June 2011
7 posts
BOTTOM LINE, WE ARE A TEAM
Sometimes the weirdest stuff comes up that makes you remember what is really important. Usually all of us, doctor, nurse, phlebotomist, EMT, intern, administrator or crazy woman that drives the autovac, are too busy working to remember that we are all people.
Sometimes certain people (often doctors) just bark orders and you feel taken for granted. And sometimes, like today, you see those same...
PEE TEST
The nursing staff’s urine is currently on trial. Someone has given the powers that be cause for suspicion and now we all have to pee in cups. This upsets me for two reasons – one, I automatically feel guilty when things like this happen, even though I have DONE NOTHING. When someone suspects me, I suspect me. I talked to my middle school counselor about it once and she told me I was valuable and...
I CAN SAY HELLO, PLEASE AND THANK YOU IN 19...
We live and work in an international city, and probably half the people we treat speak little or no English. In an effort to improve my skills as a nurse and make the ER a little less scary for our patients, I have decided to learn how to say HELLO, PLEASE and THANK YOU in as many different languages as I can.
So far, through Google Translate, flash cards and having my mom quiz me at dinner, I...
TIME TO BE APPRECIATED, YO
HEAR YE! HEAR YE! Let it be known that it is officially National Nurses Appreciation week! This is the time when we all should gather and give thanks to OURSELVES! And those of you who aren’t nurses, please consider doing something special for a nurse you know. If you don’t know any, introduce yourself to one! (If he/she is grumpy don’t take it the wrong way, they get paid next to nothing and do...
DON’T LAUGH – DON’T CRY
As a health care professional, it is incumbent on us to keep our emotions in check. Every day in the ER, we are surrounded by people who are suffering in pain and even dying. In those cases, we need to remain strong and focused so that we may deliver the best possible care for patients and their families.
Believe me, even the most hardened veterans of the ER (which I aspire to be) have moments...
TINY BRAINS, BIG HEARTS
Today I had the great pleasure of meeting an inspiring young man who fights for what he believes in. In this case, a small, rodent type creature called the Madagascar Lemur (imagine a Furby with a long ass tail). These small-brained critters are being destroyed at an alarming rate and this street advocate, if you will, is doing everything he can to save them. Unfortunately not everyone on the...
SHAMPOO IN MY MOUTH
Obviously, most of you reading this blog do not know me. For those who don’t, one of my more striking features is my long silken hair, which I wear back at work for the safety of my patients and myself.
This morning I was running a little bit late and so I had to yell down from the shower for my mom to put coffee on. When I did, somehow a big clump of shampoo-y hair flew into my mouth. It was...
May 2011
10 posts
I WOULD BE A GOOD GOOD COP
I will not bore you with the details, but today my boyfriend wound up in the ER on a heart monitor (sounds serious, but trust me, it wasn’t). Anyhew, it gave me the opportunity to play a little good cop/bad cop, if you know what I mean. In other words, I got to interrogate him about certain things, whilest using the monitor as a lie detector.
I know what you’re thinking – cruel but...
ON POOP
One of the things a new nurse is most scared of is touching poop. A big part of our job is changing bed clothes and nine times out of ten that’s going to mean dealing with feces. One of my first times involved projectile diarrhea…yes there is such a thing and it has a sound effect you hope you never hear again. I would like to say this part of the job gets easier as time goes on but I would be...
SCRUBS n’ CROCS
Sometimes, on my way to work, I spy a gal on the bus who is really pulled together and I wonder what it’d be like to be in her shoes - - approaching the bench for the final arguments, the jury weighing the purposefulness of my walk in my $500 shoes and a smart-lady-business-suit.
Usually, I just look at the other girls on the bus and thank God for my scrubs and crocs. I love my job and I love my...
STICKS AND STONES
Lately it seems like everyone who comes into the ER is drunk, high, insane or all of the above. What happened to the broken legs and appendectomies and stomach flus? Maybe those people go to fancy ER’s, I don’t know. Anyway, the drugged out patients LOVE to yell at us nurses. At first it really hurt my feelings. Now I think it’s kind of hilarious. Below are some of the names I’ve been called in...
FYI – SOME THINGS DON’T GO TOGETHER
Last night, during said outing, I had a “hand-crafted” bacon garnish in my martini (aka a Bacon Martini). As a result, currently, I have a headache in my head. As I have learned from triaging and treating many of this city’s most over-served, this pain is the result of dehydration. Drinking too much has this effect on people, so why would a bartender decide that adding salty bacon to Vodka...
CAMRADERIE
Like the trenches of Vietnam, the urban nurse must rely on instinct, resourcefulness and creative bathroom use in order to survive. But there is something even more important that gets us through the day, and that, dear reader is camaraderie. What better way to cope with the death and destruction of an ER than to share a chuckle and a beverage (or soup) with your fellow co-workers? Last night our...
DUCK SAUCE AND MARLBOROS
The above combo are the two things my BF always has in his mini-fridge. What this says about him- I know not. But something about it feels, I don’t know, poetic?
What two things do you always have in your fridge? Below I offer a list of my co-workers and the two things I believe I would find in their respective refrigerators. I shall begin with yours truly:
ME
Airplane nuts and Nail Polish.
DR....
PEE BREAKS - a formula
Sometimes being a nurse means having to hold urine. The important thing is that you don’t hold your own urine. Working urination (aka pee) breaks into a busy shift requires an intricate knowledge of your own personal bladder capacity and an intimacy with EVERY restroom in the hospital. Heads up: Gastrointestinology- NO.
A formula:
Clock the time of your average pee (usually 7-9...
