tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76844789262626976892024-02-19T07:50:18.755-08:00Gardening in Meth Centralblack box blog from a code-3 medusakmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.comBlogger78125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-53485416083259492662009-07-10T10:06:00.000-07:002009-07-10T14:14:03.476-07:00notes to selfI am fairly sure I've mentioned in previous postings that it's generally a bad idea to run from the police. Especially the great big furry ones with doggy breath. I may not have mentioned Zito in particular, but his reputation does tend to precede him; the last bad guy he bit was wedged so far into something that only his face was showing; Zito got the attack command and latched onto the guy's jaw. . .took 81 stitches to fix him up. (actually, it took more than that. . .they just stopped counting at 81.) The current bad guy Zito bit had just sprayed his stepdad in the face with a blast of shotgun pellets and was heading for a toddler when the po po showed up. His teeth numbered higher than his IQ, and that's giving him the benefit of the doubt. After I struggled through the irrigation of his doggie tooth puncture wounds ("ooooohhhh, aaaaiiigh, what's that?" he would scream, poking his filthy finger into the hole I'd just finished cleaning and yanking out pieces of adipose tissue. ""Oooohhh, it hurts so effing bad!" and he'd yank his uncuffed arm away and flail his legs around.) I went outside and loved on Zito, good Zito, sweet great big puppy Zito.<br /><br />note to self #1: don't run from the po-po. and carry doggie biscuits.<br /><br />So later on in the day and we're working up a psych patient who, if you didn't know her, seemed fairly lucid. But by the end of her stay she's got the people on the other side of the curtain convinced that they've got brain tumors, aneurysms, and some sort of gangrenous disease that makes their blood float around the outside of their bones instead of living in the marrow where it belongs because she knows just enough medical terminology to be convincing to people who don't know the difference. She doesn't care if you listen to her; she'll start talking like she's got a motion sensor as soon as you walk in the room and she'll just keep talking until she's winds down, regardless of whether anyone's in the room or not.<br /><br />note to self #2: any information gleaned through the curtain divider of an emergency room is highly suspect.<br /><br />Just about lunch time and we get a chest pain patient. The guy is in fairly good spirits, points to his inferior sternum, laughs and says yesterday he went to his mom's and had some of the worst coffee ever, and he's been feeling this weird chest pressure ever since. He's 55, fairly active, smokes less than a pack a day but that's his only risk factor. I'm ready to slip a 20g single lumen in his arm when he goes on to say that he mowed his lawn after the terrible cup of coffee and had to quit half way through because he got so worn out. Initial EKG 12 lead says normal sinus rhythm, but I just have this feeling. . .so I trade out the 2o for an 18 and a dual port lock and go to refill my IV tray. 30 minutes later and it's almost break time when lab calls with an "OMFG" troponin, the charge nurse looks up at the monitor at the nurses' station, sees v-fib and says, "is that his real rhythm?" and the wife screams "HAAAAAEEEEELLLP!" out the door of the patient's room. We called a code, as you might imagine. Crazy, though- I've never seen a patient in vfib responsive. . .the guy was obviously alert but understandably panicked. . .the first time we shocked him into a unresponsive PEA; epi shot him back into a conscious torsades that kept slipping back into vfib so we shocked again. He'd look at me with terror and then go into hypoxic seizures. Doc pushed mag and amiodarone and we shocked him one more time back into a sinus rhythm. Repeat EKG showed remarkable ST elevation, as if we hadn't figured that out already. I started two more fatty IVs, talking to him the whole time; we got him calmed down and on the table for a balloon and stent. I went and saw him later and he grabbed my hand and called me his angel.<br /><br />note to self #3: avoid mom's crappy coffee. Hire a landscaping company to mow the lawn. Pull the tarnished halo out of the coat closet.<br /><br />and today's job security award goes to the 25 year old male who called from the ER room of the other hospital to see if he might get better "service" from our ER. Turns out he just wanted more narcs to ease the pain of constipation; he turned down the other ER doc's offer to digitally disimpact. He called our ER 5 different times before finally making it over; each time, our doctor informed him that, as our patient, he would get the medical screening due to him by law, but the other physician's work up and treatments and his recent past visits to both hospitals would be taken into consideration. The guy showed up anyway, got his medical screening, and was offered an enema. He declined.<br /><br />note to self #4: you can't cure stupid.kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-66820208636206565882009-07-03T08:22:00.000-07:002009-07-03T08:54:20.441-07:00firefighter girl steps up on the bitch boxThe ED is where the maimed, sick, injured and generally decrepit paramedics are put to pasture. At least, that's what I tell patients when they ask me. What I don't tell them is that we are also put in the ED for comic relief, manual labor and general ass-chewing from grouchy nurses. When I'm at work, my nametag says "everybody's bitch." I also don't tell them of the number of times we've saved some not so great RNs from making very bad decisions with their patient care, or that we've had numerous great nurses say that in critical situations they'd much rather have a medic than another nurse in the room, or that "where's my medic?" is one of the first things most doctors will yell upon entering a room and finding a patient in a bad way.<br /><br />A decade ago, several nurses in the ED where I currently work took offense to the medics' scope of practice in the ED, and fought long and hard to limit it. At that time, the physicians' group petitioned to have control of the medics, but the hospital chose to take it on itself, and the "ED tech" job description was so vague that it left much room for interpretation, so you never knew, really, when you were going to get in trouble for something.<br /><br />Two years ago, we got a new department manager, and he and I spent a lot of time rewriting the job description of the medics. Somewhere along the way, our little hospital was bought out by a nasty, terrible, horrible company, but things didn't change much in the day-to-day stuff. We continued to flesh out our job descriptions, and had several of the doctors volunteer to be our physician advisor. We were finally starting to feel like more than housekeeping with IV and CPR skills.<br /><br />And then, a couple of months ago, we get a letter from the nasty, terrible, horrible company stating that ED techs in their hospitals (techs with the same number of years of training as RNs, mind you, with the same associates' degree and prerequisites, but with more clinical hours and more requirements for continuing education) are no longer able to cardiovert, pace, start EJs or IOs, remove sutures or staples, etc etc etc etc. We are, however, now able to digitally disimpact. <br /><br />rock on.kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-9903958397619792152009-04-28T07:03:00.000-07:002009-04-28T07:25:07.157-07:00oh, the shame and embarrassmentI'm a very persistent, stubborn woman. Ask anyone. Especially ask the Rock Star, who actually thinks it's one of my more endearing qualities. So this past weekend was our last for snowboarding, and we headed up to the resort we went to back in February, on Valentines Day, the day I broke a few of my ribs on the left side at the sternum and at the bone/cartilage joint.