So, unemployment is really not that bad.
Sure, there's no money coming in, and I've been spending it faster than you can say "bankruptcy," but on the other hand, I haven't enjoyed myself this much in three years (yeah, that's like, before the Northeast fiasco, and the nursing job from hell). Three of the longest, most unhappy years of my life, followed by a decent job and a massive lapse in my health, which wasn't/isn't very fun. But I'm recovering! And Slytherin will help me on my way to greatness!
Oh wait, wrong children's series.
Yesterday, I went to the ocean and went for a walk through the surf. I went for a swim before turning back. I watched young people sunbathe and flirt; was visually accosted by old scrawny men with hairy backs gimping around in way-too-revealing speedos, and observed moms dig sandcastles with their nekkid-as-jaybird-toddlers (the sight of which made me hope the kiddies had lots of SPF 700 applied liberally to their birthday suits, and also, I don't even want to think about whether or not the boy and girl bits can sunburn because that's just a fate worse than death.)
I haven't felt that relaxed and happy for a long time. I didn't have to hurry back home and have a nap so I wouldn't be exhausted for work the next day, although I did come home and have a nap any way, and then got up and watched "Grey's Anatomy" which has always been Primetime's Least Accurate Portrayal of Hospital Life Ever, But, Who Cares, Look At the Eye Candy! Look at it! I say!
Okay, so we don't care that nobody speaks or acts the way they do on that show, because we all know perfectly well that if the universe actually worked according to the metaphysical laws that seem to govern the Grey's universe, no one would watch the show. Nay, they'd be too busy engaging sexy trysts with Patrick Dempsey-types in between codes and getting all post call chummy with the chief attending, senior resident, the latest attending-du-jour and a whole bunch of fun intern pals at the local watering hole! Because the first thing I think about after my hospital shift is, "Gee! How can I spend even more time with these really cool people with whom I spend most of waking hours?! Maybe I can room with some interns! Or live in the basement of the hospital, so that I can work the floor whenever I want!"
That's. So. Not. Reality. People.
And where do they get the idea that there's like, one nurse who works in the ER, OR, OB/GYN, ICU, and med-surg whenever plot contriviances deem it necessary? And that interns just randomly run codes on LVAD patients without anyone else in the whole hospital noticing until the patient is sent to the OR? And that medical staff is that good looking? I mean, have they been to a hospital lately? Have they ever seen an intern thirty six hours post call? Don't they know that even if we wanted to sleep with our attendings, we probably wouldn't do it in an empty patient room because of risk of colonizing our privates with MRSA and VRE?
But you see, reality is not the point of the show, which is why it's such a hit, and why I wish it really was that sexy and intelligent to work in a hospital, because wow what a hot ticket job I'd have.
I don't want to be a nurse anymore! I just want to play one on t.v., and especially if the gig requires hanging out with Sandra Oh all day. I mean, just look at her. She's so tall and hot. And that hair! Are we sure she's really Korean? I mean, no offense to my ethnic homies, but uh, we don't exactly have a lot of sexy going on out there. A lot of geeky types who were once highschool class treasurer and members of Junior Civitans and National Honor Scholars, whose college bee-line for a medical degree are funded by successful dry cleaners and grocery mom-and-pop enterprises from sea to shining sea, yes, but well... when it comes to objectively hot pop iconcs, we're kind of umm... sadly deficient.
Meanwhile, in my mundane world, where the sexiest words I've ever had an attending mutter to me is, "Discharge the annoying med-seeker STAT, please," I must figure out why my CD-RW compatible stereo isn't playing my CD-RW cds I burned this afternoon.
Not nice. Not nice at all.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Thursday, September 28, 2006
eight months.
life measured
in days and
not yet years;
the chart reads
like i'm eighty and
fell down a flight
of stairs.
those stories
will come later.
report goes:
subdural hematoma.
bilateral retinal hemorrhages.
lacerated frenulum.
fractures of the left humerus
fractures of the left femur.
fractures of the eleventh
and twelfth ribs.
one week later
and nurses
still note
there isn't anywhere
left that isn't bruised.
daddy brought
me in. said he
did it but
momma shrugs.
said she
don't know
nothing
about nothing.
said she was out
getting
pizza.
i am eight months
old and already
there isn't
anywhere left
that isn't
bruised.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
dead again.
what was
your first
name?
i remember
your last.
and your
blue eyes
the
whites
turning
yellow;
dark
purple
half moons
setting
below.
i remember
your labs:
potassium
shooting
up like
a spike.
coags
kidney and
liver functions-
none of it
good.
heart
fumbling
its rhythm.
later on
that night
long after
i'd said
goodbye,
the monitor
slowed to
forty
then
thirty
then
nothing.
i knew it
would.
code didn't
last long.
probably
took longer
to hoist you
back to
bed.
dammit.
dead.
again.
of all the
things i
remember
i wish
i knew
your first
name.
and
how
i wish
i could
forget
the rest.
your first
name?
i remember
your last.
and your
blue eyes
the
whites
turning
yellow;
dark
purple
half moons
setting
below.
i remember
your labs:
potassium
shooting
up like
a spike.
coags
kidney and
liver functions-
none of it
good.
heart
fumbling
its rhythm.
later on
that night
long after
i'd said
goodbye,
the monitor
slowed to
forty
then
thirty
then
nothing.
i knew it
would.
code didn't
last long.
probably
took longer
to hoist you
back to
bed.
dammit.
dead.
again.
of all the
things i
remember
i wish
i knew
your first
name.
and
how
i wish
i could
forget
the rest.
chasing lawnmowers.
last thing
you ever had on
your mind
was a goddamn
lawnmower.
earlier that afternoon
you'd been talking
about selling
your john deere
to a guy down
in jersey;
maybe that's where
you planned on
going next.
half out of bed,
you were probably
just getting up
meaning
to make the drive
and dicker over
the price, get
a good bargain.
it had to be.
your expression--
unfathomable.
no clue how
the deal
had gone down.
we lifted you back
into bed.
pulled the covers
up to your chin.
house officer
came up to the floor,
listened to
the nothing
no longer
beating
or rattling around
in your chest.
closed your eyes.
called the family.
they came and
sat in a semi circle
around your bed
in cold hard
plastic chairs.
your son said
softly, "Oh, geez,
Pop." and kissed
your grey forehead.
he was crying.
later on, after they'd
gone, we washed
you in cold water.
a nursing student
came to look at you.
said she'd never
seen a dead man
before. i had
three hours left
of a fourteen
hour shift.
too tired to
argue, i shielded
you the best i
could.
took off your
johnnycoat.
wondered
what the hell
to do with
your wedding
ring.
decided
in the end:
leave it on.
put a tag
on your toe.
turned you.
