Still alive. (a 2-16-07 entry)

The work at Casa has intensified and the staff is having a hard time coping. More spinal cord injury patients are in and they are not going out. Every 2 hour doses of Dilaudid eat up nursing time. One wants to be lifted everytime he gets moved. He has a sore that goes bone deep and I can't blame him. He's not going anywhere until the wound is healed. Yeah, stage IV sore, it will take months. The dudes a tetraplegic. Type A personality that has worn the nursing staffs patience done to the core. We are sick of the dude and there is no relief in sight. He wants his arm this way and his head that way. His family's gone, they don't visit as much. They too are tired of the situation. If superman's fate is any indication this dude will be gone in a few years. Sad but that is the reality of life when you play with high speed vehicles.

The CNA situation is not improving. We have the same amount of CNA with high acuity patients. The SCI's take a lot of time to care for so the other patients have to wait longer. The clinical coordinators don't seem to get the point and they don't staff appropriately. My back has been sore lately, doing the CNA's work and getting behind my work.

I have to do diaper changes while I get behind the medication pass. Oh well, as long as the call lights are not blinking, the bosses are happy. I stay over from half an hour to an hour just to catch up with paper work. It sucks but that's what happened when I help other people with their work. That's the price of being a highly skilled ICU nurse. LOL.

The other RNs don't help but I do. They get to finish their work on time, no one wants to go home late. I don't either but I have to dot the i's and cross the t's. It's better just in case some psycho patient decided to sue.

Conference is another waste of time. We sit around discussing goals the patient need to meet the next day. Physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech with the case managers discuss their goals. Nursing is basically safety and bowel and bladder function. The worst feedback from the therapist is that nursing doesn't do their jobs. I will not attend anymore of this conference if insults will be flung towards my dept. I don't need the insults at work. I can just stay home and not get this type of abuse. I told the head nurse about it, let's see if there will be any improvement.

On the light side of work is the endless joking around between the staff. That's the only way we can survive this type of work. We cover each other for breaks and we do work well together.

Casa in the news.

Casa was featured in the news this evening. It showed how injured soldiers are being left uncared for by the Veterans Administration. The VA has told these survivors of war that they will require wheelchair for life and nursing home care. Afew lucky souls end up at Casa. After months of rehabilitation, they are now walking and talking. Living a life with their family.

I happen to admit one of the soldier and he is doing very well. The VA surgeons told his mother that he will not talk, walk, or live a normal life again. He was referred to Casa by a Marine officer. Now she was glad that they came to California from Florida.

I get to know the mother and she said that they used to scuba dive in the Florida keys. I'm impressed. I can't even thread water. One thing I know is that this family of Marines are really loyal to their Corps. The father was a Vietnam vet and his other two brothers were vets of the first Iraq war.

I don't get assigned to him much, I don't know why. I guess he's too easy an assignment and I usually get the more challenging patients. I visit him as much as I can and his mother really appreciates it. It's nice to see progress from someone the VA doctors has given up on. As they say, The Miracle Continues.

Rainy days

It's been raining the past few days. Rain one day and sun the next. The good thing is that we are getting rain. My gutters are working as built. No more flooding in the garage. Money well spent having it fixed.

I have been putting of washing the cars. The rain takes care of the dust.

I found that some people leaves their sprinkler system on even after a rain. That is just wasteful. Most of them probably don't know how to turn them off at the main controller.

Forcast said that there will be more rain in the coming days. Good deal. Life depends on water.

LSQC Class of 1982 25th anniversary.

Jeez, I'm old. It's been 25 years since HS graduation. Looking back I was glad it was all over. I never felt bad about not telling anyone I was leaving for the US. The principal was telling me that he should have been told. In my mind no way so he can give me special projects? Idiot. They copied my grades from one quarter to the other. LOL.

Some of my batch mates as they call ourselves have a party this evening at another batchmate's house. I'm not going as I am so over this HS bullshit. They get together every month to talk about bullshit I don't care about. Why can't these people get over HS. It's 25 years ago and I don't give a flying crap about their fund raising and scholarship fund. Waste of time. I need to rest.

