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Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Europe and the USA
Apparently this photo is from 2004, long before I entered the blogosphere. So, bear with me if you have seen it before. I admit that I do eat fast food sometimes. Working 12 hour shifts and shuttling kids to activities sometimes makes the drive thru inevitable, but I can definitely appreciate the humor.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Good Times
I was floated to the floor this week. This rarely happens, as I am an ER, Preop, and Recovery nurse with little floor experience. However, desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess, so off I went to take care of some inpatients.
A gentleman in his 80's a couple days out from neck surgery was having trouble urinating. I got an order to straight cath him, which I did. He put out about a liter of urine and was much more comfortable afterwards.
I returned a while later, asking him how he was doing. he informed me that he had been able to urinate on his own.
"Are you having burning when you urinate, Sir?" I asked him.
"No, Maam," he replied "and I can tell you I don't have VD."
"Well, that's good to know," I said
"But you know I had the clap once" he started reminiscing, smiling dreamily. "Actually I had it twice when I was in the army. Back in Japan, you know. Goop just started dripping everywhere. Come to think of it, I recall I had the clap three times. Those were some good times, I tell ya" .
A gentleman in his 80's a couple days out from neck surgery was having trouble urinating. I got an order to straight cath him, which I did. He put out about a liter of urine and was much more comfortable afterwards.
I returned a while later, asking him how he was doing. he informed me that he had been able to urinate on his own.
"Are you having burning when you urinate, Sir?" I asked him.
"No, Maam," he replied "and I can tell you I don't have VD."
"Well, that's good to know," I said
"But you know I had the clap once" he started reminiscing, smiling dreamily. "Actually I had it twice when I was in the army. Back in Japan, you know. Goop just started dripping everywhere. Come to think of it, I recall I had the clap three times. Those were some good times, I tell ya" .
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Misleading Headline of the Day
Found on Fox Health. A typo in the headline raises all kinds of interesting images.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Interesting
I would be very interested to hear everybody's thoughts on this situation that occurred in the UK.
Woman Dies After Being Sent Home From Hospital Twice
Published May 10, 2011
| The Sun
A woman who died 10 minutes after arriving home from hospital for the second time in a one day was not even seen by a doctor, a coronial inquest has found.
June Owen, 63, died after visiting Stawell Hospital in the United Kingdom.
Janice Campbell said it was shocking a doctor had not seen her mother, who was in pain and suffering breathing difficulties.
Coronial findings made by magistrate Richard Pithouse last week had left her family "confused."
"It still leaves many questions unanswered, and it contains no recommendations on changes that need to be made to prevent this happening again," Campbell said.
On the day of her death, Owen contacted Rural Ambulance Victoria four times, and was twice taken to Stawell Hospital.
She first visited the hospital at 5 p.m. January 21, 2008 with abdominal pain, and a nurse gave her two codeine pills and sent her home.
At 10.15 p.m., Owen arrived by ambulance again and a nurse phoned on-call doctor Briandha Jeremiah, who decided not to attend to examine her.
Jeremiah told the nurse to give her a Demerol injection, to relieve her pain, but the inquest heard conflicting reports on how long Owen should be monitored afterwards.
Owen was released from hospital 40 minutes after her injection.
An autopsy found Mrs Owen, who suffered heart and lung disease, had died from an enlarged heart.
Stawell Regional Health acting chief executive Claire Letts said after Mrs Owen's death, triage, assessment and pain management policies at the hospital had been reviewed, and minor changes had been made.
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Monday, April 11, 2011
Busy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry I have not posted lately. I am taking my hospital's critical care course, which has classroom, computer, and practicum components. The computer part is the ECCO curriculum, which the instructors warned me would be time consuming. I didn't believe them, but I do now. The cardiovascular lesson took hours! And the test was actually kind of hard. My kids were like "Mom, how can it be hard? You can look at your notes while you take it."
I said "Well, yes, but the questions can be complicated. You actually have to think."