fumbled,
said lamely,
"I'm sorry."
zipped you
into a white
body bag
that smelled
sharply
of plastic.
someone
wheeled
you away.
never did see
you go.
wondered
though
as I
drifted home
through the cold
saturday night
street
whether you'd
finally gotten
your money's
worth.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
quid pro quo
So I just went out and spent an unforgivably large amount of money on myself. Purchases included: a hair cut (which I desperately needed, as I have looked like the a wastrel orphan for quite some time now) a manicure and a pedicure (I typically never get a manicure, because what's the point when you spend your life sopping up everyone else's turd and vomit), unmentionables (real ones, as opposed to the cotton every dayers I wear, because, well, see the reason why I never get a manicure) and two pairs of jeans, because a) I have to gain about five lbs to fit into my size 2 jeans, and my size 0 jeans are looking like something that belong in a rag heap, along with most of my clothing that aren't ceil blue scrubs. Buying unmentionables was kind of fun, and reminds me why I should try to get a gig as a lady of leisure, because if I'm going to remain as skinny as a doper, I mght as well accessorize with the appropriate 'ho wear.
I also made an appointment for a facial, because my face looks like one I saw under "Oliver Twist" in the library the other day, and also, because after a year of making sure every one else feels somewhat less dehumanized by hospital machinery, I decided it was high time I treated myself to a little pampering. And also, because it's ever so sensible when you're broke to go for frivolities you don't need.
In my "penny wise, pound foolish" method of bankrupting myself, I baked a loaf of bread from scratch this morning, using my bread machine. the bread machine, like a lot of other things in my life, has a Back story. The backstory is that I bought it as a grad student one spring break, miffed about my car (which broke down about fifty miles outside of Nashville and prevented me from coming home for break) and The Latest Boy Saga, deatails of which have escaped my memory (thankfully enough) but no doubt involved some two-timing cheating bastard who went on to live happily ever after with whoever he did the deed with--may they deserve each other richly unto eternity and beyond.
(Someone once told me this was a line of dialogue in the epilogue to "Before Sunrise," in which Julia Delpy's character laments the fact that she has been a good luck charm girlfriend to a successive number of boyfriends who went on to marry the next person they dated after her. This has happened no less than three times--that I am personally aware of--to myself, and I can only hope that I escape a fate worse than death by avoiding connubial entrapment to the idiots who weren't sharp enough to snap up the next best thing to Hermione Granger's real world counterpart.)
I digress.
Any way, I just ate a huge, doughy heel of bread and think probably have just committed intenstinal suicide, because I think the bread is going to outlive Methusala. Dammit!
Off to curl up in the fetal position and think up new ways to spend my nonexistent savings account, one of which may or may not be a hospital admission to remove a bezoar of homemade dough from the recess of my stomach.
I also made an appointment for a facial, because my face looks like one I saw under "Oliver Twist" in the library the other day, and also, because after a year of making sure every one else feels somewhat less dehumanized by hospital machinery, I decided it was high time I treated myself to a little pampering. And also, because it's ever so sensible when you're broke to go for frivolities you don't need.
In my "penny wise, pound foolish" method of bankrupting myself, I baked a loaf of bread from scratch this morning, using my bread machine. the bread machine, like a lot of other things in my life, has a Back story. The backstory is that I bought it as a grad student one spring break, miffed about my car (which broke down about fifty miles outside of Nashville and prevented me from coming home for break) and The Latest Boy Saga, deatails of which have escaped my memory (thankfully enough) but no doubt involved some two-timing cheating bastard who went on to live happily ever after with whoever he did the deed with--may they deserve each other richly unto eternity and beyond.
(Someone once told me this was a line of dialogue in the epilogue to "Before Sunrise," in which Julia Delpy's character laments the fact that she has been a good luck charm girlfriend to a successive number of boyfriends who went on to marry the next person they dated after her. This has happened no less than three times--that I am personally aware of--to myself, and I can only hope that I escape a fate worse than death by avoiding connubial entrapment to the idiots who weren't sharp enough to snap up the next best thing to Hermione Granger's real world counterpart.)
I digress.
Any way, I just ate a huge, doughy heel of bread and think probably have just committed intenstinal suicide, because I think the bread is going to outlive Methusala. Dammit!
Off to curl up in the fetal position and think up new ways to spend my nonexistent savings account, one of which may or may not be a hospital admission to remove a bezoar of homemade dough from the recess of my stomach.
Monday, September 25, 2006
Why School Children Everywhere Should Study Latin
Okay, sidebar.
I just saw a blog entitled "Propranolol vs. Atenolol."
This frightens me because a) who the hell devotes an entire blog to dueling beta-blockers and b) I was just writing a nurse friend of my today and pooh-poohing atenolol as the most useless beta blocker ever to be prescribed IVP (IV push).
Alright.
So for the record: I am still sick, skinny, and now, jobless, having begged off the one good nursing job I've had in a year because I was too damn ill to go back and work backbreaking back-to-back twelve hour hospital shifts.
I'm about two steps from the poorhouse, but let's not think about that now! Let's think about Latin!
There are several reasons for this strategy.
As a way of introduction: it is depressing to think about how little an American dollar actually stretches these days, and it's especially sad when suddenly these stupid hospital bills come rolling in like some insidious wave of the Bubonic Plague (incidentally, I love how the bills claim, in bold letters: "This is not a bill! It is a statement!" BALONEY. What this really means is "This is a statement. Of your bill." Friggin' wolves in sheeps' clothing! It is too a bill, just a bill in disguise. Like they think I can't deconstruct their subversive but none-too-clever crackpot scheme to defraud the working poor).
Second, when depressed, the next logical step for a confirmed academic geek like myself is to pull out old textbooks and start reciting conjugations in Latin and stem endings (-o or -m, -s, -t, -mus, -tis and -nt!). There's nothing more to warm the cockles of an academic geek's shriveled up old heart than to read those spiffy Wheelock English-to-Latin sentences that somehow always seem to involve girls saving poets from bad fates or daughters of Rome with sound character and true virtue laboring to help the state, or, in later chapters, endless references to Cicero's Cataline oratories, with swords and flames etc, or Caesar's rather boring and stilted reminscences about Gaul.
(Laugh, but trust me, my disquiet at my financial situation was such that it was either that or memorize STEMI and nonSTEMI ACLS algorithms, and don't think it didn't occur to me to dig out my 2005 ACLS pocket guidebook. Because I did. And lo, I read them while eating my oatmeal this morning. And lo, someone should shoot me now and put me out of my misery, because my God, this kind of pedantry should be illegal, child!)
Also, when depressed, it helps to think there was once a time when even if you mistranslated miles, militis, m. solidier, for milia, milium n., pl., thousands, you weren't going to kill someone because you gave them a huge dose of some vasoactive drug.
