Uncle-in-training.

This week and the next coming weeks seem to be my in house training for unclehood. I had the rare chance to assist my sister with her 4 year old child while my bro-in-law sets up their new frontier in Northern California. Yup, my sister's family is moving from the warm Southern California area to the cooler climate of the north. Eventually, I will moving there myself as we all migrate north just like geese in the summer months. Thank God people don't do migrations like geese in a seasonal pattern.

My niece is an extremely cute beautiful girl. Like most kids, her life is play, eat, poop and sleep. Taking care of her basically means meeting these needs. It is an exhaustive task specially when you have other things to do. Another reason I will not have kids, hahaha.

I observe my sis take care of her from morning until night. Man, it can be a full time job. Not something that a lazy person like me would be doing in the near future. I like to lounge around at home writing blogs, recuperating from the slave labor of nursing thankless bastards so they can wreck havoc on the world, and searching ebay for stuff I don't need.

Changing diaper full of excrement of digestion is not at all fun both visually and nasally. Besides the diaper changes though, taking care of her is fun in general. She plays all the time, running around their house pushing a little baby carriage. The sound of hard plastic wheels and wooden floor is mind numbing. Then she will try to shake the carriage to make a deafening drumming sound. Toy manufacturers should be sued for making noisy toys like that. A set of rubber wheels would have be appropriate to dampen the noise.

It's different driving around with a car seat in my SUV. The cool factor drops significantly when such a padded mass of plastic is strapped on the otherwise luxurious leather back seat. It turns a SUV to a PUV. Parent utility vehicle. Such vehicles don't see much sport when a baby is riding the back seat. The cargo space previously used to carry a bike and a cooler of sports drink is now used to ferry groceries, boxes of diapers and cans of powder baby formula. I perhaps need one of those 80's signs reading "Baby aboard".

Hey, this situation is temporary and as soon as the niece and her parents move out of my area, I will miss her a lot. It's good I have plenty of good pictures of her and me together. I also remember when my mom's brother used to spend time with us and he also drives us around town and to school. The cycle continues. Someday it will be my niece's turn to take care of her nephews and nieces. The same way her uncle took care of her. Except she will be driving a newer model SUV.

Looking for "Nirvana".
A buddy from nursing school called to chat about professional life. We talked about salaries, vacations, co-workers, staffing and other nursing issues. I go through all these with all my nursing buddies. Hours of reflecting about this thankless job that few people wants to do.

There is no ideal work. It doesn't matter what profession one prefers to embrace. There will always be pluses and minuses. The key is to keep focus on the pluses. Keeping the passion for this type of work is also important. Today, I extubated my first patient in a year and a half. Since leaving cardiac surgery unit, I haven't had the chance to extubate anyone. My patient almost didn't get extubated as the person started to hyperventilate. I coached the patient to breath slowly and to be calm. After half an hour, the patient was calm and passed weaning criteria (the test done to validate that the patient is ready for extubation-removal of the ventilator tube from the trachea.) It was a satisfying feeling to help return a patient from ventilator to self breathing. Not a big deal but satisfying otherwise.

I doubt that I will ever find my ideal place of work. There will always be a negative. Co-workers criticizing my work is my weakness. Some nurses have a nasty way to tell others that we did a crappy job without realizing that you have given 110% of what you can offer. Nurses don't give positive feedbacks as much as they give negative ones. I get lists of "how come you didn't do this and that?" When I get report from this same nurse I will hear "Can you do me a favor and do this and that for me, I've been very busy and no one to help." This is the biggest crime in nursing. Nurses should be hang if they commit this crime. Manipulative bastards.

I'm learning to just let these moments slide by. I talk to one of the younger doctors at work and he taught me to journal the bad days and just leave those moments on the journal. Try to forget them and not let them control my life. I have a tendency to dwell with the bad things and just think of them in an endless loop. I need to focus on how good of a job I did taking care of my patients and not let other people's negative comments bother me. I have a long road ahead of me but atleast I started the journey.


Be healthy, exercise, eat right, drink lots of water and quit all the bad stuff.

Medical intervention can be both good or bad. When one signs that consent that explains to you that you can die in a procedure, hang on. You know you are in deep shit. After observing all the emergency procedures that needs to be done on patients, I think the worst is having a heart surgeon tell you that he is going to open your chest, harvest veins on your legs, bypass blood flow from your heart to a machine, pour cold potassium solution on your beating heart so that it can stop and he can do bypass surgery on your occluded coronary arteries. You will wake up with a tube in your trachea, a tube up your bladder, a huge catheter that measures pressures in your heart, three to four half inch diameter chest tubes in your heart cavity and lung cavity and draining blood to a container, three or four heart medications that is keeping you alive and clam. That picture will turn any carnivorous pig, cheese cake loving, potato chip poping, and ice cream slurping person to a vegetarian. har har har. 50/50 chance of meeting the Creator once you are lying there flat on a gurney or hospital bed with a surgeon on top of you explaining the procedure.

The worst fear I have is what if the nurse that is going to take care of me is one that has worked his/her 5th or 6th 12 hour shift. The nurse is tired and is thinking of take a break early. Oh maybe take an hour's break in the staff room while another nurse that is also tired on his/her 7th 12 hour shift watches the monitor sleepily. Arrgh, I've seen nurses like these. They are common. They have two full time jobs. Those half million dollar homes are hard to afford if you only work one job. Their kids need to go to private school and the new Acura/Mercedes/Lexus monthly payments are due. Make the odds of survival 25/75, in favor of the unfavorable. I think keeping healthy is easier than having to face the butcher, I mean the cardiac surgeon.

