Perfect storm

My morning:

Bubba wakes up way too early and runs to the bathroom. Vomits like crazy. Says, "I feel much better" and goes back to bed.

I wake up right after, and was amazed that I didn't have anything to clean up (I really hate vomit more than anything else). Got a good enough migraine that I thought I might also be heading to Vomit Land. Interrupted such thoughts with the good old sumatriptan, instead.

Hung out and laid low. Called into work sick. School calls and says Bubba has no school. Rejoice that I don't have to play Vomit Roulette and send him to school.

Bubba did perfectly fine the rest of the day. Once I rested for a bit, so did I. Made Bubba and I a little breakfast ('cause migraines make you hungry...at least when you realize how long it's been since you've eaten).

Finally started working on my slides for the next big gig. Bubba, meanwhile enjoyed himself and read books and watched movies.

I'm just hoping they have school tomorrow. This snow day business is getting old really fast.

Dear Google

I got this nice e-mail below because you have an algorithm that doesn't work.

That's right.

I only link to products I actually use so people know what I'm talking about.

I don't sell space or advertise. Whatever shows up here, shows up because you make it pop up in your templates, or I put it in myself for illustration.

Consequently, I'm not removing any Allegro Medical links to any old posts I've made.

You and your engineers need to fix the problem.

Good luck! I love Blogger and have been here for years. Hope your efforts are fruitful.

Yours truly,

RehabRN

======================================================================

Subject: A question about a link pointing to Allegromedical.com

Hi

Hi

My name is Marie Haynes and I am working with AllegroMedical.com.

Unfortunately AllegroMedical has been given an unnatural links penalty from Google and as a result is not ranking well on Google. We are writing to you because your site links to ours and we would like to have this link removed (or nofollowed). Please know that this is no reflection on the quality of your website. Our unnatural links penalty was not given because of spammy linkbuilding but rather because we have placed too many self made links.

This looks to Google like an attempt to manipulate their search results as they only want naturally earned links to be counting towards PageRank.

Here is one or more example of a link from your site that points to ours:

http://rehabrn.blogspot.com/2009/08/life-and-death.html

If you need a full list of links from your site to ours then please let me know.

Also, if you feel that you yourself placed this link and no one from this website was involved in its creation then please let me know and we will keep it up and tell Google that this was not a self-made link.

Thank you,

Marie Haynes

HISWebMarketing.com

Specializing in Google Penalties

I should be coasting...

But I'm not. It's been busy in the SU with this, that and the other thing. I feel drained, and when the doc I work with feels drained, too, I feel like I've really failed. I have to get things squared away before I leave this short-term replacement gig. I hate leaving a mess for someone else to clean up, if I can help it.

I enjoyed this one, especially the dance move.





Just thinking...only three something weeks left. Stay tuned.

And I left the cool gloves at home

So Bubba and the scouts had to put up with plain, old white vinyl gloves. No pretty purple nitriles for the kiddies.

Thankfully, while we were cleaning up our section of adopted road recently, the following things occurred:

• No kids fell into the creek from a height of 12 feet or greater.
• No one was cut by broken glass.
• No one ran into the street.
  
• And last but not least, there was no need to explain uncapped needles or pornographic magazines as they did last time on this cleanup.

Maybe they'll get me a Scout Mom shirt for the next outing.

Stay tuned...

Heave, ho!

There was a lot of heaving today. I had Mr. Colo again, and for a while, they had him on a prep. The gallon of GoLytely I delivered at 1600 yesterday was still in his room. He only made it through half of it. Since Mr. Colo was still stooling a bit, that was the beginning of the day. One of the nurse assistants told me the boss should assign him to two people. Yes, he should when we have really heavy patients (literally and figuratively), but he doesn't, so you have to go roaming the halls looking for help, as I normally do. Some people will help you (and I always try to reciprocate) and others will run when they see you going down the hall, so they're "busy".

Thankfully, J. was in charge, and I recruited her and K. and one of the LPNs, so I didn't have to ask the same person too many times. J. does a lot when she's in charge. She goes out looking for things to help people with and it's nice. I helped with a couple of orders, but not many, because my two patients and the meds kept me running literally the whole day. I sat for 20 minutes while I charged my cell phone today and ate lunch and that was it.

