Today

Today I worked a 14-hour day, barely had time to sit down to eat lunch, and yet again did not have time to realize that I hadn't peed all day long. (Seriously bladder, I'm sorry. Please please please dont get infected.) But today I dont care. Because today I took care of Mrs. G. Mrs. G has been on our floor for 7 weeks waiting for a liver transplant. I doubt any of you have seen what End Stage Liver Disease looks like, but its awful. 2 weeks ago we weren't even sure she'd ever make it. But today was her first day back from the ICU following a liver transplant! And she looked fantastic. Still a little slow moving, but that's expected. I didnt even care that I had to change her diaper almost every 2 hours because she hasnt regained control of her bladder yet. Seeing the color back in her face, hearing her finally able to joke around, and just seeing her in much better spirits made it SO worth it. Seeing her come out of this has been so emotional for everyone on our staff, we've been rooting for her to get a transplant for so long. I was so happy I got to be her nurse and teach her and take care of her today. So I dont care that today our secretary was extremely lazy; I dont care about how the ICU is ridiculous. Today I dont even care that I'm going to have to come back to work in 2 days and spend Christmas working at the hospital with less than adequate staffing. I dont care. Because today Mrs. G reminded me why I do what I do. Today I remembered just how much I really LOVE being a nurse.

AND, I also found out that a friend's mom who has been battling cancer for the last 6 months is now cancer free!

So, I'd say that TODAY has been a GREAT day. :)

Christmas Spirit

I am normally the type of person who starts listening to Christmas music halfway through November. I have decorations up the day after Thanksgiving. I get my Christmas shopping done early, and I am always super super excited about the holidays. For some reason this year I have been totally lacking in Christmas spirit. Up until last night I was incapable of listening to xmas music. (No seriously, I would try but when I'd listen to a song, about 1 verse into it I'd have to change the radio station. Weird, right?) And I've been totally slacking on my shopping ideas. I dont know if its because I havent gotten around to decorating so it just doesnt feel like Christmas, or if its because I have a shitty work schedule (Christmas day is day 1 of 4 in a row. I know, it blows. I dont want to talk about it) so I havent been excited about it because I know I wony be able to enjoy it as much as I'd like. Either way, someone/something stole my Christmas Spirit. I even tried watching Elf, which of course I thoroughly enjoyed, but it still didnt put me in the Christmas mood.

But! I am excited to say I finally found it! My Christmas Spirit, that is. Yay! It took my parents forcing me to decorate the basement and a little help from the cast of Glee singing some Christmas carols, but I'm FINALLY excited/ready for Christmas! The decorations are up, the tree is lit, most of my presents are wrapped, and I finally watched Love Actually, which is the true start of the holiday season. :) Yay for Christmas!!

seriously?

Just another example of how RIDICULOUS patients (and their families) can be:

Dr. P: Did you hear about what happened when [Ms. W] tried to leave AMA?
Me: Oh yeah! She locked herself in the bathroom and then tried to walk out naked?
Dr. P: Yeah, J. sat down and talked to her to try to find out more information and discovered she has an extensive psych history. And apparently the whole family banded together and lied so she could [pass the psych eval and] get this transplant.

WHAT.. THE.. F..!!! SERIOUSLY?! There is a reason we work-up patients for transplants and they have to be cleared by psych. I cant even begin to tell you how much it angers me to see patients get organs (organs that HUNDREDS of people are waiting for) and then they just let it go to waste. If this patient is not capable of taking care of herself and her new organ, she has no business getting one. AND! What makes it even worse is that after the family LIED to get her this surgery, they dont even want to take care of her!! Are you F-ing kidding?! If you're going to cheat the system so your family member can get a transplant, the LEAST you can do is make sure she keeps the damn organ! UGH.


And another story, just for fun:

We have a patient (23yo female) who just had a small bowel transplant. She's kind of a pain in the ass-- super needy, obnoxious, you know the drill. And the mother is about 20 times worse-- demanding, in-your-face, head up her own ass, etc. (To paint a picture: they threatened to leave Against Medical Advice while the patient was getting pre-op'ed because they didnt have a private room. In other words, the doctors were in the process of HARVESTING THE ORGAN so she could get the transplant and they threatened to leave because she had a roommate. Are you kidding?! You're going to be in that room for 3 hours and then you're going to go to surgery, you ungrateful little brat.) So basically the mother thought her daughter was not getting adequate care and thought she herself knew better. She has no medical background whatsoever, mind you. So she decided to mess with her daughter's IV pump and turned it off. Then a day or two later the patient starts screaming in pain and the doctors decide she needs emergent surgery and when they're in the OR they discover that she clotted off part of her NEW bowel (she had a blood clot that inevitably blocked blood flow to her bowel thus causing part of it to die). Needless to say, she had to have a portion of her NEW bowel removed and almost lost it completely. Hmmm, well Mom, maybe if you hadnt turned off her HEPARIN DRIP, your daughter woundnt have clotted and would still have a fully functioning, complete bowel. Because of you, a perfectly good bowel nearly went to waste. Next time you should probably leave the medical/nursing care to those who are properly trained. IDIOT.

I swear some days it really takes all that I have in me to not yell and slap some sense into people.

happiness

omg, this video just makes me so happy. :-p

Day shift???

I've been working a loootttttt of nights recently (i think in the last 5 weeks I've had 4 day shifts) and the minimal day shifts I've worked have been weekends or I've been precepting a new grad (aka the shifts have been cake). Today was the first day I was an actual nurse during a weekday day shift in I dont even know how long. I figured the day would be busy, but I was not expecting a day that was borderline insane. I am going to steal D's idea of letter-writing to elaborate on my day:

Dear Intern who decided it was necessary to call me and interrupt my 3pm lunch break to fax an order to the pharmacy,
Are you kidding me?? Faxing orders is the Secretary's job. It's what we pay her to do. Do NOT interrupt my first and only attempt of the day to sit down just so I can do her job. Did I mention I've been here since 6:45am and it's now 3pm and I am just NOW on my lunch break??

Dear Charge Nurse,
I already have 4 patients, I've been running around like crazy all day long, and I was the last one to take a lunch break (if you can call 7 minutes during which I inhaled food, a "break"). Did you really think I was the best choice to take on a 5th patient?? Especially when the patient is a POD2 small bowel transplant with everything under the sun going on with her. I mean, I am all about being a team player, but REALLY??

Dear Nurse in the Endoscopy unit,
I specifically told you my patient had blood products running at that you needed to be with her during transport. Not only did you not transport my patient, but you did not administer the blood products that she needed. You can expect an incident report from me.

Dear Ms. T,
You are my star patient and the only thing that got me through the day. PS - thanks for the baked treats!

