Bang Bang! Zap!

The fun continues at work. The "guns" have taken over, and we have had a few rounds of cowboys and indians. Or rather, as we walk down the long hall towards each other, sometimes we have inpromptu draws. The person who wins is usually the person who has the idea to draw; the other person has forgotten they have a gun too. It's still new, and I am sure we will get better.
We also have fun all pointing our laser beam on the charge nurses paper, butt, or back. Depends on the person in charge...brings to mind the Monster comercial with the monkeys who also have laser pens and direct them on the presenters screen, and when he turns back to face the board has about 50 red laser dots on his fannie. Hilarious!!!
We never grow up!
Some people have found the guns in the pocket to be too big. We can remove the handle, and those people now carry Tazers. Fun fun fun!!!!
We are such a kind, loving, caring group of nurses. Really. I swear!
What is really fun for the Tazer, is that they can be set to vibrate, creating a very realistic tazer-like effect.
I love my job!!! It is good to be me!
And yes, I have been likened to a "very good grocery clerk." I'm adorable.

Afterthought: the laser directions are as follows:
Avoid Long-Term Viewing of Direct Laser Radiation.



So many thoughts.....Define long term.....Radiation, eh? I work on an Oncology floor, where most patients have already been exposed to radiation, how does it compare?..............Does that mean "don't stare into the laser?"......................Can you really see radiation?

Grocery clerks

So we have begun using computerized medication records, appropriately enough with St. Patrick's day coming, called MAC E-mar. No one knows what the MAC stand for. E-mar...Electronic Medication Administration Record.
Coolest part: The device we scan with looks like a gun! It glows a red spot and glow around where we are trying to scan. Much fun. Too bad the pointer does not go very far.
Each room has a computer now for us to scan each and every single bloomin' pill, and then the patient. After just 2 days we realized that having internet capacity in each room was not the greatest idea, we couldn't get the patients off the computer for us to do our scanning. Professionally, of course patients should not be able to access potentially adverse information via the net.
Personally, what a brilliant idea! Why didn't we do this earlier!!!! These patients are stuck in tiny rooms for weeks on end!!!!
So, of course, administration took internet away.
Wah.
It's good to be me though, cause I can come out to the desk and blog....

Good to see you too!

I hear this every single day I work, and depending on my mood at the time, I find it to be humorous, insulting, ignorant, annoying or I hardly notice. Depends on the day and the work load I guess. Now granted that not every hospital works this way, but most do have a system, like a phone that is carried on your waist, or the old fashion way of just hunting you down to tell you. But at this hospital, we carry text pagers. It cuts down on the "tracking down" time, and allows us to know whether we just need to answer a phone call for us, or call so and so back at this and that number, handily on our pager. It also cuts down on the time it takes for patients to get the attention they need. Example: Pager goes off. Pager reads: Room 354 needs a bedpan. Or 365 needs pain medicine. Like I have mentioned before, we like the pages from our friends goofing off, or just making the page a little more humorous. Example: Patient in room 352 is barfing all over everything. Can you please get him something to make him stop? We're trying to eat in here!
As with any system, there are glitches. Namely our secretary, Mila, who refuses to type anything into the text box except the room number. Example: 352.
Nothing else. Usually it just means that the IV pump is beeping, but not always. Big pet peeve of mine as well as the rest of the nurses, who tend to either go imediately into the room because it could be a true emergency, or ignore it until we have taken care of a few things, because, of course, it is probably just a beeping IV.
We, as nurses, occasionally actually answer the call lights ourselves and pass on the message appropriately. But what kills me each and every time, and it does happen each and every day, a patient will call and state: "I need to see my nurse."
The next thoughts going through my head are:

Why? Have you never seen a nurse before, and since you're in the hospital, you thought it would be nice to look at yours?

What? Do you have a crush on her and you just want to admire her beauty?

Did you forget what she looked like?

Maybe we should all drop off pictures of ourselves upon introductions in the morning so that every time a patient needs to "see his nurse" they can look at the picture and everything will be all better.

If I'm in a particularly bitchy mood, I will step into the room, pronounce in my cheeriest "southern style snide": "You wanted to see your nurse? Now you have! Thanks!' and then walk out of the room.