I © JERSEY BOYS, YO
I almost got in a fight with a patient today. She hated Jersey Boys, I loved it. Actually, it wasn’t really “almost a fight,” she said she thought Jersey Boys was a bizarre show and I smiled at her because she was old and probably demented. She would have to be, Jersey Boys is sooooooooo good. So is American Idiot.
NEW NURSE ALERT!
NAME: D’SEAN PENN (code name)
HEIGHT: a couple inches taller than me
BUILD: yes
SKILLZ: definitely
He was a member of the PEACE CORPS, as in world healer. Today he told us about waking up in his tent in the middle of nowhere and coughing up a worm. I hope he neverleaves.
April 2011
10 posts
READERS WRITE!
I received this letter from one of my readers today!
Dear NIY,
Do the people you work with know that you date the EMT? Or do you guys keep it a secret? My boyfriend (x-ray tech) and I are trying tofigure out whether or not we should tell people we’re together.
Thanks!
NIY reply:
Dear reader,
Thank you for your very interesting question about dating in the workplace. You bring up a very...
TREAT EM AND STREET EM, YO!
All us ER nurses are familiar with this term. We try to get through the “frequent fliers” and the “hypo-cons” so we can help the patients that need us most. You can tell yourself over and over that you won’t get frustrated, but it’s hard. We have a program at work that (sometimes, when it works) tells you how many visits to the ER a patient has had, their medical history, etc… This one...
DON’T RAT ON ME
This hospital should get cats. People think they’re dirty, they most definitely are not. Cats bathe themselves more than humans. Also,kids would like it. I know people would freak about the maternity ward, but you could keep them out of there and also, I heard the thing about cats lickingmilk off of baby’s lips is just an old wise tale. But most importantly, there would BE NO RATS to fall on...
DOUBLE STUFF
Worked my first double today. I know – I know….no applause please….you are too kind.
BTW – two rabies prophylaxis, one fractured metacarpal, three urinary tract infections, one infant fever and eight suture removals. NO BREAKS!!!
I am so tired, but not the kind of tired that makes you sleep.
HOOFIN’ IT, YO
Walking. I happen to love it. Which is fortunate considering a nurse walks an average of 4 to 6 miles during a 12-hour shift. Sometimes I imagine I’m in a park rather than a fluorescent-lit hallway with screaming people and some guy throwing feces at me (though I bet that could happen inTompkins Square). What if there were squirrels in the hospital, eating little nuts, chirping away? I like...
GOD
If I had one wish, it would be that I was musical. There was a piano at All Saints today and God was playing. Not God God, but a weird guy who lives across from hospital who we all (including him) call God. He wasn’t bad at piano and he must have been on his meds, because he seemed more normal than usual. He told me he thought about asking me out which, being Catholic, was kind of...
WEIRD FOOD THINGS I LIKE TO EAT
Campbell’s tomato soup with popcorn
Cold pizza and milk
Pirate Booty with milk
Faro
Peanut butter and pickle sandwich
Frozen Skittles
Pineapple on anything
Tuna on Raisin bread (HOLD THE KEYS, PLEASE)
BRING IT DOWN A NOTCH
I have had exactly one workplace romance in my lifetime - when I worked as a library aid in 9th grade – and I now find myself in the throes of yet another such embroilment. My BF doesn’t technically work at the hospital, but he’s here a lot. He’s an EMT and I’ve got it so I know the sound of his rig’s siren as it’s pulling up to our doors. We have had our ups and downs. Mostly ups. One thing...
BACK IN THE DAY, YO
I jumped rope for the first time in a long time today (long story) and surprise, surprise, I still got it! Anyway, back in the day, I used to go to school early to meet up with my friends Maria, Cheryl and Vidya and we would Double Dutch and Chinese Wheel. We planned to get really good and try to go on Star Search in matching jean jackets. We tried to think up a name for our group (I liked...
I’M GLOVIN’ IT
Latex and me go way back, but the ghetto latex gloves they give us in the ER are just wrong. Who made these things? I think it was either a giant or a baby because the only two sizes they seem to come in are XXXXL or XXXXS. On top of that they rip and break if you even look at them sideways.
What to do?
FIND THE GOOD GLOVES. Because yes, there are good gloves, they’re purple, they come in a...
March 2011
4 posts
YA NEVER KNOW, YO
Things I didn’t know before today:
1. Some people, who you would never expect, have pierced privates (aka genitals)
2. My boss, who I have worked with for a while, has a husband
3. The word oral-gasm.
What will it be tomorrow?
LIKE SWITZERLAND, YO
I hate being in the middle. My mom and my brother used to always go at each other and it was always my job to bring them back together. That’s home, I’m used to it, but today, Nurse Taffy* and Dr. Lady Penelope* were barely talking to each other, and they are like best friends. Of course, we are all professionals, and everyone “did their job,” but it made work feel like work. It wasn’t like a...
GETTING TO KNOW, YO!
When many people think of nursing, many people think of making beds and changing bedpans. But, the world of nursing is so much more. Caring for patients is sometimes as simple as just talking to them. Getting to know patients’ lives, families and stories is the most rewarding part of my job. If someone comes in because they are injured and maybe even near death, the doctors and nurses of the...
NURSING IT YO, LET’S GO
Dear Reader, greetings and welcome to Nursing It Yo! Here you will find a forum of insights, ideas and stories about the world of nursing…and beyond. This blog is for you. And by you I mean nurses. And maybe doctors, if they’re so inclined. And people that like reading blogs. And cat lovers.
I once made muffins for my fellow staff members. I would love to make muffins for all of the...