A Fallen Colleague

I'm going to shift gears for a bit and be serious.

It's happened. A nurse has been killed in combat in Iraq. Maria Ines Ortiz, 40, was killed in late July by a mortar attack in the Green Zone in Baghdad. She was buried at Arlington National Cemetary last week.

The Edgewood, Md., resident is the first Army nurse killed in combat since the VietNam War, Maj. Gen. Gale Pollock, the Army's acting surgeon general, said in an interview yesterday. "Having one of the family go down is very, very hard," said Pollock, who also is a nurse. "You feel like a piece of your heart is gone."

Ortiz was returning from physical training July 10 when she was caught outside by a barrage of mortar shells. She was killed by shrapnel.

You can read more about it here.

Whether we agree with the war or not, how about we all stop and say a prayer for ALL of those serving overseas as well as stateside? My opinion ... we'd be nowhere without our military.

My condolences to Maria's family, and to all of the families who have lost a treasured member ...
~RWS

The Handbook - Part II

OK, gang! Today, we have Lesson II - "A Dozen Things You Have Time to do on Your 'Free' Time During the Shift". I think that we should do this in the same fashion as David Letterman's Top 10 List. So, without further adieu ....

12. List the first item on your shopping list.

11. Open a can of soda.

10. Dial the first digits of your home phone number to see how your kids are doing.

9. Plan the first 30 seconds of your day off.

8. Sneeze once.

7. Put lipstick on your upper lip.

6. Exhale.

5. Read the first two words of the newspaper headlines.

4. Put one quarter into the vending machine.

3. Bend your knees in an effort to sit.

2. Get a spoonful of yougurt halfway to your mouth.

And the #1 thing you'll have time to do during your free time ...

Inhale!

Do any of you have other things you can do during your "free time"? I seem to remember one time that I actually made it into the bathroom and was able to lock the door. Then my SpectraLink phone rang and I had to abort the mission at hand. Is it any wonder that nurses and teachers have the largest and least toned bladders around? Or that the same two groups seem to get more UTIs than anyone else? I, for one, am not surprised in the least! Now let me hear some of your ideas of how to spend all that free time!

~RWS

The Handbook - Part I

This will be the first of several posts I will make that are based on this book. Its publication date is 1986, which is when I bought it. Some of the "jokes" in it are quite politically incorrect for this day and time, so I will obviously avoid those. In case you can't read the cover well, it's called The Unofficial Nurse's Handbook by Nina Schroeder, RN.

The first topic I will tackle is that of "How to Tell Doctors From Nurses".

Seems pretty straightforward, but with more women in medicine and more men in nursing, it's not so easy anymore. The following guidelines should help you to "de-blur" the lines.

Docs: Show concern with your hospital insurance coverage.
Nurses: Show concern for your hospital comfort.

Docs: Will leave you a written note or prescription.
Nurses: Will decipher the doc’s hieroglyphics for you.

Docs: Admit patients to the hospital.
Nurses: Can actually find the patient once they are admitted.

Docs: Wear Rolex watches, and vacation in Europe and other exotic places.
Nurses: Wear Timex watches and vacation in the lower 48 (Alaska & Hawaii are too expensive).

Docs: Carry pagers so that if they’re needed, they’ll be present.
Nurses: Are omnipresent.

Docs: Are never in their office on Wednesdays.
Nurses: Explain to disgruntled patients why the doctor’s not in on Wednesdays.

Docs: Misplace charts.
Nurses: Take the blame.

Now, the disclaimer: This is all meant to be in fun. I hope it's taken that way! I'm sure that you can think of some other ways to tell the difference - feel free to leave them as comments!

The next lesson from The Handbook will be "What to do on Your Break". Be thinking about what you actually do on your breaks, so that you'll be able to compare with what's recommended in the lesson!

Have a great week!

~RWS

Graduate Nurse or Experienced Nurse?

One of the docs where I work who is not particularly known for having a sense of humor blessed us with these little observations the other day. Now ... here comes the disclaimer. I know that each of these will likely offend someone who reads this. However, I'm also pretty sure that each of these will be humorous to at least one person.

A graduate nurse throws up when the patient does.

An experienced nurse calls housekeeping.

A graduate nurse wears so many pins on their name badge that you can't read it.

An experienced nurse doesn't wear a name badge (or turns it around) for liability reasons.

A graduate nurse charts too much.

An experienced nurse doesn't chart enough.

A graduate nurse loves to run codes.

An experienced nurse makes graduate nurses run to codes.

A graduate nurse wants everyone to know they are a nurse.

An experienced nurse doesn't want anyone to know they are a nurse.

A graduate nurse keeps detailed notes on a pad of paper.

An experienced nurse writes on the back of their hand, paper towels, bed linens, etc.