<br /><br />Apparently, I didn't do it well enough the first time, so I did it again. First run. It was icy, and I wasn't going nearly fast enough for the turn I wanted to take, and I took it anyway. Stupid of me. I knew it was going to be a hard hit, so I tried to tuck and roll, but I ended up landing on my right arm.<br /><br />You EMS and medical folk, you know that sound that happens when you're doing good CPR. I heard that sound when I hit the ground. And it's kind of cool on somebody else, but it made me throw up in my mouth a little when I heard it coming from me. Or maybe that was just a normal reaction to the incredible flash of pain that jolted through my body as two of my bones snapped. I stayed very, very still for about thirty seconds, then stood up, assessed, and decided I could manage a few more runs. ("what?!" you say. . . I know, I know, but I was doing really well on improving my turns, and this was a huge group of friends I hadn't seen for a while, and it didn't hurt all that bad, and I'm a master [mistress? matron?] of denial, etc etc etc. . .) <br /><br />I managed about four more lifts, one of which I rode clean from start to finish (yay me!!), then hit the bar for a much needed beverage and reassessment. I did try one time after the bar, but I was favoring and guarding so many different body parts that I ended up riding sloppy and decided it was quitting time.<br /><br />After the Rock Star helped me get undressed, he tried to help me into bed. Bad idea. You've not truly experienced crepitus until you've felt it (and heard it, dear lord) on yourself. Even the unflappable Rock Star got a little pale.<br /><br />It's a little embarrassing to admit that I broke both sides of my rib cage two months apart. And I don't want to hear any "maybe you should quit snowboarding"s, because it's something I love and something I'm actually starting to get better at. Feel free to suggest various forms of protection, however: so far, I've heard some real winners, including chest protectors from super cross racing; pillows, duct tape and baling wire; DDD boob job, and hockey gear. Personally, I think I'll stick with a calcium supplement and not falling anymore. And a lot of percocet and ibuprofen.kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-26119881201408152352009-04-09T09:33:00.000-07:002009-04-09T10:01:56.280-07:00i'm such a softieI may not have mentioned any of this before.<br /><br />Some time last year, oh, around October, I realized I have this really incredible insurance that I'm paying out the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">wachoo</span> for every month. And <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">MixMan</span> already got his cochlear implant, and they paid all but around $300 of the $60,000 of that, so I started thinking that maybe I should be taking advantage of that spiffy, pay-out-the-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">wachoo</span> insurance and get some stuff done. Particularly since you never know when my mouth is going to get away from me and get me fired.<br /><br />So. Although little Firefighter Girl and Rock Star babies would be beyond cute and incredibly amazing, as far as babies go, after some brief discussion about the possibility of same and then some shared horrified looks between myself and Rock Star as that potential future loomed, and realizing that with Miss Diva turning 7 this summer I am only <span style="font-style: italic;">11 years from freedom</span>, and I'll be damned if I start over, I decided to get the tubes tied. And one of the reasons I decided, with Rock Star's input, to do that instead of him getting the old snip-snip (which he volunteered to do, and attempted, but because he is still young-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">ish</span> and doesn't have kids of his own, his doc wouldn't refer him. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Feh</span>!) was because I also had really horrid varicose veins on the right leg, and apparently one of them was throwing clots. And you can't really get a doctor to take those out unless you promise you aren't going to get <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">preggers</span> again. So.<br /><br />Tubal in October, laser ablation at the end of January.<br /><br />Still had stitches in my right leg on valentine's day, when the Rock Star and I and a few of his friends went boarding. And- funny thing- I was really concerned about hurting my wrists, and even went so far as to check out some wrist guards that I ended up deciding were really pointless. But the wrists, as it turns out, weren't what I needed to worry about. So, second run down, I'm getting a little cocky because my turns are looking beautiful, and I make a turn from toe edge to heel edge and then catch just a little bit of ice on the slope, and suddenly I'm airborne, and then suddenly I'm not. I landed right smack in front of two 16 year old boys who, I notice, are wincing.<br /><br />I won't kid you, I knocked the air out of myself, and I haven't done that since I was a kid and tried to polish my brother's chin-up bar while it was still mounted in the doorway. I finally rolled over and scooted to the side of the slope, where the Rock Star caught up to me and asked me some standard paramedic type questions. All I knew was that my whole chest hurt like hell, but I figured I'd just end up with bruised <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">boobage</span>. We headed up a different lift and by the time we made it to the top, I was having a hard time breathing because it hurt so bad, and every single turn, bump, and fall was <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">excruciating</span>. I am not proud to say, I yelled at the Rock Star. And his friend. And anyone else who would listen. And then I spent the rest of the time in the bar at the lodge, drinking and seething and hurting and generally feeling sorry for myself.<br /><br />But it turns out, you see, that when I landed (on my mp3 player that was in my front pocket), I cracked ribs 6, 7, and 8 at the sternum, and then broke ribs 5 and 6 where the bone meets the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">costal</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">cartilage</span> right under my left breast. I could barely breathe for 2 weeks, and I would wake myself up in the middle of the night trying to roll over. Luckily, I'm mostly healed now.<br /><br />All of this is a really, really long introduction to tell you that. . .I've gotten a little soft. I haven't run or worked out for months due to surgeries/pain/injuries, etc. And when I got on the scale on Monday, after realizing that my pants were feeling a little tight, I decided that was enough, by gum, and I'm going to become a Jillian <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Michaels</span> convert.<br /><br />That's right, people. Firefighter Girl is going to become a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Shredhead</span>. Thanks to <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4bCemXcpJ2FMKY8aFnJlIjU2TRWoLtazqZcJz6LOQpssOSd_ExK_rxFB-8AW7yJc-1bhkTZVRXJQCt-yFETE73GVsUsOnNtPEmpAf08FALDR2bdOYhJAmSo-n32iO5xNQpu-g4R89ddvU/s1600-h/shredhead_button.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 125px; height: 125px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4bCemXcpJ2FMKY8aFnJlIjU2TRWoLtazqZcJz6LOQpssOSd_ExK_rxFB-8AW7yJc-1bhkTZVRXJQCt-yFETE73GVsUsOnNtPEmpAf08FALDR2bdOYhJAmSo-n32iO5xNQpu-g4R89ddvU/s320/shredhead_button.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322736937010729074" border="0" /></a><a href="http://motherhooduncensored.typepad.com/">Motherhood Uncensored</a> for the inspiration.kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-19328078471763172102009-03-06T05:14:00.000-08:002009-03-06T13:25:27.096-08:00prepare yourself for some righteous indignation, because I've been stewing in it all nightThe ambulance report: a 56 year old female, chief complaint is "generalized weakness and depression." We roll our eyes at each other, certain that we know what we'll see when the patient rolls through the door. And sure enough, it's a 56 year old woman with messy gray hair, in a dingy old bathrobe, smelling faintly of pee. And so I sigh, and follow the street medics into the room, and get a look at this woman's face, and my god.