Tuesdays can get crazy because the docs have meetings early, then they round with one of the specialists, and sometimes they don't get done rounding until just as lunch is arriving. It makes for some interesting predicaments such as one today with Mr. Colo. I'm in the middle of passing my pills to the whole hall to which I'm assigned. Mr. Colo was very distended with gas. The docs tell me..."oh, we dig stimmed him and relieved some of the gas, so you'll need to clean him up." What.In.Hades.Is.Going.On?! I'm in the middle of passing pills and I have to stop, drop and roll to do a clean up. Yes, this was not a drill. Since no one told me exactly what kind of results I'd find, I had to stop and get J. to go in with me so I could clean up Mr. Colo, then go back to my pills. One of these days, the docs will figure this out!

I also had DQ on my team again and I managed to get him up into the shower and he was all fine and happy until we told him he had to move next door since his double room was needed for two isolation patients. (I so love bed bingo!) Of course, he skipped out on afternoon therapy, since he had to make sure we didn't mess up any of his stuff. He just hung out in the halls and got in the way as we moved Mr. Colo to DQ's room and then DQ to Mr. Colo's room as the housekeepers finished cleaning the rooms. DQ wasn't happy with the way we arranged the room, so he rearranged it several times until he found a configuration he liked. He's not happy with it, but we had no choice. The inn is full of isolation patients!

When I wasn't busy with my own patients, I helped K. get a couple of hers up to go places. One guy went and bought a pair of reading glasses. He was the happiest I've ever seen him. He was sleeping all morning, and when he came back he was so alert and social. K. left him up on his stretcher for the evening crew to return to bed.

At 1400, K. got an order to send another patient to x-ray for a hip film. We got him loaded up for the transporter, then put him back to bed when he returned.

I left the med cart for the 12 hour nurse (and her orienting student) and got everything cleaned up. At 1600, I told J. and K., "Let's run before we have to move anyone else." and so the day ended.

Evenings creeps up again Thursday. I'll rest my heaving shoulders until then...more to come.

No going lightly...

It was a non-stop day. I didn't wake up late, but it seemed like it. After I got up, I had to get Bubba up and ready and he was in no mood to get moving. Finally, we were on our way about 15 minutes later than usual.

I got to work and realized I needed to run some errands this afternoon. I talked to the boss before report and he let me use my "get out one hour early card" today to achieve all my backed-up errands.

Then, it was to the trenches. I got one guy up and in his chair so he could go off to therapy. I set up his roommate to get ready. Then I went to the third patient and found out no one had given him his GoLytely. Arrgh! I went to the med nurse, got it mixed up and I started getting patient #3 ready.

It's not much fun getting a big guy cleaned up, only to mess him up later with GoLytely. Here's how I did it. First, I brought the gallon in and explained he'd have to drink it all. Much moaning and groaning proceeded...so I told him, "You can drink some, we'll stop, get one thing done, then you can drink some more and we'll keep rotating." It worked. Patient drinks a pitcher. RN shaves patient. Patient drinks another, and on and on until we got the entire gallon down and all the AM care done. Elapsed time: 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Thankfully, his dressing survived the onslaught, based on it's location, so I changed it later in the day when we had to roll him to do cleanups. I had to find a willing participant, each time I cleaned him up. Nobody, of course, wants to help, but you can guilt trip them into it if sweet-talking doesn't work.

Lunch was the clear liquid diet. This afternoon, the bisacodyl tabs. Tomorrow, if he lets me, another gallon of GoLytely.

And yes, if you're asking, it really does roll downhill in this bed. Thank goodness we have extra absorbent pads!

Move it continued...

Since I'm cleaning the house for the move, I've also decided to get some work done on this blog. There are some amazing people out there who help bloggers out there and I've sought them out (you know who you are!). I've got a lot of ideas and I'm pretty excited.

Please pardon the mess while you're here, but everything will look pretty when it's all done!