Dear ICU nurses,
You are the bane of our existence. Just because you work in the ICU, you think you can ignore protocol. News Flash: Protocol is there for the safety of the patients. When you disregard it, you not only make our lives difficult, but you put the patient in danger. Next time you have a patient on a continuous PCA, I suggest you copy the flowsheet correctly. Next time you have a Heparin drip, I suggest you have the orders written down somewhere so that when I receive your patient I know what rate she should run at. Afterall, we wouldnt want her BLEEDING OUT b/c you couldnt give an appropriate hand-off of care. Seriously, I cant imagine what kind of a clusterfuck you people work in.

Dear bladder,
I am sorry I did not have time to empty you during my 14-hour work day. Please dont get infected.

November 11

"I thank God for my life and for the stars and stripes. May freedom forever fly, let it ring.
Salute the ones who died, the ones that give their lives, so we don't have to sacrifice all the things we love."--ZBB


I cry every time I see this:

Vacation?

Me: Haha, oh Ben. I love that you're even more cynical than I am.
Ben: Well when you get to a certain age, it's totally appropriate.
Me: When you get to a certain age? So are you saying its not appropriate that I'm cynical?
Ben: Haha, at your age, no. You're way too young to be cynical.

I think I am in desperate need of a vacation b/c I have found that I get super irritated at work very easily. I dont know if I just work too many shifts in a row (which has its perks since I usually get a couple days off in a row after that) but I have definitely noticed that my threshold for annoyance is significantly lower than it used to be. Dont get me wrong, I LOVE my job, and I LOVE being a nurse. If you've ever heard me talk about my job, you know that there really is NOTHING I would rather be doing with my life, but I just dont have the patience anymore. I know its all part of the job, but I'm tired of dealing with pharmacists who dont put in orders in a timely fashion; I'm tired of lab technicians who "lose" specimens; I'm tired of patients who pull out their IVs 20 minutes before my shift is over, who try to manipulate you for pain medicine, who refuse to get their assess out of bed and do anything for themselves, or patients who yell at you and question your nursing judgment. Sorry for the bitch-fest. I just need a break. Or I'll at least settle for a pleasant, appreciative patient who can remind me why I do what I do. Siiiiigh.

Nurses know best. :-P

It still baffles me how doctors can write orders and "care for" patients without ever assessing their patients. I realize that this is part of their job and training to be able to do this to an extent, but I just dont understand how they can be the ones ordering treatments, medications, interventions, etc when they're not the ones at the bedside constantly evaluating the patients.

Last night I had a patient (W.) who was pretty lethargic, didnt want to keep his eyes open for me, and when he did open his eyes he had this blank stare on his face. He was just "off." W is pretty familiar to us but during previous admissions he'd always had kind of a weird affect, which of course made taking care of him last night that much more challenging because I couldnt tell if he was just being weird or if something was actually wrong. About 3 hours into my shift I decided to bring the doctors to take a look at the patient just for my own comfort and reassurance. We get to the W.'s room and of course he's sitting up in bed, eyes wide open and the docs look at me, give me a hard time and laugh, "Come on, Nikki. He's fine." And I just tried to defend myself and claim that he hadnt been like that the last 3 times I'd gone in to see him. I can tell they kind of believed me, but unfortunately they cant do anything since what they see is a patient who is alert and responsive. For the rest of the night I was constantly battling with W. to actually stay alert. He developed a low-grade fever (100.6) and the docs just said to give him Tylenol. I continued to claim that he was "off" but when the doctor would go in there, W. would either be asleep and the doc didnt want to wake him, or I would've just harassed W. and woken him up enough to a point where he could actually answer a question. They attributed his weirdness and lethargy to the fever, which is fair, but they still didnt want to do any more. I kept checking on him and his temp just kept increasing. By the time my shift was over, he was febrile (temp=103.6), tachy (HR=130's), tachypnic (respiratory rate=32-34), and borderline hypertensive (BP=145/100). Septic much? I think so. The day nurse ended up transferring him to the ICU 2 hours after I left and W. had a seizure within an hour of arriving to the ICU. ...Yeah, sure Dr. C, "He's fine."

...Just another reason doctors should listen to nurses.... :-P

Fall Back

Seriously? Adding an extra hour to your night can take up to a week to adjust to?? Try working 3 night shifts in a row and then switch your body clock back. Not fun.

Sidebar, I'm super excited to finally be able to go out on a weekend AND we get an extra hour of sleep (aka an extra hour to recover from the inevitable hangover)! :-p

reality vs drama

M and I went out for a couple drinks and to watch MNF the other night and we made friends with the guy sitting at the bar next to us...

Man: So, wait a minute. You're a nurse?
Me: Yes.
Man: And he's a doctor?
Me: Yes.
Man: And you both work at Georgetown?
Me: Yes.
Man (smirking): Niiiice. How does that work?
Me: What do you mean?
Man: Well you know, is there an HR issue there? Is it awkward?
Me: No.
Man: Oh. I just thought it might cause some drama, you know, a nurse and a doctor...
Me: No, its really not as uncommon as you think.
Man (disappointed): Oh...

It always entertains me how people assume that working in a hospital is comparable to prime time drama (aka Grey's). The sneaking around, the incestual-type hook-ups where everyone hooks up with everyone else, sex in the on-call room, etc etc. Sadly, real-life hospital gossip is just not that juicy. But I suppose that doesnt stop people's imaginations from conjuring up steamy stories. ....Now, if you wanna hear stories about crazy and ridiculous patients, then I could entertain you for hours... :-P

for your reading pleasure

"Drinking is the only way to deal with morons."

patting myself on the back :-p

I'm gonna toot my own horn in this post so I apologize, but this totally made my day and every time I think about it, it makes me super happy. So I'm going to share it. Mr. B is one of our patients who recently got re-admitted to the hospital and I saw him for the first time in about a year and a half...

Mr. & Mrs. B: NIKKI!!
Me: Hi Mr. & Mrs. B, how are you guys doing?
Mrs. B: Well, we've been better.
Mr. B: But at least we got a bed on 6 Bles this time. It was the best news I'd heard all night.
Me: Well we wouldn't want you on any other floor. Mary is your nurse tonight and I'm the charge nurse so let me know if you need anything.
Mr. B: Well look at you! You're charge nurse now? That's great.
.............
Mr. B: I just cant get over that you were a tech the last time I saw you and now you're a nurse. You're charge nurse! That's wonderful.
Me: Yeah, it's really good. I'm loving it.
Mr. B: Well you were great. [My wife and I] knew you'd be a great nurse. We loved when you took care of us. You were always one of our favorites.
Me: Aww
Mr. B: No really. Top 2 or 3. I cant tell you who the others are though. But every time I came back for a clinic visit, I would come up to the floor to say hi and see who was working. I hoped to see you, but you were never working those days.
Me: Oh no, thats too bad.
Mr. B: Yeah, you're a favorite. I'd say Top 2.