<br /><br />You know in horror movies, when the hero and heroine come across the skeleton that's kind of half decomposed? you know, with the skin so taut across the skull, bones jutting out everywhere? That was this lady's face. And I'm listening to the medic tell about her medical history--none, except for cancer in her humerus decades ago, and a history of mild, unmedicated depression, and trying to fit that in with the way her face looks. And then he mentions the bilateral pitting edema in her lower legs.<br /><br />Sure enough, it looks like all the weight from her face and upper body slipped down into her lower legs. And then she starts telling us how she's been depressed, and so she went to a psychiatrist two weeks ago, and was so weak <span style="font-style: italic;">she couldn't make it out of the car</span>, so he came down from his office to the car (how kind, you're thinking, but no, keep listening) and crouched down beside the passenger side and scribbled a few scrips--two for antidepressants, one for a benzo since, in this psychiatrist's opinion, the weakness was not a physical but a psychological issue, and, regardless of the fact that her face looked like a skull upholstered in jaundiced leather, she was obviously suffering from anxiety that prevented her from leaving the car. Uh huh.<br /><br />So the nurse and I keep asking her questions, and we find out that for the last two months she's had to use diapers and a commode, and although she eats the same amount of food as she always did, she's lost over half her body weight. She's afebrile, she denies pain. Just too weak to get around on her own anymore, she says. I help slip the bathrobe off, and suddenly there's this horrific smell. The bedsore smell. Except it's coming from her chest, and the dark green flannel nightgown she has on is saturated with what appears to be blood and pus. So I peel that off, gingerly, and find that what she has on one side of her chest is an enormous bloody and oozing hole where one breast used to be, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paget%27s_disease_of_the_breast">a dried, brownish flaking mass that still kind of resembles a nipple</a> on the other side. Her WBC came back at 34, in case you were wondering.<br /><br />Yeah. 34.<br /><br />That is what breast cancer looks like, people. And yes, she should have sought help sooner--she didn't because she was disgusted and embarrassed, and her husband was so respectful of her and her wishes that he didn't insist. I doubt she would have told us about that gaping wound if we hadn't found it. But that psychiatrist, a medically trained professional, saw her edemetous legs and did nothing. Nothing, except throw prescriptions at her like candy.<br /><br />Isn't it funny--and I want to slap myself for this--but when I've thought about breast cancer before, it's always the survivors who've had mastectomies and stand tall and proud that I think about--you know, the ones who look like Amazon warrior women who cut off their breasts so they could shoot an arrow straight and true. And maybe that's a good thing, that I think about these survivors as strong and fierce. But among women in the US, breast cancer is the most common cancer and the second-most common cause of cancer death after lung cancer.<sup id="cite_ref-acs_bc_key_stats_31-1" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_cancer#cite_note-acs_bc_key_stats-31" title=""><span></span></a></sup> Women in the US have a 1 in 8 lifetime chance of developing invasive breast cancer and a 1 in 35 chance of breast cancer causing their death.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_cancer#cite_note-acs_bc_key_stats-31" title=""><span></span></a> So for every 34 Amazon warriors, there's 1 woman in a hospital bed with a rotting breast.<br /><br />I will never, ever forget the way that looked.kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-86009939240158509222009-01-27T12:47:00.000-08:002009-01-28T06:43:57.124-08:00raccoon loveLet me share with you the absolutely exquisite sound that woke me from a deep, lovely sleep long before the buttcrack of dawn.<br /><br />I startled at the noise, because it sounded like it was coming from under my bed. Initially I thought it was a dying cat- god help me- but when I opened the door to my bedroom, I saw both my big white toms, Jem and Scout, sitting there, staring at me, looking rather concerned. Apparently the noise woke them up, too.<br /><br />As I listened, though, I realized it sounded less like a feline and more like a. . . like a. . .like a giant hamster in a fight with one of those aliens from the movie "Signs," you know, with the clicking and the whirring noises. So yes, a giant hamster vs an alien, under my house. At 0230. And then- oh yes, my friends, this story gets better- the pipes started rattling, and various detritus that collects in the crawl space beneath any old house started flying around down there as the hamster/alien thing rolled crazily around, nattering and clicking and yowling away. I could hear the dog in the apartment upstairs pacing, the noise was so worrisome.<br /><br />If I were brave, and it were less cold outside, and a little more light, I might have stuck a hose under the house and turned it on full jet. But it was very cold, and very dark, and I was not feeling very brave at all, and did not feel prepared to deal with anything that might come screeching out at me. So I stomped up and down on the floor, and then got down on my hands and knees right next to the crawlspace trap door in my closet, and shouted in my meanest, angriest voice, "knock it off!" which had no effect whatsoever on the giant alien hamster still crashing into pipes and such, but which caused the cats great consternation.<br /><br />So I got back into bed and lay there with a pillow around my ears until the giant clicky shrieky hamster thingie made its way outside, and I peeked out the door and saw what appeared to be a large, fuzzy ball that could very well have been the alien hamster I'd imagined in my head that eventually stopped making noise and turned into two raccoon butts sauntering away from me.<br /><br />Raccoons mating. If you've never been blessed with the sound, consider yourself very, very lucky. I'm going to have nightmares for days.kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-83476987662462430602009-01-03T08:18:00.000-08:002009-01-03T08:30:15.495-08:00firefighter girl turns in her bunkers for good. . .maybeOnce I got off of night shift last summer, I spent so much time lounging in the sun getting rid of my night shift pallor that I got out of the habit of writing on the computer. And frankly, I was spending way too much time in front of the screen, anyway.<br /><br />So, let me get a refill on my coffee--there--and brush the biscotti crumbs off the keyboard, and I'll try to start where I left off ages ago.<br /><br />MixMan is doing amazingly well with his implant. Watching him learn to hear is truly remarkable, but it's funny how quickly it becomes commonplace; now he's learned to ignore his parents when they're talking to him just like any other 8 year old boy does. And, unfortunately, he's picking up on (and using!) some tones and inflections (you know, that certain sigh of bored, put-upon youth that is accompanied by an eye roll) that he was not previously privy to from his classmates. But his teachers say that he is beginning to open up and initiate conversations with them and with other students <span style="font-style: italic;"></span>without his interpreter present.