"Thinking! Ewwwwww!" they said. I have to agree : )
It is also mandatory education time at the hospital. This is where the employees have to take about a hundred tests online about various topics, ranging from preventing falls to disaster management to radiation safety. You used to be able to take the test without actually reading the learning material. They fixed that though, so now one must wade through the lesson before taking the test. Why I have to know the routes of transmission for Ebola, I'm not sure. And learning how to prevent surgical fires when I'm not an OR nurse? Hmmm.
I liked this answer option regarding what do do if you are passing by a room and see that an elderly patient on fall precautions is struggling to get out of their bed: "Close the door and go to lunch". The correct answer was probably "stay with the patient and call for help", but I really liked the other one better.
Yesterday one of the doctors told me that I looked like Juliette Lewis. I'm not sure if that is a compliment or what. She has played some really crazy characters. I asked him if he thought I was psycho. He said that he thought that she and I had some similar features and that he hoped that I would refrain from psychotic behavior, at least at work. I told him I would try.
Later on in the day, a patient was waking up in the PACU. I explained to him that his surgery was over. He said "Really? I thought you were an angel!"
Sweet talker.
I said "Well, yes, but the questions can be complicated. You actually have to think."
"Thinking! Ewwwwww!" they said. I have to agree : )
It is also mandatory education time at the hospital. This is where the employees have to take about a hundred tests online about various topics, ranging from preventing falls to disaster management to radiation safety. You used to be able to take the test without actually reading the learning material. They fixed that though, so now one must wade through the lesson before taking the test. Why I have to know the routes of transmission for Ebola, I'm not sure. And learning how to prevent surgical fires when I'm not an OR nurse? Hmmm.
I liked this answer option regarding what do do if you are passing by a room and see that an elderly patient on fall precautions is struggling to get out of their bed: "Close the door and go to lunch". The correct answer was probably "stay with the patient and call for help", but I really liked the other one better.
Yesterday one of the doctors told me that I looked like Juliette Lewis. I'm not sure if that is a compliment or what. She has played some really crazy characters. I asked him if he thought I was psycho. He said that he thought that she and I had some similar features and that he hoped that I would refrain from psychotic behavior, at least at work. I told him I would try.
Later on in the day, a patient was waking up in the PACU. I explained to him that his surgery was over. He said "Really? I thought you were an angel!"
Sweet talker.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Beauty Contests
This is not a medical post, but something really bothered me yesterday. Berate me if you want. Call me naive. Call me a bad mother. But several months ago I let my 12 year old daughter get her own Facebook page. I know her password. I keep track of her activity. If someone tags her in a photo, I am notified. In fact, this is what happened a few days ago. I noticed that a photo of my daughter was tagged on a profile with an obviously fictitious name, which was comprised of the name of her middle school and then the word smexys as the last name.
Smexy, according to my friend's 17 year old daughter and some who-knows-how-reputable websites such as internetslang.com and yahooanswers.com, means smart and sexy or possibly lip smackingly sexy.
So, I'm thinking smexy really should not be associated with middle school in any way. However, when I checked out the link, I found out the purpose of the profile. It consisted of dozens of different posts, each containg two photos. Each photo was of a middle school kid, fully clothed, only one bikini pic, thank God, with various poses and expressions ranging in provacativity from a sunny smile while holding a puppy to the pouty duck lipped face of a girl in a low cut tank top. In the name of gender equality there was even a section for the young dudes of the school. First names of the kids are shown. In the captions the site's followers are invited to vote for who is the smexier of the two.
I think my daughter is gorgeous, the most beautiful, precious young woman on earth. The voters, not so much. She got three votes. The other girl got about a dozen. I know it is so, so shallow, but this broke my heart. The typical middle school girl's spirit is delicate, easily crushed. They so desire to be loved and admired, especially by their peers. I could tell her all day long that she is beautiful, but a compliment or insult from a fellow student makes an exponentially larger impact. My sweet girl looks a little like I did when I was her age, tall and really skinny, huge eyes, long neck, big lips. But when you grow out of the gawky phase and into your features, these attributes become tall and slender, big eyes, graceful, swan like neck, full lips. Middle school kids can't see much past today though. They can't see the beauty and grace they will grow into.