And it's also helpful to remember, when feeling like a right royal screw up, that you haven't actually killed any one on the job yet, and there are even jobs out there where you'd virtually never have to even contrive a situation where you could possibly fuck up badly enough to cause any one else permanent lasting damage, death or dismemberment. (I thought about this while shopping at Publix, the local supermarket, while I bought cooking staples like olive oil--and pondered philosophically what indeed it means to be "extra virgin.")
I used to think teaching would be one of those nice kinds of job, where you could impart your vast (or in my case, pithy) repository of knowledge and expertise on the new generation and every one would think you were doing this wonderful, altruistic thing with the added benefit that it remains extremely difficult to think of--let alone conjure-- a situation where discussing Foucaultian discours during class time could kill someone!
So what did I do? Become a nurse, where every so often they foist a poor student on you, so in addition to trying to juggle a patient assignment, you also have to shepard some poor twenty-year-old-deer-caught-in-headlights-young-thing through your shift, which means explaining why you just took fifty unauthorized shortcuts to get your meds passed and assessments done before attending rounds, bitch unprofessionally at pharmacy for not getting med orders right, throw a tantrum at the tray passers who think it's a nurse's scope of practice to set up breakfast trays, and how then smile apologetically and insist in a very half-assed way that the student should totally ignore the nurse behind the sterile field curtain and do it the right way, of course.
The scary thing about me taking on a nursing student (apart from the fact that staff nurses don't actually get paid extra to teach students) is that ummmm dude, I was just a student a year ago myself. Like, hello brilliant educational system!! I don't know what the hell I'm doing myself most days, and uh, you think I'm qualified to teach the next generation of burnt-out RNs?
Apparently the nursing shortage is such that they really could care less.
Which of course brings us a long way from Latin.
Or does it?
Because really, the whole point of diversion is to think about something entirely different from reality, and the study of Latin, oddly enough, represents to me some kind of ideal academic subject, the kind which is only mastered through rigorous and continual application of backside to chair. My favorite kind, in other words.
I also liked it because it wasn't French, at which I failed miserably (because anything that has an actual real world application is something at which I am destined to underachieve, as evidenced by my ruthlessly pointless academic degrees, religion and theology, of which people were always saying--somewhat rudely, if pointedly--"What are you going to do with that?!")
But Latin. Ah. There's a language no one speaks any more! So of course, it turned out I had much more of an aptitude for a dead language than a living one, just as I suspect if sitting in a room all day thinking about how to apply critical theory to the nursing profession was a real job description, I'd actually be employed right now.
I also just happened to like the language itself, though. So pleasantly rigorously structured, almost mathematical in a way (and math, being useful, is of course one more thing I couldn't shine at if my sorry ass life depended on it). All kinds of nice rules to follow, and declining nouns is a really fabulous way to spend an entire weekend if you just so happen to be twenty-five and stuck in a retirement town where everything closes after 5p.m.
I've always thought I would have been a much happier, perhaps less financially woe-begone person if I had been just a little bit smarter or a whole lot dumber, but that is another subject for another day.
Meanwhile I'd better stamp out my vocational ADD in a big hurry if I want to pay my hospital bills, and you know, not end up a homeless urchin giving Latin lessons to gang bangers on streetcorners.
I just saw a blog entitled "Propranolol vs. Atenolol."
This frightens me because a) who the hell devotes an entire blog to dueling beta-blockers and b) I was just writing a nurse friend of my today and pooh-poohing atenolol as the most useless beta blocker ever to be prescribed IVP (IV push).
Alright.
So for the record: I am still sick, skinny, and now, jobless, having begged off the one good nursing job I've had in a year because I was too damn ill to go back and work backbreaking back-to-back twelve hour hospital shifts.
I'm about two steps from the poorhouse, but let's not think about that now! Let's think about Latin!
There are several reasons for this strategy.
As a way of introduction: it is depressing to think about how little an American dollar actually stretches these days, and it's especially sad when suddenly these stupid hospital bills come rolling in like some insidious wave of the Bubonic Plague (incidentally, I love how the bills claim, in bold letters: "This is not a bill! It is a statement!" BALONEY. What this really means is "This is a statement. Of your bill." Friggin' wolves in sheeps' clothing! It is too a bill, just a bill in disguise. Like they think I can't deconstruct their subversive but none-too-clever crackpot scheme to defraud the working poor).
Second, when depressed, the next logical step for a confirmed academic geek like myself is to pull out old textbooks and start reciting conjugations in Latin and stem endings (-o or -m, -s, -t, -mus, -tis and -nt!). There's nothing more to warm the cockles of an academic geek's shriveled up old heart than to read those spiffy Wheelock English-to-Latin sentences that somehow always seem to involve girls saving poets from bad fates or daughters of Rome with sound character and true virtue laboring to help the state, or, in later chapters, endless references to Cicero's Cataline oratories, with swords and flames etc, or Caesar's rather boring and stilted reminscences about Gaul.
(Laugh, but trust me, my disquiet at my financial situation was such that it was either that or memorize STEMI and nonSTEMI ACLS algorithms, and don't think it didn't occur to me to dig out my 2005 ACLS pocket guidebook. Because I did. And lo, I read them while eating my oatmeal this morning. And lo, someone should shoot me now and put me out of my misery, because my God, this kind of pedantry should be illegal, child!)
Also, when depressed, it helps to think there was once a time when even if you mistranslated miles, militis, m. solidier, for milia, milium n., pl., thousands, you weren't going to kill someone because you gave them a huge dose of some vasoactive drug.
And it's also helpful to remember, when feeling like a right royal screw up, that you haven't actually killed any one on the job yet, and there are even jobs out there where you'd virtually never have to even contrive a situation where you could possibly fuck up badly enough to cause any one else permanent lasting damage, death or dismemberment. (I thought about this while shopping at Publix, the local supermarket, while I bought cooking staples like olive oil--and pondered philosophically what indeed it means to be "extra virgin.")
I used to think teaching would be one of those nice kinds of job, where you could impart your vast (or in my case, pithy) repository of knowledge and expertise on the new generation and every one would think you were doing this wonderful, altruistic thing with the added benefit that it remains extremely difficult to think of--let alone conjure-- a situation where discussing Foucaultian discours during class time could kill someone!
So what did I do? Become a nurse, where every so often they foist a poor student on you, so in addition to trying to juggle a patient assignment, you also have to shepard some poor twenty-year-old-deer-caught-in-headlights-young-thing through your shift, which means explaining why you just took fifty unauthorized shortcuts to get your meds passed and assessments done before attending rounds, bitch unprofessionally at pharmacy for not getting med orders right, throw a tantrum at the tray passers who think it's a nurse's scope of practice to set up breakfast trays, and how then smile apologetically and insist in a very half-assed way that the student should totally ignore the nurse behind the sterile field curtain and do it the right way, of course.