One of the guys called me and left massages on my home and cell phones. Jeez dude, leave me alone. I just don't get the big deal but since these people enjoy getting together and boozing themselves go for it but I'm not getting involved.

Back to normal.
Work conditions are back to normal. The tetraplegics are less demanding with their specific needs. These guys can get bossy. I had to tell one of them to ease off the nursing assistants. His tone of voice was deaming and the CNAs are working hard to meet his needs. Some of them thinks they have a slave.

Before one should embark in dangerous activities think about what it can do to you.
Examples from our distinguished patients are the following.
1. driving a 17,000 hp speed boat and it explodes to bits rendering the driver a tetraplegic.
2. elderly man riding his bike and the front tire blew up. He fell and broke his neck making him a tetraplegic.
3. running away from the police and jumping off a bridge made him a tetraplegic.
4. playing rugby and having your friends pile over your body when a knee presses on your neck snapping it just below C3. This will make you a ventilator dependent tetraplegic.
5. driving without a seatbelt and being ejected yards from impact. Yup, welcome to tetraplegic world.
6. not having a physical exam by a physician for 20 years can be dangerous to ones health. A massive stroke can ruin plans for retirement. One middle aged pinay made a mistake of not seeing her doctor. Now she's paralyzed on her left side. BTW, she's also a diabetic. Jeez.
7. going to Iraq and having an IED blew up on your face will make you not only dumb and stupid but also impotent and divorced. Yay.

That are only some of the ways people can get hurt. So be careful out there.

Damnn Iiiit!

Okay, one thing about starting over is making sure you know where you keep your back up copies of programs you love. I found the jacket of my Photoshop 7 but there is no disk inside. ARRRGHH.

I downloaded the 30 days trial version of CS-2. This program costs about $650. It's a great program but I don't need everything it offers.

I'm on the look out for my PS 7 disk. It's out there somewhere.

Talking to God.

One of our patient lost it last week. He's a retired nurse administrator for an insurance company and a hospital in L.A. She was refusing her medications and physical therapy. His doctor was ready to transfer him where ever he wants to go. Administrators were trying to help him out but he was not cooperative with his care. He rejects staff that wears perfume or any pleasant scent as he is allergic to perfume. Most female staff wear body lotion so it's hard to assign staff to her.

I was even tempted to wear my after shave so she will reject me and I don't have to deal with him. That will piss of my superiors so I didn't do it.

The patient is isolation for Clostridium difficil infection. House keeping has to clean her bathroom with chlorine. He refused as the chlorine smell will kill him. The bad thing about this is that he was not able to prove that a physician has diagnosed him of this condition.

Last week the hospital served him papers to vacate. Wow, never heard of that before. He has three days to appeal with medicare. His chart was copied and sent to Medicare, all the government will read is how he was not complying with his care.

He started telling staff that God is speaking through her. Condemning nurses of destruction if they don't listen to her rambling.

He finally left Wednesday. Upon arrival to his destination he refused to get off the gurney as he didn't like the place. The ambulance driver called if the hospital will take her back. The supervisor said her bed is already taken. No wonder she moved my patient to his room as soon as it was cleaned that I didn't know what's going on. Poor guy, no one will tolerate him in that nursing home. (The above story is based on true life occurrence, the identity of people has been changed to protect the innocently insane.)

Another day reconfiguring a computer.

My laptop has reached it's max level on the hard drive. In an attempt to slim down by deleting some programs I removed some vital "stuff" that makes the system stable. The result was an endless events of crashes. The laptop involved is 6 years old, time flies when you are having fun. The processor is still fast a Pentium 4, 2.4Ghz. with a 16" screen. It's a behemoth of a laptop.

I reloaded the system software but a bit of upgrading was required. I downloaded a bunch of Microsoft updates and things was up to par. Next was upgrades for Explorer and other windows software. Reloaded Norton for virus protection and firewall. The wireless modem was then reloaded and things started to work like new. No junk is going to this reconfiguration, only windows supplied screen savers. I'm not even loading the programs included with the restore disks. I'm making this a portable Photoshop 7 computer. No word processors, no games, no unnecessary junk, not even porn, ahhh, maybe. LOL

I used to think that I can keep this one out of the internet but I want to be able to write blogs, and surf the net with it too.