'Tis allergy season again!

Oh, the joys of seasonal allergies. I can empathize with my patients, because, yours truly has been fighting the battle of seasonal pollen for as long as I can remember. When the sun shines and the trees are in bloom, some of the people around the Hotel start sneezing.

And if the trees and flowers aren't enough, we have people with other sorts of allergies cropping up--latex and even skin cleaners we use frequently. It makes your day go from happy and smiling to itching and writhing pretty quickly.

On the floor, I got to take care of the same folks, so it's been nice. I take care of them when they're sick and when they're well. No offense, but I prefer the patients on the well side. Some people are just not good sick patients! Mr. Fox just came back to us after he had already visited for a long time. He nearly died. We knew he was feeling better because a) he wasn't in ICU anymore and 2) despite looking worse for wear, he was all smiles because he was back with us. He knows we can take care of him, know his habits, and that he has lazy but not paralyzed bowels as the residents at Washington told him.

When I wasn't working with my buddies, I was working on computers. Thankfully, some of the computer people were working to solve some of our problems, but not all of them worked. We went from many WOWs as they like to call our mobile computers to a bare minimum.

There's still lots of talk about Facebook. It's in the news, and since one of our coworkers is on it frequently, everyone's stewing as to why the boss hasn't noticed. Maybe it has to do with all the extra work the boss has suddenly ended up with due to the new hospital administration and nursing boss.

Reminds me of that cannibal joke Maha has up on her blog. We don't work directly with the administrators, but as a worker bee, I really enjoyed it.

Now it's back to the thrill of waiting for appointments and running errands. More to come...

Life's comings and goings

Lots and lots of stuff happening this week...so today on my day off, I'm doing the usual errands including taking our dog to the groomer. He hates getting a bath, but he needs it. He's been shedding like mad and really needs the haircut.

The story of the last few days has involved that famous (or infamous) condom catheter.

They are a real issue getting them on and staying on for men who have what we facetiously call a "hider", or a penis that really, really retracts. One patient got wet, not once, but twice Monday because no matter how I put his catheter on (with SkinPrep or without), it came loose when he urinated. This meant clothes changes, equipment changes and a few transfers for me and for him.

Luckily, my other patient who used these catheters was not spontaneously voiding, so there was no leakage issue with him. If I only had a cath with a removable tip, it would make his intermittent caths a cinch, since I'd only have to put a condom catheter on once a day. (Now I have to put one on after every four hour catheterization.)

We also have a patient who's on our unit while he's completing SATP. He's a relatively quiet fellow, but something yesterday's program spooked him because he came back all breathless and he has an electric wheelchair. His heart rate was way over 100, so I called the doc. She checked him out and declared he could rest for the afternoon (He has several other health issues, too.) He took a nap, ate his lunch at 1400 and vegged the rest of the day in the room. When I read the notes I noticed the topic of the AM session--Grief and loss while giving up drugs. My guess is that he's still on the fence about staying clean. It's going to be a rough road, but hopefully, we can help him get there.

More goodies later....gotta take the dog to his groomer.