And, of course, as a child of the 1980's. . . .
< div class= " separator " style= " clear: both; text-align: center; " > < iframe width= " 320 " height= " 266 " class= " YOUTUBE-iframe-video " data-thumbnail-src= " https://i.ytimg.com/vi/J4SGn-nnnhw/0.jpg " src= " https://www.youtube.com/embed/J4SGn-nnnhw?feature=player_embedded " frameborder= " 0 " allowfullscreen > < /iframe > < /div > < br / > < br / > " She led off alone on the intro to ' When U Were Mine, ' her guitar thin and high and lonely. Then the rest of the band swelled up under that, with Willy on his electric demon fiddle. Carla and Dan had come up with a bizarre percussive patch for one of the syn...
Source: Head Nurse - April 22, 2016 Category: Nursing Authors: Jo Source Type: blogs
Do not be this person.
This week I wanted to die, in a sustained and sincere manner, rather than return to work after my first shift back from vacation.Why?Because I had a patient. Who weighed six hundred pounds. That's a BMI of 79.9 if you're counting, and not something that you want to aspire to. However, the trouble was not the patient. The trouble was one of her family members, the one Person You Should Never, Ever. Be.This Person was, she claimed, a cousin-level relative of my patient and, she claimed, a neuro ICU nurse. The fact that she was a neuro ICU nurse at a hospital in the most far-flung district of the most distant, inbred county o...
Source: Head Nurse - April 22, 2016 Category: Nursing Authors: Jo Source Type: blogs
And, of course, as a child of the 1980's. . . .
"She led off alone on the intro to 'When U Were Mine,' her guitar thin and high and lonely. Then the rest of the band swelled up under that, with Willy on his electric demon fiddle. Carla and Dan had come up with a bizarre percussive patch for one of the synthesizers, and hung it on the end of the fiddle's phrases. The effect was that of a succession of violins being bitten neatly in half.Eddi found that the single-minded frenzy of the first set had passed. She still had the crackling energy, but she had a clear head to use it with as well. She tried to make every note glow; she felt the rest of the band respond to that an...
Source: Head Nurse - April 22, 2016 Category: Nursing Authors: Jo Source Type: blogs
What I did on my vacation.
The benefit of selling your soul and most of your waking hours to a corporation like Giganto Research and Healthcare, Inc. is that you, eventually, accrue almost enough vacation time to feel like a human being for part of the year.I just took two and a half weeks of vacation time. Getting it was surprisingly easy; all I had to do was widen my eyes slightly and mutter about evisceration, and my various bosses gave in and signed off.So: I had two and a half weeks off. What did I do?I got a new bed. King-sized, which means Mongo and the cats and I can all sleep comfortably at the same time, and so can The Boyfiend, when he's ...
Source: Head Nurse - April 8, 2016 Category: Nursing Authors: Jo Source Type: blogs
Half laughing, half gritting my teeth.
Years ago, I wrote briefly about the experience of being a synesthete and how I discovered synesthesia. I had kinda always figured that everybody saw the number eight as a nice, round, juicy blueberry color and that Katy Perry tasted like burned cheese and was burnt-orange. It took an NPR story and a conversation with my sister to prove me wrong.And I had thought about it exactly zero times since. The way you experience the world is the way you experience the world; it's not something you consciously analyze unless something is brought to your attention. Thankfully, my synesthesia (and that of my sister) is not crippling; ...
Source: Head Nurse - March 31, 2016 Category: Nursing Authors: Jo Source Type: blogs
Things For Which I Will Never Apologize, Part One:
1. Not answering phone calls from work or checking work email while I'm on vacation. Leave me voicemail if it's really important and I'll call you back.This policy stems from the time the house supervisor called me and asked me to come in one morning for an "incentive shift." I replied that sorry, I couldn't come in, and got subjected to a lecture about how not-a-team-player I was and how my coworkers were going to suffer. I said, "Yeah, yeah, but I'm in CANADA" and that was that.2. Being paranoid about the weather this time of year.Bad enough we get hailstorms and flooding that wipes out entire towns, but add in the "Oop,...
Source: Head Nurse - March 29, 2016 Category: Nursing Authors: Jo Source Type: blogs
Mongo has a bone!
I was wandering around HEB today (I hate shopping without an appetite; it leads to a weird larder) and saw GARGANTUAN BONES for sale. There were weeny, teacup-Schnauzer sized bones (about twelve inches) and GOLIATH BONES (that was the name), so I bought a GOLIATH BONE.Mongo took it from me with mingled excitement and trepidation. He chewed it for about ten minutes on the back deck, then walked around the back yard, stepping very carefully, with his head on one side as he carried it off-center in his mouth. He made sure Rocky next door and Gracie two yards over saw it, and plumed his tale out when the boxer mixes on the oth...
Source: Head Nurse - March 15, 2016 Category: Nursing Authors: Jo Source Type: blogs
There is a bloody bite block on my wall, just above my desk.