The scary thing about me taking on a nursing student (apart from the fact that staff nurses don't actually get paid extra to teach students) is that ummmm dude, I was just a student a year ago myself. Like, hello brilliant educational system!! I don't know what the hell I'm doing myself most days, and uh, you think I'm qualified to teach the next generation of burnt-out RNs?
Apparently the nursing shortage is such that they really could care less.
Which of course brings us a long way from Latin.
Or does it?
Because really, the whole point of diversion is to think about something entirely different from reality, and the study of Latin, oddly enough, represents to me some kind of ideal academic subject, the kind which is only mastered through rigorous and continual application of backside to chair. My favorite kind, in other words.
I also liked it because it wasn't French, at which I failed miserably (because anything that has an actual real world application is something at which I am destined to underachieve, as evidenced by my ruthlessly pointless academic degrees, religion and theology, of which people were always saying--somewhat rudely, if pointedly--"What are you going to do with that?!")
But Latin. Ah. There's a language no one speaks any more! So of course, it turned out I had much more of an aptitude for a dead language than a living one, just as I suspect if sitting in a room all day thinking about how to apply critical theory to the nursing profession was a real job description, I'd actually be employed right now.
I also just happened to like the language itself, though. So pleasantly rigorously structured, almost mathematical in a way (and math, being useful, is of course one more thing I couldn't shine at if my sorry ass life depended on it). All kinds of nice rules to follow, and declining nouns is a really fabulous way to spend an entire weekend if you just so happen to be twenty-five and stuck in a retirement town where everything closes after 5p.m.
I've always thought I would have been a much happier, perhaps less financially woe-begone person if I had been just a little bit smarter or a whole lot dumber, but that is another subject for another day.
Meanwhile I'd better stamp out my vocational ADD in a big hurry if I want to pay my hospital bills, and you know, not end up a homeless urchin giving Latin lessons to gang bangers on streetcorners.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Sticker Shock
Okay, so grand total for 72 hours in the hospital including ED
visit and medical-surgical double occupancy room?
$9,680.88 U.S.
Shit! I could vacation in the South of France for two weeks with
that kind of money! Or at least, pay off my car!
What the hell?!
visit and medical-surgical double occupancy room?
$9,680.88 U.S.
Shit! I could vacation in the South of France for two weeks with
that kind of money! Or at least, pay off my car!
What the hell?!
Friday, September 15, 2006
Rabbit Redux
My bunny is worse than my dog about treats, specifically, raisins (her latest lust) or bananas.
This trait, I find, is devastating for the owner (me) because not only does she look ten times cuter than the dog when begs for food, she's also much more of a shameless hussy about it (and I didn't think that was possible).
The dog at least pretends to want and enjoy my company. The bunny however, erely tolerates it, until there is food in the offing. Then she puts on her best Olivia Twist routine and becomes a bunny beggar from hell. If I leave the bag on the counter, she'll scratch at the cupboards. Yesterday I witnessed a heroic--if miscalculated--two foot vertical jump in the air to attempt to snag a bag of raisins off my bedside table.
In addition, she makes absolutely no pretenses whatsoever about drinking/eating out of the dog dish. Just now I filled up Piper's bowl, and she ran over, fully expecting a five course meal. She sniffed hopefully, then with increasing disdain at the water, as if to say, That's all?! Where's the good stuff, woman?! She even butts the dog out of the way and eats his kibble, and she's so persistent about it I actually have to feed the dog in a room where she isn't (you might say: hey stupid, shut her up in her cage. And I might say: Ah, yes, grasshopper, but you've never tried to catch a rabbit with your bare hands, have you?)
Now that she has a chocolate lop husbun (an elderly rescue rabbit who isn't quite as bright in the bunny brain department but whom she absolutely adores) she isn't so interested in my baseboards, which is a blessing. Both of them spend a great deal of time out on the porch in a bunnyproofed space, but they also are well-behaved enough to spend time unsupervised in the house like a dog or a cat, as long as the cables and electrical cords are covered (this is minor bunnyproofing compared to a lot of other schemes I had to employ when she was younger, such as Constant Vigilance).
They mostly keep to themselves, and wile the day away dozing under a lamp table, rising only to nibble hay and deprieve the dog of rightful ownership and access to his own nourishment. Flipflop spends an inordinate amount of time grooming her bunny boy bald, and both seem to like to gossip surreptitiously on the pressing issue of how next to dupe the Gulliable Human One into giving them banana sundaes. At least, that's what they appear to be doing. Rabbits may not talk, but they certainly communicate, and it's highly endearing to watch two rabbits incline their heads towards another as if to say, "Hey, what do you think about that big two-legged oaf over there? Think we can con her into more strawberries?"
I haven't really named the boy bunny, referring to him as alternately as The Brown One, The Boy One or my made up term of endearment for bunnies in general, 'Boonis'. He's got a little bit of renal failure going on, and isn't as neat with his litterbox habits as Flipflop, but he's very mellow and doesn't mind being pet (whereas Flipflop hates it with impunity; to her mind, it's just not dignified lady bunny bheavior to let oneself be mauled and cuddled by some idiot human). He seems to like to nibble my toes; I have no idea if this is an affectionate gesture or he finds them aromatic and a possible tier on the bunny food pyramid.
He isn't particularly agile or atheletic, and seems to be bothered by arthritic hips. Whereas Flipflop is bunny magic in motion, careening gracefully around the room and mountaineering with surprising agility over my living room furniture (she has curiously enough never tried to jump on my bed)--the old guy clunks around without a trace of flair, often getting too close and underfoot. The bunny rescuer felt bad about his geriatric health issues--I think they originally thought he was a bit younger--and offered to let me trade him for another bunny, but I was already too attached (as was Flipflop) and couldn't bear the thought of returning a bunny who had been given up once any way.
After all, I had gotten him for Flipflop because I felt so guilty about leaving her in her cage alone for fourteen hours a day when I worked (I felt I had no choice, though, unless I wanted to come home to a Rabbit Interior Design Project every day). Smart and inquisitive, she bores easily. Since the introduction of the boy, she hasn't given a second glance at the baseboards, so my scheme paid off. Happier rabbit = happier slave human.
Flipflop always has an inquisitive, intelligent spark in her eye--unless she's zoning out--but my boy is more often than not found sitting around with a doleful, nearly baleful look about him. He seems somewhat melancholy, and I wonder if deep down in the recesses of his gentle bunny soul, he misses the people who moved and gave him to the shelter. He probably spent more than five years of his life with them, and it's not unreasonable in my animal loving, over-anthropomorphizing mind to think that pet bunnies grieve just like dogs or cats when their masters move away without them.
