Dumb doctor.

So I am in the ER. Doc wants a blood gas but SHE wants to draw it. Okay dokay. I give her a syringe. I stand by and watch while she farts around forever digging in this nice gentleman's arm. Finally she gets blood - DARK blood that doesn't pump up well. "Hmm," I say, " I think you may have gotten venous". "No I don't" she almost screams at me. I'm thinking Yeah right, okay, I will run it and we'll see. Yep sure enough. Venous results. Textbook venous results. I show them to her and before I can speak she says "OMG this man has a PE. We need to intubate and......" I am standing in a time warp thinking "What? Are you a freaking idiot? How am I going to tell idiot here, these are venous?"

Luckily doc number 2 walks up, looks at the results, says "Those are venous". Idiot Doc looks at me and says. "Yeah - these are venous you'll have to draw them again." Imiiplicating I screwed up.

Right- I'll draw them. And I'll get arterial you jackass.

I watched "Martian Child" on dvd. LOVED it! It was fabulous. M#1s watched the first part with me and thought the kid was really from mars. Apparantly m#1s is not much in to thought provoking movies.

Jumping the gun there.

So we had an interesting occurance yesterday. We had a lady flown to us who had apparantly fallen off a stool at a slot machine. Massive head bleed. (Okay that's not the interesting part). She was basically PBAB (that pine box at bedside).
The organ revovery folks, the aggressive little critters that they are, called the patients son, IN ANOTHER FREAKING COUNTRY, and asked if he would consider donation of her body. The son, a physician himself was understandably upset since the attending doc had not called to tell him of his mothers demise - since we weren't sure she WAS brain dead yet.

Next day we do apnea tests and all the neurological brain death criteria and yep she's brain dead all right. But it kind of freaked me out that organ grubbers were so concerned about harvesting that they kind of skipped over several steps. Like making sure the family knew she was dead.

The attending was quite upset about the whole thing in rounds. I said "kind of reminds you of a Monty Python sketch doesn't it?" and I launched into "Bring out your dead. bring out your dead - I'm not dead yet" Thee doc looks at me. And busts out in the biggest roar of laughter I have ever heard out of him. Good thing.

And I could have gone to Hawaii.....

So MH (my husband) and I decide we need a little family trip. A little family trip. Yep. So M#1S (My number one son - yeah I only have one but I call him that anyway) is not happy but we cajole him into it. Now my family doesn't take vacations like Disneyland or New York. We take little local trips generally to the mountains. MH likes mountains and he can't travel far. So MH and I find this theoritical dude ranch on line with sweet little cabins tucked into the big piney Uintah mountains (that's Utah folks). It looks beautiful and scenic and cool and quiet. There is even a cafe on the ranch so I don't have to do the cooking. Nice. We book it. More cajoling for M#1S and we are ready.

At work though, a friend of mine tells me she has booked a condo on Maui for a week and if I get a plane ticket I can come stay in her condo for free! Free. Hmmm. I have the money (thank you US government), I have a week off from work (thank God - and I mean that literally not as profanity), but I also have the family trip planned. Yep. Family trip. Family ALWAYS comes first with me. ALWAYS. (Besides M#1s won't be home that much longer) so bye bye Hawaii hello Hanna Utah.

We drive and drive and drive and drive and finally get to said theoritical "dude ranch". Theoritcal being the optimum word. I hang out in the dude ranch bar/office while this woman goes and tells another family she has inadvertantly given them our cabin and they should be in the deluxe cabin. They don't want to switch so we get the "deluxe" cabin. Now I don't know what their version of deluxe but this sure as hell ain't even close. She gives me a key the size of a postage stamp - I am not kidding.

We drive up to find our cabin. and you cannot believe this place. There is no sweet little cabins tucked into big pines. There are crap little cabins nearly butted up against each other in a small circle - the circle being pretty much tucked into a white trash trailer park (no I am still not kidding). The scenery in the middle of this circle is a line of garbage cans overflowing with trash and flies - and oddly enough a large sign proclaiming this to be bear country. (Maybe this is an announcement to the bears - as this looks like a freaking bear buffet).

