Quiero Ir

Quiero ir!! I want to go!!

I went to a Badly Drawn Boy concert last year with some friends. It was so much fun! I love BDB. I really want to go to another concert or do something!
Cabin fever here I come, but my 'friends' aren't interested in doing anything.

Gradually, they've all gotten married and had kids, while I haven't.

This last year has been the worst.
I had one group of friends and we'd known each other forever. They got married when we were 18-20. I refuse to be another bridesmaid!
So....I made another group of friends. And what do they do? They get married too!
I'm so sick of being the 3rd,5th,7th wheel.

OK enough pity party for me.

Work has been boring. Coughs and vomiting. *yawn*

Radish Love

Spicy hot.

Smells like Spring.

Bite of fire.

Dash of salt.

I love a good crunchy radish! Radishes in the grocery store are the true first signs of spring. I just ate a huge bunch. Too bad they're not company food. I eat them late at night, so by the time I see people, my breath doesn't stink anymore (I hope). Really, though I would give up people before I'd give up radishes.

Groin Shot

An ETOH man came into the ER last fall, during hunting season. He was obviously drunk-slurred speech, stumbling, passing out every few minutes, smelled like a bar floor. He was triaged into a low priority trauma bay.

His friend (also drunk) had driven him to the ER, because the pt had some pain when he tried to go pee. The Dr. looked at him 'down there' and he had a few red bumps on his thighs with visible BB's underneath the skin. She decided to order an abd CT, before she started poking around and pulling out BB's.
I did the CT.
The ER was busy and it was a Sat., so I was all by myself.
This guy was really drunk and really, really heavy. I had to move him from the cart to the CT table (and back again) by myself. It wasn't a problem, while he was passed out (thank you inventor of slider boards!!), but about every 5 min. he would wake-up and try to punch me and drunk-cuss me out.
Did the CT and !!OH MY WORD!! He had BB's throughout his groin and into his abd. It looked like he'd shot himself on purpose in the crotch!!
I can not imagine how this happened - Did he do it to himself? Did his 'friend' do it? Did the gun go off accidently?
We'll never know, because they were drunk.
One BB was in close proximity to his abd aorta (and in many,many other places), so they air-lifted him to a bigger hospital for surg.
But - can you imagine how painful it would be for him to pee? With a groin full of buckshot?

Wait Here

Today I spent 3 hours waiting for some guys to show up and install a new furnace and air conditioner in my house. (they did a good job-when they finally showed up)

Then at work I waited 3 hours in surgery, while the Ortho Dr. hammered pins into a 86y/o lady's hip. (Picture,picture,picture on,pic,fluoro live,off,picture,go to lateral,back to AP,picture,pic,picture,lateral,back to AP)-if you've been in surgery with a c-arm you know what that all means.

When I got done in surg. there were a ton of ER pts to catch up on. (all waiting for me) It's tough being a one woman x-ray show!

I read 3 good books this week-end, but I'm too tired....now I'm going home to see if the cooling and heating guys robbed my house.

MVA Drunk

I got 3 hours of sleep between calls.
My last one was a drunk.
But what special kind of drunk?
A drunk nurse.

05:00am
Officer: How much were you drinking? What size of drink?
Drunk Nurse(still wearing scrubs): I don't know. I got off work and I just had one glass of wine. I think someone put something in my drink to drug me!
O: Have you ever used any kind of drugs?
DN: Mmmmm.
O: Non-prescription. Like marijuana.
DN: Yeah, I've used marijuana before.....and crank once.

Later on in the interview
DN: Will this affect my nursing licence?
O: mmmm....I'm not sure.

Go Go

7 hours more to go....and I'm sweating.
Don't sick people ever sleep?

Don't Swear

NOTE TO ALL ON-CALL DR.S -

You may think it's clever to have a cute message on your cell phone, but it's not cute after the 36th time.

Dr. X's phone: ring... ring... Hey! This is Dr. X
(you start talking fast: Hi, Dr.X sorry to bother you at home, but this is Xray and I have to)
...listen to this music while I try to dig this f***ing phone out of my purse or pocket. *&%$# phone! music fades in and finally, Dr. X answers, "What!"

