PSA

Thank you for the well wishes! I'm really excited, and will become a bit more bearable once the novelty wears off. For now, though, I'm trying to pin down the major things- dress, flowers, cake. Location, colors, and bridesmaids (dresses and who) are in my head, though nothing is going down officially yet. (Other than location. That's been set for a while.)

Anyway, in the spirit of keeping you, my loyal readers alive, I have a special public service announcement from P.

If you drink, P beseeches you, do not walk. And if you must walk, for the love of all that is holy, avoid stairs, and stair-like inclines at all costs. In an eight hour shift in the emergency room he saw not one, not two, but three trauma codes tonight as a result of drunk stairwalking. The tragedy that is man v. stairs can strike at any time, and at any age, but is most likely to result in injury when alcohol is involved.

Please, take P's advice. Don't walk drunk. If you must drink, do it lying down. They make bendy straws which will serve you well, and cost pennies per dozen. Upstairs bathroom, downstairs margarita maker? Invest in Depends, or a good foley catheter. A little UTI or public embarassment is a small price to pay to avoid a traumatic brain injury...

Ah, sweet vacation.

We're back. Had a wonderful time, for more reasons than would be apparent. First up- the place we stayed, the Valley View Cabin. LOVE IT. Coming back to it next year. Adored it. Worth every single penny. Worth not having to hike to go pee. Worth being able to make real food on a real stove. Worth being able to sit on the porch and drink coffee. Worth being able to sit on the screened porch at night and have a glass of wine. Worth sleeping in a real bed. Worth a real, hot shower. Worth being able to wash clothes before I left. WORTH IT. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it.


Here's a picture, not taken by me, of my favorite place to sit and read, Corn Mill Shoals. Why didn't I take a picture? Because we forgot our camera again this year. (Two years out of three, smart, eh?) This year I learned to pee in the woods. I also learned to watch for snakes, because they're everydarnedwhere...


My favorite place to eat, other than the porch, was and always will be Hawg Wild. Kickass Eastern Barbeque, sweet tea that I'd actually DREAM about, and awesome servers. Plus, great ice cream, right across the street. Can't beat it. We usually eat there twice when we come. (And if you just happen to have some leftover eastern barbeque, and a bit of onion around, and maybe some great northern beans... you can make some bbq hash, and whip an egg on it. Mighty tasty breakfast...)



And my favorite place of all...


Picture it in the sunshine, with lots of green trees and laurels (and snakes!) about, and a brand spankin' new dock. This is Lake Julia, where P and I got engaged on Tuesday as the sun set.
Best. Vacation. Ever.

A Walk To Beautiful

I don't normally cry during TV shows. I also don't feel compelled to tell people to run out and buy copies of them, either. Call tonight a red-letter night. What so compelled me? Nova's A Walk To Beautiful. It's the story of three Ethiopian women with obstetrical fistulas, who find hope and renewal at the Addis Abba Fistula Hospital.

I'm not kidding. Find it. Buy it. Watch it. I dare you to not cry with these women. They were treated like animals in their villages, and to see them not only learn that they're not the only ones out there with this problem- but that they can be fixed- it's incredible. I want to pack up and work for that hospital. It's incredible.

There really are good people out there in the world.

Dear Upstairs Neighbors,

Congratulations on being early risers and liking country music. If I weren't on vacation I'd probably come upstairs and beat you senseless (which shouldn't take very long, you're already pretty much there). Playing "Her Achy-Breaky Heart Thinks My Tractor's Sexy So Her Dog Done Left Me" (Remix) at jet engine decibels at 0700 is not endearing.

In fact, it's pretty much likely to wreck the dream I'm having 'bout freakish flying crustaceans in my elementary school, where I'm drawing blood on patients in classrooms, and I'm going to be more than a little pissed about it. (After all, I was just about to go into my first grade classroom for the first time in about 25 years...)

Hate you, hate everything about you.

Sauce.

PS- I'm willing to bet that the note the landlords left on the front door a week and a half ago, about the A/C guys coming the week of the 9th will STILL BE UP when I get back next weekend. Why? Because I'm the only one who ever takes care of that shit. See also: the lights in the hallways have been burned out for 3 months, because I am sick of being the only one who ever calls in for shit.

This is what happens when you don't have cable.

You find yourself setting ant baits at 10:00 on a Wednesday night, and watching the little bastards explore them, while muttering "die you little fuckers, die."

I should probably get a hobby.

Only one more day till I can dig into my vacation reading! It's been so hard holding on to it since April! I haven't even peeped into the bag ONCE! (In fact, I've added 2, well- one and a half- books to it since then, too!) Though, technically, I won't get to read on either Friday, because we'll be driving... Darn.

