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Actual Overheard Conversation
2008-03-04 19:24:00
I walked into the tail-end of a conversation this morning at the nurses' station. I don't have any idea how it started. It was between one male doctor and about 4 female nurses.Doctor: I'd really rather have one experienced woman than 70 virgins.Nurse1: Not interested in the virgins, huh?Doctor: Well, it's not that I'm against virgins, it's just that they'd all probably be 15, 16 or 17 -- you know how crazy girls are at that age.Nurse2: Yeah, they'd probably be texting you all the time.Nurse3: Do you think I'm pretty?Nurse4: I'm outside your house right now.Nurse2: I'm thinking about you, are you thinking about me?Nurse1: Who was that girl you were with last night?Nurse4: Do you think I'm fat?I can kind of see his point.
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Rough Day
2008-02-27 11:06:00
I'm not saying that yesterday was a bad day...but...I had a new hospital administrator following me all day (working toward her requisite number of clinical observation hours) and my first patient was a (very nervous) prosecuting attorney. Needless to say, I charted my ass off.

Congratulations Diablo Cody!
2008-02-25 05:27:00
A blogger just won a fucking Oscar!
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Videos of Births are Scarier than Real Life Births
2008-02-24 20:02:00
I have to do a NRP (Neonatal Resuscitation Provider) recert on Wednesday. So, of course, this weekend? I'm cramming my ass off. This year I have the CD that comes with the book, which for some reason, makes cramming more fun. This morning, sitting on the couch next to Kenny (both of us on our laptops), I installed the CD for the first time. It has videos and stuff. The first video started with a normal vaginal delivery. I tilted the screen toward Kenny. Look, sweetie, that's what I do at work everyday. OH MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU WOULD JUST SHOW THAT TO ME WITH OUT EVEN WARNING ME THAT I WOULD BE LOOKING AT SOMETHING SO...OH MY GOD IS THAT A BABY? IT'S COMING OUT OF HER...OH MY GOD! IS SHE GOING TO LIVE? JESUS. I THINK I'M GONNA BE SICK...YOU LOOK AT THAT EVERYDAY?He jumped up of the couch and started to pace around the room muttering.I'm sorry, Kenny, I didn't think before I showed it to you. Are you ready for some breakfast? How about a nice soft-boiled egg w...
More About: Videos , Life , Real , Real Life

Oh, the Humanity
2008-02-22 05:50:00
I've been really enjoying reading some other nurse blogs lately -- both the blog entries and the comments. But I've been noticing something that disturbs me in a way that I'm not sure I can articulate. It has to do with the way people react when nurses bluntly tell the truth about how hard our jobs are. This post, that deals honestly and gently with some of the difficulties that arise when providing gynecological care to obese women, inspired some very heated comments. This post, which takes a very different tone, also inspired a lot of anger. I enjoyed both of them and, at the same time, I totally get why some readers are pissed (by the second one, anyway). It's hard to be a nurse. It's hard when you're expected to care more about a person's health than that person does. It sucks when you injure yourself moving an obese patient from the operating table to a stretcher. It is heartbreaking when you see a bad outcome that could have been avoided by better self care. It...
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Good People
2008-02-11 14:32:00
The other day I was taking care of a woman in preterm labor. She was Nigerian and the only person who came to see her was a sweet middle-aged Hispanic woman. My patient was 33 wks -- and by the time I got report on her it was pretty much a given that we weren't going to be able to stop her from delivering some time during my shift. She was scared, had apparently left all her family behind in Nigeria, and just had this one Hispanic friend. Now, I live in a very diverse community. We have a large Hispanic population, large Asian population, and a significant number of Nigerian (and other African) immigrants, Bosnians, and (since we are here in the shallow south) a fair number of hillbillies. Some of these communities are old enough, and well established enough, that they are starting to blend a bit. I saw my first Vietnamese/Mexican couple recently. And, for quite some time, we've been seeing large, blonde, white women with little bitty Mexican men. So, I didn't think anyt...
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When the Ambulance Comes...