24 Down

Well, 1 hour down 23 to go.

It's 8:30 AM and I've already dealt with a stupid Dr. If the Rad dictated a report on the dictation line and I can hear it, why can't the Dr.?

'Can you send up a typed report?' - No.

'Why not? Can't you type up the dictation?' -No.

'Why not?' - Because I'm not freaking Med. Records!

'Well, I don't know the # for the dictation system. We don't have those #'s.' - Ok, sigh. Here's the #. (for the 50,000 time.)

How long have we been using this dictation system? For TWO YEARS!! Yes, it's true....they're stupid.

When I work a 24 hour shift, I work 4 hours at regular pay and then for the next 20 hours I'm on call. I live 30 mins. away from the Hosp. so I stay over night in the Hosp. and sleep on a little cot in the dept. - yeah it sucks.

What do they pay me to be on call and literally live at the Hosp.? $3.oo an hour. That's right $3 dollars. When I was a student 4 years ago at a different Hosp. I made $4.50 an hour on call.

At the school Hosp. they let students work nights, week-ends, evenings, and day shifts(on your day off). It was a lot of fun, at times, and really frightening, most of the time. Sometimes you would have a 1st year student playing tech., with a 2nd year and 1st year student assisting...and that was it. 3 students in charge of the whole dept. for a night. Surgery, ER, ICU, ect. We covered everything by ourselves. And this is at a busy Hosp. Not a city Hosp., but still - in a town of 25,000.

After graduation I felt like I already had 2 years of experience being a tech. So, when people still, after 41/2 years of working at this Hosp., ask me if I'm 'new'......I say no.

Say Quiet

Med-eo's (see glossary) are a lot like actors. They are very superstitious.

Just for fun walk into an ER and say the word 'quiet'.

I dare you.

It's like walking into a theater and saying 'MacBeth'. The word doesn't kill you, but the people that hear you say it sure will.

We have a woman, Ruby, that works nights at the front desk.

Let's just say, not all her bulbs are lit. Every single week-end that Dr. Cutie (he's cute) works she says to him, "Well, I hope that you have a quiet night." And every single time he cringes and tells her 'Not to say that word!!' And then he gets avalanched on. A full ER -all night.

I feel really sorry for him, because #1 he's so hot. #2 I usually have to do some work too.

I start a 24 hour shift tomorrow. Yeah........

Today my EE, Lavender, layed her first green egg and my Sebright, Pippa, also layed her first egg.

From Lt: Pippa's egg, Lavender's egg, Med. store bought egg, Zela's Jumbo egg.

Slap Me

A patient smacked me today! It was a 63 year old woman (I can't say lady). She just reached over and gave me a hard slap on the butt.
What?!
Crazy old woman....The automatic reaction is to smack her back, but of course, I can't do that. I could, but then I wouldn't have a job, so I restrained myself.
That doesn't mean I didn't punish her.
She was super crazy-they found her passed out in a snowbank and she has severe frostbite on her legs, with big pussy blisters. yuck.
She slapped me...I 'accidently' hit her legs with the wheelchair when she's sitting down. Oops.
Now we're almost even.

Double Yolker

This is a Jumbo double yolk egg my chickies layed yesterday.

I don't know exactly who layed it, but I think it was Honey. There were 2 eggs in the nest box in the morning, and Honey was the only girl hopping in and out of the nest box before I left for work. When I came home - there was a giant egg!!

That's a Medium egg underneath the JUMBO egg on the scale.

Yum Yum!

Claw Love

I wish I had a medical story for today, but it's been really, really slow at the hospital.

These are my cats, Saveta and Catty(Catalina).

Saveta is about 14 years old and Catty is about 8 years old. Wow! I hadn't thought about how they're aging. Saveta's lived with me for over half my life. Her mother was a stray I found and took home when I was 7. She was the ugliest, scruffiest cat, so we called her Scruffy. She wasn't any single color, she had grey, brown, black, orange, whitish colored fur. We couldn't tame her for a house cat, so we didn't get her spayed and she had a lot of boyfriends. Every six months she had another 3-6 babies.