I've found rabbits to be much more aloof and shy than the average housecat (at least, Flipflop is; we humans have our purposes, oh yes, but providing suffocating physical affection is not it). She is cheeky, reserved, and not at all fond of human touch, despite having been raised in an indulgent, loving household. My bond to her is much more subtle; I delight in having her run to the front of her cage when I'm in the room (Let me out, stupid!), hop hopefully over to the refrigerator door when it opens (What's for supper, ma?), cavort madly about the house, jump on top of my laptop while I'm sitting on the couch, and do her famous Dead Bunny impression which she is named after, namely flipping over on her side, crossing her front paws as if in prayer, and conking out.
In rabbit language, these things mean "I'm comfortable with you, Big Klutzy Human, and I like you." Only the most relaxed, trusting rabbit would ever give herself over to a closed eyed, nose-twitching nap in front of a being five hundred times her own size and weight, and it's a huge compliment from an otherwise aloof-seeming rabbit that she does. Once she was so deeply asleep that when I opened the front door, she didn't even wake up, but continued on with her nap until I surreptitiously ended it by ascertaining she wasn't, in fact, a victim of a bunny cardiac arrest.
Being owned by a rabbit is a relationship of subtle joys and endless surprise at their individual wit, charm and sense of humor. When it comes to rabbits, there's no such thing as a dumb bunny.
This trait, I find, is devastating for the owner (me) because not only does she look ten times cuter than the dog when begs for food, she's also much more of a shameless hussy about it (and I didn't think that was possible).
The dog at least pretends to want and enjoy my company. The bunny however, erely tolerates it, until there is food in the offing. Then she puts on her best Olivia Twist routine and becomes a bunny beggar from hell. If I leave the bag on the counter, she'll scratch at the cupboards. Yesterday I witnessed a heroic--if miscalculated--two foot vertical jump in the air to attempt to snag a bag of raisins off my bedside table.
In addition, she makes absolutely no pretenses whatsoever about drinking/eating out of the dog dish. Just now I filled up Piper's bowl, and she ran over, fully expecting a five course meal. She sniffed hopefully, then with increasing disdain at the water, as if to say, That's all?! Where's the good stuff, woman?! She even butts the dog out of the way and eats his kibble, and she's so persistent about it I actually have to feed the dog in a room where she isn't (you might say: hey stupid, shut her up in her cage. And I might say: Ah, yes, grasshopper, but you've never tried to catch a rabbit with your bare hands, have you?)
Now that she has a chocolate lop husbun (an elderly rescue rabbit who isn't quite as bright in the bunny brain department but whom she absolutely adores) she isn't so interested in my baseboards, which is a blessing. Both of them spend a great deal of time out on the porch in a bunnyproofed space, but they also are well-behaved enough to spend time unsupervised in the house like a dog or a cat, as long as the cables and electrical cords are covered (this is minor bunnyproofing compared to a lot of other schemes I had to employ when she was younger, such as Constant Vigilance).
They mostly keep to themselves, and wile the day away dozing under a lamp table, rising only to nibble hay and deprieve the dog of rightful ownership and access to his own nourishment. Flipflop spends an inordinate amount of time grooming her bunny boy bald, and both seem to like to gossip surreptitiously on the pressing issue of how next to dupe the Gulliable Human One into giving them banana sundaes. At least, that's what they appear to be doing. Rabbits may not talk, but they certainly communicate, and it's highly endearing to watch two rabbits incline their heads towards another as if to say, "Hey, what do you think about that big two-legged oaf over there? Think we can con her into more strawberries?"
I haven't really named the boy bunny, referring to him as alternately as The Brown One, The Boy One or my made up term of endearment for bunnies in general, 'Boonis'. He's got a little bit of renal failure going on, and isn't as neat with his litterbox habits as Flipflop, but he's very mellow and doesn't mind being pet (whereas Flipflop hates it with impunity; to her mind, it's just not dignified lady bunny bheavior to let oneself be mauled and cuddled by some idiot human). He seems to like to nibble my toes; I have no idea if this is an affectionate gesture or he finds them aromatic and a possible tier on the bunny food pyramid.
He isn't particularly agile or atheletic, and seems to be bothered by arthritic hips. Whereas Flipflop is bunny magic in motion, careening gracefully around the room and mountaineering with surprising agility over my living room furniture (she has curiously enough never tried to jump on my bed)--the old guy clunks around without a trace of flair, often getting too close and underfoot. The bunny rescuer felt bad about his geriatric health issues--I think they originally thought he was a bit younger--and offered to let me trade him for another bunny, but I was already too attached (as was Flipflop) and couldn't bear the thought of returning a bunny who had been given up once any way.
After all, I had gotten him for Flipflop because I felt so guilty about leaving her in her cage alone for fourteen hours a day when I worked (I felt I had no choice, though, unless I wanted to come home to a Rabbit Interior Design Project every day). Smart and inquisitive, she bores easily. Since the introduction of the boy, she hasn't given a second glance at the baseboards, so my scheme paid off. Happier rabbit = happier slave human.
Flipflop always has an inquisitive, intelligent spark in her eye--unless she's zoning out--but my boy is more often than not found sitting around with a doleful, nearly baleful look about him. He seems somewhat melancholy, and I wonder if deep down in the recesses of his gentle bunny soul, he misses the people who moved and gave him to the shelter. He probably spent more than five years of his life with them, and it's not unreasonable in my animal loving, over-anthropomorphizing mind to think that pet bunnies grieve just like dogs or cats when their masters move away without them.
I've found rabbits to be much more aloof and shy than the average housecat (at least, Flipflop is; we humans have our purposes, oh yes, but providing suffocating physical affection is not it). She is cheeky, reserved, and not at all fond of human touch, despite having been raised in an indulgent, loving household. My bond to her is much more subtle; I delight in having her run to the front of her cage when I'm in the room (Let me out, stupid!), hop hopefully over to the refrigerator door when it opens (What's for supper, ma?), cavort madly about the house, jump on top of my laptop while I'm sitting on the couch, and do her famous Dead Bunny impression which she is named after, namely flipping over on her side, crossing her front paws as if in prayer, and conking out.
In rabbit language, these things mean "I'm comfortable with you, Big Klutzy Human, and I like you." Only the most relaxed, trusting rabbit would ever give herself over to a closed eyed, nose-twitching nap in front of a being five hundred times her own size and weight, and it's a huge compliment from an otherwise aloof-seeming rabbit that she does. Once she was so deeply asleep that when I opened the front door, she didn't even wake up, but continued on with her nap until I surreptitiously ended it by ascertaining she wasn't, in fact, a victim of a bunny cardiac arrest.