<br /><br />Miss Diva has enjoyed having a brother as opposed to someone she must act as interpreter for; the two of them love having a back yard to tromp around in, and they go on nature scavenger hunts, and they've developed an interest in all things spy. Her Diva-ness is losing some of her girly-girlness, but she still loves the color pink, and in fact has all-pink days quite frequently. She's waaaay ahead of everybody in her class on reading and socializing. And she comes up with the most stunning observations sometimes. I love tucking her in at night, when she looks at me and says, "Mama, I think tomorrow I'm going to have a sensitive day." and I know exactly what she means.<br /><br />Recently, a box arrived in the mail for MixMan, and shortly after, one arrived for Miss Diva, too. Having been forewarned as to the contents, I hid the boxes in the closet for a while, because I knew that my days of limited peace and quiet would be over. The boxes contained a trumpet for MixMan and a recorder and fife for Miss Diva, courtesy of my brother. (When I told The Rock Star about this, he squeaked, "Egad! Does he hate you?" and "egad" is hard to squeak, let me tell you. But no, I informed him, my family just has a strange way of showing affection.) MixMan played that trumpet until he had a blister on his lip; he slept with it, he tucked it in and made me kiss it goodnight. Now things have calmed down a bit, my headache is gone, and we're discussing lessons.<br /><br />Meanwhile, across town, a new hospital was opening, which made for some big changes at the small hospital I work at. Like how none of us are sure that we'll have a job by next year. And I'd been thinking about my profession a lot lately, anyway; how the only paramedic positions around here are in ERs and on fire departments, how the ER job was supposed to be until my injury healed and I could get on to a fire department, but how because of my injury I'll never be able to hoist hose effectively again. So, after much discussion with the honey, and a lot of soul searching, I decided to go back to school again to become a licensed massage therapist. It's a very portable profession, and I want to eventually focus on hospice care. I've seen a lot of death in the last few years, and some people go with such dignity and grace, it's an honor to be a part of that, even when I'm fighting so hard against it, pushing drugs, defibrillating, doing CPR. I want to help ease terminally ill patients into that place of grace and acceptance, and massage therapy is one way I can do so. Plus, like I said, I can do it anywhere. So I started school fall term; it should take me about a year to finish up. The honey's getting me a massage table, but I think that's because he's sick of lying on the floor for his massages.<br /><br />Since my new hours weren't quite making the rent, I took a second job at a new urgent care clinic the docs from my ER opened up. And just in time, because I was informed last month that my position in the ER is being eliminated. Luckily, I have senority, so when the dust settles I'll have a job again. But for now I'm stuck in an office, learning more about hospital policies and JCAHO national patient safety goals, etc than I ever, ever wanted to learn.<br /><br />I don't know what the next year will bring. I know I don't feel terribly maternal most of the time, and figure the kids are probably better off with benevolent neglect instead of active parenting from me; as long as they know I love them, I think they'll do okay. And sometimes, it's all I can do to show them that. It is so hard doing this alone. So hard. Thank goodness I have sisters and a great mom who help me with parenting advice. As long as I've got that and a what-will-become-of-me bed with lots of pillows and a cushy down duvet I can hide under, I think I'll mostly be okay.<br /><br />So. That's the news from Meth Central. Happy holidays to all of you!kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-76599057183533262252008-08-21T08:39:00.001-07:002008-08-21T08:42:23.683-07:00mixman's bionic ear<div>So, after almost a year of discussion and work and preparation and trips to the BigCity LittlePeople Hospital for tests and meetings and appointments, MixMan got his Cochlear Implant yesterday. He says now he can feel the bump behind his ear, and things are kinda itchy. They fired it up to make sure the device wasn't faulty, and said they got great nerve response. So on September 2nd, they'll turn it on and do the initial mapping, and we'll see if it works. The patient is doing fine, although is rather disappointed that his stylish head bandage is white instead of black, which would be infinitely more cool. He's very excited, though, about his robot ear. So now we call him RoboMan.</div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG-5GwonWBFWz6PiZMmMHDitgqly1bcwUw6iwjfklwKPFyV5W9Ox2QnYITMsT-KyB8lOPa4WLw-sINPPP_8L-9keJoSz5kQtFo3A-YOMbBJVSVPmPabKqxQWwodMN4PETbMy2NBmkLNPZj/s1600-h/cochlear+kai.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5236996140477005346" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG-5GwonWBFWz6PiZMmMHDitgqly1bcwUw6iwjfklwKPFyV5W9Ox2QnYITMsT-KyB8lOPa4WLw-sINPPP_8L-9keJoSz5kQtFo3A-YOMbBJVSVPmPabKqxQWwodMN4PETbMy2NBmkLNPZj/s320/cochlear+kai.jpg" border="0" /></a></div>kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-38166543272603554562008-08-11T09:03:00.000-07:002008-08-11T10:51:29.755-07:00one in each kneecapI am a very, very lucky girl that I have so many good, kind men in my life. I say that because I am starting to understand how women become man-haters; if I didn't have the boys I have to balance the assholes, I could very well be a man-hater myself. In the last year, I have been raped; cornered in the stock room of the ER by a co-worker I trusted (who shoved his tongue down my throat and his hand up my shirt); and groped and come onto by several patients who seem to think that the ER is a great place to pick up girls. <br /><br />All of them had in common the inability to hear the word "no." Repeatedly. And, due to the red-headed temper I had as a kiddo, I was raised to talk things out, leave a situation before it gets violent and confrontational, count to ten before shouting, be cautious. Of course, my parents assumed I'd remain in a fairly sheltered Mormon existence. Little did they know. And unfortunately, in the last year, in all of these situations, my skills set has come up sorely lacking.<br /><br />I have been angry, and sad, and so ashamed since last summer; ashamed that I couldn't talk my way out of a situation I was in completely by accident because all my fail-safes had fallen through. Over the last few months, I've started lifting again, and I have a heavy bag I beat the shit out of on a regular basis, and my cardio is better than it ever has been. But I am still sad, and angry, and have felt so powerless. And over and over again, I have wondered how it is possible for someone to be so disrespectful that they would disregard the wishes and free will of another person and violate not just that person's body but their soul. <br /><br />People who know me will tell you that I might be cranky fairly often, but I rarely get really pissed off. Sometime last Wednesday, in the five minutes between finding a man on my patio watching me through my curtains and the moment when I lost my temper and threw myself out the door after him because he wouldn't leave, I became a person, a woman, capable of killing another human being.<br /><br />But I'm pretty sure I'd rather just maim.kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-21711444014278166472008-08-07T08:50:00.001-07:002008-08-07T09:27:17.137-07:00somebody explain to me all the assholes in the worldSo last night, I'm lying in bed, reading a book, as I'm wont to do. I have the sliding glass door in my room open a little to let in a breeze, and I'm half in/half out of the covers and half in/half out of sleep. I hear a noise on the side patio, and I'm assuming it's a raccoon-- they like to tip over my plants-- so I get up to scare him off. I push the curtains aside, go to open the door a little more, and right there, I mean right there, is some guy sitting in one of my patio chairs that he's moved right up against the glass.