We open the lock on the cabin - the lock is also the size of a postage stamp. M#1S says - looking at the lock "Well- I feel safe". We walk into our "deluxe" cabin. It is 100% plywood. No paint No real walls - just plywood. (Unless you count the graffitti as paint) and 2 teeny tiny windows. The floor is filthy. The beds are encased in the same plastic we use for body bags at work - and filthy. No way I am even sitting on one of these beds, let alone sleeping on one. There is one circa 1940's sofa with several tears, worn spots and stains. If this is deluxe what the hell are the bottom of the line cabins like?

M#1S - who abhors profanity, looks around and says "I am not staying in this shit hole". Out the front door and through the garbage dump there is screeching and yelling. One of the cabins on that side is occupied by a mutant family. There are 10 to 12 people sitting around an empty fire pit (It is 83 degrees). This group , obviously a product of serious inbreeding, are all commanded by a 400 pound she slug who seems to sit her rather large rear end in a rather small folding camp chair and screeches commands to anyone in sight.

Yeah - we turned around, turned in the key, took a loss and found somewhere else to stay. We found rooms above a cafe in Tabiona. They were clean and quiet and comfortable. We did go up into the Uintah's caught some fish, bonded, had some fun .... but dammit.... I gave up Hawaii for this !!!!!!

This has been how my weekend at work has been.

With apologies and really a lot of thanx from fathairybastard.blogspot.com

Guess what I ate?

So I saw my daughter and her husband last night. They are spending the night at our house but I work so I won't see them today. (they live and go to college in a small town 2 hours north of us).

We wanted a treat so my lovely dark eyed daughter and I went to Albertsons picked up ice cream, whip cream, hot fudge, and brownies. Then we made huge BROWNIE SUNDAE'S!
(love it- love it - love it).

Now I am at work misssing my lovely dark eyed daughter and my sweet baby boy (okay he's really a teenager and he hates it when I call him that), and my husband.

I am in one of the units I really enjoy working in but yesterday and today I have been getting creamed. My illustrious supervisor (yeah - that's facetious - he's a jerkwad) gave me twice the list yesterday that anyone else had AND a first year student. I felt so bad for her. I couldn't teach her a damn thing I was trying so hard to keep my head above water. by afternoon I pretty much turned over care of one of my vent patients to her as this pt was already brain dead so I figured she couldn't kill her anyway. (this was after I was comfortable she could do a vent check, a treatment in line, and suction). I KNOW it's against policy but what was I supposed to do? It's not like my jerkwad supervisor would get off his illustrious ass and get up here and help.

I am so beat today. I am struggling to get through the shift. Good thing the floor stock kitchen has unlimited supply of Coke. If I can just get through today though - I am going on vacation!!!! Yippee skippee!

More about me

I am a Respiratory therapist. I have been for a long time now. I came from a smaller hospital to this hospital so freakin' big it has it's own zip code. I generally hate it here but I have too many years with the company to split now. So I spend my time thinking of new businesses to start to make a crapload of money so I could get out of here. That and messing around alot on the internet.

Which is another odd thing. We have mandatory overtime here. But even on overtime I seem to have plenty of time to surf the web, start a new blog, etc. which makes me wonder - if I am not busy - and no one else wants help - which suggests that they are not busy either - why the hell am I here?

But the problems in my department - and they are many ..... that's another post.

This is fun!

It is soooo cool to see your stuff in print on the web! (I know I am such a dweeb.) An hour ago I was a little down. Now I am starting to get giddy!

oh yeah - wordspell

What a concept. Perhaps I should have use it on the first post.

Why I did it.

I so feel the need to have a place to express all the things I feel. I cannot be very vocal at work. (I work at a big freakin' hospital- with big freakin' rules - a big freakin' staff and not an ounce of humor in the whole place. I cannot e very vocal at home. I am married to a sick guy who has been sick so long it's probably scewed his perception of reality.

When I was young (a bizillion years ago) I wrote. And I wrote okay. I even won a couple of awards. I have not been able to write when I tried it lately. The words are stifiled and stuttery. They no longer flow.

This is really not intended to be a blog for anyone but me. I don't care if anyone reads it. It is meant to be therapy for me. maybe in the future I will release it for others