Chores

I worked in some firewood-cutting time today. I'll get in a nap before work tonight from 11pm to 7am.

I guess cutting firewood is a chore for most people. I swear I really enjoy it.

Pond Ice

Taken on my way out to shoot & cut firewood this afternoon.

Good weekend

HODAR left this morning right before I had to go to class. We had a fun weekend, shooting "serpentine" drills (as if I know how that's supposed to be done...), cutting wood, roaming the farm and doing our part to deplete the local beer surplus. It was bone-chilling cold most of the time. While we were shooting, I wore more clothes than I had on during any of the times I've gone up Mt. Washington in winter. No joke.

Hey!

That's my chair !!

The Mighty HODAR is here....

Good times.

FWIW

Nursing gives me a different perspective on Tam's viewpoint:

According to this CNN article, one in four heart attack patients has to wait for fifty minutes or more in the ER to see a doctor. This is unacceptable. If we adopt a more modern and progressive system, we can get our numbers up in no time. (Plus it would cut down on the number of Canadians who come down to use our hospitals, eh?)

The little rural hospital where I work has - surprise! - a tiny little E.R. We've got a room for triage, 3 exam rooms and 3 "trauma" beds. That's it, unless people are OK with being stitched up in the hallway.

We already have far too many times when we're nearly overwhelmed with patients - most of whom aren't really "emergencies." In order to figure out who needs to be treated first, we've got to triage everybody. That takes time. So, sometimes little Johnny has to wait more than an hour to get his broken arm put in a cast. Sorry. The MVA in triage one who's trying his best to bleed out, the 6-month old with a 103-degree fever, the acute chest pain with a history of MI and the other more acute cases have to be handled first. Johnny will have to wait.

When (and I emphasize when rather than if) HillaryCare or ObamaCare is instituted, things are going to get worse. Not better. Patient loads will increase. Not the other way around. Wait times will follow suit.

Don't kid yourself - legions of competent, eager doctors and nurses will not materialize to handle these people. Our E.R. won't spontaneously grow new beds to handle the patients. And the E.R. nurse who already appears to be at the end of her rope will not get more optimistic.

Somehow I doubt society will suddenly start taking better care of itself, exercise, swear off cigarettes, booze and fast food, slow down and drive like they've got some sense and decrease the burden on our already overtaxed healthcare system.

For those of you who want "universal healthcare", here's hoping you get what you're asking for. Enjoy your wait.

Fools.

She's on a roll...

... again:

I say we blame the guns. Or maybe poverty. Not the state that pays people to live in a human zoo and rewards apathy and hopelessness with monthly checks in the mailbox.

Read the whole thing.

Oh, my butt....

I sat on my butt all day today. I started with a nursing staff meeting at 7:30am, followed by an hour drive to class, where I sat some more from roughly noon until about 7. Then I sat for another hour on the drive home.

Why is sitting down all day so tiring?

Marathon

Well, the marathon is over. I went from 1pm Monday until about 8pm last night with only 3 30-minute naps. That's over 30 hours with only 1.5 hours sleep. I didn't feel all that bad, frankly - just a little fuzzy. I slept until 10am this morning, though. I'm still battling "the crud" -- that mucous-soaked cough that's been plaguing the community. A lack of sleep isn't helping.

Classes went pretty well. I had nothing to do today in terms of work or school ... but I did have to get the battery for my truck replaced (it died right before all this began - how convenient), replace the broken chainsaw chain and cut more firewood. Oh, and our house furnace isn't working. The living room (with the wood stove) is the only warm room in our house right now. At least the furnace is under warranty...

Here we go...

I work 11pm to 7am today, then I have class from 11am 'till 7:30pm tomorrow (which involves an hour drive each way to school.) 2-hour naps will have to get me through the next 20 hours or so.

I don't know where today went. I got up around 1pm, but I didn't get out the door until nearly 4. I cut wood until the chainsaw chain broke. Dammit. Now that I've pretty much gotten everything together for class tomorrow, I'll try to get a nap in before work.

That was my day?!?!?!?

So tired...

Dang, I'm beat. The E.R. was a full-blown rodeo when I walked in yesterday evening, though it cooled down to a mere "steady" later as the night wore on. The last few hours were totally quiet. I got a good 8 hours of sleep last night, but I'm still tired. I'm in the E.R. again today from 5pm to 3am.

On the bright side, I did an "in-and-out" cath of a male last night on my own (and it was only my second cath ever) and all my IV sticks were successful. I'll take that.

I don't go in to work until 11pm tomorrow, so I'll have most of the day to do something other than work ... for the last time. After that, I'll be working and in school 'till May 2009. I suspect "tired" will be my baseline energy level for quite some time.

Fire!

We had a bonfire last night ... and by bonfire, I mean we burned the Christmas tree and some cardboard boxes. I threw on some less-than-adequately-cured wood, and we huddled around our pitiful little fire in the sub-freezing temps, roasting (or just warming) hot dogs and enjoying PBR and margaritas. Good times.

