Drive-in Movies

Last night Mike and I went to the drive-in to see Harry Potter. It was a double feature. The first movie was No Reservations. It was a cute movie. I've always liked Cathryn Zeta-Jones. That little girl who was also in Little Miss Sunshine is a damned good little actress. At intermission, the line to the bathroom was way too long to even bother. I held it for the entire Harry Potter movie. I was watching humanity in various form while standing in the popcorn line. There is a whole different class of people at the drive-in. One woman was wearing a long ratty peasant skirt and ugly velvet tunic. She may have washed her hair but not recently. People don't bother to dress like they might go outside when they go to the drive-in. Drive-in theaters seem to bring out the trailer trash in all of us. I kind of like that; gives me something to think about while waiting in line for the bathroom.

Back to work we go

This week at work was not bad at all. Utah has a state holiday on the 24th of July called Pioneer Day. It is a bigger deal than the 4th of July because the local Mormons are more proud of their heritage than their country's. The hospital census was below 80% the whole week which isn't good for the budget but my job was a heck of a lot easier. I was able to fill almost all of the staffing needs all three of my shifts. I was bored out of my everlovin' mind.

I damn near talked myself into going to the gym today. Thank God I took a nap instead.

Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit....

The dogs are enjoying the RV park. They have been surprisingly well behaved. Trigger has only barked once and that kind of slipped out. He was trying to hold it in. But he was just feeling so exuberant and happy that he felt the need to share. This morning when I awoke, Mike was out at the picnic table talking. I assumed he had struck up a conversation with some of the other campers, but no; he was watching a rabbit and telling our vicious dogs to "kill the wabbit" (Picture Elmer Fudd singing Wagner) The dogs, however, were cowering under the picnic table. I don't blame them, wabbits can be vewy scawy.

Thoughts

I've been putting up with some kind of bad-assed shoulder pain the last 10 days (but who's counting). I've decided to try and take scheduled flexeril (knocks me on my ass) and ibuprofen to see if I can kick this thing because what I've been doing sure isn't making it go away. Notice I don't write "suffering from" shoulder pain. I hate the term "suffer from" Do you suffer from diabetes? No I fucking have diabetes but I'm not suffering. Suffering is poverty, rape, genocide, rolling your car and losing your spouse. I have and do see suffering in my job every day and what I have ain't it. I have a condition that is forcing me to give up cookies and orange juice. I'm not suffering by a long shot.

Mike and I are running off with our trailer tomorrow; today if Mike gets off early enough. The boys are out of town with their father, so we've decided to run away. But since the boys aren't home, we have to take the dogs with us. This should be an interesting trip since Trigger has a bark that can split eardrums.

Ever played the piano under the influence?

I've done something to that little muscle under my left shoulder blade. The damn thing has been hurting for almost two weeks. It does feel better for about the first four hours after I take mega-dose ibuprofen but at this dosage, I can only take it every eight hours. I happened to go to the doctor for my quarterly your too fat, your cholesterol is too high check up and told my doctor about the shoulder thing. She gave me low dose flexeril. Thank God it is low dose because that stuff knocks me on my ass. I was trying to play the piano for the first time in months when I discovered that I lose my place in the music and can't see quite as well after taking flexeril; curious, might have to experiment with this phenomena. There will be a later post about housework wherein I point out that the piano is so dusty that I don't like to play it but heaven forbid I dust or vacuum. Anyway, I'm not sure if the flexeril is really working but it sure makes me cross-eyed.

In sickness and in unhealth

I couldn't think of anything to write about so I decided this is the post where I get to whine......a lot. In addition to being fat which is mostly my fault, I have a variety of pain in the ass chronic illnesses. I say being fat is mostly my fault because I have Polycystic Ovaries (PCOS) which is associated with obesity because the testosterone to estrogen ratio is out of whack (obscure medical term). However, I'm pretty sure the Ding Dongs I used to eat in the closet had a lot to do with the size of my ass. PCOS also causes infertility but I was lucky enough to have two boys through the wonders of modern medicine. Can I just say that having sex when your ovaries have been forced by medication to spit out an egg is not the first thing on my list? Anyway, I also have a mild form of Common Variable Immune Deficiency (CVID). I say mild because when I researched CVID, I discovered my IgG levels nor my infections were not nearly as bad as the people on the internet. Besides, as my doctors will tell you, I like to minimize my illnesses so I don't spend my entire life in bed feeling sorry for myself. Feeling sorry for yourself is non-productive and brings in almost no income; not to mention people start to avoid you like the plague if you start telling people your temperature every day. I have had three sinus surgeries and two PICC (long-term IV catheters) for antibiotics. I also received infusions of immune globulin (IViG) one winter until the insurance company agreed with my diagnosis of she's-not-sick-enough-for-this-expensive-shit and refused to pay for any more. Long story short, I have chronic daily fevers and sinus pain that varies from background noise to just fucking shoot me now.

Fast forward to this week. The fevers have been higher than normal which means I probably have something acute as opposed to my usual chronic fevers. Usually I can tasted (yuk) when my sinuses are infected but not this time so I don't know what the hell is wrong. The pain has been no worse than usual except I'm pretty sure I had an ovarian cyst this morning that made me wonder if I was going to be able to get out of the shower (thankfully, that pain only lasted about an hour). It was all I could do to stay upright at work today but I made it. If I can just make it through two more days, I get six off to rest.

Traveling on my employer's dime

Monday and Tuesday I flew with a group from my hospital to preview a software product we may (probably) purchase which will improve patient flow (admissions and discharges) as well as improve our efficiency in about a billion ways. We went to a hospital that has been using the software for a few years to see how it is used outside of demo mode. It was nice hospital with basically all of the same patient flow issues we have but definitely more efficient than we are in major part due to the software program they are using. That was the business side of things.

