Busy Beavers

The ER has been busy this morning.  My first break into my 12 hour shift has occurred at precisely 6.5 hours into the shift.  Haven't sat down until now.  Not to bad actually.  We shall see what the rest of the day holds when I walk back out the doors into the mayhem.  

Paranoid Much?

My CNO followed me around on and off for a few hours today. Listened to me talking to patients, watched my technique on quite a few things.

Wonder what the stars hold for me now.

Key Music.....................

I always feel like
Somebody's watchin' me....

Oh! To Be Restrained!

Remember when you were in high school and some group came in and put on one of those classes about car wrecks and tried to scare you into submission regarding wearing your seatbelt and following traffic laws to keep you safe? Yeah?

Well, that's me now.

I do a class every quarter for our local court system called Trauma Nurses Talk Tough. It was originally founded and developed by a group of nurses at my former workplace - Legacy Emanuel Hospital in Portland, Oregon. It's an amazing program. The studies/analysis/review on it have shown that it truly does make an impact on some of the kiddos that go through it. There are different programs designed for each age group of kids ranging from Kindergarten through Senior Year. It also has specifically arranged classes for high risk drivers, seatbelt violaters, etc.

One of the main points I hit on in the older age groups is wearing your seatbelt properly. So many people do not know how to properly wear a seatbelt. They think if you just have it clicked and somewhat arranged over the front of your body, then all is well.

You people are wrong!

A guy I took care of in the ER once told me he never wears a seatbelt because "Dude, they cause more harm than they prevent. My buddy broke his back wearing a seatbelt and now I don't wear one. I don't want my damn back broken."

Let us discuss.......

Improperly worn seatbelts cause injuries. Improperly worn.........dude.

Officer Smith also talks about this on a recent blog post of his. It is not OK to put the shoulder portion of the belt under your arm or behind your back. It's not fun for a person to deal with the effects of broken ribs, a pneumothorax, lacerated liver, lacerated spleen, ruptured bowel, broken back, etc. These are just a few of the injuries you can receive from wearing your seatbelt improperly.

Another important point: Do not sleep with your head against the seatbelt and do not recline your seat and sleep in a car. Reclining seats are stupid. Shall I repeat this for my hard of hearing readers? Reclining your seat in a car is STUPID! I don't know why car manufacturers even give us the ability to recline. If you are reclining in your seat and have your seatbelt on, you can slip UNDER the seat belt in a crash and have horrible injuries from this (or even dun, dun, dun.......die). You can also get your head caught up in the seat belt in this position (and also when you are sleeping, laying your head against the seatbelt) and have a neck fracture resulting in paralysis.

This my friends, is not fun.

If the lap belt is not properly positioned you can also have major injuries. Many people like to wear it up over their belly. This is a big No No! Abdominal injuries, paralysis, and groin lacerations - oh my! The lap belt should be properly positioned across your hips. If you are pregnant, then under your belly and across your hips/pelvis area.

They have also found that kids raised in a rural environment are more likely to fall asleep at the wheel when they hit driving age. Why, you ask? Funny you should ask that, because I happen to have the answer. Amazing how life works, isn't it?

Rural families often drive long distances to get anywhere. Ask me how I know this......Our town is 2 hours from anywhere. So back to the topic......Rural families often drive foreeeeeeeever to get to their next destination. Mom and Pop encourage the kiddos to "take a little nap" during the drive. Thus, kids learn at a young age to sleep in a car and become accustomed to that. They think this leads to the body being more apt to fall asleep at the wheel because it is not trained to maintain alertness when driving. Kinda weird how things work, huh?

So sit upright, make sure you are alert, seatbelt properly across your shoulder, lap belt properly across your hips and you have a much better chance of not receiving injuries in a crash.

Oh and one more thing! 10 and 2 o'clock hand position no longer applies. Try 9 and 3 o'clock. The former position is shown to have more injuries now related from the expelling of the gas with airbags. Burns and fractures of hands/wrists. Reeducate yourselves to the 9 and 3 position to decrease those injuries.

OK Class.......Lecture over. There will be pop quiz on this. Get out your papers and pens.