She had to go. Saveta was from her last litter. Scruffy found a Persian or Siamese tom cat somewhere, because Saveta has blue eyes and white fluffy fur, but she also has peach tipped ears.

Catty found me.

I was outside and a muddy, wet, meowing lump jumped out of a tree onto my back. Scary! Luckily, Catty is the sweetest, most affectionate cat. She was an obvious stray-skinny as a rail, dirty, wet fur.

My dad(I was a teen-ager at the time) said, "No more cats! You cannot keep this cat." and he threw her outside.

Unluckily for him, I'm super stubborn. I brought her back inside and said, "Dad, this is one battle you cannot win. I'm keeping her."

And I still have her.

My mom tells this story all the time. I'm not sure if she's proud of me because I stood up to my dad, took in a stray cat, or .... yeah, I don't know why.

Two Tales

I read two good books this week-end. The first one is Sold, by Patricia McCormick. It's about a girl from Nepal sold into slavery in India.

I really enjoyed the main character's voice. She actually sounded like a 13 year old girl and the author doesn't hit you over the head with visual, poetic descriptions, she gives the reader a little credit for intelligence. Even though it was a horrible story of a young girl torn away from her loving mother (and hateful stepfather), it was still a beautiful story, especially the descriptions of her life in the village. Sometimes one chapter would simply be a list, but the list would tell volumes.

The second book was An Innocent Soldier, by Josef Holub. It's really a simple story about a farmer boy drafted into Napoleon's army to fight against the Russians. They lose, the army is destroyed and of 450,000 troops only 1/4 return home alive.I love anything about the Napoleonic wars, so I thought this was a great read, although the majority of the book has the main characters trying to survive frostbite.

It was about -10 outside yesterday, so a book about people sitting down one minute and being frozen dead the next was right up my alley!

I can't write about books without saying I love, love, LOVE The Bloody Jack Adventures, by L.A. Meyer.

I've read them all and they are soooo funny! I laugh out loud to myself and everyone thinks I'm crazy. There is no way to describe the stories (I've tried and ended up looking like an idiot), because there are too many stories going on all at once.

However, one small warning - this series, even though it's written for children- is most definitely rated PG-13.
If I could play any character in a movie I would love to be Jacky Faber, Pirate of the High Seas!

Secret Shopper

I played at being the CIA yesterday.
Well, I did a secret shopper shop at Kmart and it makes me feel like an undercover agent.
The pay is fairly good for the 20 mins. it takes to scope out the store. Then I have to fill out some paperwork (paperless paperwork?) on-line. I also have to purchase one item (under $1) and the store reimburses me. Have you ever tried to find something in a store that costs LESS than one dollar?
It's almost impossible! With tax everything is just slightly above a dollar. So, I end up eating the tax. Oh, well. I usually buy a York Peppermint Patty (69 cents + tax =76 cents) or a box of Jr. Mints (1.00 +tax = $1.07). Yum!
I would like to always buy the cheaper (and just as tasty) Patty all the time, but they might catch on and it would bust my cover as a 'casual' shopper.
Collecting the employees names is the hardest part of the shop.
Have you ever tried to get an employee in a retail store to answer your questions, look you in the eye and stop flirting with their fellow employees?
Impossible!
And I have to do it SIX times!
It's almost like going hunting. They run down one aisle, double back behind sporting goods and I corner them in detergents.
Aha! Got 'ya! Now two seconds to casually get a look at your name badge.
Shoot! They ran away! Now I have to track them down again. And remember to act like a 'regular' customer.

Frozen 5k

My mom ran in a race today. It was -27F degrees. Cold! Really, really COLD!! I stood out side for three minutes, when they started the race, and it took me all day to warm up.

She won 1st place in her age division. Go Mom!

One man frostbit the end of his nose. It was dead white.

This is mom after the race. -->>

Below is the ice castle that was next to the race.

It's built from blocks of ice sliced out of the lake.

It's really amazing and it has a fun slide, but -27 is TOO cold to enjoy sliding down ice.

I'm tough, but not -27 tough.

Painful Pictures

This is some of my work.

This is a hand x-ray of a football injury. Owwww! Right?