Being owned by a rabbit is a relationship of subtle joys and endless surprise at their individual wit, charm and sense of humor. When it comes to rabbits, there's no such thing as a dumb bunny.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Dogster
Piper now has his own website!
Check out this tremendously clever and sweet website, Dogster--arguably paws down the hippest pet website around--for more unbearably cute canine capers of dogs and their slaves around the world.
Uh oh. I'm like, one of those yuppie moms.
A yuppie dog mom.
Except less upperwardly mobile, somehow.
Check out this tremendously clever and sweet website, Dogster--arguably paws down the hippest pet website around--for more unbearably cute canine capers of dogs and their slaves around the world.
Uh oh. I'm like, one of those yuppie moms.
A yuppie dog mom.
Except less upperwardly mobile, somehow.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
regret
old man
you should
not be standing
next to her
crumpled and
grey with grief.
we have done
this to you,
to her.
brought you
here and
made you
watch
the carnival
show that
was her
grotesque
last.
you should
be at home
now,
holding her
hand
wiping her
brow.
allowed to
say
in your own
good time
in your own
good way:
i love you,
my darling,
goodbye.
instead
the automatic
hum and click
of machines
will decide
a doctor's
pen will
pronounce
that which
should
have never
been.
--to Mr. C and his wife, for whom the end should have been much different.
you should
not be standing
next to her
crumpled and
grey with grief.
we have done
this to you,
to her.
brought you
here and
made you
watch
the carnival
show that
was her
grotesque
last.
you should
be at home
now,
holding her
hand
wiping her
brow.
allowed to
say
in your own
good time
in your own
good way:
i love you,
my darling,
goodbye.
instead
the automatic
hum and click
of machines
will decide
a doctor's
pen will
pronounce
that which
should
have never
been.
--to Mr. C and his wife, for whom the end should have been much different.
For Inez and her Mother
even as we
became yours,
you are like
us no longer.
your belly
swells again,
that old
pale moon-
eve's curse
redoubled:
death now
haunts
your womb.
old mother,
it is time.
the fresh pink
sweet of your
babies' squalls,
lacing up shoes
felt crowns and
heroes' capes
tart apples and
honey in the
autumn:
all the birthing
work
is done.
sweet mother,
rest.
it is time.
--For Inez and her mother, who died of ovarian cancer.
Lazarus
lazarus
we have
raised you
up again.
you are
justly
ungrateful.
mute,
your eyes
tell me this
much.
peeling
callouses
off your
black feet
i am no
mother
to you.
nor am
i sister
changing
the linen,
tending to
your raw
wounds.
still we
look at
one another
humbled
by the
profane.
wrapped
around
your bird
thin
wrist:
st jude,
plastic
rosary
beads,
corazon
de jesus.
and I think
how cruel
to leave
your
prayer
unanswered.
For J.M., who died virtually alone after being hospitalized for months. He was only twenty four years old.
we have
raised you
up again.
you are
justly
ungrateful.
mute,
your eyes
tell me this
much.
peeling
callouses
off your
black feet
i am no
mother
to you.
nor am
i sister
changing
the linen,
tending to
your raw
wounds.
still we
look at
one another
humbled
by the
profane.
wrapped
around
your bird
thin
wrist:
st jude,
plastic
rosary
beads,
corazon
de jesus.
and I think
how cruel
to leave
your
prayer
unanswered.
For J.M., who died virtually alone after being hospitalized for months. He was only twenty four years old.
Ode to Mr. S.
eighty year old white male,
chief complaint vague.
maybe it is simply
old age,
weariness,
something doctors
will name more fully
later,
perhaps.
past medical history
significant for
everything
and nothing.
diagnoses now mean
as much
as talk of cures
ground from
mortar and pestle;
small mercies encased in
glass and metal
syringes.
in those bleak blue rooms
antiseptic curtains drawn
against the day,
silence stirs once more,
history comes unbidden:
can you tell me who I am?
i can not remember.
am i having a good day?
i can no longer tell.
what is happening to me?
i no longer know.
--For Mr. S. and others I have taken care of like him.
chief complaint vague.
maybe it is simply
old age,
weariness,
something doctors
will name more fully
later,
perhaps.
past medical history
significant for
everything
and nothing.
diagnoses now mean
as much
as talk of cures
ground from
mortar and pestle;
small mercies encased in
glass and metal
syringes.
in those bleak blue rooms
antiseptic curtains drawn
against the day,
silence stirs once more,
history comes unbidden:
can you tell me who I am?
i can not remember.
am i having a good day?
i can no longer tell.
what is happening to me?
i no longer know.
--For Mr. S. and others I have taken care of like him.
Back by popular demand!
Another nursing haiku, for the delectation of those of you whose noble and unsung profession it is to dole out bedpans and benzos alike, placate nutjobs, bring the ungrateful dead back to life, do everyone else's work for them and pretend not to be insulted by the pithy amount of their net paycheck:
line up all the old
thirty thousand dollar op
body bag comes free
line up all the old
thirty thousand dollar op
body bag comes free
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Grease
Okay, so I am the World's Most Hypocritical Nurse.
First of all, until a fellow nurse friend of mine totally guilted me into filling my prescriptions, I had totally gone off my po antibiotics, because man oh man, who needs to put up with explosive diarrhea, especially when contemplating going back to work as early as tomorrow?!
Besides, Flagyl sucks ass, in that it makes you feel like you've been drinking molten copper and can't get the taste out of your mouth. Nor can you drown the taste with alcohol, because this devil drug actually acts as Antabuse. In other words, unless I want to spend the rest of the week upchucking mercilessly, I have to go off the sauce. Not that alcohol sounds like fun at this point. In fact, "fun" means sleeping and feeling damned sorry for myself at present. Okay, so maybe that's not fun.
I have discovered that being NPO (nothing by mouth) for 72 hours is counterproductive if you've been trying to maintain your weight (okay, body mass for you physics purists and sticklers for word meaning out there). I also discovered another corallary to this annoying illness: it makes me hanker for British food. No joke.
I stopped at an Arthur Treacher's this morning and argued lamely with the cashier about substituting coleslaw for hushpuppies, which gross me out. She argued even more lamely that the cole slaw was more expensive, ergo, they couldn't substitute same.
Excuse me?! It's made of cabbage and mayonnaise, two of the cheapest and most plentiful foodstuffs in North American cuisine for Chrissake! I was too tired and put out to argue the point further, and besides, was distracted by simultaneously trying to identify the weird smell in the restaurant, which wasn't fried lard or fish, oddly enough, but which I assumed was probably... malt vinegar? Tartar sauce? Stray dogs used in the hush puppy batter? I shuddered, and made a resolution next time to find a more reputable establishment from which to purchase my British fare fix.