I'm Twitterpated

I've taken up Twittering.

"What's that," you ask?

Well let me tell you. Apparently it is a site where we all feel so important we will update our dear readers on our status at any .....minute......of.....the......day. Yes, my dear readers, I am now on Twitter.

It's slightly addicting actually. Logging on every couple of hours and seeing what all my "friends" are up to. Cracking up over their antics and adventures. I'm amazed that in only 160 characters someone can convey so much. Technology sure has changed the world as we know it, eh?

So if you'd like to follow me on Twitter, HERE I AM

Now calm down! Let's not all rush over there all at once and bombard the site. All my millions of readers (snort) may crash Twitter and I'll be sued and lose my house - then thrown in jail because I'll have to rob a convenience store to pay for food for my children. Next thing you'll hear about ER RN is how she's lost her mind and is sitting in the corner of a padded cell drooling and calling out "twitter, twitter......twitter, twitter.....ruin, ruin.....twitter, twitter."

So let's not do that to me, OK? I highly value my sanity.

Sometimes.

Oh Pish Posh Applesauce

What a whiner! I re-read my last post and even I thought I was a big ole' crybaby. Buck up Julie! Toughen up and quit crying in your beer. I get irritated with people at work when they verbalize shit like that, and look at me - I did the same.

Well bend me over and whack my fanny with a wet noodle.

Wait, maybe I should save that one for my man. It could be fun.......right? NOT THAT I'M COMPARING YOUR WILLY TO A WET NOODLE DAVID! Seriously. Truly. I'm not. Um hmm. Nope, not at all.

I was slammed in the ER on Saturday. Lot's of little things, nothing really big or eventful which is surprising for a holiday weekend. Didn't even have a wreck until this evening. Weird, isn't it? Is the moon traveling out on a different track or something? Spinning a bit off course? Who knows. But apparently the man in the moon isn't talkin'.

My man is gone for the weekend, water skiing without me. Can you believe the gall of that man? He leaves me behind and goes and has fun in the water without me?!? Pashaw I say. Pashaw.

Of course, it COULDN'T have had anything to do with the fact that I had to work all weekend. Nah...... couldn't be that.

Ramblings....

I worked on Mother's Day and we were busy as hell. Truly though, is hell busy? Are they all down there slaving away and constantly busy? Or is it just sluggish monotonous work? Hopefully I won't find out, though I'm heading down a path that will probably take me there.

12:23 PM the firestorm started, and it never stopped. When I left they were still filing through the door, limping with their broken limbs or clutching their chests. We were 2 nurses short and one of the nurses that was there felt it was her job to sit on her ass doing nothing. Now THAT's always a good time right there.

We're losing a couple of our nurses over the next few months but our manager doesn't know it yet. It will be interesting to see how our staffing shapes up by September. These are good nurses too and they will be sorely missed.

We're receiving email after email telling us that we need to change this or that, changing policies, implementing new QI measurements, etc. It would be great to have one week - just one week - with zero changes and zero emails telling us we suck. It would be great to hear "WAY TO GO GUYS!" every so often. I wonder what other careers there are where you get to go to work everyday and get beaten down? Hmmmm....... Anyone?

I still love my job though. I love working in the ER and I love taking care of patients. It is such a rewarding field in that aspect. I love learning about people and finding out where they come from related to life lessons.
Maybe I just need a vacation. Sign me up!

I am a blogging loser

Yes I know.


You don't have to say it.





Sigh..............................

Simple Thoughts From A Simple Mind

If you are a veterinarian, do not tell me you are a medical doctor when your son is a patient in my ER.

Dude.

Seriously.

I'm not stupid and I WILL figure it out. Rather quickly too.


(Nothing against veterinarians here. Don't get your panties in a twist.)



NEXT!


If you have admittedly stolen funds from your place of employment and then you are magically promoted............. you gotta be blowin' somebody.

Just sayin'.

The Boys in Blue

I found a new blog when I was surfing around tonight. Actually, I found a few new ones. I'm having a lot of fun reading the police blogs and looking at things from their point of view (which is often shared by little ol' me).