During a long shift of having to deal with obnoxious, needy patients, that conversation was a nice reminder of why I do what I do. :)

Long overdue

There were not very many quotes recorded from Homecoming weekend, but these are the 3 that I have saved on my phone:

• "You need to sit closer to me so I can touch you." --Danielle to me
  
• "How cute is he?!? He's such a dreamboat!!" -- Mike
  
• "Well, he's a man. ...So clearly you are the boss." --Mike to me

Other highlights from the weekend:

• spending a lovely relaxing Friday with Chinlund :)
• walking on the quad on a gorgeous Friday afternoon
• Running into Willie and having his gf and her friend glare at us the entire time
• Katie's cheerleading outfit
  
• Mike trying to convince the parking police to let us keep the car parked
  
• Matt following us to our tailgate when the game started
  
• a certain member of the Ocho making out with a certain Sigma Pi at the bar... ;)
  

Things I am currently thankful for:

• fantastic friends
• an absolutely epic birthday weekend
• my birthday crown
  
• my camera for capturing the last 2 nights and allowing me to piece together my weekend
• Matt's photography skills
  
• ADVIL/gatorade/water/any other hangover cure
• dance party
• naps
  
• having today off

Reasons today rocked

• Bacon egg and cheese on a croissant + coffee
  
• I precepted today so basically I made H. do all the work :)
  
• Quality time with K.
• Teamwork --> prepped a patient for the OR in about 15 minutes
• We got our resident to take vital signs for our patients

That last one is pretty bombass. :)

insomnia

I am awake at 12:45am and I have to be at work in 6 hours. Lately I either barely get any sleep (usually nights/days immediately before a shift) or I sleep 13 hours. I'm not really sure what my deal is, but I guess I'm just kinda stressed about what I want to do with my life. I know, I know. I'm a nurse and I love it and that is absolutely what I want to do in life. Even after some of the shittiest days, when it comes down to it, there really isnt anything else I could picture myself doing. BUT, I do know that I want to go back to school eventually. I dont think I want to be a floor nurse for the rest of my life. I just dont know which direction I want to take my nursing career. As much as I love teaching I dont want to be a nurse educator or a professor; I'd rather be a clinical instructor or something more hands-on, but you cant really make a career out of being an instructor. And I'm not sure I really see myself as a nurse practitioner... maybe... I just don't know. I think the issue is that I still really enjoy floor nursing. I'm not jaded and over-worked yet, so I dont feel the need to find something new. And even if I do reach that point, there's always the option to go to a different unit - another med-surg unit, the PACU, ICU, anything. (Although I dont think I want to be an ICU nurse. I want the knowledge but not the job.) There's so much you can do as an RN. The problem is most Masters programs are being phased out and becoming a Doctorate program. So for example, if I wanted to be come a nurse practitioner (NP) I would be required to have a PhD, not just a Masters. Now, if I graduate with my Masters and become an NP before 2015, I can just be grandfathered in and not have to do the DNP program. Yes, 2015 is still a ways away, but in order to get the hospital to pay for my graduate education, I would have to go to school part-time and work full-time. The NP program is 3 years if its done part-time. So, that significantly decreases the time I have to figure life out. That also would mean I would have to stay at Georgetown for another 3 years, which I'm not opposed to, I just dont know if I want to try someplace else- a different hospital? a different city perhaps?

Anyway, it's now 1am and my alarm will go off in less than 5 hours, so I should stop rambling on and try to get some sleep...

Life Update

It's been awhile since I last wrote so I suppose it's about time to post an update... Lets see, August was filled with birthdays (my roommate's and DJ's) and weekend trips. Of course, it started out with my road trip to SC, which apparently I'm going to have to do again soon seeing as 2 of the Ocho now live there!! Woot! The weekend after was my roommate's bday, which was properly celebrated in a drunken state down in Adam's Morgan. The following weekend, C., L., and I flew up to Boston for the weekend. I went to Fenway for the first time (YAY!) which was everything I imagined it would be. Greatest place on earth. :) We went shopping downtown and saw a man shooting up in the street (literally - needle in his arm.) Went to the Harpoon brewery, an improv show down at the north end, Faniuel Hall and Quincy Market. It was fantastic. But I think I'm over the whole 'I totally want to live in Boston for a few years' phase. Dont get me wrong, I loved it and its a great city -- to visit. Being there just made me realize that if I'm going to live in a major city I think it's gonna have to be DC.

Work is going really well. There are definitely still days when all I want to do is cry and/or punch my patients in the face, but I guess that's all part of the job. :-P I had my annual evaluation (my first as a nurse) and everything was really really good. My manager said I'm doing a great job and that I had a really good first year! So yay! :) I am charge nurse capable now, which is pretty exciting. It's kind of nerve-wracking to think that during those shifts I'm suppose to know what to do; I'm the one people will turn to for help/advice. As scary as that may be, I think the hardest part about being Charge is having to diffuse situations and deal with angry, irrational patients/family members. Its so hard to advocate for a patient when they're screaming at you because of a situation you had no control over. Oh well. I am also precepting a new staff nurse, which is also kind of scary to know that I am responsible for teaching this person how to be a good transplant nurse. It's my job to make sure she can realize what's important, knows how to respond to certain situations, anticipate what to do next, and of course make sure the doctors are ordering the appropriate things. But its been a really good experience. You never know how much you know until you have to teach it. Plus I've realized that I LOVE teaching. So we'll see if maybe teaching will have a role later on in my career.

conversations from night shift

Patient: I dont know how to get positioned comfortably. I guess I'll try this for a while but if it doesnt help, I'll want to go back to the way I was before. Just lay me so I'm kind of floating.

Nurse Tech and me: [look of complete confusion]

Patient: You know what I mean?

...um, what?!

Patient: okay, I'm going to go for my walk [off the floor] now.

Me: Mr. C you cant go off the floor, you need to stay hooked up to wall suction.

Patient: NO. I'm going for my walk!

Me: Mr. C, I'm sorry but I just spoke to the doctor and he says you have to stay on the floor.

Patient: I dont care what he says! I'm going for my walk!

Me: Well you just got that chest tube placed today and in order for it to properly work, you need to be connected to suction, otherwise we might as well not have put it in.

Patient: You dont understand. I'm going for my walk no matter what. I take my walk everyday.