Any way, I was determined to wreck more havoc on my intenstines (which is frankly why people like me need to be hospitalized, because at least it sets limits on our unpredictable and self-damaging behavior). I am the village idiot, but who cares, I've got antibiotics now to offset any potential damage. (God forbid I ever really get sick, incidentally).
Meanwhile, I had these wonderful dreams last night about discussing applications of Kantian morality to medical ethics with a much admired old professor of mine. The great thing about dreams is you wake up thinking you've had all sorts of brilliant never-before-thought-of-ideas when really in your dream you were probably saying something like, "The turkey's aboslute power of rationality supercedes that of the greatest common denominator of fish and chips baloney liver sauce noumenal transcendental intuitions."
Kind of like reality. You think you have a great job where you "help people" when in reality what you have is a lousy job where you enable every other employee in the hospital to do a lousy job and get paid for it. (Bitter, who's bitter?!)
Meanwhile, starting to feel foggy headed again. I do believe it's naptime for the convalescing amongst us.
First of all, until a fellow nurse friend of mine totally guilted me into filling my prescriptions, I had totally gone off my po antibiotics, because man oh man, who needs to put up with explosive diarrhea, especially when contemplating going back to work as early as tomorrow?!
Besides, Flagyl sucks ass, in that it makes you feel like you've been drinking molten copper and can't get the taste out of your mouth. Nor can you drown the taste with alcohol, because this devil drug actually acts as Antabuse. In other words, unless I want to spend the rest of the week upchucking mercilessly, I have to go off the sauce. Not that alcohol sounds like fun at this point. In fact, "fun" means sleeping and feeling damned sorry for myself at present. Okay, so maybe that's not fun.
I have discovered that being NPO (nothing by mouth) for 72 hours is counterproductive if you've been trying to maintain your weight (okay, body mass for you physics purists and sticklers for word meaning out there). I also discovered another corallary to this annoying illness: it makes me hanker for British food. No joke.
I stopped at an Arthur Treacher's this morning and argued lamely with the cashier about substituting coleslaw for hushpuppies, which gross me out. She argued even more lamely that the cole slaw was more expensive, ergo, they couldn't substitute same.
Excuse me?! It's made of cabbage and mayonnaise, two of the cheapest and most plentiful foodstuffs in North American cuisine for Chrissake! I was too tired and put out to argue the point further, and besides, was distracted by simultaneously trying to identify the weird smell in the restaurant, which wasn't fried lard or fish, oddly enough, but which I assumed was probably... malt vinegar? Tartar sauce? Stray dogs used in the hush puppy batter? I shuddered, and made a resolution next time to find a more reputable establishment from which to purchase my British fare fix.
Any way, I was determined to wreck more havoc on my intenstines (which is frankly why people like me need to be hospitalized, because at least it sets limits on our unpredictable and self-damaging behavior). I am the village idiot, but who cares, I've got antibiotics now to offset any potential damage. (God forbid I ever really get sick, incidentally).
Meanwhile, I had these wonderful dreams last night about discussing applications of Kantian morality to medical ethics with a much admired old professor of mine. The great thing about dreams is you wake up thinking you've had all sorts of brilliant never-before-thought-of-ideas when really in your dream you were probably saying something like, "The turkey's aboslute power of rationality supercedes that of the greatest common denominator of fish and chips baloney liver sauce noumenal transcendental intuitions."
Kind of like reality. You think you have a great job where you "help people" when in reality what you have is a lousy job where you enable every other employee in the hospital to do a lousy job and get paid for it. (Bitter, who's bitter?!)
Meanwhile, starting to feel foggy headed again. I do believe it's naptime for the convalescing amongst us.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Basic Instinct
Okay, so turns out it was a very good thing indeed that my nursing instinct told me to go to the doctor last Saturday a.m.
Because one thing that definetely is downer to one's career is having a life threatening bowel perforation requiring immediate surgery in the middle of a shift.
I'm dramatizing, of course, but it could have very well happened if I had ignored my "Uh oh" barometer, as well as my "Oh crap!" indicator.
As it was, I ended up hospitalized over the weekend receiving massive doses of super antibiotics and "resting my bowel" which sounds like my intenstines won a free vacation to ClubMed but in reality is a typically arcane medical way of saying "We're not feeding you. At all." I spent most of the weekend and my entire Labor Day curled in a small, painfully hunched-up ball watching hours and hours and hours of Law and Order reruns and getting down with Kyra Sedgwick's earthy, southern Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson on TNT's mysteriously titled The Closer.
If I weren't busy retching my guts out (which was quite a feat, considering I hadn't anything to eat or drink except for contrast dye since Friday night) I would have tried to figure out what the hell the name of the show is supposed to mean, but I had more important business at hand--namely, keeping my cookies--or at least bile salts--where they belonged.
(Sidebar: I thought it was a bang-up good series, except I think they made a mistake by naming it something so esoteric you can't figure out what the show is about. Is it an abbreviation for "the closer to solving the crime, my dearie"? Just some postmodern corporate think tank's idea since easy titles like Cops and Law and Order are already taken? I must research answers to these questions. Some day, when I can walk more than a block without feeling nauseated and like my insides are going to collapse any second.)
Any hoo.
Suffice it to say I never want to be hospitalized ever again, and if I need it, someone please just throw me off a very tall building so as to negate the need for meaningful medical intervention.
For one, illness aside, sharing your room with a fussy little old lady who whimpers piteously and clears her throat every five minutes at night/if family is not in the room is not exactly restful or conducive to healing. Of course, neither is puking up your toes, but I digress. Secondly, when you've spent the night puking up your toes, the last thing you want the next day is The Entire Family Clan parading in and out of the room the entire day starting at 6:30 a.m. til 8:00 at night to visit Grandma, who could have gone home on Monday but played the invalid card so as to stay a day longer.)
And then there's the 3 a.m. urosepsis admission the next door over, who screams for an hour before settling down, having scared the shit out of the rest of us, even those battle hardened nurses such as myself. (If I was wigged out by the noise, I can only imagine how terrifying it must have been for everyone else.)
And the not-eating-or-drinking-thing.
And the whole sharing-a-bathroom thing, which frankly grosses me out.
I could go on, but I have to go back to being a proper invalid, eating oatmeal and toast. (I gimped through the supermarket this a.m. after hospital discharge and finally got a true window view into being ninety-five-years-old. I've decided to circumvent living that long and would be happy to go at the ripe old age of eighty. Thank you.)
Because one thing that definetely is downer to one's career is having a life threatening bowel perforation requiring immediate surgery in the middle of a shift.
I'm dramatizing, of course, but it could have very well happened if I had ignored my "Uh oh" barometer, as well as my "Oh crap!" indicator.
