Monthly Archive

I know we live in a violent world and voilent things happen … even close to home.  But lately there have been some very sad, very violent things happening too close to home for comfort at work.

About a month ago a 22 year old girl was brought into the ER after a being shot.  She died very soon after arriving there.  Her injuries were so severe there wasn’t much the ER staff could do.  They did try very hard, though, to save her life.  And afterwards her family got violent with ER staff and began assaulting them.  A nurse was hit with a lamp, the family members were picking up other pieces of furniture and throwing them, and the family waiting room in the ER was trashed when the ruckus ended.  The entire ER was locked down for almost two hours.

Last night I arrived at work to be told to hurry to get report on my team of patients because the nurse I was following had been hit by a patient and needed to be seen in the ER.  Well, when I saw the nurse I saw right away it wasn’t just a slap she’d received.  The entire left right side of her face was red and swollen and painful.  One of the orthopedic doctors in town was on the floor seeing a patient and told her he thought her cheek bone may be fractured.  The patient delivered quite a punch.  The nurse went downstairs to the ER and I haven’t heard any more yet about how she is doing.

And then last night later in the shift I heard that one of the staff members of the hospital who I work with once in a while and think is just a really sweet woman was shot in the head by her 19 year old son a few days ago.  At this point it’s unclear if she will survive.  She is being kept chemically sedated and on a ventilator and was going to surgery today to have one of her eyes removed that the doctors weren’t able to save.  I don’t know the details of the shooting, but the story is that it was intentional.  Just a sad, sad situation. 

I’ve been off work for a week… you would think I’d have had time to write a blog entry before this.  I can’t really tell you what I’ve been doing with my time other than wasting it and relaxing and healing from my surgery.

Surgery was last Friday and went great.  I woke up from anasthesia wide awake and feeling good.  Pain was bad the first night but not bad at all since.  Post-operative appointment with the surgeon was Monday morning and he said it’s healing well.  He also told me the bone spur was worse than the x-rays showed and had actually broken through skin.

When he got the dressing off my foot I looked at my toe and said “Ew, it’s ugly.”  He chuckled and said “No, it’s beautiful, it’s healing great.”  We obviously were meaning different things by ugly and beautiful.   

Today I got to take the dressing off and put just a band aid over the incision.  The pain has been just very minor and it was feeling good to walk on it normally today without a bulky dressing.  Well, it was feeling good until about an hour ago when I stubbed my toe against my desk and said bad words my mom still yells at me for saying.  (Sorry, mom, but it really hurt.)  Bottom line is it’s healing well, I’m doing well, and ready to get back to work tomorrow night.

And in other news. I adopted another cat.  That’s two now.  She’s an 11 month old white and light gray beautiful girl named Tinkerbell.  She’s a very scared thing right now.  She was a stray and then has been in two foster homes over the past month so this is her third home in a month.  She’s spent the past day and a half since I brought her home hiding under my bed for the most part.  She comes out to her litter box and goes right  back under there.  I have her food and water sitting right under the edge of the bed.  She will stretch her legs out until her paw is just about an inch from my hand and meow at me but isn’t really wanting me to touch her much yet.  And as much as she’s been through lately, I’m not pushing the issue.  She doesn’t run away from me and isn’t aggressive towards me, so I figure she’ll warm up to me eventually.  My other cat, the one I refer to as Demon, has hissed at her just a few times and I’m keeping him away from her until she gets more comfortable here.  He will just have to learn to live with her.  And I think that is about all the news here… Hope you’re all well.

I read an article recently that discussed the fact that the U.S. is now number 42 on the world ratings list for life expectancy.  The big reasons believed to be behind this are the number of Americans who are obese and lead sedentary lifestyles.  As a nurse, I have another idea of what’s behind this.

I think that the medical community, doctors and nurses, are doing a better job of educating our patients about quality of life issues.  We’re helping patients and their families look at what kind of quality they would have as opposed to just blindly focusing on prolonging their lives and forget what the quality of that life may be like.

That isn’t meant to sound cold and heartless.  It’s just a fact that there sometimes comes a time when it’s time to look at what the treatments we’re putting the patients through are costing them.  Take for instance, chemotherapy.  Being an oncology nurse, this is an example I see frequently.  Take, for example, an older patient who has been fighting cancer for years and their body is frail and tired.  They’re tired of fighting, both physically and emotionally.  The side effects of the treatment for their cancer is making them miserable and unable to function and do anything they want to.  There comes a time to discuss with them the option of stopping treatment and making them comfortable, allowing them some better quality time when we know that their time is limited.  We can offer some pain free time without the miserable side effects of the chemo. 

That’s not to say we ever suggest to a patient that they give up.  It’s only when it’s really obvious that the treatment is only prolonging death and not going to offer a cure and equally obvious that the cost of that treatment is outweighing the benefit of it that we would discuss stopping aggressive treatment as an option.

