All fun, no filler.

It's so invigorating when you stand outside in the cool morning air, breathing the springtime in deeply. It's Earth Day week, the sun is shining, and it's going to be a gorgeous day. Just standing outside makes you smile, because spring is here with a vengeance.

It's so depressing when you then trudge up three flights of stairs and into the apartment to sleep for 8 hours straight, in prep for another night shift tonight.

***
A nonverbal nursing home patient. My favorite! Sent to my room in the ER to have her flexi-seal replaced. Yes friends, I save lives. I also stick little rubber tubes up peoples butts with my finger.

***
That same nonverbal nursing home patient...I get her medical history from the nursing home records. The list of her diagnoses read:
Unspecified Hypotension
Renal Failure; Chronic
Essential Hypertension

I scratch my head a little.

***
Sometimes, I wish dilaudid didn't exist. Because then I wouldn't have to listen to you tell me, "I'm allergic to toradol and tylenol and motrin. No, morphine doesn't really work for me. I usually get...what's it called? Dah-something. Dah-li...Dah-law-dah...yeah, dilaudid! I couldn't remember what it's name was. No, I haven't done cocaine in over three months!"

***
"I see this is your 12th visit this month for chronic abdominal pain. Have you seen a pain management specialist? Oh, your appointment is next month. Well, I reviewed your old charts, and I see that you were supposed to see them last week. You couldn't go? Why not? Oh. I see. You missed your appointment and came here for pain medicine."

Face, palm.

***
Ah, ER nursing. All fun, no filler!

Ready

I am officially ready for the good-weather season. Hiking, camping, tree hugging galore.

Bring it on. This will be me this summer:


Minus the tidy hair and model-worthy legs, plus more granola and un-showered appearance, of course. And on second thought, I won't be playing in the water with my entire pack on me, either. This model wouldn't be having nearly as much fun if she were flat on her back looking like a turtle, weighed down by an eight ton water weight backback.

Pictures blatantly stolen from gregorypacks.com

Pun with guns

When someone shoots you, and I'm asking you the story of what happened, giving me a blank stare and then going "I don't know, he just went ballistic on me" is a sure-fire way to make me snerk a little inside.


***
On a side note, I'm watching Man vs. Wild. Bear Grylls just smashed a boa constrictor to death in the jungles of Belize for something to eat after climbing down a ten story waterfall, scaling a 60 foot cliff and swimming through an underground river. I got annoyed today when I accidentally ripped the pasta box open too far. A failure on some level in life, I'm sure.

Egh

I just died a little inside.

Fanged leech pulled from girl's nose.

I'm never, NEVER going swimming in the amazon. Ever.

Whaaa?

Day shift and night shift in an ER are vastly different in many ways. Both have their pros and cons, although obviously I'm a little biased towards nights. I think the night shift staff rocks so hard it's like a hurricane, and I've got no plans to abandon them for days any time soon.

But there are some times where I go, "holy crap, this would never happen on nights!" and get a little jealous.

I recently worked a night shift and agreed to stay over for a few hours since the day shift was shortstaffed. My first patient at 0700 was a gastric band patient who was having some trouble. Apparently, he had called the surgeons office to seek advice. The surgeon happened to be there, and told him to go to the ER and he would meet the patient there.

Now see, this happens often on nights. Except the doctors office says, "go to the ER, the doctor will see you there." And it's 5 pm on Friday. The patient shows up at triage, gets a number, and sits for three hours in the waiting room. They get back to my treatment room, irritated to the max. They tell me the doctor told them to come here and they'll get admitted. I look at them and sigh, because I know this story all too well.

But back on day shift, I'm standing in the patients room at 0703 getting his history. He tells me the surgeon told him to meet him there, and I don't even have time to think about raising my eyebrows before the surgeon walks into the room with an admission order sheet and tells the patient he'll be admitted and going to surgery that day.

I had to scrape my jaw off the floor. I hadn't even drawn labs. Hell, I hadn't even charted anything on this patient yet. If it hadn't been a lapband patient, I think the surgeon might even have brought him a cup of coffee. This never happens on nights. Ever. We get to fight for two hours to get a consult, then the doc comes in all bleary eyed and cranky and then complains that we're admitting someone. No, my friend, not on day shift.

Triage to surgeon consult to admission time? 17 minutes.

Never say never

I've only ever watched one episode of Grey's Anatomy. Mostly because all those shows are way too absurd; doctors are never that hot, if they are that hot they're not single, supply rooms are awful places to hide, and our days aren't full of back to back to back exciting and life changing cases. But mostly because they're just too absurd to be believable.

So the one episode of Grey's dealt with some patient who had an unexploded RPG in his body. You heard. A Rocket. Propelled. Grenade. A huge freaking piece of metal and gunpowder just waiting to explode. Live round of ammunition. The OR was evacuated, people were afraid the guy would accidentally move and blow up, and lots of interns cried. And had sex in supply closets. And then cried again.

I remember thinking it was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen, and there is just no way something that outrageous could happen in real life.

And then I read the news today.

Headline? US Doctor takes live ammo from soldier's head. Well, color me corrected.

But as [Lt. Terreri] reviewed a CAT scan of the soldier, he realized it was a much bigger problem, according to an Air Force news release this week on the case.

He immediately went to inform neurosurgeon Maj. John Bini, also of Lackland. Bini had the operating room evacuated; the surrounding hallways were secured, and he and anaesthesiologist Maj. Jeffrey Rengel, put on body armor for the surgery.

Bini and Rengel were joined in the operating room by a member of a bomb disposal team. And after Bini removed the round from the patient's head, the bomb technicians took it away.

You win, Grey's Anatomy. You win.

But on principle, I still don't think I'll ever watch you again.

Diabeetus

It gets funnier every time I see it...

The dark side of the farm

I love eggs. A lot. I even once made the most perfect friend egg ever. One day I visited my parents, and decided it would be amusing to draw little stormtrooper faces on all the eggs in the carton, like an army of star wars eggy goodness. Mom loved it, and I would claim to be clever except it was already done by Grocery Store Wars, so really I'm not clever at all. Anyway, my mom forwarded me some pictures for Easter, and being the morbidly amusing person I am, laughed a lot at these. Thusly, I will share them with you. Eggjoy!


Seriously, aren't these the best?!

The machine that goes PING

And get the most expensive machines, in case the administrator comes.



The administrator is here, doctor. Switch everything on!

Dry

Dr: Her BAL is 316. She says she hasn't had a drink in two weeks.
Shrtstormtrooper: Good god. Can you imagine how high it was two weeks ago?!