[the doctors walk onto the floor and here the patient screaming at me]

Doctor: Mr. C, why are you yelling? Why are you yelling at the nursing staff?

Patient: Because she wont let me take my walk!

[turns to me]: Its not your fault. You dont understand. You're new.

[I am fuming and about 3 seconds from punching this guy in the face.]

[Arguments between them continue for a minute or two.]

Doctor: Ok fine, you have 10 minutes. You can go.

...are you F-ing kidding me?! I spent 5 minutes arguing with him that he cant go and then you're going to just cave in like that?! WHY?! now this patient is going to think he can do whatever the hell he wants. And everyone knows the only reason he wants to go for his 'walk' is so he can smoke outside. Not to mention the fact that now I look like the idiot/bad guy for insisting he cant go (per YOUR orders!) and then you go ahead and change your mind. ughhh. doctors.

Doctor: I know you're really busy, but just when you get a chance, Mr. M wants you to go in there and give him his pain meds right away.

Me: Okay, I'll get there.

Doctor: Well, you know how he used to be in the military? Well he wanted me to "order" you to go in there.

Me: HA!

Doctor: yeahhh... so just whenever.

Doctor: Oh, and how's Mr. C? --Wait, you have both of them tonight? Who did you piss off to get stuck with that assignment?

...1st of all, patient, you dont get to tell me what to do. you can go ahead and try it and see how well that works for you. 2nd, you know its bad when even the doc feels sorry for your patient assignment...

Doctor: So, Mr. M is still complaining of pain. Can you go ahead and just give him his Dilaudid?

Me: Sure, you want me to give him his dose early? Or give him a one-time now? He's not due for another 2 hours.

Doctor: We'll give him an additional one-time dose. And go ahead and give him his Phenergan now too. Hopefully that'll just knock him out.

...haha such good patient care. and SOOO necessary at times. :)

Patient: Is there someone here above your charge nurse?

Me: You mean as far as nursing staff? No. Our manager comes in at around 0630.

Patient: So its just you, the charge nurse and the doctor?

Me: During the middle of the night, yes. But more people will come in in the morning. Why?

Patient: I want to talk to someone. I want to leave.

Me: What do you mean?

Patient: I want to leave!! I dont feel like I'm getting good care here.

Me: Can I ask why you feel that way?

Patient: Because! No one seems to care. No one cares about my pain.

...Meanwhile I am in the process of administering his Phenergan (a potent anti-nausea drug that has a really strong sedative side effect) and I just handed him his extra dose of pain medicine, AND I have barely seen my other 3 patients since starting my shift b/c I'd been in his room all night long. Yeahhh. You're getting terrible care. Shut the F up.

Me: Hey, did you guys talk to Mr. M about decreasing his pain meds?

Doctor [rolls her eyes and gives me attitude]: Ugh, yeah. Dr. G had a long talk with him yesterday about weaning him off the pain meds.

Me: ...okay... its just that I've been giving him pain meds round the clock and he's still been complaining of 10/10 pain.

Doctor: Well, yeah. He's gonna do that. Do you not know the patient?? Come on, Nikki. Is this your first time dealing with him?

...listen, bitch. 1st of all, dont talk to me like I'm stupid. I've been working on this floor a hell of a lot longer than you have and I know how to handle drug-seeking patients. 2nd, I would bet my entire life savings that neither Dr. G nor any other doctor on the team had a "long talk" with the patient seeing as you are never in the patients' rooms for more than a minute and a half. 3rd, dont you find it a little weird that you decide to decrease the frequency of his pain meds to every 6 hours when we've been giving it to him every 4hours on the dot? And then when you go in and see him in pain, decide to give him his meds an hour before his 4hr time is up. Yeahhh. Cant even make it the full 4 hours, but go ahead and decrease him to every 6. Makes perfect sense to me.

ahhh the joys of your first shift back from vacation... :-p

southern shenanigans

This past weekend I decided to take a little roadtrip down south. I spent Thursday night in Winston with my friend Adam (aka Egon), who goes to med school there. Then Friday I drove down to Charleston where Katie lives and met up with her and E-Beth. The following is a list of quotes that resulted from the 3 of us spending 3 days together. (Sorry a lot of them dont make sense to those who werent there, but this post is primarily for K & E):

• "Back off, tool!" (so versatile. can be used in almost any situation!)
  
• "It's like real people live here!"
• "I can sign this paper and it's, like, legit."
• "Excellence is never an accident." (possibly the new Ocho motto?)
  
• "I love petting people."
• Moth to a flame.
  
• "Sometimes I'm shocked when people dont talk to us. They must be gay."
• "Someone needs to get me a beverage!"
• "I don't think I'm drunk enough for this bar."
• "I can maybe pull it down a little, but I'm NOT taking it off!" (ahh, so classy. :-P)
  
• "Y'all are leaving me with the chubby one!!"
• "Lot's of shenanigans but no offspring." --our tour guide
  
• "They're gonna be like, 'who are these hot women with the man voice??'"
• "Two-handed game! TWO-HANDED GAME!!"
  
• "Sorry if I sodomized you."
  "...I'm not."
• "Nikki, you have to hook up with him so I can hook up with his roommate."
  "Is he cute?"
  "...Well... he's the one who said he couldnt tan..."
• "What if he's a troll?"
  "Whatever, then he can talk to dump truck."
• "Aw, he's so nice!"
  "It's gonna be so nice when I fuck his roommate."
• "Poor gal."
  "...Um, I said 'gal' not 'cow'"
  "That's what I said! "GAL!""
• "It surprises me that no one from our group has hooked up with him."
  "Why, because we're a bunch of sluts?"

I stayed in SC till Sunday afternoon, when I left to go back up to Charlotte to stay with Danielle and Mike. And I was lucky enough to hang out with Ben, who I hadnt seen in forever as well. It was a nice little Ocho abridged weekend -- very much needed. I want another one ASAP. Seeing everyone almost makes me want to move to NC. ...Almost. Sorry kids, I love me some DC life. Anyway, other highlights from the trip:

• Listening to the Glee soundtrack during all 4 car rides
• awkward med students
• realizing how much I dont miss college drama
• also realizing how glad I am that my circle of friends is primarily unmarried and childless (no offense to my married friends, I love you!)
• getting our pic taken by the paparazzi and making The Ocho that much more famous :-p
  
• carriage ride through Charleston
• Running into D. Cross in downtown Charleston. small world!
  
• bringing back the man voice.
  
• flip cup on quite possibly the tiniest table EVER.
  
• dancing at Off the Hook and intimidating every guy there (no but really, my quads are a little sore and i'm pretty sure thats the reason)
  
• D's adorable little home (seriously, since when are my friends "real people"?)
  