2008-02-03 17:23:00
The other day I was driving somewhere to do something on my day off. While I was stopped at a red light, I watched an ambulance go through the intersection with its lights on and sirens blaring. And you know what the first thing that went through my mind was? Probably a big faker.When did I get so jaded? While I was at work, that's when. Sometimes it's necessary to come to L&D via ambulance. But not when...you are full term with your first baby and contracting every 25 minutesyou are scheduled for an induction (and your family is going to meet you at the hospital)you have a pink spot the size of a dime on your pantiesyou had a mild headache 3 days agoyou just remembered you have sickle cell trait (not disease...just trait)you are 24 weeks pregnant, have not started prenatal care yet, but you are really curious about the sex of the babyLately, because of some construction at my hospital, people have been mistaking L&D for the ER. When that happens, we have to send a ...
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Smells Like Vagina, and a Little Bit Like Potatoes
2008-01-24 20:31:00
The other day at work I only had one patient while everyone around me had two...Why? Because my patient had delivered her baby, but not her placenta -- and could end up being a surgical patient at any moment. She was a 23 week IUFD (Intrauterine Fetal Demise). Sometimes the placentas don't come out on their own and we have to go to the OR for a D&C.It was a busy day so I was floating around, watching patients while their nurses got theisr other patients an epidural or whatever.Several times I watched a certain patient for K. This patient had SROMed the previous morning -- at 36 wks gestational age. (SROM = spontaneous rupture of membranes) and was being induced. But her cervix had not changed, not at all. And she was pretty much a shoe-in for a C-Section, but her doctor was delivering babies and going to the OR with true emergencies all day, so she kept being put on the back burner.When a patient has been ruptured for a long time, the smell of amniotic fluid (which is not...
More About: Potatoes , Vagina

Be Careful Not to Dry Out Your Vagina!
2008-01-17 18:56:00
Suzanne's most recent post reminds me of when Kenny and I were dating. I really wanted to take a hot bath one night at his house, but his tub was really yacky looking. Those of you who know us might be surprised by this, because Kenny is really the better housekeeper of the two of us. But he was a showerer and, like most showerers, didn't necessarily scrub the tub out regularly -- although it did get some sort of cleaning on a regular basis. On the other hand, I am very messy, but scrub my tub till it shines on a regular basis (because I'm a bather more than a showerer.)Anyway.Do you have any comet? I asked him.No, but I just cleaned the bathroom from top to bottom a few days ago. That tub is just really stained. But I guarantee that it's clean. So I drew my bath and soaked in it for a good long time. As I was drying off, I happened to glance down into the now almost empty tub. And what did I see? A big white ass print from where my butt had apparently de-scummed his tub.
More About: Careful , Vagina

Surprise!
2008-01-17 16:34:00
I hate being on call. We alternate between taking 12 or 8 hours of call per month. I don't mind working my call, but I despise being at home waiting for that phone call to come. So, every once in a while, I sign up for 4 hours of call at the end of a 12 hour shift -- I like to see my old night shift peeps and I generally know as the day progresses what the odds are that I will be asked to stay. One day last week, I had a really busy day. I had a pretermer on mag and another pretermer with a partial abruption on observation. Although this could have been a really easy assignment on night shift (my former home), the perinatal specialists come to see the antepartums during the day and they can be pretty high maintenance. Add to this the fact that I don't know any of the specialists because they never, ever come at night. Not knowing docs (and being able to anticipate their needs) can be really exhausting. You end up running your ass off. At 6:30, I go up to the lounge to get ...

Just Thinking
2008-01-16 20:08:00
So, first of all, I called in sick to work today. And I feel guilty. I really am sick -- I've got some kind of stomach virus -- I'll spare you the gory details. I think I faked sick too much when I was a kid, or something -- I'm not sure I was ever actually sick as a kid -- but you'd never know that from how often I went to the nurse's office. I could be stroking out and I'd still feel guilty calling in sick.I wrote a post yesterday about an awesome birth that I was involved in and a doula, whose beautiful blog can be found here, left a comment that at first made me feel defensive, but then made me think.When I decided that I wanted to go into L&D, I really believed that the medical model of birth that prevails in this country was flawed. But then I started working in L&D. Many of my patients are not healthy. They have significant health problems that have either started during pregnancy or been exacerbated by the pregnancy. They are usually not interested in a...