ANTS!

And I don't mean the cute little movie. I'm talking little crawly bastards. They've invaded my living room, and I'm none too pleased. I've figured out their main hiding place, and tomorrow, I'm stocking up on raid and ant traps. So far they haven't discovered that the good shit's in the kitchen, and I aim to keep it that way. I also figure that if the mold in the building hasn't killed me, the chemicals in the bug spray shouldn't be much worse.

On a brighter note, my vacation started exactly 50 minutes ago. Yay me.

Ever have one of those mornings where you wake up and decide "I need to cut off all my hair, and I need to do it right bloody well now"? I had one of those mornings today. And I did cut pretty much most of my hair off. And it looks pretty swell, if I do say so myself. (Just sayin'.) Much easier to deal with.

And awesome, my neighbors across the street are screaming at each other... will we need to call the cops?

Thank you, modern medicine.

Well. After two weeks of screeching brain pain, and not doing anything wrong (or at least the "wrong" not correlating with the screeching) I'm back on Topamax. And let me just say that I forgot how wonderful you can sleep with that stuff! Of course, it completely shuts out Gin as an option (as if it really was one in the first place, unfortunately), but hey. No screeching migraine, two solid nights sleep, and I am one happy camper.

The raging PMS feeling aside, this is a fabulous development.

More wonderful things:

The television show "Dexter," which I had put into my Netflix queue on a whim a while back. Entertaining and demented. Plus I finally found something P will watch with just as much enthusiasm as I do.

The UC at work who was leaving. Then she wasn't. Then she gave her notice. Now she might be staying every other weekend again. STOP GETTING MY HOPES UP. Do you know how much I am looking forward to a typing job for the next two years, instead of a wiping job? yeah! So figure your shit out, so I don't have to be in limbo!

Vacation! One more shift, and I am off for ten entire days. And next year *I* get to pick where we go. I'm gunning for something interesting IN STATE so we don't have to sell our kidneys and drive for ten effin' hours to get where we're going. (Where we go is lovely, but my ass is not made of concrete.) I'm thinkin' a pedal/paddle tour where you can mountain bike and whitewater raft/kayak... so we can BOTH do something fun and active. (Just because I don't do hills doesn't mean I don't like the idea of doing something active either...)

Anyway... maybe this is the year for something sparkly?

Photos to come.

Ah yes.

First off, this is Stinkerbelle. I want to stick her in my pocket and take her home with me. Unfortunately, I think my mother would probably shoot me, becausethe cat is far cuter than I am.

Not much else to say. Her cuteness overwhelms. She's dashing around the living room as I type, and being Elvis's shadow. Heh.

Seven days till vacation!

P.S.

This whole "Going to bed around 12:30-1:00 AM and getting up by 7 AM" thing is insane, ridiculous, and really, thoroughly starting to piss me off beyond belief.

I never have had an easy time of sleeping through the night, Benadryl will sometimes help, and I've been taking melatonin recently. Unfortunately, they simply cut down the number of times I wake up (say from 5 to 3) and I STILL wake up at the ass-crack of dawn.

"But Sauce," you say. "Why do I care?" Because it's turning me into an evil, angry person (even moreso than usual), it's seriously fucking with the amount of sleep I get, which is causing crazy-ass headaches, and I want to do nothing during the day but take a big, giant, nap. I've tried no caffeine, I've tried caffeine only in the mornings, I don't do anything excessively stimulating before I go to bed, I even try to avoid the laptop and telephone. I have a small snack, nothing too heinous before I sleep (So it's not hunger that's waking me up). I even tend to sleep in earplugs, to shut out the noises of the clydesdales upstairs...

AUGH...

suggestions anyone??

Ah... Work.

Friday night a patient was found unresponsive somewhere out in the real world. Upon arrival, the pt's Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) was .6something. For perspective: .08 is legally drunk. .4 is generally incompatible with life. .6? That's really, really effing drunk. Really drunk. So drunk that you'll not realize they're intubating you, and you won't need restraints, because you'll be unconscious without benefit of propafol.

Oh. the pt left Saturday afternoon after sobering up. (Apparently this wasn't the pt's first time to the land of "You should really be dead, now." I imagine we'll see him within a year or two for liver failure...)

We got a patient that I'm going to dub "Mikey" in homage to the "Mikey from the life cereal box died because he ate pop rocks and a Coke." Anyway. Mikey saw a domestic disturbance, and thought it would be wise to dash across a busy throughfare to break it up. Mikey didn't know the individuals in the domestic, but Mikey thought it would be good to help. Unfortunately, all Mikey got for his efforts was to be hit by a car.