• catching up with Dr. Morel (so weird to call him that!!) and hearing about his ED adventures
• Bojangles for the first time in about 3 years

Soooo... is it homecoming yet??

SYTYCD

I enjoy watching SYTYCD but I have never followed a season as closely as I have this one (blame my roomie) and I'm obsessed with this season's contestants. Every time I see Kent I just want to hug him. He's totes my fave. And Lauren is so ridiculously talented. (Not to mention that I totally have a girl-crush on All-Star Courtney. :-p) But this performance by Robert last week is legitimately the most moving performance I've ever seen. It's SO amazing. I bawl like a baby every time I see it.

Robert, along with All-Star Allison, performs a contemporary dance to Fix You by Coldplay....:

ps - Adechike's performance tonight was AWESOME. i love this show.

:-D

Conversation I had yesterday afternoon with 2 doctors who have previously worked on our unit:

Andy (to my roommate Caroline in regards to working as a nurse on 6 Bles): "So are you off orientation and all that?"
Caroline: "Yeah..."
Me: "Of course, seeing as she's been there for a year now."
Andy: "She's already been there for a year? How long have you been there?"
Me: "A year."
Andy: "You guys started at the same time?"
Me: "Yeah. We both started in July."
Matt: "Wait! You just started last year?"
Me: "Yeah. You didn't know that? I'm technically still a new grad. We actually started when you guys started."
Matt: "I didnt know that! I didnt think you were new."

Later that night....

Me: "I cant believe you didnt know I was a new grad."
Matt: "Yeah, I had no idea."
Me: "Well, I guess that's a good thing right? That you couldnt tell I was new?"
Matt: "No, absolutely. You didnt seem like it."
Me: "Really? Well good, that makes me feel better about myself, about me as a nurse."
Matt: "Oh yeah, definitely. You're a good nurse! I never would've thought you were new!"

:) Totally made my day. :)

Just another Tuesday

Last night I decided to go out with my friends C & L. Nothing too crazy seeing as it was a Tuesday night AND I had to work today (7a-7p). ...Or so I thought... It started out pretty calm, just hanging out drinking a few drinks out at one bar and when it closed at midnight because there was no one there, we walked down the street to another bar. Then somehow all the drinks we were drinking started to catch up to us. Our other friends M, A, and their friend B came and met up with us and they were hammered so everyone just fed off each others' energy and had such a great time. It was awesome! ...Highlights:

• Happy drunks
  
• Laughing. A LOT. I dont even remember what was said but I just remember laughing ALL night long.
• the GIANT St. Bernard outside of the bar. I'm talking, literally this dog is bigger than I am. He was super friendly. We played with it.
• Drunk dancing (in a virtually empty bar)
• Making friends with the bartender. And by 'making friends with' I mean he just laughed at us because of our ridiculous drunkenness.
• Good (drunk) conversations
• Making A take shots.
• Lisa making out with my neck
  
• M: "Are these croutons??" Bartender: "um, they're sugars cubes."
  
• Conversation where I try to convince M that scruff is sexy.
• playful flirting
• M publicly cupping my breasts
  
• M & L imitating Lee (our very loud doctor who I'm pretty sure legitimately has a speech impediment)
• Trying to convince M that med students should do a rotation with the nursing staff. (i mean seriously, how has this not already been implemented??)
• M trying to explain to me why he's bombass and wicked smart for getting matched in Urology
  
• Spinach & artichoke dip at 3am
• M & I making fun of C and her loudness
• PDA ;)

Last night was epic. Based on our antics and drunkenness, you would've thought it was a Friday night. I felt like death when I woke up and had to go to work this morning (and it didnt help that M laughed at me and got to go back to sleep). Totally worth it though. I cant remember the last time I had such an epic night.

'Suuuupp.

My little cousin (and godson) Aldrich. He's already 5 and starting kindergarten in the fall! Love him. :)

Philippines (cont)

Instead of writing a post of everything I did in the Philippines, you can just refer to my facebook page whenever I post pictures. There are a TON of them. You'll get the idea of all the places I went from there. For now, I'll just list how life in the Philippines is different from city life here. (fyi: where my family lives is a small suburb called Morong, Rizal so life there would still differ from say, life in Manila but just so you get a sense of what we experienced)

• Everything (except chocolate) is so cheap. The currency is the Peso and at the time we were there, the exchanges rate hovered around $1 = 46 Pesos. When we converted things, stuff came out to $8 mani/pedis, $1.10 haircuts, anywhere from $0.75-$3 for jewelry, $1 for a beer, $98 for one night in a hotel suite in the city, etc etc. Of course, its a poor country; they dont make as much there so cost of living isnt as expensive as here and such so its hard to compare sometimes.
  
• Traffic patterns. There are no traffic patterns. People weave in and out of lanes, they honk as a way of saying, "out of my way, I'm coming through," people just walk out into the street expecting the cars to stop - and they do. People may drive like crazy, but no one gets mad. You can stop right in the middle of the road and other cars would just drive around you.
  
• There is no central air. The houses that are fortunate enough to have air conditioners have units in individual rooms and its typically only 1, maybe 2 bedrooms, in the entire house that have A/C. (I'm glad we went during the hottest recorded summer ever.)
  
• There is no hot water. Downtown in the city, hotels, restaurants, etc have hot water but I'm not sure about the homes there. In our town, in our house, there is no hot water. Not that you really need hot water since is so freakin' hot, so sometimes a slightly cool shower is refreshing, but even in the heat, you'd like for a least a lukewarm shower every now and then.
  
• The security check at the airport has a separate line for Males and Females
• McDonald's serves rice
• Bars stay open all night
• Orange Juice is the most expensive beverage to order (yes, more expensive than beer, even more expensive than a Long Island)
  
• They have different models of cars there. We saw a car that we thought was a Honda Civic, but it was actually a Honda "something-or-another-that-I-have-never-heard-of-and-doesnt-exist-in-the-US." In fact very most of the cars they have there, we dont have here.
  
• Movie theaters have assigned seats! When you buy your ticket at the counter, they show you a seating chart and you pick which seats you want (like you would for tix to a concert or a sports game)
• They dont sell cold milk. They sell things like Yoohoo (although I never actually saw the Yoohoo brand) and such that are just in cartons or cans and can be kept on the shelf/pantry.
• They dont have cabs/taxis, they have tricycles. They dont have metro buses, they have Jeepnies.
  
• They play Glee songs on the radio. :)
  
• Nurses still wear white scrubs. (I'll post about my experience walking through the local hospital later)

Anyway, thats all that I can really think of for now... I'll try to think of more later.

