Ack!

Nothing like calling in on a Monday morning. The supervisor didn't sound too thrilled, but then again, it's sucks when 1) you've hacked and coughed green stuff all night, 2) you can't talk and 3) you ache so bad you feel as if you've just completed an assignment with 3- 300+ lb. tetraplegic patients.

Back to bed for me...more later.

The colors of rehab

Yes, you'd see a lot of colors on our unit, and it's not just in the scrubs worn by the staff. There are colors in therapy--yellow, pink, blue Theraputty in those tubs. Next, you have the therabands in blue, green and red. The drugs even have pretty colors, too--the clear dark-red of guaifenesin, the fruity-smelling, clear with a gold tinge of liquid Neurontin, the neon yellow-green of Tygacil. Our patients have colorful equipment, too--the red, blue, black, silver, American flag print, green and even purple wheelchairs.

Also, if you didn't know it already, you see a lot of colors in the input and output for patients. The strangest thing I ever saw on a bed pad recently was an aqua-blue serous looking drainage. The patient never had it during the day, because I looked each time I turned him. I told the docs about it on Monday and everyone just said, "Oh well," and that was it.

So yesterday, I saved the pad after I cleaned him up and bluish dressing. The docs didn't figure it out right away, but the NPs took one look and they did. "Pseudomonas!", they chimed in chorus. "We have to get something to put on that dressing." MA ordered Iodaform gel, but we couldn't get it by the end of the day, so she gave me a new order to use Gentamicin cream with the dressing until the gel arrives. I fixed him up, fluffed, buffed and turned him and before I knew it, it was time to go home.

Outside, the sky was a brilliant, sun-filled blue with just a hint of the fall coolness to come and the end of another interesting day. More later!