More importantly, however, as this contest illustrates, they tend to not pay attention to anything past physical beauty. For example, I know my daughter loves animals, hates math, adores her baby brother, believes in a loving God, wants to be a famous author, and will bake a cake at 9 o clock at night just because she and I think some chocolate sounds yummy. I want to hope as these kids get older they will start to appreciate other aspects of their peers besides their looks. Will that happen? My daughter is a quiet, "good girl" at school. When you get to know her, the real giggly, silly, talkative nature emerges. But that involves actually taking the time to get to know her.
She didn't tell me about the Facebook profile. Typically she only keeps things to herself that bother her or that she is ashamed of. There is no shame in wanting to be considered attractive. I just pray that she eventually appreciates the other parts of her lovely self. Of course I do encourage her to take care of her physical body, exercise, eat something on occasion besides junk food, wash her face at night, we give each other manicures etc. That is just healthy and balanced. It is a lot, though, to expect middle school society to embrace inner beauty, unrealistic when I was there and unrealistic now as well. It is my job, however to nurture her spirit, her soul and to help her blossom into a beautiful person.
Now as a parent, often objectivity is out of the question. One can be too close to a situation to really see it clearly. Do I bring up this facebook profile in conversation? What do you think of these beauty contests, harmless or hurtful?
Smexy, according to my friend's 17 year old daughter and some who-knows-how-reputable websites such as internetslang.com and yahooanswers.com, means smart and sexy or possibly lip smackingly sexy.
So, I'm thinking smexy really should not be associated with middle school in any way. However, when I checked out the link, I found out the purpose of the profile. It consisted of dozens of different posts, each containg two photos. Each photo was of a middle school kid, fully clothed, only one bikini pic, thank God, with various poses and expressions ranging in provacativity from a sunny smile while holding a puppy to the pouty duck lipped face of a girl in a low cut tank top. In the name of gender equality there was even a section for the young dudes of the school. First names of the kids are shown. In the captions the site's followers are invited to vote for who is the smexier of the two.
I think my daughter is gorgeous, the most beautiful, precious young woman on earth. The voters, not so much. She got three votes. The other girl got about a dozen. I know it is so, so shallow, but this broke my heart. The typical middle school girl's spirit is delicate, easily crushed. They so desire to be loved and admired, especially by their peers. I could tell her all day long that she is beautiful, but a compliment or insult from a fellow student makes an exponentially larger impact. My sweet girl looks a little like I did when I was her age, tall and really skinny, huge eyes, long neck, big lips. But when you grow out of the gawky phase and into your features, these attributes become tall and slender, big eyes, graceful, swan like neck, full lips. Middle school kids can't see much past today though. They can't see the beauty and grace they will grow into.
More importantly, however, as this contest illustrates, they tend to not pay attention to anything past physical beauty. For example, I know my daughter loves animals, hates math, adores her baby brother, believes in a loving God, wants to be a famous author, and will bake a cake at 9 o clock at night just because she and I think some chocolate sounds yummy. I want to hope as these kids get older they will start to appreciate other aspects of their peers besides their looks. Will that happen? My daughter is a quiet, "good girl" at school. When you get to know her, the real giggly, silly, talkative nature emerges. But that involves actually taking the time to get to know her.
She didn't tell me about the Facebook profile. Typically she only keeps things to herself that bother her or that she is ashamed of. There is no shame in wanting to be considered attractive. I just pray that she eventually appreciates the other parts of her lovely self. Of course I do encourage her to take care of her physical body, exercise, eat something on occasion besides junk food, wash her face at night, we give each other manicures etc. That is just healthy and balanced. It is a lot, though, to expect middle school society to embrace inner beauty, unrealistic when I was there and unrealistic now as well. It is my job, however to nurture her spirit, her soul and to help her blossom into a beautiful person.
Now as a parent, often objectivity is out of the question. One can be too close to a situation to really see it clearly. Do I bring up this facebook profile in conversation? What do you think of these beauty contests, harmless or hurtful?
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