What a wonderful Monday

If you call getting prepped for the upcoming full moon wonderful. Sure!

My day in a nutshell:

1. Go to do your first rounds and they're looking for Dr. X. I go to the clinic Dr. X is usually in, and they say, no, Dr. X is off today.

2. Get on the elevator to go to your next part of rounds (your unit) and Dr. X. sends me a text saying "I'm here, where's the patient."

3. Call the cavalry, explain Dr. X. really is here now, so go find the patient. Cavalry is successful.

4. Run down several flights of stairs, find Dr. X and then see the patient coming in. Whew!

5. Return back to the ranch to figure out what is going on with a pending problem. No one is around. Finally get answers after two text messages and three phone calls. Problem not resolved until tomorrow.

6. Find out person you have worked with for five years is leaving her current job.

7. Find out people are retiring in droves due to pressure, illness and just plain ready. Sad on some, not on others.

8. Try to fix a patient's problem, but the help for that is not working today.

There were some good things, though.

1. The day was beautiful.

2. I went home for lunch and made a BLT. It was good, even though I set off the smoke detector.

3. I saw an incredible Buckeye butterfly today. It stopped long enough for me to snap a photo and send to my dear husband Dahey who collected butterflies as a child.

4. My friend's husband is getting stronger. He will also be getting a longer course of treatment. Neuro wanted five more doses, nephro wanted no more. They decided to meet (almost) in the middle: two.

Sure beats watching a neurologist and a nephrologist duke it out in his room.

I'm resting up hoping tomorrow is even better. Stay tuned.

Little victories

Sometimes it's the little things that matter most.

• When you see a patient get up in a wheelchair after being in bed for months and he/she has a smile from ear to ear AND his/her blood pressure stays good the whole time.
• When the problem you've been working on for months finally gets resolved and you can give work away to someone else.
• When you see light at the end of the tunnel, because the week is over.

TGIF folks, wherever you are!

It's beautiful outside, but it's sad

This past week's been a doozy. I'm hoping I never repeat some of it again.

Work was work. We had our yearly inspection and I survived. The inspection team had some new and some old folks, so it was interesting to watch them.

Outside of that, one of my mother's in-laws died. I hadn't seen her (or any of her kids) in ages. I like this family, so it was pleasant. The crazy relative didn't show up for the wake. Still don't know if he/she is alive or dead. 

I was just getting ready to go to bed when another relative called me. Her son didn't answer calls as usual that day, so she went to the apartment complex where he lived near her. No one answered when she knocked and one of the neighbor's let her know she could see inside the apartment from outside, since Max left the curtains open when he worked from home. (He had a job that could be done remotely, and hadn't worked in an office in years.)

When they looked in, Max appeared hunched over his desk. My relative watched, but Max didn't move. She knew Max was probably dead. While it wasn't a surprise (Max had problems), it was sudden.

So, since Max's family (girlfriend and teen child) was out of town and she didn't have a key, she had to call the police to break down the door. She found Max dead. He was in his early 50s. It was sort of a circus arranging the apartment, having the police roaming around, lots of questions, and waiting. Happily, things calmed down before I could get dressed and leave.

Now, we're just waiting for Max's family to get back to complete the arrangements, and for the medical examiner to do his/her part.

Stay tuned...

Animals make life interesting

I  thoroughly enjoyed this story about the bears that trashed a vacation home for some really good smelling human food.

I also thank my lucky stars that Dahey did not take that job in the wilds of Washington state, or I might have the same problem.

More later...

So glad...

My PCP likes me.

He/she managed to convince Dahey he needed a DRE and a colonoscopy, since he didn't decide to have his physical on his birthday, like I asked.

Now I just have to get him/her to get him a pain management consult to see why his goofy back and legs are having random pains again.My guess after working with Dr. S. in the SU is that Dahey may have this problem.

Crossing fingers. By the time this year is done, Dahey will be as good as new (at least he'll seem like it anyway).

Stay tuned...

Thoughts after finishing customer service training

1. You need a medical professional (or rotating staff member) to teach this class. Bonus points though to our guy who actually quoted the Readers' Digest article jo was featured in...see the civvies actually read some interesting stuff!

2. I learned more about dealing with other departments than anything. That was the most valuable.

3. Can I solve all problems? No. Will I say the right thing? Hopefully. I put that card and magnet at my desk. Heaven help me when I'm loose on campus.

4. I'm hoping I might be able to use this information to get a panic button in my office. (Just in case I get a nuclear customer, like one of my classmates. I had one in a previous clinic job.)

5. And finally, thanks to Nurse K, I got this great link to Hood Nurse and here's her scenarios on how she'll put this valuable training into practice in the ER. You go girl!

If only I could use some of those ideas...enjoy!

Word to the wise

Dear Royal Pain Lazy Slug RN:

If you particularly go out of your way to leave me out of a conversation about an important event when I know the answer to your question, I can and will not answer it.

When you ask me why, I also will explain to you (with appropriate people who saw and heard scenario #1) exactly why I did what I did.

And, of course, being a wonderful person (since I happen to like the patient this issue involves more than you) I will give the answer as professionally as possible when no one else finds it.

It's the least I can do.

Hope you enjoyed the results. At least, Mr. X did.

Sincerely (for now anyway),

RehabRN

Things you learn at a conference

1. There are long lines for any good free stuff.
2. Occasionally someone you know will win a raffle.
3. Some conferences feed you exceptionally well (meals and snacks), and others, not so much.
4. Your boss,will get up and dance,if some nurses from another hospital pick him up under the arms and drag him.
5. One of your coworkers will document #4  for posterity.
6. You will volunteer someone else to babysit the boss and entertain him/her, so you can escape.
7. Some people can speak before hundreds of people, and others, not so much.
8.  You find that lots of people have problems similar to those on your unit.
9. When you work for a large healthcare system, everyone knows everyone in one way or another. Six degrees of separation? Nope. It's more like two.
10. Finally, enjoy your old and new friends whenever you get the chance. You never know when it will be the last time you see them.

More Nuggets

They just keep coming! One more day before Honest Abe's 200th birthday. Here are a few interesting articles (honest!) that I've encountered on the internet recently.

The good...
A happy hospital makes for happy patients
You may think this is a joke, but this is a very interesting article. Too bad we all can't work in this type of hospital, where the boss gets calls on off hours!

New surgery may give amputees more control (from http://www.msnbc.com/)
This article discusses how a new surgery will help those with arm amputations.

A great first-person account of prostate cancer treatment: Love in the Time of Prostate Cancer (from http://www.nytimes.com/)

The bad...
Drugs recalled due to manufacturing problems (from www.msnbc.com)

Pentagon reports US troop obesity doubles since 2003 (from http://www.usatoday.com/) Not unusual to see 25+ BMI anymore in our neck of the woods.

And the really ugly...
We deal with a lot of bodily fluids on our unit, but this one is a story about one that is absolutely horrible.