Who says Sunday is a day of rest?

Not at the RehabRN household...at least for me.

No cleaning, lots of laundry and plenty of cooking: Endives with ham in bechamel sauce, leek, potato and carrot soup, cheddar beer bread, and stewed apples.

Now I can go back to work for a short week. Thank you relatives for inviting me (and the crew) to Thanksgiving dinner. We (especially me) appreciate it!

More to come...

Happy New Year!

Oh, it's still cold, and I'm still hacking from this cold/random virus, but it's great to get to sleep in before I go back to the evening shift tonight.

We had lots of fun here at the homestead last night. I actually made that red lentil soup in the crockpot, and even though I put a tad too much chicken stock in it, it worked. I packed up the remainers and Dahey will have a hot, steamy bowl of soup next week (a few times, actually) in his lunch. Since I've been on a soup run of sorts lately, he's had soup in his lunch just about every day. Right now, this is the fourth variety in our freezer.

Bubba went straight to bed at his usual time and Dahey and I retreated to the TV room with the remaining sparkly wine and watched this movie, since it's still technically the holiday season. We laughed and laughed. I got on the couch to watch the 10PM news, saw maybe two minutes and fell asleep. I woke up at 0035 to a talk show with Tiger Woods on it, and so I turned off the TV and went to bed.

Speaking of Dahey, no movin', movin' yet. Such is his work and contracting. Thankfully, he's still working, so we'll just be happy with that. Too many people are unemployed right now and work + paycheck = paid bills and no foreclosures, so I must say, that is the best gift of all.

I had some free time yesterday, so I ran through last year's resolutions. So far, this year's look about the same.

Work:

1. I will work hard to be a team player. (I notice that since there's a nursing shortage, people can act like NFL free agents sometimes, which can be hard to deal with. I don't want to be one of those people!)

2. I will learn something new every day. (It helps that I'm reviewing for certification!)

3. I will make sure I do one thing better than the day before.

4. I will grumble less and smile more. (Gotta keep those wrinkles away somehow!)

Home:

1. I will organize my paperwork. (This will be on my list forever!)

2. I will be nicer to my husband and son. (Sometimes Mommy can be a tad...bi%$chy...oops, glad "speller" doesn't read this blog! )

3. I will watch what I eat and drink more water. (Water = good, eating...well, not so good lately! Too much candy and cookies for the nursing staff!)

4. I will read more. (This is one from last year. I just need to put more in the RehabRN book club.)

Hope your start of the year is happy wherever you are. More to come!

Nuggets for December 31

It's finally here, the end of 2008. The year always seems like forever for me until I get to December. Funny how when you have your birthday late in the year, it can put things into perspective !

Nevertheless, I'm not going to do a recap of all the best nuggets this year. You'll just have to go look at the rest of them and decide on your own, but here are a few of the latest crop.

Enjoy your 366th day today...it'll be over soon enough and you won't get another for four more years.

From the 'net...

Tight blood sugar control is mentioned in just about every article you read about diabetes these days. This article from the NY Times mentions another great reason to keep your blood sugar controlled--memory loss.

I, like some of my other fellow nurse bloggers, am a big fan of soup in winter. I ran into this handy, dandy red lentil soup one today. Get your protein (when combined with rice, etc.) and enjoy the cold with this aromatic soup. Since we're all coughing and hacking here, it can't hurt!

Did Santa bring you some new shoes? This article from ADVANCE for Nurses talks about what kind of shoes nurses should wear to work.

Goodies from work (or a few things I've encountered recently on the floor...)

Here are some of the pharmaceutical items:

• Short chain fatty acid enemas- This was a big, 60cc syringe of cloudy fluid one patient used twice weekly. This article on ulcerative colitis talks about this treatment.
• Mometasone Furoate - It also goes by Asmanex and we've got a few people using this twisty inhaler lately.
• Vantin - 'Tis the season for pneumonia, especially in SCI patients.

Finally, I had a patient recently with a history of PSVT. Medscape has a great article about this arrhythmia with sections on diagnosis, treatment and a multimedia section with graphics of what an EKG might look like.

More nuggets to come...stay tuned!