A graduate nurse will spend all day trying to reorient a patient.

An experienced nurse will chart that the patient is disoriented, then restrain them.

A graduate nurse can hear a beeping I-med at 50 yards.

An experienced nurse can't hear any alarms at any distance.

A graduate nurse spends 2 hours giving a patient a bath.

An experienced nurse has the CNA do the bath.

A graduate nurse thinks people respect nurses.

An experienced nurse knows that everyone blames everything on the nurse.

A graduate nurse looks for blood on a dressing in hopes that they can change it.

An experienced nurse knows that a little blood never hurt anyone.

A graduate nurse looks for a chance to "work with the family".

An experienced nurse avoids the family.

A graduate nurse always answers their phone.

An experienced nurse always checks their caller ID before answering.

A graduate nurse thinks psych patients are interesting.

An experienced nurse thinks psych patients are crazy.

A graduate nurse carries reference books in their bag.

An experienced nurse carries magazines, lunch, and Advil (or Tylenol) in their bag.

A graduate nurse doesn't find this funny.

An experienced nurse does.

Remember, this is all in fun and not meant to offend. I think it's funny, and find more truths than I care to admit. I hope at least ONE of you chuckled when you read it. Have a great weekend. As for me, I'll be at work wearing my name badge backwards, avoiding families, writing on paper towels, thinking psych patients are crazy, taking Advil, and getting my money's worth out of my caller ID!

~RWS

The Eyes Have It?

Last Friday, as I was melting in the pedicure chair, I saw a sign about eyelash extensions. Wouldn'tcha know that I got the brilliant idea to try out a set? Now, my eyes are my favorite feature of myself, so I don't know what possessed me. Honestly ... do any of you think I needed eyelash extensions?

Anyway .... I decided to give it a try. My intention was to just get a few wispy extensions - these were the individual lashes, not the full strip kind. Well .... the technician had other intentions. Looking at my coloring, do you think I need black or brown eyelashes? I do brown mascara, and when au naturale, my eyelashes are barely visible.

I laid there for what seemed an eternity, but it was really just under an hour. The process itself wasn't that bad. The aftermath ... well, that's an entirely different story. I arose from the table with eyes that looked and felt like they had big, hairy black tarantulas on them - that were attached to my eyelashes with black SUPERGLUE. It was HORRENDOUS. She said, "They might feel a little heavy until you get used to them." MIGHT? A LITTLE heavy? OMG. Then she said what I thought were the magic words ... "If you want to take them off at home, just put warm wet washrags on your eyes and it will loosen." "Really?", said I. "Yes", said she. NOT HARDLY!!!!!!!

What followed was no less than 2 full hours of abject misery. I trotted to the kitchen sink and got the water as hot as I could stand. I then proceeded to soak some lap sponges, which I plopped onto my eyes. I waited till they cooled, then tried to remove the tarantulas. They didn't budge ... not even a bit. Holy crap! This went on over and over for what seemed an eternity. So, y'all think plucking your eyebrows hurts? Hah! It's nothing compared to pulling out your eyelashes.

To make a long story short, what ended up happening is that I pulled out almost all of my own eyelashes just to de-tarantulize my eyes. About halfway through the process, I snapped. Surely there is something out there that's available to help me out of this Hell I created for myself. I drove my red-eyed, nose-running, sniveling ass up to the local beauty supply store. There it was! My salvation in all of this! "Individual Eyelash Glue Remover"! Yay!! I snatched up the one remaining bottle and guarded it as if it were solid gold and my life depended on it. Well, in my book it kinda did.

Do you think it worked? Heh ... after my sore, raw eyes almost burned out of my head, the tarantulas didn't budge. Pardon me ... the tarantula. Remember, I got one eye off. Hell just got worse! I then decided to slather triple antibiotic ointment on my eyes in the hopes of maybe loosening up the tarantulas. Do y'all think that idea worked? Hell no it didn't!!! I decided to just suck it up and rip all the remaining mofos off. HOLY HELL!!!

I was so traumatized by the whole series of events that I didn't know what to do with myself. I ended up propping myself up on the couch with icepacks on. My lashless eyes stayed swollen till Monday! I did not take a photo of the tarantulas, nor did I take a photo of the aftermath. This is, however, a close approximation of what my once beautiful eyes now look like:

Pretty sexxay, huh? Moral of the story? Don't do crap like this without really researching the whole process. I seriously think that I have a bonafide case of Eyelash PTSD now. But ... airing it out here has proven to be somewhat cathartic. Thanks for "listening" to my admission of sheer stupidity.

On a side note, I'm going to TRY to make a more concerted effort to post more frequently/regularly. I'm just in a lazy phase right now. Work has been kicking my butt lately, and I don't want to do much during my off time. I hope you understand!

~RWS