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Going Natural
2008-01-16 03:43:00
So, today I had one patient all day long. She was being induced because her baby was past-due. To put it mildly, she didn't tolerate the vag exam. Hated it. It was really uncomfortable for her (not that its fun for anybody, but some people tolerate it better than others). She was planning on going natural because she was afraid of needles. This was her first baby.Whatever. When her doctor came by and checked her, he encouraged her to get an epidural because, well, the baby's head was going to be a lot bigger than two of his fingers...During one vag exam, the doc actually had to ask her to unclench so he could get his fingers out.I offered her an epidural several times. (I support people going natural, I really do. But I was really worried about her -- usually if you can't tolerate the exam, the delivery really sucks for you, ya know?) Right before shift change she was complete. She pushed through about 4 contractions before we had the baby. She never had an epidural and...
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Second Time Around
2008-01-14 16:02:00
The other morning I got report from T (a night shift nurse) on a patient. It was her second baby, no risk factors, she was a health care professional, yadda yadda. I looked over her chart and then went into her room to meet her. Hi, my name is Working Girl....Hey, her husband said, we had a Working Girl 3 years ago with our first baby....but I think she was a student...Ok, it was me and I wasn't a student, I was a "nurse resident." The thing was? I got her vag exam all wrong. I checked her after her epidural (before the epidural she had been 3 cm) and called her 3-4. But then she told me she was feeling pressure like she had to poop, so I called my preceptor in to check behind me. She was complete and ready to push!! What happened? One of two things. Either she changed really fast -- I now know that it does happen. OR...I had my fingers in the baby's scalp. (I think this is actually more likely) Checking a cervix used to be such a mystery to me.So, as I was standing t...
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did you want the cottage cheese or the pate?
2008-01-13 15:13:00
This was my first post. I wrote it while I was still in nursing school and posted it on my short-lived yahoo360 blog. I just found out that I'm going to have a senior student this semester...and it made me nostalgic for old times:Med/surg exam this afternoon! It is twenty minutes before test time and I am approaching the computer lab where the test will be administered. I got up at 2:oo this morning to cram some more nursing facts into my brain. I've had so much coffee that I've gone beyond the caffeine buzz into a strange, tired jumpiness. I enter the ladies room (because I'm a lady)."How much time did you spend studying gynecological topics?" My friend, J, is in the next stall and, apparently, can identify me by the unique sound of the flow of my urine."Not so much," I reply. Our Med/surg instructor has informed us that gynecological topics will be covered in more depth in our OB class next semester. "I'm much more worried about the renal stuff than the twat stuff.""...
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Vaginaromatherapy Revisited
2008-01-08 17:57:00
The other night I had to admit a stinky patient. She wasn't stinky in a stale "I never bathe kind of way," but rather in an "I worked hard all day and then accidently went in to labor before I could shower" kind of way. I didn't really have a problem with this. It isn't my favorite thing, but, what are you going to do? Her water broke, and she went right to the hospital -- just like her doctor told her to do. Then her husband and sister arrived. Apparently, they had also had hard days at work since they last got busy with some soap and water. This was definitely a bummer. The patient was a primip (first time mom) and this labor might take a while! She labored all night long, and when I left in the morning, she was nowhere near complete (ready to push). The the next night, I am assigned the same patient. She still hasn't delivered, and her doctor is starting to talk c-section. I go into the room to say hi, and am overwhelmed by the atmosphere. Twenty-four stressful hours ...

Daily Show Comes Back Tomorrow!!!!
2008-01-06 22:28:00
Tomorrow night, he'll be back! Until then, here's a little vintage Jon for ya.
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Baby Daddy Tips
2008-01-06 15:02:00
If you're a guy...and your significant other is having a baby...I'm going to give you some tips ok? Because, over the holidays, you guys fucking wore me out being stupid and not supportive of your partners. (Not all of you -- some of you were so awesome and loving that you made this jaded old nurse cry with joy that there are such good men in the world.)But, anyway...Don't bring your video game system to the hospital. You can not hook it up to the TV in her room. I will not help you with that. I mean, really, are you fucking kidding me? You want to play while she's in pain?When I wake you up in the morning to tell you that a room finally opened up on the mother baby unit and we need to move, please do not tell me to go ahead and take your wife up while you sleep for a couple more hours.Oh, and please do not continue to try to sleep while your wife, who pushed an 8lb baby out of her vagina a mere 4 hours ago, starts to pack up all of your belongings. She's got the day off...