One of the blog posts caught my eye. The officer at Cop 'n Attitude wrote about Ticketing Doctors and Nurses. I must say that I am thoroughly embarrassed to be associated with the people in this story. They were complete and total assholes.

That being said, I must admit my downfall. I am a speeder. Oh how I love to push that gas pedal down to the floor. 50 in a35? Not a problem for me. It is a problem for the local boys in blue though. I constantly get appropriate lectures from them when they are in the ER (and they are the BEST smart asses in the world, better than me which is a near impossible feat). I've been pulled over by a few of them, getting put through the verbal wringer, and they are right - every time. I'm trying to do better, I truly am. It's a hard habit to break though.

But I must say with 100% conviction, I have NEVER used my position to get out of a ticket. Never. My father is an officer (the Chief in fact), my ex was an officer, one of my best friends is an officer. I know the shit they have to deal with. I know how people can be complete and total jerks. I also know that being nice and respectable goes a long way.

Honestly though, many of us medical professionals do get a "PASS" from Law Enforcement. Living in a small town we get it more often. Do we deserve it? Not really......... but we're all a team. Is that an excuse? No. It just is what it is. We all see each other quite often carrying out the duties of our jobs and that develops into a relationship that is truly unique.

We see them bringing in an out of control schizophrenic who has been threatening people on the street. We see them helping us restrain someone who is trying to harm themselves or others. We see them with broken hands, broken ankles, or God-forbid - Gunshot wounds. They see us dripping with sweat trying to resuscitate the 10 year old who was ejected from the car during the rollover. They see us telling wives that their husbands didn't survive the wreck even though we did everything we could. They see us helping out their buddies when they've been injured.

We all see that we share the same sense of humor to deal with the horrors and stress of our jobs.
And they take the doughnut jokes really well, too.

Seriously, Dude......Don't

For all of you out there who want to know when you should go to the ER, let me help you out.

You should go to the ER when................






You are dying.



Or close to it.










DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT come to the ER for the following (or the nurse and the physician will not only think you are an idiot, but also bitch about how it is single handedly your fault that the medical system is in the shambles it is in):

1. Runny nose that just started this morning.
2. Fever that just started this morning.
3. Cough that just started this morning.
4. In fact, any cold symptoms at all - just wait it out. Seriously. We're not going to help you.
5. The flu - stay away. You're going to contaminate everyone else and there is nothing we can do for you.
   
6. A tiny little scratch on your finger
7. A tiny little cut on your finger (ever heard of applying pressure? And by pressure I mean actually pressing down on the area for more than 10 seconds)
8. Back pain you've been having for a few weeks. GO TO YOUR CLINIC DOCTOR.
9. A cough you've had for a few weeks.
10. Anything that has lasted for a few weeks - GO TO YOUR CLINIC DOCTOR. It is obviously NOT an emergency since you've lived through it for the last 21 days.
11. Your 2 year old that is pulling on his ear on a Wednesday night. Wait until the morning and go to your clinic doctor. Tylenol - it's a good thing.
12. Your 2 year old with a rash which he's had for a few days. Or even a rash he's had for a few hours. It......can.....wait.
13. Ankle pain after falling off a porch and twisting the darn thing. If you can walk in, you don't need to be seen.

I know there are plenty more, that's just a few from my last day at work. I constantly shake my head in wonder at the very idea that people think they need to come to the ER for these things.

And before all you people start jumping on me about the .0000005% rare instances of some wild and crazy disease or near fatal instance of your child/niece/nephew/brother/sister/husband/mother/
father/dog/cat/parokeet in the above scenarios - just know this............ we're not gonna catch those either. And if we do, it's plainly a miracle from God.

Scrubalicious

So the powers that be finally decided we can have a little variety in our scrubs at work. By variety, I mean same color - but different companies. So even though that may not seem like much of a choice, it's all the freedom in the world to those of us who have been stuck in a repressive sea of green for 5 years.

I think I'll shop HERE. Scrubs Gallery dot com. New sponsor and some pretty good prices to boot.

Now off to find some more green scrubs.