I work the E.R. today from 5pm to 3am. The coming days will be tough, with a shift in the E.R. again Sunday 5pm to 3am, then a night shift in the ICU. When I get out of the Unit at 7, I might have time to get a nap before the first day of classes from 12:15pm to 8:30pm.

Bah. Sleep is overrated.

Remember Samus?

I got Andy McKee's CD Art of Motion a few days ago, and it's a stunning listen.

Although it's not one of my favorite tracks, I like the title & description of track 10:

10) Samus' Stardrive
"I'm a video game addict and this tune is directly influenced by the music in a certain 8-bit odyssey. After Samus' triumphant victory over Motherbrain and the Metroid hordes, I imagine she turned in for a long cryo-sleep during her stardrive to safer shores."

I'm not a video game "addict" and my brother and I never had very many games for our original Nintendo system. I think it was years before we ever had Metroid, but it became one of my favorite games - I think because the music was so weird. It had an other-worldly feel that no other game could match. Well, until Doom came out ...

Heh. We nerds are so easy to entertain...

R.I.P.

Sir Edmund Hillary, supreme mountaineer and humanitarian, 1919-2008

Some boots are too big to fill.

Night shift

I work 11pm to 7am tonight in the ICU. I've never pulled a shift in there before. They say everything "happens at night" in the unit. Yay. (This is me being cynical.)

I wish I could write about something other than work, but it feels like that's about all I've been doing lately. That's not entirely true, of course, but it sure feels that way. I've been working different shifts for over a week now, and I'm soooooo done with it. I'll have to pull several more night shifts before it's all said and done, but it can't be said and done fast enough for me. Now, if I worked night shift all the time, I could get accustomed to it and it wouldn't be such a big deal. Lack of consistency, however, is for the birds.

What day is it?

Last night was absolutely dead from midnight 'till 3am. I'd actually have preferred a busy night, so the time would pass more quickly. Having said that, I work 5pm to 3am again today, so I may just have to eat what I just said...

I'm dragging because of the shift change. I got up around noon, and I've just piddled around the house for nearly 3 hours now. I don't mind working shifts other than day shift, but a lack of consistency makes it hard for me to maintain my energy level.

I work 11pm to 7am tomorrow. My days and nights are going to be turned on their ears by the time I get a "regular" shift...

Rifle cam!

I got a "helmet-cam" for my birthday a few months ago, and I've just gotten around to playing with it. I strapped it to the stock of my AR and tried it out while function-testing my two new Magpul Pmags.

Both the camera and mags worked fine. The video isn't all that remarkable, and the recoil jars the picture quite a bit, but hey - the thing cost less than $150, so I feel like I got my money's worth. I'd like to use wear the cam on its headband to get footage of IDPA matches this year.

Enjoy!

Back to square one

I was assigned to the E.R. today, and as much as I want to see myself in emergency nursing, it was a rough day. I generally like the flow of things in E.R., but now that I'm supposed to know what I'm doing, it seems rougher than it did when I was in school. I don't know where to find anything and all their paperwork is different. Not to mention the E.R. doesn't exactly slow down so you can get your bearings ... even in a small-town hospital like ours.

Tonight's music: For My Father by Andy McKee. Yeah, I'm hung up on it. I bought the CD.

My work schedule is going to be wacky between now and the start of spring classes. I have several E.R. shifts from 3pm to 3am or 5pm to 3am. I've also been scheduled a couple of 11pm to 7am shifts, which I'll probably end up doing in I.C.U. That's right ... "the unit" -- where I - once again - won't know where to find anything and it'll be like I don't know what I'm doing. Kind of like today in E.R.

Hey, at least I'm getting paid now.

I've got the weekend off. I'll probably cut wood, take down Christmas/Kwanzaa decorations (I claim to celebrate Kwanzaa so I can keep my Christmas decorations up past the New Year. Novel, eh?) and do some other chores.

I shot 5 rounds this afternoon that I loaded using my new Lee Perfect Powder Measure. It works well, though I'm still tweaking my setup. It speeds things up, that's for sure; I was taking a ridiculous amount of time using the Lee dippers. Maybe I'll actually be ready to get serious by the time IDPA starts back up in the Spring...

Yessssssss.......

I love it cold. Unfortunately, it won't last. Temps next week will be nearly 70. Damn.

Coming thru the speakers right now: "Heather's Song" by Andy McKee.

I have today off. Today's "to-do" list: pick up the new clothes dryer (ours has a warped drum, which has been ruining clothes for far too long), cut more firewood, maybe shoot some. I'm eager to try out those new Magpul Pmags.

I started my first nasogastric tube on Monday. Aside from the patient gagging (which is to be expected) it was quite a bit less dramatic than I expected. I had an RN with me, thank God, who talked me through it. I stayed past my scheduled shift's end to help her with some wound dressings, because it never hurts to help out an RN...

I'm currently over 27 hours into my 120 hour internship. I'm an "LPN-A". Can't wait to drop the "-A".