As it was, I ended up hospitalized over the weekend receiving massive doses of super antibiotics and "resting my bowel" which sounds like my intenstines won a free vacation to ClubMed but in reality is a typically arcane medical way of saying "We're not feeding you. At all." I spent most of the weekend and my entire Labor Day curled in a small, painfully hunched-up ball watching hours and hours and hours of Law and Order reruns and getting down with Kyra Sedgwick's earthy, southern Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson on TNT's mysteriously titled The Closer.
If I weren't busy retching my guts out (which was quite a feat, considering I hadn't anything to eat or drink except for contrast dye since Friday night) I would have tried to figure out what the hell the name of the show is supposed to mean, but I had more important business at hand--namely, keeping my cookies--or at least bile salts--where they belonged.
(Sidebar: I thought it was a bang-up good series, except I think they made a mistake by naming it something so esoteric you can't figure out what the show is about. Is it an abbreviation for "the closer to solving the crime, my dearie"? Just some postmodern corporate think tank's idea since easy titles like Cops and Law and Order are already taken? I must research answers to these questions. Some day, when I can walk more than a block without feeling nauseated and like my insides are going to collapse any second.)
Any hoo.
Suffice it to say I never want to be hospitalized ever again, and if I need it, someone please just throw me off a very tall building so as to negate the need for meaningful medical intervention.
For one, illness aside, sharing your room with a fussy little old lady who whimpers piteously and clears her throat every five minutes at night/if family is not in the room is not exactly restful or conducive to healing. Of course, neither is puking up your toes, but I digress. Secondly, when you've spent the night puking up your toes, the last thing you want the next day is The Entire Family Clan parading in and out of the room the entire day starting at 6:30 a.m. til 8:00 at night to visit Grandma, who could have gone home on Monday but played the invalid card so as to stay a day longer.)
And then there's the 3 a.m. urosepsis admission the next door over, who screams for an hour before settling down, having scared the shit out of the rest of us, even those battle hardened nurses such as myself. (If I was wigged out by the noise, I can only imagine how terrifying it must have been for everyone else.)
And the not-eating-or-drinking-thing.
And the whole sharing-a-bathroom thing, which frankly grosses me out.
I could go on, but I have to go back to being a proper invalid, eating oatmeal and toast. (I gimped through the supermarket this a.m. after hospital discharge and finally got a true window view into being ninety-five-years-old. I've decided to circumvent living that long and would be happy to go at the ripe old age of eighty. Thank you.)
Saturday, September 02, 2006
The Sickness Unto Death
Pain is waking up at night, turning over on your belly and realizing with a yelp that, "Hey! That hurts!"
Pain has also localized to the RLQ (right lower quadrant) of the abdomen, not that the rest of my stomach feels so hot, either.
For one, I haven't been able to eat anything without regretting it miserably afterwards, so I've stopped eating, although it's sad, because now I look at food and think, "So. hungry. but. so. much. pain. if. I. eat."
It's so much pain if I don't eat, actually.
You all must think I am a big wuss. And perhaps, I am.
A bigger woman would have gone to work this a.m., without eating or drinking, and done her 12 hour shift.
I am thankfully, not that woman, and chose instead to have a battle with my Moral Conscience for two hours before calling in sick at 4 a.m. this morning. I even did my own little nursing assignment, complete with listening to bowel sounds (hyperactive) and doing percussion (at which I suck) and noting extreme tenderness in the RLQ. I don't know if any of these findings are significant, but they were in tune with "Reasons why I feel like ass at 3 a.m."
I did say I was going to the doctor and would call at 11 a.m. if I could come in, because I felt very guilty about calling out sick. (The sicker I am, the guiltier I feel about calling out).
Meanwhile, I feel as if someone is drilling a hole in my right side, and gnawing away doggedly at my epigastrum.
Pepto Bismol, Elixir of Life, for once, you have failed me!
I weep, and gnash my teeth.
Because this shit hurts, for real.
Pain has also localized to the RLQ (right lower quadrant) of the abdomen, not that the rest of my stomach feels so hot, either.
For one, I haven't been able to eat anything without regretting it miserably afterwards, so I've stopped eating, although it's sad, because now I look at food and think, "So. hungry. but. so. much. pain. if. I. eat."
It's so much pain if I don't eat, actually.
You all must think I am a big wuss. And perhaps, I am.
A bigger woman would have gone to work this a.m., without eating or drinking, and done her 12 hour shift.
I am thankfully, not that woman, and chose instead to have a battle with my Moral Conscience for two hours before calling in sick at 4 a.m. this morning. I even did my own little nursing assignment, complete with listening to bowel sounds (hyperactive) and doing percussion (at which I suck) and noting extreme tenderness in the RLQ. I don't know if any of these findings are significant, but they were in tune with "Reasons why I feel like ass at 3 a.m."
I did say I was going to the doctor and would call at 11 a.m. if I could come in, because I felt very guilty about calling out sick. (The sicker I am, the guiltier I feel about calling out).
Meanwhile, I feel as if someone is drilling a hole in my right side, and gnawing away doggedly at my epigastrum.
Pepto Bismol, Elixir of Life, for once, you have failed me!
I weep, and gnash my teeth.
Because this shit hurts, for real.
Friday, September 01, 2006
G.I. (bleed) Jane (Jamie)
Oooow! It burns!
So I've (once again) self diagnosed myself with a peptic ulcer secondary to overzealous NSAID use in an attempt to keep my back pain at bay these last two weeks.
Now I'm left with epigastric pain which increases after eating and doesn't respond to "the pink stuff" which I've been guzzling.
I'm hungry, I'm hunched over in pain, and I have to go to work tomorrow. I feel like arse!!
I'm sooooo not going through a barium swallow (or worse yet, endoscopy!) to prove my theory, and there's really nothing to be done except start taking H-2 blockers and keep drinking Pepto and hope I haven't burned a hole in my stomach in the meantime. Because peritonitis = bad. GI bleed = bad.
Poor me.
Off to tempt fate with some food, even as I clutch my stomach and grimace.
So I've (once again) self diagnosed myself with a peptic ulcer secondary to overzealous NSAID use in an attempt to keep my back pain at bay these last two weeks.
Now I'm left with epigastric pain which increases after eating and doesn't respond to "the pink stuff" which I've been guzzling.
I'm hungry, I'm hunched over in pain, and I have to go to work tomorrow. I feel like arse!!
I'm sooooo not going through a barium swallow (or worse yet, endoscopy!) to prove my theory, and there's really nothing to be done except start taking H-2 blockers and keep drinking Pepto and hope I haven't burned a hole in my stomach in the meantime. Because peritonitis = bad. GI bleed = bad.
Poor me.
Off to tempt fate with some food, even as I clutch my stomach and grimace.
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