Philippines (Part 1)

We're leaving the Philippines and making our way back to the US tonight. The travel time including lay-overs will be about 24 hours (woohoo!) but because of the time difference, we will leave 12:30am Thursday morning and land in DC at about noon Thursday afternoon. I'll post again once I upload pictures and have more time to write, but for now listing will have to do.

Things I am looking forward to coming back to:

• cooler, less humid weather
• air conditioning
• running / working out
• baseball and all the rest of US sports
  
• salads
• not having to put on bug spray every time we leave the house
  

Things I will miss here:

• Lolo ("grandpa")
• All the fam and cousins
• the vacation style (going back to work the day after I return will not be fun)
• home-cooked meals every meal
  
• the pastries, fresh fruit, and food in general
  
• the much cheaper cost of everything here
• the in-home mani/pedi's and massages
• the ability to walk everywhere
• the small-town lifestyle

siiigh, back to the real world soon...

A (late) Nurses' Week post

An old man walking along the beach at sunrise came upon a young man sifting through the debris left by the night's tide. Every now and then, he would pick up a starfish and fling it back to the sea. The old man asked him the purpose of his efforts. "The tide has washed the starfish onto the beach. They will die unless I throw them back." The old man looked around at the miles of beach. "There are more starfish than you could ever save. Surely you cannot expect to make a difference." The young man bent to pick up another starfish. As he sent the starfish sailing back to the water, he said to the old man, "It made a difference for that one."

This week we had our New Grad Pinning Ceremony, basically to mark the fact that we've been nurses for almost a year. I can't believe its been almost a year! It seriously has flown by! Sometimes I still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. In honor of the near-year mark, this is the list of things I've been able to check-off my Nursing Skills To-Do List:

• foley insertion (on both a male and female)
• NG tube insertion
• administer certain chemo drugs
• had a patient go crazy on me and therefore put him in 4-point restraints
• accessed and de-accessed a Mediport
• wound care (GROSS.)
  
• changed multiple ostomy appliances: your standard one, double-barrel stoma, loop stoma, stomas with a bridge, etc
  
• enema (not necessarily something I was all that excited about crossing off)
• postmortem care (also something I wish I never had to do)
• Continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis
  
• coded a patient

Things left to do:

• witness/deal with a seizure patient (i'm absolutely terrified of this)
• suctioning / trach care (also WAY, WAY GROSS. ...but i gotta do it some time)

"Right now there is a nurse helping a woman become a Mom, a nurse holding the hand of a dying man, a nurse inserting an IV in a child, a nurse listening to an Alzheimer's patient tell a story, a nurse missing her family while caring for yours. In the minute it took you to read this, nurses all over the world are saving lives."

I love my job. :)

quarter life crisis

Ok, so its not really a "crisis" but recently I've been re-evaluating things. For one, EVERYONE is engaged/married. Seriously? And the ones who do not fall in this category are in serious relationships that will probably be taking the next step soon. When I was younger I pictured myself married at 27 or 28 and then having my first child at 30. If that were still going to be the case, then I would have to start dating my future husband, oh... last month. That's not to say that I want to be married just yet, because I dont. I cant picture myself as a wife right now or think about possibly having kids in the near future. But I'd like to be a step closer than I am. Because I'm not close at all. Not even a little bit. And dont get me wrong, I love my life. I love my friends. I have a great time and enjoy single life, etc. But sometimes it just gets old, you know. (Plus boys are stupid and frustrating, but thats another story)

Second, so many of my friends are going back to school and furthering their degrees. I know I just graduated and I'm still a new nurse, but people keep asking me, "what's next?" "When are you going back to school?" I have no idea what's next. I know I'll eventually go back to school but I have no idea when or for what. I know I need to do it relatively soon because I'd really like to be done with school by the time I'm 30, but at this rate I dont think that's going to happen.

Finally, my friend is going to Haiti with her mom (they're both nurses) and doing volunteer work. I want to do that. I want to make a difference. I want to make something of my life.

Mreh. I just feel so unaccomplished right now and I feel kinda lost since I dont have all these big life plans like everyone else does.

Scrubs

I dont understand the fascination boys have with girls in scrubs. I get the whole sexy/slutty nurse fantasy, but we dont dress like that. EVER. And they know that. This one guy says to me, "I'd kinda like to see you in your scrubs one day." And he's not the first to say that to me. But dont people (read: boys) realize that the scrubs we actually wear are not sexy. In fact, I dont even want to begin to imagine the kind of grossness that covers my scrubs. Also, I've seen what I look like at the end of a 12 hour shift. It is not attractive. Hell, I am not attractive at the start of my 12 hour shift. I literally roll out of bed, throw my hair up, and throw on scrubs. I run around and deal with MRSA infected patients who have poop coming out of them. I'm not gonna bother to look pretty. But for one reason or another, boys think nurses are hot. Its a mystery to me.

And scrubs absolutely look better on guys. I dont find scrubs to be a "turn-on" but I must say, there are definitely some guys who make the plain green standard hospital scrubs look good. Siiigh. ;)

sweet tooth

California Pizza Kitchen's Chocolate Banana Royale Cake = heaven. I'm not even that big of a chocolate cake fan but this was absolutely delicious. So moist and rich, but not too sweet, which was perfect. (I know, I'm such fat kid) Any other day, I would've taken one glance at the menu, seen the Red Velvet Cake dessert on their menu and been sold. Red Velvet is my faaaavorite. I'm talking, I'm 90% sure thats going to be my wedding cake, although this new cake poses some serious competition. And now, thanks to CPK and their heavenly dessert, I will probably get diabetes. :-p

Anyway, look it up. Try it. Love it.

what would you do?

One of my friends thinks she may be pregnant and she's pretty concerned about it, understandably. She's not in a relationship with the guy, they've just kinda been "hanging out" for a while but their status is undefined. More than anything, they're just occasional hookups I'd say. So she's not sure if she's going to keep the baby but that just got me thinking, what would I do? I'm Catholic and we all know where I should stand on the issue, but I had a minor scare in college and the first thing I thought was, 'there is no way I'm having a baby at 20'. But that was then, this is now. Sure, we're done with college, we all have jobs, somewhat financially stable, we're older, hopefully a little wiser, but me personally, I'm still not ready to have a baby. And neither are most of my friends. We all say we would never do it, but what if you were actually put in that situation? Would you really raise a baby on your own? OR, if you decide you're not gonna keep the baby, would you really be able to go through with it?

Anyway, like I said, my friend and this guy are not married. Hell, they're not even officially dating, which definitely makes the situation stickier. If they were married or even in a relationship, she may think differently about the situation. She's enjoying single life, going out, drinking, getting ridiculous on weekends, etc. -- your typical mid-20s lifestyle. :) So if she is in fact pregnant, she's pretty sure she's not going to keep it. But she doesnt know if she should still tell the father about it. There's the whole "what you dont know cant hurt you" mentality... But he has a right to know, I mean, he's the father. ...But what if he wants to keep it?