It's in a biohazard bag, don't worry. It's pinned to my wall, just above my desk, so that I can see it every single morning and remember why the hell I got into this crazy business in the first place.We do a significant number of what are called transesophageal echocardiograms on our unit. Unlike transthoracic echoes, which take place when a tech holds an echo wand against your chest, a TEE takes place under moderate sedation, with a cardiologist feeding a long, skinny tube with an echo camera on the end of it down your throat.You can't do this without sedation. Try, and you'll end up with a retching, fighting patient and ...
Source: Head Nurse - March 7, 2016 Category: Nursing Authors: Jo Source Type: blogs
My week, in pretty moving pictures.
Doctor Sunshine, who has a reputation for badmouthing everyone and everything around him, strode out of a room and announced to the residents with him, "You'll find that this unit is weak. The nurses aren't as competent as the ones in surgical critical-care."Four nurses, two mid-levels, two residents, and a student later complained to their respective superiors about what Sunshine had said. The particular irony in this situation was that the incompetent nurses in our weak unit had been warning Sunshine that a particular patient had been decompensating for hours. He hadn't listened. Boy was he surprised when that patient we...
Source: Head Nurse - March 3, 2016 Category: Nursing Authors: Jo Source Type: blogs
God, I love nursing students. And new nurses. And newbies, in general.
The best shifts I have come when I get to precept nursing students or new nurses. It doesn't happen very often, probably because I have a bad, bad reputation with Manglement when it comes to new RNs. I say things like "Don't let that doctor talk down to you!" and then call the doc in question out when he's been an asshole. That does not make me popular with people whose job it is to make sure the fruit plate in the doctors' lounge is fresh and full of papaya.Still. . . .when I get to precept a new nurse, or a student, it's such a freakin' high. People who don't know a lot, or anything, about a discipline ask the best quest...
Source: Head Nurse - March 2, 2016 Category: Nursing Authors: Jo Source Type: blogs
Today I went to a funeral.
I walked in to the church and looked for people I knew. The first person I spotted was Mike, Jenna's husband, so I walked straight up to him and hugged him.I have never seen anyone look as empty as he did.Then Jenna's mother found me, and her brothers, and her various other relatives, and I got hugged and kissed to the point that I no longer cared about leaving makeup marks on their nice clothes.I sat down about six rows from the back, in a pew that didn't have anybody in it. I stayed there until the music started and the family came down the aisle. Jenna's mom grabbed me and said, "Jo, you're family. Come sit with us." I ...
Source: Head Nurse - February 19, 2016 Category: Nursing Authors: Jo Source Type: blogs
Things of which I will never tire, part three thousand and forty-six:
1. The look on an attending's face when the nursing staff in the NCCU actually knows something. We read our patients' charts before the shift begins, we review lab results, we read EKGs and check out the results on CT scans and EEGs. Yet, for some reason, the attendings will never get over that first, pure shock of a simple nurse knowing something he (usually "he") doesn't about a patient.(Nota bene: this is not all attendings, just a couple. Dr. Vizzini and Dr. Manbags come to mind.)2. Pure thankfulness from a resident when we solve a problem or save them from a hideous fate. Dude/ette, that's what we're here for. You got...
Source: Head Nurse - February 14, 2016 Category: Nursing Authors: Jo Source Type: blogs
" Take a right by the porta-potty, then a left after the second backhoe. "
If you were to come to Casa Del Doghair, those would be the directions you ' d get. < br / > < br / > Every five years or so, Littleton ' s infrastructure guys decide it ' s time to replace the gas lines/sanitary sewers (that ' s how they refer to them: " sanitary sewers. " I would hope there ' s no other kind)/water lines/electrical distribution system/various bits of asphalt in my neighborhood. This month, it ' s the sewer lines. < br / > < br / > Do you have any idea how big sewer lines can be? I did not until this week. Apparently, replacing several thousand linear feet of sewer lines requires backhoes, something The ...
Source: Head Nurse - November 22, 2015 Category: Nursing Authors: Jo Source Type: blogs
"Take a right by the porta-potty, then a left after the second backhoe."
If you were to come to Casa Del Doghair, those would be the directions you'd get.Every five years or so, Littleton's infrastructure guys decide it's time to replace the gas lines/sanitary sewers (that's how they refer to them: "sanitary sewers." I would hope there's no other kind)/water lines/electrical distribution system/various bits of asphalt in my neighborhood. This month, it's the sewer lines.Do you have any idea how big sewer lines can be? I did not until this week. Apparently, replacing several thousand linear feet of sewer lines requires backhoes, something The Boyfiend calls a backtracker (on reflection, I think ...
Source: Head Nurse - November 22, 2015 Category: Nursing Authors: Jo Source Type: blogs
Whaaa. . . .what? Wait, what?
The family member insists that I called her a bitch during report.Okay. (Nods head.) A reasonable assumption.Except I didn't. I see no point in prejudicing another nurse against a patient's family member, or using profanity during report. As opposed to the rest of the workday, when I'll happily use profanity whenever.But this particular family member? The one who threatened to sue because the room wasn't big enough? The one who tried to get her aunt arrested for simply visiting the patient? I wouldn't call her a bitch, even in an undertone, because that would get me in trouble. I still have some self-preservation instincts...
Source: Head Nurse - October 14, 2015 Category: Nursing Authors: Jo Source Type: blogs