This is easy to fix - just pop the finger back into place. Well, not easy for the person attached to the finger, but....


This is a little hard to fix. Super painful! An example of - Why you shouldn't play with fan belts.

They amputated the end of this pt's finger. Yuck.

Stop Staring

>

I ab-so-lute-ly love Stop Staring dresses. People really do stare at you when you're wearing one. And they ask you, "Where did you get that dress?" I wish I had some of their business cards - I could totally pass out like 50 cards.

I also wish they would make a green dress. Emerald green/Irish green. It's my favorite colour. Shhhhh. Don't tell the Scots I said that.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of Stop Staring dresses and if someone from Stop Staring reads this I would like some business cards to pass out. It would eliminate this awkward conversation -

Random person on the street - "What brand is that dress?"

Me - "Stop Staring."

Random Person - "Whaaa?"

Me - "St-op St-ar-ing."

RP(offended) - "I wasn't staring."

Me(laughing) - "No! That's the brand! Stop Staring."

RP - "Oh, OK. Thanks."

Nestbox Shuffle

This is Honey in the nestbox.

Today was a busy egg laying day!

All three of the big girls, Honey, Butter, and Zela layed today.

It took them all day and they complained (very loudly) about it all day. Well, Zela doesn't complain. She is the only regular daily layer, so she just popped her's out and hopped out of the nestbox without a cluck.

Butter and Honey, however complained all day. One would hop in the nestbox and then the other one would hop in, next to the first girl. Then one would hop out and complain (loudly) about the other girl in the nest box AND THEN THEY WOULD DO IT 50 MILLION MORE TIMES!!!

I was sure my neighbors were going to finally complain.

Shearling Death

This is a shearling coat. I hate these coats!

When I was a student we had a horrific case come into the ER. An 8 month pregnant woman, her husband, and their 3 year old daughter were in a car accident. The daughter was ejected from the car, but escaped with only minor scratches, because she was properly belted into her car seat. The husband broke his tib/fib and had some lacerations to the face. The pregnant woman however, died. She was wearing a shearling coat.

When she arrived at the ER she was talking and alert. She had severe abd. pain and at first the Dr. thought she was having contractions or some type of labor pain, brought on by the tension of the seat belt across her abd.
Of course, she was worried about her baby and asked the Dr. to do 'whatever you have to' to save it.
They did an ultrasound and the baby's heart was beating and there wasn't any hemorrhage in the placenta or uterus.

This is all taking place in a 3 bed trauma suite. She's in the 3rd bed and her husband is in the 1st bed. He calls through the curtain to her and they talk back and forth a few times, but she's still in extreme pain.
Gradually, she starts to lose consciousness and her blood pressure drops.
The baby's heart beat disappears.
The nurses start CPR.
After 20 mins. they call time of death.
Everyone leaves the room and they move the husband to a different room to be with his daughter and in-laws.

This is the part I hate.
We (my student tech and me, a student also) have to do post mortem films on her.
The nurses have cut most of her shearling coat, shirt and bra off. They took the shirt and bra, but there are still big chunks of hairy fabric, from her coat, everywhere on the cart. One dangling slice is still buttoned across her belly. They took her pants.

My job is to lift up her shoulders, so we can slide a cassette underneath her chest for a CXR. I have to pull her body up toward my face and her head flops backward. Her hair is nice, honey brown with blonde highlights.
For the next x-ray, of her c-spine, I have to hold on to her wrists and pull down her shoulders. We do some other x-rays and then we leave.

That's why I hate shearling coats.

I think they eventually said her aorta had been sheared off during the car accident and had slowly leaked blood into her abd cavity, but I never found out for sure.
Sometimes, I wonder what happened to the husband and daughter. Have I every walk by them in Walmart? Or did the husband have a nervous break down? Or did he re-marry? Does the little girl remember her mother?

Sorry - this is kind of long.

Snow Day

Making Pie

above: Before cooking
I made Wylann's Pot Pie today. It's one of my favorite foods. It has potatoes, carrots, green beans, peas, corn, and onions cooked together under a tangy cheddar cheese roux, cradled in a flaky pastry shell. It is soooo good. Anything with that much cheese has to be delicious.

