Snow day

Bubba was out of school. On the same day he became a teenager. Alone in a house with cupcakes, which made for some interesting text message conversations, complete with photos.

Alas, since nurses don't get snow days or much downtime (most of us, anyway), I went to work. It was quiet. By 0800, when the clinics are busiest, we barely had two people show up. Thank you RehabLand Snow Removal folks. You cleaned, but people forget how to drive when temperatures are low and the pavement refreezes. Slip and slide accidents were everywhere.

I kept busy. I had a few folks who couldn't come in call me, so I helped them with what I could over the phone. I stocked my rooms, I visited patients in their rooms. I did training, since it's that time of year for competency renewal.

After lunch, we started seeing more people in the Hotel. It never got to the usual levels, but a little variation in our routine was nice.

Hope you have time to breathe (and maybe even think) in your day today, wherever you are.

More later.

Nipple Michelangelo?

We talk a lot about the psychosocial aspects of rehabilitation. Making people feel real, and comfortable in their own skin after devastating accidents and diseases is one thing nurses are good at working with patients.

Another aspect of this is feeling good about your body afterwards.Vinnie Myers helps women during breast reconstruction by giving them tattoos.

It's an article you don't want to miss.

Totally TGIF

Maybe it's something in the air, or some thing about the winds of change, or the coming weekend that makes people edgy.

I wanted to strangle the group that made an appointment with some of our folks at one time and told me another (at a later date). Not going to work, kids. If you leave me out of the discussion, I will not get what you need.

Sometimes, you just see things you don't want to see...

Driving from Washington for a meeting, I see a person who looks vaguely familiar. He's one of our customers and he's surrounded. Turns out an ambulance turns the corner and picks him up.

So I go back to work and ask Madge, our NP, "Have you gotten any calls on Mr. X?"

"No. Why?" she asks.

"I saw some guy getting picked up by an ambulance near Washington that vaguely resembled him."

I leave and come back. Madge gets a call.

Yes, indeed. It was Mr. X. He was diverted since Washington's ER could not take him.

Happy, happy Friday to me.

Just do it!

The Nike slogan was my mantra the last night I worked, and thankfully, most people got it.

Everyone got an equal assignment (myself included.) I don't mind taking an extra load, but tonight I needed an equitable assignment!

The nurse who decided his/her feet were swelling and he/she needed a different assignment so he/she could sit down, talked to another nurse and they traded (he/she got more people until relief came, he/she got a lesser assignment for part of the night).

I got to do multiple suctionings on one of my antsy trach patients, clean his/her wheelchair from seat down in the shower due to an accident, scrub him/her up,  wash his/her clothes, and change a catheter, in addition to the dressings this patient has.

Next, I got to do an emergency scramble when one family member breezes by the nurses station and says, "Oh, I tried to wake up, Bob, my brother, and he's not waking up." Run down hall with blood pressure machine and oxygen sat. Brother is sleeping, but easily roused. Nice. People just don't get saying something like that will get a nurse's dander up. Sheesh!


Needless to say, I was absolutely thrilled that my other patients were not so needy. My only exception: Mr. Bottled Water. Since he's run out, we can only get him water from the ice machine, since it's filtered, "and tastes so much better."

Too bad the honchos won't just buy filtered pitchers for all of them. Maybe I'll suggest that to his family for their next visit.

More to come...