Heavy stuff. Granted, she doesnt know for sure if she is pregnant, so all her worrying could be for nothing, but it got us all thinking... Should she tell the father? ...What would YOU do in her situation?

night shift entertainment

Last night was a relatively calm, slow night shift (up until one patient went INSANE and started thrashing ans screaming. Seriously, i've never seen anything like it). During this slow night shift I found this lovely order written by our intern:



"cc" is no longer an appropriate term in the medical field; we now use "ml" instead. I'm assuming our pharmacy (pain in the ass that they are) made him write a clarification order and he decided to be a smart ass about it. LOVE IT. :)

Party! (aka dude-fest)

We had another party this past weekend and it was SO much fun! Totally random crowd, but it was great. AND there were so many guys! Usually when we have a party it ends up being all girls except for DJ and our friend Matt, but this time it was a total dude fest! We had about 25 people, only 8 of them were girls. Tons of cute single guys, 4 of whom are doctors? Awesome. ;)

Here are some of my fave pics from the weekend...

The ridiculousness / silliness pretty much sums up the entire party


Everyone loves jello shots. Just look at the expression on Dave's face!


Landon loves them so much, he tried to sneak some out and save them for later.


Georgetown's Finest Interns.


LOVE this pic. I burst out laughing every time I see it.


Approx 10:30am the next day: Mimosas.

St. Patty's Day Highlights

Carbombs at 4pm. Obv.


Approx 5pm: already getting silly.


6 Bles nurses!


Roomies!


Dave had a little bit of a rough afternoon. This is what you get when you work a night shift, sleep for only 3 hours, dont eat, then start drinking.


Only cool people wear sunglasses at 10pm while out at the bar


I love this picture. Silly urologists... :-p


I love us.


Starting the drinking day at 4pm, managing to not blackout or get sick, AND not lose anything? Not too shabby. Although I did call it a night relatively early (11:30pm) and I did almost lose my cell phone -- almost. But whatev. All in all, I'd say it was quite the successful Irish holiday. :) Hope everyone else's was good too!

Orienting

My boss just emailed me asking me to orient a new staff member. I was just talking to Caroline about having to precept a new grad and how I dont know how good I'd be at it. (Typically they give new grads a preceptor who has been there for a year, therefore that would mean that I could potentially be precepting a brand new nurse when we get the wave of new grads in July). Thankfully this new member is a traveler so its not like I'll be training a new grad, I'll be training an experienced nurse, but still.... I'm pretty nervous about it. But my boss wouldnt ask me to do it unless she thought I could, right? mreh..

Almost spring time!

I actually dont mind winter and the cold. I love snuggling with a blanket, drinking a glass of wine and reading a good book. And I think that snow is beautiful and so much fun. But I am so excited that warm weather is fast approaching! Cherry blossoms, sundresses, walks in G-town, laying by the pool, reading on the balcony, barbecues, the waterfront, its all so happy. :) Also on my happy list at the moment:

• sunshine
• the current 62 degree weather
• wearing flip flops for the first time this year
• wine nights
• finally having furniture in our apt
• Yankee Candle: "Garden Sweet Pea"
  
• Oreos & peanut butter
• scrapbooking
• tax refunds!!
• working day shifts and having a normal sleep pattern
  
• T-Revs & Rostopher
• cute pics of boys and their 1 year old neice (siiiigh...)
• my little cousins

look at those big brown eyes!


testing out the bday presents


yummm cupcakes


shhh, dont tell anyone, but he's my favorite...


Hope everyone is having a good week so far!! :)

March!

A lot of the snow has melted, which I totally was not expecting to happen until like April since we had SO much of it, but alas, the wintery wonderland is fading. Today it is 50 degrees and somewhat sunny.... and tomorrow its going to snow. Silly weather patterns. Anyway, here are a few more snow pics that I never got a chance to post.


on our deck:


almost as tall as the mailbox!

Ethical Dilema

The awesome thing about working on a Transplant unit is that you get to see all these really sick, dying people recover from their illness after receiving a transplant. The not-so-awesome thing is when you see noncompliant people essentially waste the organ they've been given because they are too stubborn to make the necessary lifestyle adjustments needed following a transplant. Whats even worse? When we work up a patient for a possible transplant evaluation and the patient is already noncompliant - before any of the hard stuff has even begun.

We have this one kid (yes, kid. He's 19yo) and he's already had a pretty rough life -- pancreatic Ca, surgery to cure it, and b/c of the surgery, he has all these small bowel complications, thus he's being worked up for a small bowel transplant. Obv you feel for the kid b/c his situation sucks, but you would think that if he has the opportunity to get transplanted and possibly solve his problems (granted it definitely wont be easy), he would be grateful and willing to do whatever it takes. Instead, he refuses to have labs drawn, refuses to have his dressings changed (his PICC line dressing hasnt been change in a month! Hello, infection?!), he manipulates the nurses and doctors, he refuses to listen to anyone, and he is completely stubborn and noncompliant. And THIS is the guy you want to give an organ to?? Unfortunately the doctors/researchers are so concerned with the numbers that they just want to get as many transplants done as possible. It's a shame, isnt it? I'm not quite sure how performing a transplant that has a fairly decent probability of failing is good research, but what do I know. It seems like such a waste to give an organ to someone who is so unappreciative and unwilling to do the work. (Let me clarify: If this kid doesnt get a transplant, he wont die, unlike those in need of, say, a liver. Although not ideal, he can live with supplemental nutrition. So its not as if not giving him a transplant is a death sentence.)

Well the problem with this particular patient is that they recently found possible mets in his abdomen, which means if he does in fact have cancer again, he is no longer eligible for a transplant. Now, of course I dont wish cancer upon anyone. ...But I also don't want this kid to get a bowel...

Lent?!

How is it already Lent?? Wasnt New Year's like, a week ago?? I cant believe how quickly the last month and a half has gone! I was having a hard time coming up with something to give up for Lent...

• Chocolate? I dont eat enough of it that it would really be a sacrifice.
• Snacking? I would never make it through a night shift
• Coffee? Not unless you want me to be mean and miserable
  
• Alcohol? Ha.
• Maybe just giving up wine? Then that just means I'd come home and have a beer instead.

Well after much debate I think I got it: For Lent I'm giving up complaining about work -- not to be confused with venting. So no more bitching and whining about obnoxious patients, indecisive doctors, pain-in-the-ass med students, the worthlessness of our pharmacy, etc etc. We'll see how this goes..... :-p

Feb. 14

"...General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends... If you look for it, I've got a sneaking suspicion... love actually is all around."