Getting off my lazy @ss.
It was my third day off work. It was an overcast day and I decided to clean the walkway beside my car garage. I built a walk there about 3 years ago. It was challenging to say the least. I worked on it alone during the summer months. The rainy days of winter encouraged the weed seeds to germinate on my walk. The weed growth was thick, I can hardly see the path. The walk is made of concrete tiles styled like bricks and laid on a diagonal and square pattern. The rest is then filled with "golden rock" kinda light brown in color.

To get this de-weeding project going, I need tools. Oh yeah, a weedwacker. I have a gas powered one in the garage. I don't feel like breathing exhaust today so off to OSH. OSH is Orchard Supply and Hardware. It's a home improvement supply chain store. It is owned by Sears and now by K-Mart. OSH is not as insane as Home Depot. You can't build a house with OSH stores but it's small and convenient for small projects. The weedwacker I got was craftsman, powerful enough to do the job. 4 amps of power is good. Harr, harr, harr.

The weedwacker was awesome. It demolished all the weeds on my walk. It was noisy as heck but that is the sign of power, har har har. No exhaust, so all I inhaled is dust and fresh cut grass scent. I also wore a pair of eye protectors just in case a rock decides to go airborne at mach speeds. I then cleared the area with my old electric blower. I wish I still have the vacuum bag option but the bag is lost that somewhere. The cut grass is now all mixed up with the rocks so I need to sort some of the rock out. Time consuming as heck, but these rocks are expensive. They go on 15 lb bags. I guess I can afford to lose some but why? hehehe.

The last step is to spread some weed killer. This stuff works, toxic stuff. har har har. The weed killer direction said that it will protect the ground from any growth for a year. That's good enough for me. Now let's see if it works.

You're The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!

by Douglas Adams

Considered by many to be one of the funniest people around, you are
quite an entertainer. You've also traveled to the far reaches of what you deem possible,
often confused and unsure of yourself. Life continues to jostle you around like a marble,
but it's shown you so much of the world that you don't care. Wacky adventures continue to
lie ahead. Your favorite number is 42.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Joke from a friend, enjoy.

No opens plis to all Uragons...
DAN, THE BIKOL MAN

Dumating si Dan sa Amerika sa tulong ng kanyang kumpare na may kontak sa immigration sa Pilipinas. Medyo tagilid ang papeles niya kaya masyado siyang maingat (TNT). Ayaw man lang lumabas ng bahay si Dan kung hindi kasama ang kanyang kumpare.

Isang araw, nagsawa na ang kanyang kumpare sa kaaalalay sa kanya.
“Pareng Dan,” sabi ng kumpareng tinatago ang inis, “Heto ang susi ng kotse at mga credit cards ko. Mag-shopping ka naman sa Mall para malibang ka.”
“Kung may problema ka, tawagan mo lang ako sa telepono. Papasok na ako sa opisina.”

Dahil siguro sa hiya ni Dan, Kahit nerbiyos na nerbiyos siya, sinubukan niyang lumabas. Tuwang tuwa si Dan sa pamamasyal sa Mall. Nakapili siya ng mga damit na gusto niya, ngunit pagdating sa cashier, biglang nataranta at natakot si Dan.
Tanong ng cashier, “Visa or Master Card?” Haripas si Dan palabas dahil sa takot! “Aba, hinahanap ang visa ko! Baka nabisto na ako! Shet!” Sakay>kaagad siya sa kanyang kotse. Harurot.

Kaso, halos wala nang gas ang sasakyan kaya huminto siya sa isang gas station. Nang maglagay na siya ng gas, biglang nagsalita ang cashier sa speaker, “Sir, PAY FIRST, please.”
“Naku, patay! Papers daw! Hinahanap ang papers ko!”
Nagtatakbo si Dan sa>mga eski-eskinita hanggang makakita siya ng payphone. “(Hingal)

Kailangang matawagan……ko si kumpare……para masundo niya ako rito (hingal).”
Pagtaas niya ng handle ng telepono, narinig niya, “AT&T how may I help> you?”
“Aba, anak ng putakti, alam na TNT ako! Buking na ako!”
Pagbaba niya ng telepono, may Amerikanong nakatayo sa likod niya, tanong ba naman, “Are you DONE?”
Napahandusay sa Dan sa phonebooth. Biglang bulalas, “Buray kan ina!, alam pa nito ang pangalan ko!”
Nagulat ang tisoy sabi kay Dan, “Hey, be COOL, man!”
“Naku! Alam pa’ng taga Bicol ako!”

“Is that your GREEN CAR parked in the red zone?” Hihimatayin na si Danny Boy! “Hinahanapan pa ako ng green card!!!!!”
Kaya sa matinding takot, nagpahuli na lang si Dan. Ngayon si Dan ay nasa Bicol na muli at binansagan na “Dan Balikbikol.”

Bwahahahahahahahahaha !!!!!!! Plis, no opins to da Bikolanos. Da karakter in dis stori can represent one prom BIBAK or any place prom our bilabid kantry