Pie

I must apologize for the lack of posting. I ate an entire pumpkin pie by myself this weekend (and copious amounts of corn and stuffing and ham) and now I am having trouble reaching my keyboard. Posting shall resume when my waistband has returned to normal.

Spirit

And while we're on xkcd...

I feel oddly sad after reading this webcomic about an appliance with no feelings.



Unless it DOES have feelings?!

[http://xkcd.com/695/]

Pain scale

xkcd is the greatest ever.



[http://xkcd.com/883/]

Pain relief

While discharging a sweet old lady and her husband who had been involved in a very minor fender bender, I'm explaining that they can both take their usual OTC pain reliever for any muscle aches. "Motrin, Aleve, or Tylenol, whichever normally works best for you is what you should go with," I tell them.

Sweet old man pipes up, "I usually go for heroin, is that okay this time?"

I was unsure if he was kidding, until he starts laughing and assured me he would use Aleve.

On second thought...I'm still not sure he was kidding.

Krokodil

Whilst reading up on other blogs I saw New Nurse, in the Hood mentioned reading an article about Krokodil, a codeine based drug similar to meth in it's preparation that is apparently all the rage in Russia. I read the article and when it mentioned that plenty of youtube videos are floating around of the horrendous effects of course my morbid self went hunting.

Holy shit. That is all I can say. (if you needed the warning...yes, this is graphic.)

**Since I don't speakez the Russian, apparently this video is showing a user who injected a different med than krokodil - though the end results are similar. Either way, kids...drugs are bad, mmkay? (thanks, anon)



Holy shit. I cannot understand this level of addiction. I just can't.

The art of diversion

Recently I started working full 12 hour shifts in triage, which is still new and exciting and butt-clenchingly scary most of the time. It's a whole different world than working in the core. In the core I get 3, 4, maybe 5 patients and when my rooms are full I don't get any more, unless it's a hall patient in which every one helps on. I always have lots of other people around me, and if I find myself in the weeds I can always call charge and either get extra help or block a room for a bit to catch up.

Not so in triage. They keep coming in the door and you keep quick assessing and you make the decision to sit them in the waiting room or bring them back with a fire under your ass. It's hard! I'm terrified of missing something, or not assessing a patient well enough - which is scary enough seeing as I have to triage without ever laying a hand on them. In all fairness though, I expected triage to be difficult.

What I did not anticipate was the stalling skills required for families of Very Sick Patients.

Take the other night. We get a real sick patient, in her 30s, who ended up arresting. Right after everyone starts working on her, the husband strolls in the front door and asks for his wife - you see, when she left the house she was awake and talking, albeit sickly looking. He had no reason to suspect anything had changed.

I was not prepared for this. What do you say to someone whom you know is losing their other half but you can't tell him yet? I know she's dead, but I have to stall until the nursing sup can come and collect him. How do you deflect the request to go back and see her? I don't know. It's hard. I really don't know how to handle this yet, but I guess it will come with time. This is very humbling though. Just when I was starting to feel like I might be okay at nursing, I get bumped to a new level and discover that my deep dark suspicions were right - I've got a really long ways to go.

Is that a banana...

I tend to be on the juvenile and/or inappropriate side of humor most of the time...I think it's amusing, but people usually just get offended.

After hitting up the cafeteria, I returned upstairs with a bagel in my hands and can of soda in my pocket. Our very own Dr. One Liner (TM Nurse K) happened to be working, and he looks over at me and asks "what is that in your pocket?" I glance down, look back to him and reply that I'm just happy to see him.

He laughed. And snorted while laughing. Then hugged and thanked me for my eighth grade humor packaged in unsuspecting classy lady form.

Ba-ZING! Even a nonfunny person is funny twice a day. Or something like that.

Pacing

Quote of the night (while setting up for the external pacing of a patient)

Badass nurse: Whaddya want to start at, doc?

Cardiologist: Eh, let's start at 5 mAs.

Badass nurse: Hell doc, I poop harder than 5 milliamps!

We started at 0...because ACLS trumps badassness in most circumstances. But it was still funny.

While bored stiff in triage...

It really isn't a funny situation to be in, but let me tell you. There are A LOT of penis-related jokes to be found in the ER after someone presents with a priapism. I know, because I may or may not have made half of them.

That is straight up truth.

Hu

I have to say, however you feel about Dow as a company...this is probably the best commercial of all time. I remember seeing it years ago, and it's still excellent.



For the win.

Conversations that go nowhere

While sitting in triage, a hood looking young gentleman comes to the window looking for his friend. I scroll through the tracking board for the name he gives me, and after informing him there is no one by that name in the system he gets all belligerent. "He ain't the patient, it be his friend that be checked in!" he tells me. I ask the name of this new friend, and he tells me Jigga.

"Jigga what?" I ask.

He tactfully informs me "just Jigga, bitch!"

"I need a last name, sir. Jigga Who?" I'm dying inside of pure joy.

Recognize, girl.