<br /><br />My first thought, as you can imagine, is "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">wtf</span>?" because this is not a scene my mind can quite wrap around.<br /><br />My second thought is "thank god I don't sleep naked."<br /><br />And then I start getting a tad angry, and the adrenaline starts up. And I look at him (he hasn't even moved, but he's watching me) and I say, "what the f--- are you doing on my patio? Get out of my yard."<br /><br />And he starts talking to me, apologizes, tells me he hopped the fence and he's just waiting for his friend and his back pack and blah blah blah and he's so sorry if he frightened me.<br /><br />And I'm shaking my head, trying to get the sleep out of it, and things start coming a little more clear. Like the fact that my fence is not easily <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">hoppable</span> in any direction. And that I didn't hear the chair move at all, so he's probably been sitting there for quite a while. And that he's still there, staring at me, and I'm getting really sick of men who don't know me assuming that because they find me attractive that it is their right to tell me so, or watch me, or grope me, even when I tell them no.<br /><br />I tell him again, "get the f--- off my porch, and don't let the gate hit you on the way out." And he apologizes again, says he'll give me some weed to smoke if I want. And he's still standing there, and he looks me up and down, and says,<br /><br />"Hey, you've got that sexy librarian thing going."<br /><br />I'm afraid I temporarily lost my mind. The wise thing to do, of course, would have been to close the door and call the cops. I didn't do the wise thing. I got very, very angry, and that adrenaline was really pumping, and I threw open the sliding glass door and lunged out, all 5 feet 5 inches and 130 pounds of me, and yelled "get the f--- off my porch or I will beat the living shit out of you!!"<br /><br />He ran through the gate (he knew exactly where it was) to his car parked in front of my house, started it up and took off. And I sat down very fast and laughed.<br /><br />and then I cried, and called the cops.<br /><br />I woke up this morning and saw that he'd been watching me before I went to bed, too. The chaise lounge on the back porch is turned so that it looks directly in the dining room window at the table, where I sit and write every night before bed.<br /><br />I was just starting to feel safe again, you know?<br /><br />But you should have seen his face when I came out at him.kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-66760893744315321552008-08-04T08:07:00.000-07:002008-08-04T08:28:05.340-07:00cliff surfing and more proof that i'm regressingThis is the full version of the carefully censored story I told my mother the other day.<br /><div><br />On a recent camping trip, me and the Rock Star and a few others went mountain biking on a 14 mile trail (real mountain biking, like on the side of a mountain, with a steep drop down one side, straight into a river that stupid people ride in big rafts). anyway, about a third of the way in, we'd pulled aside up against the cliff face to let some other bikers pass going the other way; one of their back tires nicked my back tire, my bike tipped, and I slipped over the side. (Yes, you read that right, I fell off a bike that was<em> not moving</em>.) Frankly, I thought I was going to go all the way to the river, but I caught myself about 10 feet down. I'm very bruised- everyone at work is joking that Rock Star beats me, and I reply that no, he just throws me off mountains. I'm guessing the fall was rather spectacular to watch, judging by the look on his ordinarily deadpan face. And the fact that I regrouped before he did, which is difficult to do when you're picking shrubbery out of your hair, your heart is trying to jump past your uvula, and your limbs are so rubbery that sitting and contemplating the scenery seems like a really, really good idea for oh, an hour or so.<br /><br />I did get a fairly remarkable gash in my leg and a couple of sprained fingers. Luckily, we had a pretty extensive medic bag back at camp (that's what happens when you go camping with a bunch of firefighter/medics with foresight and a lot of beer), so after things clotted up, we finished the ride and then I washed up in the river and poured down some liquid courage and we steri-stripped me. I've included a picture for your viewing enjoyment. That would be my right thigh. A week post-incident. It's going to be a big scar.<br /><br />I don't recommend cliff sliding, though. I darn near wet myself.</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOvSe8r1EEmAjDpPvJ2wvwmSNvPqtez952EUbAAqbwHq201UibgWjXMYDff3oobUldCLei-B2IirJpDBq2W7gD6HPPzZvQZNZpBktrkrFav4thZnR9u1mi8_PwKobaS64OpNsHY9rsOmj0/s1600-h/owie.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5230683199684667442" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOvSe8r1EEmAjDpPvJ2wvwmSNvPqtez952EUbAAqbwHq201UibgWjXMYDff3oobUldCLei-B2IirJpDBq2W7gD6HPPzZvQZNZpBktrkrFav4thZnR9u1mi8_PwKobaS64OpNsHY9rsOmj0/s320/owie.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div>kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-25804383457637715902008-07-26T09:04:00.000-07:002008-07-26T09:33:25.821-07:00a very brief recounting of the worst day everGrief, I think, is the most difficult part of our job. It's not the code blues (or 99s, or whatever your particular agency or hospital calls it when a patient <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">crumps</span> and dies, maybe right in front of you, maybe not), because in a code situation, training takes over, and it's much easier to think of the person in front of you whose chest <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">cartilage</span> you are cracking with every compression as a collection of skin and bones and cells and systems that all need to work together in order to keep a body alive. And so you try to pretend that what you're doing is to save a life, which might actually be the case, but more likely you are just keeping those organs alive on the off-chance that the person you are doing <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">cpr</span> on is an organ donor, or maybe you're pushing drugs and pumping <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">someone's</span> heart and slipping on a slick of vomit on the floor for just long enough that the person's family can get to the room and say goodbye to what they still think of as a person, but who you can tell is really just a corpse.<br /><br />I hate doing <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">cpr</span> in front of family members. I hate the after, when I'm soaked in sweat, face flushed, trying to keep the mess on my scrubs to myself, when the family comes up to me, crying, and thanks me for all I've done, and hugs me hard. I didn't do a damn thing- there's your wife/mother/sister laying on that gurney, still dead from the abdominal aortic <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">aneurysm</span> she had that we didn't know about until she started vomiting and then her stomach blew up like a balloon, right in front of us. I hate watching that numb and silent grief that I can't do anything about, slicking up the fingers of another dead woman with KY jelly to slip her wedding ring off to give to her mute husband, the one she'd been married to for four decades. He asked for her toe ring, too, so I pulled the blanket back and revealed bright coral colored nail polish, so incongruous on the 68 year old foot.