Cookin'

Yes, literally and figuratively, I've been cooking and baking for Dahey's party today. He's celebrating his upcoming natal day with a gathering of his friends at the house. Thankfully, we have a place to put all of them while they're eating, drinking and being merry.

Work was hot, but not as bad as it has been. The spring is turning back into winter again as we get that old, crazy weather back again. One day, it's 80, the next, 30 with snow. I just make sure I have a coat handy to handle everything!

I've kept busy reading the charts again, since I'm prepping for a couple of exams. I've decided I'd better take the GRE since I need it for most grad schools. I'll be doing that in a couple of months and I've sunk my money into the exam, so now I'm stuck! Guess I'll really have to read those study guides!

My first certification exam will be the week following the GRE and hopefully, it will include another conference trip. After all that, I'm sure my head will explode in mid-air sometime around June 1. If all goes well, I'll round out the year by testing for the CRRN. This week I found out I'll be working on some stuff for the October annual conference, so that was really exciting.

Since I'm always nosing around to learn something new when I'm not pestering the specialists who visit us, here are a few things I've turned up recently.

One patient of ours had a nasty case of pyocystitis. Another we read about another who suffered a traumatic intraperitoneal rupture of the bladder (due to accident). This Google Book on Urology called the House Officer series, has a lot of interesting information on urological topics.

Finally, I got to look up some drugs. I'd say 90% of our people take similar stuff. Baclofen (or Lioresal) is pretty much the drug of choice on our unit for a variety of patients. I wish I had a $1 US for every Baclofen I've given since I became a nurse. (It hasn't been long, but boy, do we hand them out!) This week's excursions into the drug lists included Forteo (aka teriparatide, which is a drug used for osteoporosis) and prazosin, an anti-hypertensive.

Gotta go back to the party...stay tuned!