The best things in life

Some are free, some not so much.

It's been a fun week. Bubba started seventh grade. He's happy enough, but wishes more of his friends were in his classes (only half of the classes contain at least one friend, which according to Bubba will make them "very boring.").

The school district here in RehabLand is having budget cuts this year. I always know which teachers talk about them (the ones most affected). It's very interesting. There won't be any intramural sports this year, so we have to find Bubba a boys' volleyball league he can play in. He is set on trying out for v-ball in high school, so we must prepare. This will be interesting. He may have to get on a girls team.

So today, we hung out, did homework and we had fun. We went to a local hamburger joint that's been around for ages. It's a tiny place (counter serves 10 people on each side) that makes their own root beer. We got a burger, fries and root beer. It was fun. One item crossed off the bucket list.

Since that wasn't enough calories, we decided to go to a local creamery known for it's oddball flavors. Bubba got one called Cookie Monster. It had both Oreos and chocolate chip cookie dough in it. I got old reliable double chocolate, which was amazing.  Bubba was a little scared of the teenage girl population, so we sat on the same side as the ice cream scoopers.

All in all, it was fun hanging out with Bubba. These moments are priceless. I would not trade them for anything.

More to come...

Nuggets for February 28

Ah, the last day of the month...and working evenings again! What fun. I can think of better ways to spend my evenings, but in mere days, yours truly will get a vacation....seven days straight away from the big house.

Here are a few things that have been floating around in my world lately. Enjoy them and the rest of your weekend.

Sometimes I think they should call our unit, "Flaps-R-Us." This is a very common surgery to remedy the big bugaboo of rehab nursing (pressure sores) when all else fails. V-y advancement flap is a one way of doing it.

We don't see this much, but someone saw it on an x-ray recently: joint effusion.

Think you're seeing two thumbnails? We had one guy who said this. No, he wasn't losing it, he just has a case of onchomycosis.

Some very interesting lab tests I saw on a heme-onc report that we don't always see:

• LDH
• Haptoglobin
• Ferritin