<br /><br />I can handle the dead, the dying. It's the living that stay behind that I don't know how to deal with, the ones for whom the death is such a surprise. I didn't know your mother. I didn't know your wife, or sister, except maybe to start their IV or help lift them from the ambulance and get them hooked up to our equipment, continuing a steady stream of conversation to help them feel more comfortable. And I am so sorry that what I did couldn't save them for you, even though I did everything that I could. There is nothing, absolutely nothing that I can say to the grieving to ease their loss. All I can do is mop up the shit and vomit, tuck a clean sheet around the body, pull off the gold tokens of a life together, and hand them to you before I walk out the door to sit on the back stoop and cry.kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-77239096936593165542008-07-25T22:05:00.000-07:002008-07-25T22:15:07.318-07:00on the menu: beer and tissuesToday was the worst day ever. Ever.kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-35292360243639867142008-07-10T22:29:00.000-07:002008-07-10T22:52:59.598-07:00it's my magnetic personalitysome of you may have heard about my previous experiences with certain monitoring equipment on the ambulance and <a href="http://ventricularentropy.blogspot.com/2008/04/this-is-new-one-even-for-me.html">in the ER</a>. Well. RevMedic, you'll get a kick out of this. . .I can hear you laughing all the way down the I-5 corridor.<br /><br />my new position is in the fast track section of Meth Central Med Center's ER. Better hours for a single mom (I get off work while it's still light outside!), plus I'm not tempted to do things that might get me in trouble, like<br /><br /><em>brief digression:</em><br /><br />pushing D50 on a combative diabetic patient with a CBG of 33 who is brought in by medics after causing a rather large wreck on the freeway that sends 4 other people to the trauma center and the diabetic patient to our little ER with no IV, which I manage to get, and then without thinking, grab that big fat syringe sitting bedside on the tray, and when I'm halfway through the IV push realize that while I am certified by the state I live in to <em>paralyze patients</em> in the field<em> </em>I am not allowed to push farging sugar water in the ER. Whoopsie.<br /><br /><em>end of digression</em><br /><em></em><br />anyway. ahem. So now I work three beds with one monitor to do intake and discharge vitals on 20-30 patients a shift. I am not rough on my equipment; I treat it with respect. I don't throw it around or stomp on it or dunk it in saline. Noooooo. However, the nurse I work with informed me tonight, after replacing the SPO2 sensor for the third time this week, that I was no longer allowed to touch the damn thing.<br /><br />by the way- the Zoll is back. Took them 2 months to fix it.kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-30258605881710481602008-07-10T21:54:00.000-07:002008-07-10T22:09:41.185-07:00karma in actionif, by chance, you happen to be <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Meth</span> County's eminent and most sought after car thief, and you have, in the last few months, focused much of your attention on the vehicles in the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Meth</span> Central Med Center's parking lot, and many of the vehicles you have stolen or broken into belong to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Meth</span> Central Med Center's employees, and you decide to get stabbed by a butcher knife while mumble mumble mumble mumble (the details are still a little unclear here), and the stab wound goes into your abdomen, through your liver, through your <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">diaphragm</span>, and into your lung, and the person who stabs you feels some remorse (and perhaps the long arm of the law tightening around their neck) and decides to dump you in the ambulance bay of an ER, where you proceed to bleed all over the asphalt and screech loudly enough to wake the dead, or at least the security guard, you may not want to be carrying your lock-picking set or threaten the caregivers attending you that they better make sure you don't die. Better yet, you may want to gently inform your assailant that the ER on the other side of town may be preferable for future stab and dumps. The compassion index might be a tad higher.<br /><br />Maybe.kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-53911348929546208102008-05-15T07:25:00.000-07:002008-05-15T08:16:22.578-07:00stop me if you've heard this one. . .South County ambulance arrives with a female patient who "hurts all over." Patient has been evaluated (not to her satisfaction) at the two other hospitals in the area, and so has decided to make the trip- by ambulance- to Meth Central. Patient is tearful and has a lot to say about her previous hospital experiences. Nurse Zee starts the assessment while I hook the patient up, half listening to what she's saying.<br /><br />"that other hospital, the doctor was <em>so rude.</em> He didn't listen to anything I had to say, and -oooowwwww I am in <em>so much pain</em>- and he was brusque and could have been a poster child for that book "How Doctors Think." And the nurse, oh my goodness. She just sat there and looked over the tops of her glasses at me and blew bubbles with her bubble gum. The nerve. What is this world coming to? Ooooohhhh, it <em>hurts</em>!"<br /><br />I freeze with the tympanic thermometer half way to the patient's ear and shove my gum to the little niche between my cheek and upper teeth so that I won't be tempted to chomp or, heaven forbid, blow bubbles. Zee looks over the tops of her glasses and sticks out her tongue at me.<br /><br />Ahem.kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-61030684856658928932008-05-02T07:24:00.000-07:002008-05-10T10:03:42.062-07:00it is just sooo difficult to be heard over the voices in a schizophrenic's headThis is weekend is the last for my new hobby, ie tempting fate by sliding down steep mountains on my face, er um snowboard. <br /><br />I started running again. Not away from anything, just running because I love doing it and it's good for me blah blah. I managed a mile run and a mile walked without my lungs hurting last week- that's the first time since I had pneumonia last october; it took me a half hour, and I used to run 4 miles in 30 minutes, but hey, baby steps. I also started lifting my little 5 lb weights to try to strengthen my upper body since PT wasn't doing much for my bad shoulder. I was pretty proud of myself, finally getting some muscle tone back in my arms, and when I told Rock Star, who has been body building for a decade, he said, "oh, so that means you'll be a little more of a challenge when we wrestle?"<br /><br />Dude. They're <em>five pound weights.</em>kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-20727905725422078132008-04-28T08:48:00.000-07:002008-04-28T09:55:32.964-07:00catfight in the ERThere are very few patients who push my buttons. In fact, I'm the one that the nurses come to when they have a patient they don't want to deal with. So when one of my favorite nurses (she refers to me and herself as "the alpha bitches," which from her is a compliment) snagged my arm at the nurses' station and started telling me about the patient she'd just brought back, I kinda rolled my eyes.<br /><br />"firefighter girl, she's 17, diabetic, states she's had high sugars for a week and a half and is now convinced she's DKA. She refuses to put on a gown, has a leopard print blanket and a red heart teddy bear, and claims she's a hard stick. p.s., the woman with her is her mother, but don't expect her to say a damn word."<br /><br />Alpha Bitch leans close and grips my arms hard enough to leave bruises. "good luck."<br /><br />Piece of cake.<br /><br />I grab the IV tray, and if I coulda set it twirling on top of my index finger, I would have- my game was that good, baby. I love patients who are "tough sticks." Especially the ones who think they know my job better than I do.