Happy Valentine's Day. :)

Snow - part 2

Isnt it funny how you take away the option/ability to do something and suddenly thats all you want to do? For example, I spend quite a few of my days off just relaxing and bumming around the apt and it usually quite enjoyable and much needed/deserved rest. Esp when its a fake day off, aka I worked the night before, and esp when my most recent shift was as crazy as the one I had last night. But of course today we have yet another blizzard warning for the DC area (and believe me, it is ridiculous out there) and thus I am stuck inside the apt and all I want to do is go out and do something. But alas I've been laying in bed under the covers about to go stir crazy because I'm afraid either my car wont make it 5 ft without getting stuck, OR mother nature will eat me alive in the snow storm.

Leaving the hospital at 0800 following a crazy night shift. Already blizzard-like conditions:


Streets were empty...


Probably b/c there was barely any visibility. Driving across the Key Bridge - you cant tell from the picture, but normally you would see tons of high rise buildings at the other end of the bridge:


My apt complex at approx 0830



But I do still love the snow! I'm pretty sure I'm the only one on the east coast who is excited its STILL snowing. :-p

Snow!

Snow is so pretty!! :) looking out my window - just a couple inches on the ground:


Crossing over the key bridge looking at Georgetown (yep, on my way to work):


Snow covered trees:



...Then "Snowpocolypse/Snowmageddon" happened Friday through Saturday. ...And I worked Friday night, so getting home Saturday morning right smack in the middle of the blizzard was quite the challenge. I actually didnt make it all the way home, I had to take the GUH shuttle to the metro then walk to my friend Lisa's apt. Yeah, walking during the blizzard was not so much fun. But it turned out pretty well. We hung out all day (way better than being stranded home alone) and then ventured out in Arlington on Saturday night where there were tons of people out. So much fun! (aside from getting shoved into a snow bank for no reason thanks to Matt :-p).

Pics from Sunday, once the snow started to melt and you could finally see the streets:


overlooking the Key Bridge with the Washington Monument in the background:


Look how pretty!:

Fast Forward

Sometimes I really wish life had a remote control to it. You know, you can rewind to relive awesome moments, rewind to redo bad moments ...or maybe rewind to remember moments... like last Sunday for me, but thats a whole different story. :-p

Well, right now I'd like to fast forward. Fast forward to Wednesday. Fast forward to the weekend so I can get a sense of what happens when the Doctor and I no longer see each other at work every day and whether or not we'll still talk. ...Fast forward to when my apartment is once again furnished so I dont have to sit on my living room floor or eat at my desk. ...Fast forward to when I can walk out of my room and not be super depressed when I see Laura's empty bedroom. (...Or just fast forward to if/when Laura moves back to DC, but I have no idea when that will be so I may end up fast forwarding through quite a bit of time.) Mreh.

the waiting game

I hate this game. In every sense. I am impatient and I hate the feeling of helplessness (hello, Type A here, thus I like to be in control of situations). I hated that I had to sit and wait for hours to find out if I passed the nclex. I hate that after you put yourself out there and ask a boy out, you just have to sit and wait for his answer (but thats another story :-p).

But really, I HATE the waiting game when it comes to work. I understand that some situations are minor enough that waiting, seeing, and monitoring is appropriate - like if someone's staples look a little red and inflamed. Could just be irritation, so cont to monitor and if the redness/swelling increases, ok we'll take some action. That is legit and I understand that. But typically if a situation warrants reporting off to the doctor, some kind of action needs to be taken. For example this conversation took place during my last night shift at around 3am:

"My patient is complaining of shortness of breath. His O2 Sats are good: 99% on RA, but I put on O2 for comfort and he says he still feels like he just cant catch his breath and feels tightness in his upper abdomen" (I am 95% sure this patient has a fluid collection in his abdomen which would explain the tightness, and all the fluid pushing up on his diaphragm would explain the difficulty breathing, but I still need to tell the doctor so that maybe we can order a couple tests to confirm. Plus, whenever a patient complains of SOB, it is never ever good.)
"Ok, we can order chest x-ray and maybe an ABG in the morning. Just watch him for now. His Sats are fine, right?"
"Yeah... but he's on 3L of O2 and still feels short of breath"
"Yeah, ok, we'll order some tests in the morning."

WTF. Why? Why do you have to put off ordering these tests till the morning? Why the hell would you put it off for 3.5 hours till the rest of the team gets here when you know that as soon as they take one look at him, they'll order exactly what you just suggested? You're the freakin senior resident! Just order the damn tests. I dont know if its b/c they're not used to how sick our patients are or what, but the waiting game never ends well with our patients. It is not a good game to play with these people. How is it that they dont understand that? Ugh. Frustration.

ohhh boys

Sorry its been a while since the last post, nothing too exciting has been going on unfortunately. Christmas was good, I finished my stretch of days at work and it actually wasnt too bad since I'm friends with the doctor who was there most of the time so that definitely made coming into work way better. NYE was ok. We went to the waterfront where the bars there had open bar. It would've been tons of fun, had I not had to be sober mom the entire night and take care of my ridiculously drunken friends. oh well, it happens. The night all in all wasnt a total bust. :)

Anyway....

While catching up with a high school friend last week, we naturally ran across the subject of boys. We made a deal that if she had a DTR convo with the boy she's been dating for the last 3 months and figure out if they're boyfriend/girlfriend status, then I would ask out this boy that I like. I was all about it at the time of the convo since I do want to hang out with him and I do want to figure out if there's any potential, but now that its actually time to ask him out I am totally chickening out! Which is sooo not like me. Normally I'm the type of girl who can talk to a boy, no problem. I hate all that stupid crap where its like, "wait a minute, I was the one who texted him last" or "we just talked 2 days ago, I should probably wait another day before I talk to him." Its complete BS. If I want to talk to a guy, I'm gonna do it. I dont care. ...Well apparently now I care b/c I'm semi-freaking out just thinking about having to ask him to hang out. We've hung out before in a group setting out at a bar, and we may have done the late night hook up... :-p But the entire purpose of this deal that I made with my friend is to get me and this guy to spend time outside of a bar setting, get out of the random hook up mentality and actually just hang out with him. And as it turns out, this week is Restaurant Week in DC. Pretty perfect timing, dont you think? Now I just have to muster up the courage to ask him... Maybe dinner is a little too formal / date-ish? Maybe I should suggest a movie instead? ahhh I hate boys... (Actually I kinda hate myself for freaking out about this. I mean, he's just a stupid boy... :-p)