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Xmas Tragedy: Catered by Gary and Dick
2007-12-14 14:32:00
The hostess had one of those idiotic, nonsensical nicknames that super-rich southerners give their ugly girl children -- in case they don't end up having any personality or talent. At least they'll have a quirky name. Buffins, Peekie, or Twinker...I can't exactly recall. She was watching us unload the brown van. Peekie, I think it was. Peekie was famous for her pet goldfish. They were kept, not in an aquarium, but in various old-fashioned looking round glass fishbowls.Gaaaaaary, she called out to Dick as he carried a silver punch bowl up the driveway, the guest list is up to 180! Isn't that grand? But what are we going to do about this heat? Nice time to tell us, bitch. We've just spent the last three days preparing food for 125. Sometimes, I almost felt bad for Gary and Dick. Gary had been raised with many of the people that we catered for -- but Dick was an outsider -- a Yankee. Neither of them had the kind of money our clients did -- but they kept up a facade of...
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Panties for Peace
2007-12-12 14:18:00
I've been thinking about peace a lot lately. Not just how to achieve personal peace in a crazy, crazy work environment, but peace in the world. Surprisingly, this blog and its site meter have given me insight into a powerful force for peace in the world -a force of which I had been previously unaware. Apparently, as a people we are united by a basic human interest -- an interest common to people in all corners of the globe.Panty Stories!From Santaquin, Utah to Cape Town, South Africa. From Tokyo to Tamil Nadu. From Dublin, Ireland to the Punjab. From Tehran to Tel Aviv! Everybody wants to read about the panties!
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Stadium Pal
2007-12-08 03:59:00
Tomorrow, I'll write a post...maybe...if I don't get called in to work...but tonight? Another video for your viewing pleasure (from my current hero, David Sedaris.)
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First Dance
2007-12-05 15:47:00
I can only hope that they come to my unit for their first baby!
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He's a Funny Uncle
2007-12-03 12:42:00
When my parents graduated from college, my mom from a big state U in the south, my dad from a lesser known SUNY, they each, independently and without having ever met each other, decided to take high school teaching jobs at the same military base on a Pacific island. They met, married, conceived a child, and then split up before I was born. My maternal grandparents were a wee bit miffed upon hearing that not only had their previously Southern Baptist daughter converted to Catholicism to marry a Yankee that they had never met, but now she was going to be a divorcee. Before Mom got back home to the South, my dad's younger brother, my Uncle Johnny, went on a high school graduation road trip with his best friend, Nick and their pet monkey. Johnny, Nick and the monkey stopped in at my maternal grandparent's home for about a week. Unfortunately, during this week the monkey was stricken with a rather violent intestinal bug and the only activity she found solace in was climbing to the ...
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The Dayshift Diaries
2007-11-30 15:30:00
I started working the day shift the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I slept, maybe, 4 hours the night before because 1) I was used to actually working at night, 2) I was nervous about working at a new time with new folks, 3) Dr. Monkey's bitch nurse never called in my Ambien prescription.Day 1My first patient? She belonged to a doctor that doesn't do very many deliveries with us. And in two years I had NEVER worked with this doc. So, it was totally like I had a new job! New time of day, new peeps, new provider. And what happened? This patient totally had to go to the OR. So, day 1? To the OR! I'm sure other things happened that day, but I can't remember what they were. Did I mention that I still hate the OR? Turns out I can only hear what you're saying if I can see your mouth -- and I can't see it through the mask...Day 2The day before Thanksgiving. This day was like nothing that I've ever seen. We had something like double the number of deliveries we usually have ...
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L&D vs Mother Baby: Round I
2007-11-14 12:16:00
Whenever one of my patients has a baby, I have roughly one hour to do about an hour and a half to two hour's worth of paper work and patient care. And then? My charge nurse wants that patient gone! Out of L&D and up to Mother Baby .I have to check your bleeding and fundus every fifteen minutes. I have to check the baby's heart rate and respirations every fifteen minutes. I have to show you how to breastfeed. I have monitor your bladder -- and either straight cath you (if you had an epidural) or get you up to pee. I have to clean you up, get you a new gown, and pad and panty you. I have to take out your epidural, get a key from my charge nurse to unlock the epidural pump, note the amount of fentanyl given and the amount wasted and send the tubing and the left over med back to the pharmacy. I have to fill out a delivery summary and send a copy to the nursery. I have to call the nursery to see if they have any questions. I have to clean the monitor parts and put them a...