Below: after cooking
ready for eating!

Lazy Today

I have a headache today and I'm feeling lazy, so this will be a little picture blog. Not so many words.

That's me in my Scottish outfit this summer.

The skirt weighs a ton, but isn't very hot. Built in air conditioning....

yeah but don't sit down on a patch of pine needles like I did!

Strange rash from that.

Going to the bathroom in a port-a-potty was also an interesting experience.

First of all, the skirt does NOT fit into the port-a-potty. So I had to pick up everything and peacock my way backwards into the toilet. Then, find a spare finger to shut the door.

Toilet paper? Forget about it! The skirts around my head and I'm trying not to pee on my ghillies (scottish soft shoes).

Ok Next Pic -

This is a pic with Zela, one of my chickens. I have 5 that a raised from day old chicks. They are the most amazing pets!

They love to cuddle and be held, they follow me around and even 'talk' to me.

And bonus! -they lay eggs!

I got 3 today. 1 small and 2 Med. They just started laying Dec. 31st.

The eggs taste soooo good. Not like store bought eggs at all. The white is fluffy and the yolk stays moist. Yum! Yum! All from my little pets.

This is a JUMBO size egg I got a couple days ago from one of the girls. It's huge!

Surgery Sucks

I am soooo tired. I had to work a morning shift today. Last night I got off work at 11pm, drove home 30 mins., and then got up again at 5am and to drive back to work.
Started the day off with a mammogram. Did an awsome job - as always - nobody gets more breast tissue on a film than me! I get chest wall everytime, on every film.

At 9am I went up to surgery. The first case was a foreign body removal and the second one was a gallbadder. Easy-peasy, 2 hours tops, Right? Wrong! I was in surg. for four hours!!

Four hours wearing about 20 lbs. of protective lead. apron, thyroid shield, ect. Plus the ever stylish blue hair net and yellow face mask.

The for. body was a kid that was burning garbage, someting exploded and hit him in the cheek. Dr. T. dug around and around in the boy's cheek for like hours. Seriously, if anything happens to my face I'm going to a cosmetic surgeon. No scars for me! Thanks very much.

They usually use a magnet to suck for. bodies out of incision sites. The magnet looks like metal toilet paper holder with a metal tip on either end. They stick the metal tip end into the flesh, squish it around a little bit and sometimes that's all it takes. The for. body sticks to the magnet and sclushp it's out.

But not today. It wasn't ferrous. So it wouldn't stick to the magnet. And it was stuck it a chunk of tissue, so Dr. T just had to dig it out manually.
My job in Surg. is pretty boring. I stand there and push the C-Arm in and out of the surgical site. When the Dr. says x-ray, I press a button and take an x-ray.

The gallbladder took forever, because the Dr., thinking it was an artery, clamped a duct off and then tried to inject contrast. "Hmmm, the contrast isn't going anywhere?" "Maybe it's the big stain-less steel clip you just clamped there."

Most of the time I really like Dr. T.
He's quiet and he doesn't swear at me.
A+ Dr.!!

Baby Steps

"A radiologic technologist (also called a radiographer ) is a person who uses ionizing radiation to create medical images of the body to help diagnose and treat illness and injury. "

I started working with radiation at the innocent age of 16. For someone with MD aspirations it was a great job. I developed films, positioned patients, did paper work, ect. Everything but actually take an x-ray. My job title was Radiology Aide and I earned 7.11 an hour! Wow. For a first job it was pretty sweet.
I'd started school at the local state university 6 months earlier, majoring in Pre-Med. However, after a couple months of working in a hospital with 100% real doctors, I changed my major. Doctors work long hours and they don't get any respect! They go to school for years and years and when they finally graduate they give up their lives (and sleep) to serve unappreciative patients (pts).
No way was I stupid enough to do that!
And nursing?
No. Much, much worse. Two words for you - Bed Pan.
I liked radiology. Clean (most of the time), artistic and low patient (pt) contact time.
'Hello pt. Doing your x-ray. Good-bye Pt! What? Your diaper is full? Oooo too bad. I'll find you a nurse.'
It's good to be x-ra(y)ted!