The nice part was staying in the Renaissance Club Sport Hotel (Marriott). That is not a hotel I would be paying for if I were traveling on my own dime, heck I'd have been in my trailer. I love the showers in Marriott hotels. I felt guilty when I stepped under the dual head shower and was sprayed by so much nice hot water because I'm from the desert. But I quickly got over the guilt and enjoyed the luxury. The software company's CEO payed for all of our meals except breakfast. I drank more wine with dinner than I usually do in a month. It was lovely not to worry about budget when ordering a meal.

The flights were OK. Going out we flew on Delta and our return was with Skywest through Delta. That plane was a bit small for me and the turbulence made me nervous. I know now why Delta is having money problems. Their customer service is attrocious. When I checked into the electronic kiosc to get my ticket, the machine asked if I wanted to change to an earlier flight "at no cost". Well I was tired and anxious to get home so of course I clicked yes. Everyone in our party who used the kiosk got the same offer but those who went to the counter had to pay $25 to change their flight so they complaigned (rightfully so). One of our party who got her boarding pass at the kiosk did not get a seat assignment, so she went to the gate attendant to obtain one. The gate attendant told her that she was on the list of people who had not paid for the flight change and that she and the rest of us would have to pay the $25. It was not like the computer kiosk accidentally forgot to charge us, the words "at no charge" appeared twice on the screen. After much arguing and obtaining their customer service number she paid the $25 so she could fly home with the rest of us. It was about 3:30 P.M. Pacific Time when she called the customer service line and got a recording that stated that their customer service office was only open until 5:30 Eastern Time and to call back. Great service!! I quietly waited for our boarding time all the while wondering if I was going to be forced to pay. But when the time came the gate attendant was busy as all hell and just sent us all through. I'm pretty sure it would have delayed to plane to have about five of us arguing with her. Great service that Delta. It felt like we were a bunch of cattle.

Boy I'm glad to be home.

Camping in Wyoming

I'm sure purists among you would not call what we do camping but I've been there done that took my morning bath with river water after hiking several miles to camp. Now we camp with a trailer with a kitchen, bathroom, TV and with any luck...internet access. So we couldn't access the internet, we still had fun and were away from camp tooling around Yellowstone or Teton National Park most of the time. We spent four days at the Star Valley Ranch RV park. The sites were shady and level but there was no grass. It is a huge RV park with a swimming pool, tennis courts and golf course; none of which we used. We had a nice time. Yellowstone and Teton were beautiful. We saw mostly Bison but at the end of the day when photography was impossible we saw herds and herds of Elk. Mike has a waterfall fetish so we went to the Upper and Lower Falls of the Yellowstone. The hike down to the lower falls was a bitch especially the hike out but we made it. We were shocked to discover that we were not sore from our hiking the next day. Now we've no excuses not to hike more because if we can do that without orthopedic consequences then we should be able to do more.

Fourth of July

Well, to start the day we had four traumas by noon. One died, one is paralyzed from the waist down (hopefully not permanent), one broke two legs and an arm or two arms and a leg (I can't remember), and one trauma patient's head was cracked open like an egg (don't know if he'll live or not). As I was leaving, the first traumas of the evening were starting. We get them in the morning and evening as people travel. The mid-day traumas are usually idiots on ATVs, motocross, jet skis, etc.

Can I just bitch a little? I swear when I was a floor nurse who only worked in one unit, I still cared about the other patients in the hospital and would float a nurse to another unit if necessary. I did not like to float, but I understood it. Tonight, I got all of this crap about not having to float because it is a holiday and the other units should have staffed appropriately. They did staff appropriately but sometimes there are unplanned things like census higher than normal or a nurse barfing her guts out. I just get tired of hearing all of the "we aren't taking this patient" or "we don't want to help that floor" or "those guys always do this or that". The word "always" is one of my least favorite. Nothing is ever "always"; it can be most of the time or sometime but "always" is too concrete and rarely if ever occurs. I don't want anyone who reads this to think poorly of nurses. Most of them love their jobs, are very compassionate, incredibly smart, contentious, and hard working. But the whiny ones I could do without.

I can hear the neighbor's fireworks outside. Trigger has crawled under Mike's chair to be protected from the scary noises.

Be Safe

July 4th is tomorrow and I am working. I will be finding beds and nursing staff for all the traumas we expect to receive this holiday. We're starting out already with a young trauma patient from a motor vehicle accident that is not expected to live. As much as I like having my shifts go by quickly, I can do without young people burning themselves, losing limbs, paralyzing themselves or dying while behaving as if they are invincible. Take it from me, no one is invincible. I am almost positive there will be people injured while riding ATV's, dirt bikes, motorcycles, driving cars, lighting fireworks, etc. Even worse will be those injured by drunks doing all of those things. Have a safe 4th of July.....

The Gym

I've lost about 25 pounds since January. That's not exactly a great accomplishment. I've done it before. The 25 pound mark is usually where I get stuck, give up and any number of excuses. This time is the first time I've joined a gym, however. I'm paying monthly for the membership so by God I'm going to go at least once a week. I know, I know...its supposed to be at least three times per week. And that is my ultimate goal but I cannot or will not go on the days that I leave for work at 6 A.M. and get home at 8 P.M. So that leaves three days a week out. Work is a good excuse for not going to the gym, I'm still working on my other excuses. Mike and I are going camping up near Jackson Hole for four days. So I only have today to go to the gym. Its taken me about four hours to get dressed to go to the gym. As soon as Crossing Jordan is over I am going if I have to kick myself in the ass to get me there!