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Big Big News
2007-11-10 15:48:00
I'm going to day shift! After 17 months of living a twilight existence in which the only time I felt alive was while I was hating life working in the middle of the night...I'm going to full time days! That would be three 12 hour shifts a week. Plus call. In preparation, I've been doing some required education things during the day:Every year, the hospital requires us to check off on certain skills. Regardless of what shift we work, we all have to do this checking off during the day -- on one of two days set aside for this activity. What skills do we get checked off on? Well...1) Pee buckets -- I'm not sure why we call this pee buckets...but basically we prove in front of supervisor that we have the dexterity to dip urine and the mental stamina to measure 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 60 seconds and 2 minutes. Oh...and then we have to match the colors on the dip sticks to the colors on the bottles. (I passed)2) Blood glucose checks. Basically, once you turn this machine on, it...
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L&D Is No Pica-nic
2007-10-26 23:28:00
One of the relatively new (new to our unit, not the medical profession) docs was hanging out at the nurses station the other night telling stories from her previous practice in another state.Apparently, one day she got a call from a new mom begging for the morning after pill.You just delivered a baby 4 days ago, Dr. N told her, you shouldn't be having sex.Oh, we didn't really have sex, the patient said, my husband did my armpit and it leaked down into my belly button...isn't that a direct line to my uterus?You're probably safe, Dr. N told her. And then she laughed and she laughed.Another time a patient called at 3 in the morning to tell her she had just bought and eaten an entire bag of sand from the hardware store. You probably want to get a box of those really nice, soft cleansing butt wipes, she told her, because you are in for a rough couple of days -- and please don't call me in the middle of the night to tell me you're eating sand. You know you aren't supposed to eat...
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Amnio-facial
2007-10-25 21:13:00
Every doctor suits up a little differently for a delivery. All wear gloves. Just about everybody wears a gown (unless they run in at the last minute), some wear knee-high leg booties, some wear thigh-high waders. Some wear surgical hats, some wear masks...a few wear goggles. And we keep a veritable PPE (personal protective equipment) smorgasbord in every delivery room. The point is this: The body fluids? Keep them off me!So the other night, when I called Dr. Q for delivery, I wasn't really sure (nor did I particularly care) how he would cover himself.) Dr. Q is usually pretty nice. Frankly, I don't see him all that much -- some docs just manage to not be around much at night. I might have called you a bit early, Dr. Q, but I just felt like it was time. I knew he would be suspicious because this first time mom had only pushed through two contractions. He looked a bit skeptical, but after he watched us push through one contraction, he started to suit up. After I tied his...
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Hot Topics in Nursing School
2007-10-18 22:58:00
A very hot topic in nursing these days is cultural sensitivity. I had to take a class on cross-cultural communication when I went back to nursing school. Did it matter that I held a BA in comparative religion and philosophy and had taken no fewer than 14 upper level classes focusing on non-western cultures? Nope. I still had to take this bullshit class taught by who else? A guy with a BA in comparative religion. Nice. Rarely has there been a stupider class.But the real kicker was the med/surg professor who was an advanced practice nurse (this requires an MS), and was just finishing up her PhD -- her doctoral focus had something to do with integrating the spiritual with medical care. Hmmm. I was cautiously optimistic about anticipating her first guest lecture to my Foundations of Nursing class. Let me just interject here that I went to nursing school in the shallow south where everyone is assumed to be Christian (and protestant). Religious tolerance in this part of the worl...
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Moonwalking in the Delivery Room
2007-10-17 23:22:00
Apparently I can write about the various implications of using certain euphemisms for vagina. It's AOK if I write about taking a shit shower or a stinky coochie. But what happens when I post one little animal turd photo? Google gives me the damned hurricane relief message instead of an ad. Ah, well. I guess I don't really care. I'm not exactly raking in the bucks here...I had a patient the other night who just couldn't get the hang of pushing. Instead of pushing through her bottom, she was pushing through her legs and feet. This is not only ineffective, but also a real pain for the people (me and her husband) who are holding your legs. Especially if, like this lady, you are freakishly strong. Now you may remember that I broke my foot this summer. Some of the side effects of the broken foot are A)all of my old shoes feel too tight on the once broken foot, and B)an oldladyish desire to protect said previously broken foot by buying ridiculously expensive and ugly footwe...
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Whodunit?
2007-10-16 12:11:00
The Usual Suspects:The Crime:
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