work

I am tired, so this is probably going to be poorly written. Lets just say I'm glad I have today off. Work has been nuts lately. I think the people in staffing found out that I'm okay with working doubles. So almost every day I have the opportunity to work 2 shifts in a row. Which would be fine, except I can't really sleep during the day. But whatever, I'll make up for it later.

I oriented to the second floor of the hospital yesterday, which is the surgical unit. The really nice thing about it was that I got to work with this british lady. I love her accent. She pretty much could have been yelling at me and it would have been cool. Plus we got to clean out some pretty gross bile/pus/drain wounds, which is always fun. ( I'm not being sarcastic.) I really need to look up a bunch of surgeries and find out what they actually are. Basically my current knowlege is: They had surgery. There is a hole in their abdomen. Sometimes there are drains draining out fluid coming out of smaller holes. Make sure their intestines don't come out... or that they die. I guess that sums up my knowledge of that. When we were re-dressing one lady's hole, I really had no idea what the hell was going on with it. (Besides that she was cut open. ) She had no staples... it was literally just a big slice of meaty cut open skin. Some of it was green skin. Some pink, with some brown stuff oozing around. That's probably a good explanation. Then there were three jp drains coming out of her side. She had a couple of things done... that I cant' remember. They took out some of her large intestines, but then then had to go back in because she had a hole or something that was leaking. ... yeah. That sounds good. I sound super knowledgable.

My point about all of this is that I was glad I was orientating, because I was way too tired to do anything by myself.. aka, might have screwed something up. I also need to learn more. I feel much more comfortable on the telemetry/icu floor. Maybe i'll just go to med school. What else am I going to do with my time ? Sounds good. i'll put it on the list of things to do.

I take that back. I feel much more comfortable on the tele floor until something awkward happens. Which is usually every day. Like yesterday, I was taking care of this guy in a fib with a GI bleed. He was getting a couple of units of blood, and wanted pain meds about every 5 seconds so needless to say, most of my time was spent in his room. He was pretty pleasent. Usually the amount of time you spend in someone's room allows you to talk about normal things .. names, school, family, work, weather.. When you're in the room for 3-4 hours during the shift people must get really comfortable with you so they start talking to you about anything/everything. Which usually for some reason leads to the patient having a cousin/nephew/son/friend/friend's brother's nephhew/the gas station boy etc... that they want you to date.

Most patients just mention it casually, but for some reason the man I took care of was completely set on having me date his son. "You know, he just got out of a relationship with his girlfriend a month of two ago..." "He just likes having nice things and working hard and she didnt' understand that. You seem like you would. You're a nice girl" " He's 23 and works the night shift at walmart. He usually comes i n here after his shift and visits, I'll introduce you."

I never really know what to say back, but I just say something like 'that's okay, you don't have to' or 'actually, if he's your son, and you're only 40 and in the hospital for a week and a half with a GI bleed/afib etc, I don't think I'm interested in those genes." Maybe not that last one, but you get the point. Most people drop that particular topic and move on to somethign else. He didn't.

"No , no, it's no trouble at all. I'll just write your number down on this piece of paper and give it to him. He likes to do fun things. Do you like movies? "

Yeah. Movies are pretty sweet. But it's fine.. really, don't...

"Oh better yet, I'll just have him come in early from work that way you can meet him and set something up."

NO, really. it's Ok.. I probably shouldn't..
"Things happen for a reason you know, it's like a match made in heaven."

right.
The height of awkwardness probably happened when his son actually showed up at 10 to seven in the morning. "Hey steve, this is annie, she's my nurse. Isn't she cute? Except she's not interested in dating." umm...... cool.
The only good thing about the situation was that his son was 5'3 and as wide as my bicep. Not that I'm that picky about looks, but I would just prefer not being able to bench press my boyfriend.
I guess I'll just take the whole situation as a compliment. A 41 year old man thought that I was cute, even though I hadn't showered in a couple of days and was wearing size 2x scrubs. Not bad. Not bad at all.