Your sense of smell

Some things just stink. Your favorite team doesn't win a football, baseball or soccer game.

However these recent news stories had me wondering where the bad odors could be coming from.

Think the litter box needs emptying? Maybe it's just your laptop according to Dell. (courtesy of the BBC)

Can the smell of the famous "rooster sauce" (aka sriracha) cause headaches? Some people think so. (from the LA Times).

And you thought things were rough listening to Grandma's Lawrence Welk. Those darned Somali pirates can't handle this woman's music. (from www.military.com --thanks to my astute active duty brother-in-law).

Enjoy! More to come...

The joy of tests

I had no idea there were so many standardized tests for grade school kids until I did a little recon.
Bubba is in the throes of standardized testing this week. So what to kids do to prepare?

In my day, (eons) we did all our homework and showed up at school with a number 2 pencil. The scoring sheets were sent off, then returned on a little printed slip for our parents. Nothing significant was really done with the information.

For Bubba, it's been a completely different story. We were prepped for the tests by the teacher at the last parent-teacher conference. Notes came home telling us to make sure Bubba goes to bed early and no texting or game-playing while in bed.

If that parenting tidbit wasn't enough, we were also given a menu of what "good" breakfast food is, and how Bubba needed to make sure he eats breakfast every day of testing.

Finally, Dahey and I were asked to write "motivation letters" to get Bubba excited about sitting through hours of testing. Dahey, of course, found goofy photos on the internet, including certain cats like this one and even some sarcastic cats.

I'm glad the two of them have a similar sense of humor.

More test excitement to come...

Short weekend...

When you volunteer and spend most of the day working. It was fun, though, because I didn't do any work when I got done, like I would if I were in town. I liked that part of volunteering: to stay in a hotel and play tourist too, on my off time.

Bubba's favorite things: swimming and vegging out with Dahey watching basketball. When that gets old, play games on the computer.

But would someone please tell me why the bloody toads and frogs must welcome spring with an excessively loud chorus?

Ah, the joys of the changes of the seasons.

More to come later. Stay tuned!

Shake it up

I shook up the assignments when I worked last. I'm sure I'll hear about it again for ages. Why, you ask? I needed to get things done quickly once I arrived, so I did the assignment at home. I did not account for the people who worked the weekend, just as the boss regularly does.

Everyone did get  a reasonable assignment, though. I balanced every one's patients so no one had anything impossible. As the leader, I had the lightest assignment, because  I got the assignment to be the troubleshooter for everyone. Thankfully, the day was steady and not crazy. Our on-call doc kept me busy, when patients weren't thinking of some things for me to do.

Here's a list of some of the oddball items for the day:

1. One patient was doubled over in his chair and discovered by our chief when he was going to the elevator. Said patient was helped up, then got an order that he needed a strap to get up. He begged me to find something. I looked and looked all over the unit and I finally found one...in my car (I use it with a couple of elderly relatives I occasionally transport.)

He thanked me with a large piece of chocolate cake his wife brought him from one of the local premium bakeries. Yum!

2. Since our doc saw him doubled over, he figured he might need some labs. I drew those, then put in an IV after our super nurse, Mike, the old ICU nurse couldn't get him. Turns out this patient has a secret. His hand veins are the best...and hurt the least. I got one in his hand on the first stick (because couldn't get one in the one of the several monsters on his upper arms).

3. And finally, one patient had an urgent request: he wanted a backgammon board. I scoured the games section of the rec room and didn't find one. I did find him some dominoes, and left a message for the  rec therapy people so they can fulfill his "urgent" request  when they come back.

Only time will tell how the rest of the week goes, so stay tuned!

Happy Boxing Day

Believe it or not, it's a holiday here in the US if you work for the VA. It's not really Boxing Day per se, but W declared it a federal holiday, so most federal workers could get an extra day off. I was at work, but I'll get holiday pay...hooray!

Today was not too terrible. I had the assignment I've had the last three days, so it's been manageable. Get the one guy who gets up up and at 'em right away, so he's happy, then take care of the other two.

For the most part, the other two are very nice, although, the quad is very demanding. He's on the phone constantly, but doesn't want an ECU (no private calls that way). He really needs a Bluetooth with a soft touch button he could use with his one working arm, but that's way beyond what we have at Madison. Sometimes he won't even use the soft touch, much to my chagrin (and it's pretty darned unsafe, too!)

Nevertheless, Oscar and Felix (they really are odd but get along) are doing reasonably well. Felix is in pain a lot, but we medicate him before dressing changes and with his new low-airloss bed with the slick sheet, he can turn a lot easier without him screaming out in pain every time we turn him. He had more pain and problems with his "good" leg today, so hopefully, that is better this weekend. He is a trainwreck in terms of dressings, and he's got grounds for a lawsuit against the place he came from in another state. Thankfully, he is not mean to us (he is upset) but he is thrilled he's at Madison, since we should get him healed up well, barring no other issues.

Oscar has been with us many times. He likes to leave AMA when it suits him. He was here when I started, but left before summer. He's back again, with another suspected caregiver-inflicted wound. It's a doozy and the other hospital tried treating it with a WoundVAC. If only they'd read the instructions about using one with necrotic tissue....arrgh! The docs were aghast when they saw that and away it went as soon as he arrived. We're treating it with the old reliable Santyl moist/dry dressings BID until Dr. Plastic has a look at it after the holidays. Thankfully, it's starting to look better.

'Tis the season for game playing...and I don't just mean with the new games sets that a few families dropped off on the unit yesterday for Christmas, but with the patients, too. We've been having a lot of different varieties.

One is the "Oh, I can't get up to go to therapy" game. This is one of our active rehabbers who's playing this one. He is such a pervert (wiggles his tongue around suggestively when he's getting his intermittent cath) and I really, really wanted to kill him the other night, because he was being such a jerk.

The other game said jerk was playing was "Divide and conquer". Some of our patients try to do this by using the old standby of "no one of this race (color, uniform, you name it) will take care of me right because I'm white/black/Marine/Army/Navy/etc., etc." Said jerk had one of our nurses in tears on my last stretch of evenings. I was really pissed off.

What did he win for that? A smackdown from the neuropsychiatrists. If I would have had one on call, I'd have had them smack him at 2200 while he was up to all his shenaningans, but he had to wait until the next day. They're all off on vacation right now, so they won't harass him until next week. If he were in private rehab, his derriere would be kissing the curb right now since most of them have the "no therapy, no stay" rule. If you decline to go to therapy, you get to leave. Not us, we serve the veterans, and the RPIAs (royal pains in the a*&) really push it sometimes.

Nevertheless, I am happy I survived my holidays at Madison. Now, I'm going to get ready for a holiday party...more to come.

Nuggets for December 12

Here are a few of the lastest things I've been reading about from the 'net.

Horizontal violence
Don't know what it is? Think hazing of new nurses. Think less people working with you and taking your place when you retire. Read this interesting article from AdvanceWeb.

MRSA information
See the latest, including podcasts, from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta.

Influenza
Another helpful page from our friends at the CDC.

And finally, in the spirit of the season, something completely different...

Christmas Games
Coffee break time! All those crazy Flash-animated silly games for you to wile away your time at your PC. Pick one that looks interesting and go for it.