I think it’s getting more common to discuss quality of life as a concept than in previous years.  And that may lead to some patients dying just a bit sooner than they might otherwise with more aggressive treatment.  So this could be skewing the life expectancy figures a bit.  Or I could be wrong and the the difference could be so short as to not effect life expectancy figures at all.  It’s just a thought.

I was at a Sprawl-mart type store today (which store isn’t important to the story) and there was a Subway shop inside the store, as well as small portrait studio.  As I was in line at Subway the woman ringing my order up and another employee were talking.  Since the conversation was right in front of me I couldn’t help but overhear.  And being my mother’s daughter, I couldn’t help but talk to these strangers. 

The story that unfolded still has me shaking my head in disbelief.  Apparently one of the employees has an adult daughter who is the mother of a toddler.  Adult daughter had taken her toddler to the portrait studio there in the store for some portraits and went back yesterday to look at proofs and order prints.  When she got to the store at the time it was supposed to open she waited 35 minutes for an employee to show up and then the employee was very rude to her.  The employee said to her “I’m the manager and I shouldn’t have to come open the fucking store because someone locked their keys in their car.”  This is just such an example of horrendous customer service I don’t even know where to start.

First of all, to use the word fucking when speaking to a customer is just so incredibly inappropriate and unprofessional.  I can’t imagine one single place of business where speaking to customers that way would fly.  And secondly, as the manager, oh yes I certainly think she does have to come open the store when another employee is unable to.  Isn’t dealing with problems that arise like that a big part of a manager’s job description?

The Subway employee who’s daughter had been treated so rudely was going to go over to the portrait studio and speak with the manager and was planning on reporting her behavior to her immediate supervisor.  She was nervous about doing it, not wanting any trouble, but knew behavior like that should not go unchecked. 

I came across  a bizarre news story today out of England.  It seems a 24 year old young lady pulled off her ex-boyfriend’s testicle with her bare hands and attempted to swallow it but then spat it out in her hand.  A friend was heard to say “That’s yours” as he handed the testicle back to the gentleman.  I really would have thought this was made up and a joke if I hadn’t seen for msyelf that it’s on the BBC news site.  It’s just so odd to as almost be laughable.  The link to the story is here:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4253849.stm

The article goes on to say that this young lady claims she never meant to hurt him and she’s really not a violent person.  Um, sure.  She pulled on his genitals with enough force to rip one of his testicles from his body, but she never meant to hurt him?  I don’t even have a clue how much force it would take to rip a testicle from a man’s body, but I’m going to take a wild guess that is a lot of force.  She caused him that much bodily harm but she’s not violent?  Just who does she think is really going to believe that? 

I went to see the doctor this morning for an infection in my toe.  Had been to a stat care last week and on antibiotics that were helping some but not completely.  This was a follow up appointment with another doctor.  Silly stuff, right?  I walked out of the office with surgery scheduled for next Friday.  I’m not really sure how that happened and I’m nervous.

The doctor I saw today said “You know, it isn’t an ingrown toe nail.  It looks more like a bone spur.  Let’s do some x-rays and find out.”  Ok, sure.  He’s the doctor.  About 10 minutes later he walks back into the exam room and says “Yes, it is a bone spur.  So now let’s talk about our treatment options.”

The first option was take the toe nail off in the office to help the infection under the nail heal.  That addressed only half of the problem, though.  That wouldn’t help the discomfort and deformity from the bone spur.  Neither of those are going to go away on their own.  If we took the nail off in the office today I could put off the surgery to remove the bone spur and do it later.  That was one option.  But that would mean removing the toe nail again if we didn’t do the surgery in the next few months.  And it just so happens that I’m off on vacation starting next Friday.  Yes, the day of my surgery.  I’m off work for a week and don’t have any strenuous plans.  So the timing made sense to go ahead and do it.  

But I really don’t want to do this.  I’ve never had any surgery as an adult.  And I’m a wuss.  I’m nervous about it.  I don’t like needles.  (Ok, so I give people injections at work all the time, but that’s different.)  And my mom won’t be nearby.  She’s always the first person I call when I’m sick or in pain.  And I’m sure I’ll be talking to her often that afternoon and over the weekend.  It really will be fine and I won’t have to spend the night. I’ll be home that afternoon.  And I’m having it done at my hospital where I work, so I know I’ll be in good hands.  I even called a coworker I know on the orthopedic floor to ask what she knows about the doctor who will be doing the surgery.  (She didn’t have anything negative to say.) 

I reassure patients at work all the time the night before they have surgery.  I calm their fears the best I can.  But yet I can’t calm my own right now.  Go figure!  Not that I’m a basket case over it or anything but it’s on my mind.  Anyway… enough of the worrying.  I’m off to listen to some happy music and do some housework.