Oh, I should also mention that Mikey has the same name and approximate age as a very popular, very kind staff educator. And Mikey got run over right near our satellite parking lot. Needless to say, there were some seriously wild rumors going 'round that Mikey was indeed our employee, and that Mikey died. (Neither of which were true, as Mikey was up on our floor yesterday.) I think it would have been great if the educator would have brought Mikey from the unit he was on... that would do well to squelch the "I thought you were dead!" rumors...


Also, a little note to the 3rd shift, troweled on makeup-ed, perfume bathin', biznatch UC,

What part of "I just covered the desk for about 40 minutes because the evening shift UC had an emergency and needed to leave," was incomprehensible to you? I gave you a brief report, and then went right back to packing up a patient for transport, catching up vital signs that I couldn't do while I was at the desk, and doing the monitors. Not only did I not even SEE the nurse's notes for tomorrow sitting there, but I didn't have time to put them around anyway, as we got nothing but admit/tx pages that entire half hour. Do NOT bitch at me. Here's an idea... how 'bout you put 'em in when you round up the charts for forever and a day?

Loosen up your French braid, it's obviously cutting off the circulation to your "smarts" and "Makeup application" centers.

An irritated sauce, who changed job gears no fewer than 4 times last night.


(Seriously- we had 3 aides, no wait, one didn't show up yet- you ahve two. Oh, you have 3 because they're on their way. No wait, one of you has to sit till 7, oh, there's an emergency and you need to cover desk for a bit, Oh, you need to do hinty billion things before you go tonight, thankx...)

More Stories

So I'm now in the second of 2 well-earned days off this week. My aunt and uncle are in town, and we're having a blast. We went to quilt shops yesterday, and my dear, sainted mother picked up sock monkey print flannel (sort of like this) to make me a rag quilt (which I think I'm smart enuff to help with). I love the one my aunt made me, but it's just a smidge too short for good snuggling. (And the monkey one? I won't have to share.)

Anyway. That means I had 4 days worth of stories to tell.

#1. Wear. Your damn. Helmet. I can't say it often enough. And if you're too stupid to wear a helmet, at least sign an organ donor card, and carry it with you. Mhmkay?

That said: Dear doctors, when the nurse asks you for a shitload of Haldol, it's probably for a really good reason. Giving her a microscopic amount to give a patient that's been yelling, screaming, moaning, attempting to climb out of bed, (succceding at climbing out of bed), and pulling down everything within arm's reach, THEN telling her it's ok to put on restraints too, if she feels it's necessary, is a recipe for disaster.

Not only will the patient continue to scream and disturb everyone around them, they'll do it LOUDER, and continually ask for a "knife to cut these damn things off!" because you haven't sedated the patient, you've just totally pissed them off.

I swear, I heard that woman in my sleep.

Also: I realize that "hospital" and "Hilton" or "Hotel" sound very similar. In fact, they both begin with the letter "H." Neat, huh? However, the hospital is NOT a hotel. We will not "Get [you] a fucking milkshake," we rather get irritated when you decide to wander the halls without your heart monitor, dripping blood from your nose. We will "take away [your] fucking cell phone" too, if we have to. You've got a phone in your room. USE it. Oh, and if I was your nurse, I wouldn't have pleaded with you the 5 times you tried to leave AMA. I'd have just let you leave, and let YOU figure out how to get the nasal foley out.

Needless to say, there was much rejoicing when this jackass got transferred to another floor.

Side note: Little old ladies, I don't care if you "feel FINE", your doctor obviously thought that 245/120 blood pressure was a bit of a risk factor, and that perhaps uncontrolled atrial fibrillation was also not a good thing. Do not bitch at me because you're in the hospital. Do not bitch at me because we won't be letting you out of bed for a little while. Believe it or not, you ARE sick. That dude in the white coat with the shitload of education might know a little more than you do about your ticker, okay? If I let you run laps around the hallway, you're liable to keel over and die. Not on my watch, grandma.

And once again, I think it's awesome that you have a really great extended family. Your culture really encourages everyone to look out for each other. That's really cool, and sometimes I'm a little envious. However, your loved one lost his best friend, and his leg not too long ago- he's still on a critical care floor, and we have some rules. Namely, TWO of you (or dos, if you prefer) in the room at a time. Two does not equal six. (Dos y seis no estan similar.) Do not make us call security every shift, like the last unit did.

PS- if your family members hands are restrained, that's probably for a reason. If you untie them and he pulls out his NG tube, the nurse is going to want to strangle you with it. (And I'll probably watch and laugh.)