<br /><br />I walked in to see the princess sitting criss-cross applesauce (we used to call it Indian style) on her gynie bed throne in a private room. Mom stood anxiously at the foot of the bed. Amazingly, as soon as I entered the room, the princess started <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kussmaul_breathing">Kussmauling</a>. I leaned in a little closer and sniffed for that sweetish ketone scent a true DKAer would have, but all I could smell was the pungent odor of bullshit. I looked at her, sat down on my rolling stool, and started preparing the IV goods.<br /><br />"Just so you know, I'm a tough stick. You're only going to get me from here up, and even then you'll have a hard time," she says, gesturing to her antecubitals. "It always takes them four or five times to get me. At least." She glared at me triumphantly, then resumed her Kussmauling.<br /><br />I recommended that she calm her breathing down before her hands got all numb and tingly and stuff. Her eyes narrowed. I started asking my standard questions, things that I ask every diabetic patient: how high have your sugars been, for how long, what are they normally, have you been sick, do you take your insulin regularly, etc etc etc, blah blah blah. Princess stops her hyperventilating long enough to take a deep breath in order to deliver a speech she's hoping will scorch my eyebrows off.<br /><br />"I. Am. A. Brittle. Diabetic. When I am sick or stressed my sugars go way up. We'd all do a lot better if you'd just shut up and quit judging me and start paying attention to what I'm saying. Understand?"<br /><br />It makes me blink a little. I try to cover up my guffaw with a cough. I explain to her that these are questions I ask every diabetic, I've never met her before, I haven't read her chart, I'm here to start an IV and draw some blood. I am being very, very nice and oh-so-polite. And as patient as god, I might add; my mother would be so proud. She sighs and flips her hair. I ask for her arm, and wrap the tourniquet. I dutifully check her ACs- nothing doing- and then, lo and behold. . .<br /><br />a beautiful vein goes POP in her right hand. And another one springs to attention in her wrist. And so I reach for the swab. . .and she yanks her hand away.<br /><br />"Excuse me. We just went over this. You're not getting any vein down there; they roll. And while you screw around with that and miss, you're wasting precious time that you could be using to start an IV where I tell you so I can get the medication I need."<br /><br />I'm afraid I may have started losing my patience. I give her the standard "I will take your suggestions into consideration, but I do this all the time and I will start an IV in the place I feel is best. Please allow me to do my job" speech. I reach for her hand, swab at that gorgeous, bouncy blue vein, and she yanks her hand away again.<br /><br />"If you aren't going to listen to me, you aren't going to start my IV. Go get somebody else."<br /><br />I unwrapped the tourniquet and said, "fine, honey. I'll go see if I can find somebody to help you. We're awfully busy, though, so it may be awhile." and I smiled at her, left the room, and went into the store room to kick some boxes. It was that, or pull her hair and scratch her face with my nonexistent fingernails.<br /><br />I decided to ask the one male nurse on shift if he could fit in the IV. I had a feeling the princess would prefer a guy, anyway. And I told my young, buff medic student to hang around and soften her up a bit, too. Male nurse said his rooms were all full, but he'd get to the princess when he could. I thanked him, asked if there was anything I could help him with, offered to wipe his patients' butts because that would be far preferable to dealing with the brat. . .er, princess. . .again. He laughed. I warned him I would be getting the better end of things. Pun intended.<br /><br />As I walked by the room, I noticed the brat's mom hovering outside her door. I mentioned that I had someone coming in, but it would be a while before he could get there. She said, "you know, she's such a hard stick, it would probably be best to get the IV team in here to do it."<br /><br />I smiled at her. "Ma'am? I <em>am</em> the IV team."<br /><br />Medic pay in the ER? not much to write home about<br />The incredibly self-satisfied feeling I got, watching her jaw drop and her mouth open and close like a fishy while she attempted to stammer an apology for her spoiled rotten daughter? priceless.<br /><br />fyi: if my daughter ever, ever treats anyone like that, she will be flogged and bound and forced to watch reruns of . . . of. . . Barney until she gets control of her lip. I cannot imagine treating anyone as poorly as that 17 year old girl treated every single person entering her room with the sole intention of helping her. And I wasn't the only one kicking boxes in the stock room last night.kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-63893068211215281552008-04-25T10:27:00.001-07:002008-04-25T14:41:29.617-07:00how to pay karmically out the ass for your next 15 lives<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZNq2hlKv0UpTiKAOychVUdPQgvjeTh5VsoMrwdxXECRoNDc-GpA5N-3J1SuZGckAsSGIMIgnZX-WKGw8EQxNoI_P8i_rS5bF7bMMMSBWEjAINRLQCGU_T9yXMK6bOcCoRLGyfxTRyLCp-/s1600-h/freakshowscontinental.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5193236045100004306" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZNq2hlKv0UpTiKAOychVUdPQgvjeTh5VsoMrwdxXECRoNDc-GpA5N-3J1SuZGckAsSGIMIgnZX-WKGw8EQxNoI_P8i_rS5bF7bMMMSBWEjAINRLQCGU_T9yXMK6bOcCoRLGyfxTRyLCp-/s320/freakshowscontinental.jpg" border="0" /></a> be an arsonist, and decide to light the lovingly rebuilt, restored, revamped Lincoln Continental of a tattooed paramedic/firefighter nicknamed. . .well, nicknamed the name of a guy you probably wouldn't want to mess with, who happens to be good friends with most of the cops in Meth Central. Oh, and pay no attention to the Maltese Cross on the back window, the one that says "american association of firefighters." Yeah. Good luck. Have a nice life.kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-31086977968400326062008-04-25T08:49:00.000-07:002008-04-25T09:20:01.095-07:00mini update1) we picked the implant we liked, and MixMan's surgery date is June 25th.<br /><br />2) BSUYAM told me the position is mine and approved the schedule we made. (can i get a whoa! and a hell yeah!)<br /><br />3) The hair pet problem seems to be under control. Although the stench of rosemary and tea tree oils with a light note of neem rolls out of our house in waves when you open the front door.kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-30456498789705661832008-04-24T07:43:00.000-07:002008-04-24T08:25:13.758-07:00a few of my favorite thingsworking night shift does crappy things to your brain. It messes with your emotions and your mental health, especially if you aren't getting any sleep for three of the several days you work because you happen to be a mom, too, and kids don't understand night shift. But that is neither here nor there, it just is what it is. I used to be such a cheerful, happy person, fairly compassionate, and then I got pneumonia at the end of october, and was in bed for two weeks, and by the time I got back to work- still sick, mind you- I realized that most of the people in the emergency room as patients were less ill than I was. And that made me a little bit pissy.