
Which I promptly trashed.
I sort of hope he has a major accident on the way home, and actually needs that work note.
I hate people sometimes. It's asstards like this that ruin a perfectly good night of helping people who actually need to be helped.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Happy 4th...finger dismemberment
Movin' Meat posted this, and I obviously needed to repost. Because it's awful. Fireworks and fingers do not mix, people.
Photo from Flickr
Photo from Flickr
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Life's little regrets
Most people have done something in their life which they regret. Like a barbed wire tattoo or an oopsie photo on facebook or forking out money to see a Michael Bay movie in theaters. I, on the other hand, regret something I didn't do.
One day in college I was hanging out with my friend Kaley, and out of the blue...well, probably not out of the blue...most likely I was rambling on about my love of Star Wars. Anyway, one day Kaley goes, "You know the guy that rode with Luke Skywalker on that snowy planet?"
I'm all, "Uh, you mean Dak Ralter, the gunner for Luke in the Battle of Hoth played by John Morton, who lives in Maryland which I know because I read it in the Star Wars Insider magazine?"
Kaley's all, yeah sure, whatever. Then she drops this bomb on me: "Yeah, him. Well, he goes to my church."
I almost had an aneurysm. A real life SW actor, at my very fingertips! I had to meet him, I tell her. It's essential to my SW fandom.
So time passes, and one day I mention to Kaley that I still need to meet him and we need to go back to that church. With one offhanded sentence though, Kaley manages to crush my soul. "I think he moved, because he doesn't go to that church anymore," she says. Egad!
All I'm trying to say is that probably my biggest regret in life is not getting my butt to that church earlier so I could meet Dak. Sigh. I think about it every time I watch Star Wars.
So John Morton, if you're out there...I'm just saying. Come back to Annapolis. I promise I won't act all weird.
***
I'm on a little SW kick today because there is an all-day marathon of the two trilogies on Spike. And I've forgotten how eye-gougingly awful Episodes I-III are. Like, they make me want to go outside, find a railroad spike, and place said spike as far into my brain as possible. Ugh, they're bad.
***
And to make this somewhat nursing related, wouldn't it be easy on the medical field if we just had Bacta tanks to heal everything?
One day in college I was hanging out with my friend Kaley, and out of the blue...well, probably not out of the blue...most likely I was rambling on about my love of Star Wars. Anyway, one day Kaley goes, "You know the guy that rode with Luke Skywalker on that snowy planet?"
I'm all, "Uh, you mean Dak Ralter, the gunner for Luke in the Battle of Hoth played by John Morton, who lives in Maryland which I know because I read it in the Star Wars Insider magazine?"
Kaley's all, yeah sure, whatever. Then she drops this bomb on me: "Yeah, him. Well, he goes to my church."
I almost had an aneurysm. A real life SW actor, at my very fingertips! I had to meet him, I tell her. It's essential to my SW fandom.
So time passes, and one day I mention to Kaley that I still need to meet him and we need to go back to that church. With one offhanded sentence though, Kaley manages to crush my soul. "I think he moved, because he doesn't go to that church anymore," she says. Egad!
All I'm trying to say is that probably my biggest regret in life is not getting my butt to that church earlier so I could meet Dak. Sigh. I think about it every time I watch Star Wars.
So John Morton, if you're out there...I'm just saying. Come back to Annapolis. I promise I won't act all weird.
***
I'm on a little SW kick today because there is an all-day marathon of the two trilogies on Spike. And I've forgotten how eye-gougingly awful Episodes I-III are. Like, they make me want to go outside, find a railroad spike, and place said spike as far into my brain as possible. Ugh, they're bad.
***
And to make this somewhat nursing related, wouldn't it be easy on the medical field if we just had Bacta tanks to heal everything?
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