9 times out of 1o, they just want to go to the bathroom (a job for the CCP, no RN liscensure required for that one) or a bit more water (another CCP job) or to have something moved closer or tidied up (again, you don't have to sit for boards for that little task either.)

So please, when using the call light, please just tell us what you need so the appropriate person can be paged. If it is a true emergency, I guarantee that we will be in there so incredibly much faster than if you just say you need to see the nurse.

"I need to see the nurse" Versus "I'm having chest pain." Test it out yourself next time you're in the hospital. Or actually, don't. Just stay healthy and out of our hospitals. Please!

It is good to be me, and usually it is good to be seen!

Diapers? Amatuers...

All I can think about in response to the astronaut from Houston who drove to Florida on a passion rant in diapers is....why not use a foley catheter? Diapers are so much more messy and tend to leak. And stink. Foley's are the way to go.
Also, what is up with the Houstonian women? Running over their lyin', cheatin', no-good-doin' husbands, 3 times!!! Donning wigs and packing duct tape? Please, Texas, do become your own country. You're making us look bad as a nation!
I'll stick with the fruits and nuts of Cali. God told us to "be fruitful and multiply!" It is good to be me.

Maybe I'm just jaded...

Maybe I do believe that people do not changed. It is something I have been proven repeatedly, both in personal and professional life. The woman who has left her husband/ boyfriend left him again. It wasn't the first time, nor the last. Putting down that last cigarette is just another "last." Maybe that's why it is called "last." Because it lasts.
That's the last time I take him back!
That's the last time I drink a non-diet soda! This diet is going to work!
That's the last time I switch a shift with someone!
That's the last time I will run out of gas!
That's the last time I use that credit card!
That's the last time I let him/her talk to me like that!
But it never is, is it?
I have found that people do not change. I have learned that people are exactly where they want to be, although they may whine about it. Turns out, when given the option to change, or get out of it, they won't. I have learned to let people make their own mistakes.
It may have hardened me. It may have made me bitter. Maybe jaded. I prefer to think of it as keeping my sights on things that make me happy. Maybe limiting my time and cutting out the people in my life who are not good influences has limited my social life.
But I am a person who says what I mean, and do what I say. And I won't change. People don't change. It is good to be me, and I won't change that either!

Just me.

It is nice to wake up to blue sky. On monday I fly in to Minnesota for a wedding I will be in, and I wonder how I will tolerate the cold. It is supposed to get up to 16 degrees. So a bridesmaid dress with matching Uggs should be just the ticket. I am very excited about her marriage, she waited so long, and was so patient and faithful. I know 29 is not that old, but sometimes it can seem like an eternity. But it gives me hope that just the right man is indeed out there, and hopefully he is getting his act together so that when we meet, there will be nothing that needs to be fixed or finished first. I pray he will have everything accomplished that he had set out to do, just as I have. And then it will be better than I ever could have imagined. I have faith that all will fall softly into place at the right time. Until then, it is good to be just me.

First thought

This morning as I rolled over in bed, reveling in the softness of clean sheets and the loftiness of my down comforter as I knew I did not have to grudgingly get out of bed to go to work, I cracked my lids open to get a glimpse of what I hoped were blue skies. Instead, it was dismally gray. As I sat up and reached first for my glasses, and second for my hair clip to pull my "bed-head" away from my face, my first thought of the day was, "I wonder what the weather will be like today."
I pulled my laptop onto my lap and stopped myself short with a smile as I realized, "I am becoming my mother!!!!!!"
Anyone who knows my mother well, or has read her blog will know that one of her "favorite things" is to see the weather reports, and bliss is a day in front of the television with a good book, a mug of coffee/tea/cocoa, and a raging weather system makeing the whole country colored with purples, reds and yellows surrounded by greens. Add a cat that likes to sit on her lap and she may never get up again.
If she ever becomes senile, I plan to be sure to have many tapes of wicked weather patterns recorded from the weather channel, and I will plop her down in front of the TV with a wonderful afgahn and keep her occupied for hours. Who needs sedatives when you have the weather channel? Alternatives.
So maybe I do turn into her. I think that would be a very nice thing. Someday. For now, we will just keep having the same pair of glasses. It is good to be me turning into my mother.