<br /><br />Anyway, I decided this morning that I need an attitude adjustment, and the best way I know how to do that is to make a list of all the things I love, and all the things I'm thankful for. So here it is. . .my freaking joy list:<br /><br />my bed, with its cushy top and down comforter; the color combination of pink and green, tulips and daffodils, ranunculus and windflowers; my son's toothy grin, lying in bed with movies, books, and a notebook, poetry penned on napkins and restaurant coasters, found poetry, colors so gorgeous and vivid I want to pop out my eyeballs and soak them in it, rainbows after a violent storm, the warmth of my lover next to me in winter, lying naked in front of a fireplace, pears and cheese with wine, the perfect pair of jeans, or failing that, the near-perfect pair of jeans, Jembosaults, my daughter's uncensored laughter, the way an iv feels going into a vein just right, coffee so strong and thick a spoon stands up in it, realizing that you can live without a certain someone but you'd really rather not, sitting under a tree on a blanket in the summertime, sundresses and sunhats in the garden, flip flops, toe rings, chokers, piercings, tattoos, LuLu Guinness glasses, grippy toes, bare feet, hot tubs, hiking, camping, snowboarding, views that take my breath away, my mama's hugs, spending time with my family, how loose and lovely my body gets after 15 hard minutes on the treadmill, dancing away all my give-a-shit, strong bass I can feel in my bones, listening to my deaf son sing, any music with real soul, books I can get lost in, home- not necessarily the place you live, but a place that feels so right you don't want to leave, wet kitty noses, the smell of old books in leather bindings, art almost as old and grand as god- the Sistine Chapel, the statue of David, you know what I mean-, mud between my toes, my children's safety, good friends who love me unconditionally, recovering from a Sylvia Plath moment, redheaded sisters, geminis, astrology, handwritten letters, love letters, getting flowers, gifts that show somebody's listening, affection, public displays of affection, mail slots, running my hands over the Rock Star's shaved head, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, lips so soft I want to suck them off, holding babies (and then giving them back!), hot showers, lavender plants, rose oil, necklaces, clothes I can change with my mood, secrets, massages, interior design, getting down to the nitty gritty in a relationship and really knowing the soul of someone else, fuzzy socks, text messaging, all the Lou Whos, fingerpainting, love and being loved, trust, and last but not least, R E S P E C T.kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-58029546197359368922008-04-22T19:20:00.000-07:002008-04-22T19:30:42.863-07:00what you never, ever want to hear your sweet five year old say<div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQz-cVnNsV7CuCd57wvaZmtCsxj2GR8ZmntgL7UkX-xzqlFQ82_KsSvWedD-ModBlb6-kg2D9ZarVjVF0HNJOmW80-E7ZzKP0xraBX8LGdMh3LVSh7YjEFVEgtrvmzYRmtRmjODdZiqDYO/s1600-h/princess_leah.jpg"></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidL9XCfqUeINrxTnOb6AVtF7ZjTiek-pV0xB9Ziqown1VGk6TFEM7jlfAbzHZ0jioZGg74srRbes-fkg7yzagICI9hR49tOnaljNPO12CKH97DeAwDiivuLBEuwPqYi1mF096wBeW4LWqI/s1600-h/curlyleah.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5192262358834131890" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidL9XCfqUeINrxTnOb6AVtF7ZjTiek-pV0xB9Ziqown1VGk6TFEM7jlfAbzHZ0jioZGg74srRbes-fkg7yzagICI9hR49tOnaljNPO12CKH97DeAwDiivuLBEuwPqYi1mF096wBeW4LWqI/s200/curlyleah.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfCOQkLVYe1CJkuFR8OZQrcxC93S24bV2ryqUdcSBB-N8f69ujxTx4a0efUnnxbdcBTeU-9v86kstTNd_tz7ScDhB9Px53FXUJzKJwtVBgTSWhq2jRmF2RkM9dFPGOelm_7Nw3UeLcUK8w/s1600-h/leah_bug.jpg"></a><br /><br /><br /><div>"Mama. Isobel said that Elena had lice. I love Elena. What are lice?"<br /><br />tonight, we're washing everything. Everything.</div></div></div>kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-85528381460219679022008-04-22T04:36:00.000-07:002008-04-22T17:38:16.485-07:00it was a really close shave<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivV4TtPZYhE_noziH7NbkYPK7NWmWjmwojwULnrDfPQPwysN90N6fqzf0sKvQgXH_MgvudgL8vzDFpXWI-URnEqQtLaynjhBaUuTEu1NcxrqFHqTylfOC7mV9vdgA-czet7pFvWbUTqS5P/s1600-h/Oooouuuuch%5B1%5D.jpg"></a><br /><div>patient comes via ambulance with vague abdominal complaints. Doc goes to do a quick stool occult. Suddenly, from behind the curtain, we hear this:</div><div></div><div>"well, son, you've got somethin' shoved up there!"</div><div></div><div>I hastily cleared a private room. </div><div></div><div>a gentle reminder: never do anything you can't explain to the paramedics. or the ER staff.</div>kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-3887108531120863142008-04-21T07:28:00.000-07:002008-04-21T07:35:21.235-07:00i like throwing myself off mountains<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcGkE5QKFibUFDt0AweTQoU7PWCI6TKP5NZ5WJzs1wCg4e2pfaa-Ge_e63F-EYm5jdxf40dFV8NjfSt-cj1Z8jPqUO1wBmsx54BTp4XbL0XC1x1OEqQ7Q7m2s-3AiUmHfYonkLgu4gqUke/s1600-h/cold_day.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5191706000876202226" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcGkE5QKFibUFDt0AweTQoU7PWCI6TKP5NZ5WJzs1wCg4e2pfaa-Ge_e63F-EYm5jdxf40dFV8NjfSt-cj1Z8jPqUO1wBmsx54BTp4XbL0XC1x1OEqQ7Q7m2s-3AiUmHfYonkLgu4gqUke/s320/cold_day.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPk8lvWIKSjZGOqHFw7RNI20Runu3IKHBZRB4eqrS1dPxFnvBxKq72xiA70cOw3C4V2zge7G-3EahCLLXqniiNjqL8zEf5gXna9NG8AVTD87V4kJK_aowB0lOvypEArY0QFL9yXLFrPoek/s1600-h/cold_day.jpg"></a><br />Even though I'm having a really hard time moving today.<br /><div></div></div>kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684478926262697689.post-78597513736602864732008-04-19T08:50:00.000-07:002008-04-19T09:48:24.289-07:00this is a thing called hope, and it's on the horizonMixMan and Miss Diva woke me up this morning at 0730. They'd been up for an hour already (why is it that during the week I have to drag them out of bed at 0700, but on the weekends they're raring to go all bright and shiny? I need my blasted beauty sleep.) They're downstairs, watching Saturday morning cartoons in their pajamas, MixMan with his <a href="http://www.cochlearamericas.com/Products/2012.asp">cochlear implant </a>brochures tucked under his arm. I'm upstairs in the work room, studying a couple of canvases, some emails, and contemplating another pot of coffee.<br /><br />A friend of mine and I were discussing some rather personal things last night. I may have mentioned in a previous post or two that night shift has made me a little crazy, and I'm finding my <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Jar">Bell Jar </a>moments are becoming more frequent; so much so that at least one of my friends is starting to refer to me as Miss Sylvia. But I was trying to figure out how it was that I became so impenetrable to emotion. And it's not that I don't feel it, I do. And I honestly feel like I show it a lot, too. . . but that's apparently not the case. During ACLS classes, a couple of the veteran night shift nurses were talking about how tough the testing used to be, how they'd throw up before "mega-codes." And I said, "me, too! I hate testing, I get so nervous I can't breathe." And one of them looked at me, and said, "yeah, right, FFG. Whatever. Nothing gets to you." And I've had ex-boyfriends tell me that they get so petrified of doing anything wrong because if they do, they get "the look" that makes them feel like they just killed someone's puppy. And yes, that's a quote.<br /><br />When did that happen? What jacked up bull crap kind of coping mechanism is this, that pushes everyone away when I need them the most? Sheesh. Night shift and lack of sleep certainly haven't helped. In this profession, too, it's necessary to maintain a very delicate balance of compassion and cynicism, and frankly, the compassion index is usually a little low. But (Blow-Sunshine-Up-Your-Ass)istant Manager posted two new medic positions for noon to 2200, and when I mentioned that I was interested, he told me to go ahead and make my schedule. So I handed it over to Rock Star, because he's better at these things than I am. And he came up with a schedule that gives us lots of time together, and time with the kids, and time for sleep and real life. (isn't he amazing? I think so.) Now to pass it by BSUYAM. . . keep your fingers crossed for me. And that light you see at the end of the tunnel? I'm running as fast as I can toward it.kmswhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16256666129895069841noreply@blogger.com1