Pills, possibilities and picadillos

Ah, what a week it's been. Starting off with Pi Day on Monday, I feel as if I've been sprinting everywhere. Spouting might have been correct, though. After I had my lunch and ordered a new computer (which was absolutely crazy--for both the discount and the credit card hold), I showed my friend K. the new office, since she's rarely over anymore. I look up, and there it is: a huge leak on one of the ceiling tiles.

Since my office is in an older part of the Hotel, leaks are not that uncommon. After three days, moving from this room to that room, they finally finished the search for the leak. They found it in one of the radiator lines upstairs. I was ecstatic that the leak was repaired and I didn't have to wonder if the tile would come crashing down while a person was visiting me.

The CDC also published guidelines this week about opioid prescriptions. Our folks in the SU hope it works. They had another unruly customer in the building who required a two person assist, I mean escort out of the building by security. On top of that, we have a very troublesome patient, who's behavior is escalating. It's making things difficult for the staff.

For picadillos, Google says I must remind all of my European visitors that we use cookies here on Blogger. I don't use the data, so I hope you don't mind.

Despite all the mess, today is St. Patrick's Day. I celebrated by wearing my green and eating corned beef and cabbage at the lunch one organization had for the staff  and patients at the Hotel. I remember that without those Irish ancestors (or some like these) I probably wouldn't be here today.

More to come...

Sometimes I wonder

Why do specialists forget the basics? Wouldn't you expect your doctor to know the basics about flu, even if he/she were not an internist or primary care provider?

I really did want to bang my head into the large conference table as I explained to a patient (who was being evaluated for a specialty rehab program) the basics of caring for someone (grandchild) with the flu.

Said MD walked in and acted as if he/she was clueless to any of the guidelines. It's very handy that the Nursing department makes us do an in-service on flu EVERY year here at the Hotel.

I thought it was a little overkill, but having enough knowledge to explain to patients seems like something an MD might be able to do, too.

I'm just adding this to the crazy day list at the Hotel.

More later...

Surprise, surprise

Yes, according to the CDC, five things cause most of the deaths in the United States.

I found it funny that alcohol is not mentioned in the unintentional injuries section. At least, it's recognized as a cause of 1 in 4 spinal cord injuries.

More later...enjoy your weekend wherever you are. It's gorgeous (except for that pollen) in RehabLand.

When life hands you lemons....

This lady has made lemonade (see this photo). There have been a lot of stories in the news lately about service animals and schools (for more, see this CDC page), but this was the best one I've seen yet. Occasionally, we see a patient or two with a service dog on our unit.

Hope she has a big office with a nice park or something outside where she can walk with her friend at lunch.

Nuggets for May 6

Here are a few goodies I've found perusing the 'net this week. Enjoy!

Something to talk about later for me at work
Epstein-Barr Virus linked to MS from www.webmd.com

Grow, blog, grow (or things I need to be doing in my spare time)
I found these gems via KevinMD's blog:

How to grow your blog to the next level with SEO from problogger.com
How to write magnetic headlines from copyblogger.com

Etc. (stuff with no category)
Trendy baby names tend to fade fast Surprise, surprise!
CDC: Don't eat raw alfalfa sprouts. Thankfully, I stopped years ago.
Face transplant patient steps forward from www.nytimes.com


Finally, it's about time category
Health insurers agree to end higher premiums for women from www.nytimes.com

The smell of the week...

Sure it's summer and barbecue season. When I think of summer as a kid, I remember the smell of charcoal lighter fluid, Coppertone 4 sun lotion (no one called it sunscreen then), chlorine and the smell of food on the barbecue pit. Those smells still evoke fond memories for me.

This week, the smell is C. diff, as one of my assigned patients has this dreaded spore. It's really a hard to describe smell. To me, it's a flat, acrid smell that just seems to stick in your nose. It got so bad the other night, that I actually left the unit to sit outside in the breeze for a while. I had gowned, gloved and thoroughly washed my hands when I was done, but that smell (or the memory) hung around in my nose for a while. So far, this patient hasn't developed colitis, but we'll have to wait and see.

If you want more information on C. diff, check out these sites:
CDC
C diff project website (Netherlands)

On another smell note, totally unrelated to rehab nursing, check out Luscious Cargo. I got some perfume samples from them this week after I read a NY Times article about perfume. They even sent me a free one for Fracas, which is a very interesting scent.

Their smells sure beat C. diff!

More later...two more shifts on evenings this week.