christmas comes but once a year. (thank G-d).

So as not to offend Ye People of Good Cheer and Good Will and all that crap, obligatory Christmas Dinner Party pictures (of my friend Nancy, and her people, plus me, Obligatory Oliver Twist):

First, Ye Obligatory Photo of Ye Olde-Fashioned Turkey Carvingl:


Next, we shall move on to Ye Obligatory Photo Of Ye Impossibly Cute Little Grannies Chatting It Up:


(Aren't they just so cute you could plotz? Or whatever kanji symbol represents the Japanese equivalent of plotz?)

Where there be turkey, fiat crustula: (Hey, dudes, don't diss my Latin, okay? I know if I were all sexy pimpin' Latin Goddess, I'd translate the whole sentence to flumox and bedazzle all--okay, some--but it's been like what, six long years since Latin I and II? I'm surprised I remembered the subjunctive, or that crustula = cookie, especially at 1 a.m. in the morning):


So, fine: Where there be turkey, let there be pie. (Cookie was as close to pie as I could remember from my Wheelock's vocabulary list).

So much for ironically dumb attempts at cleverness.

Moving along, then, to more Wholesome Family Time:


Can you stand a little more, folks? (Don't worry, we'll soon return to our regularly scheduled program of Jamie Bitching About Her Stupid Job next week!)



Phew! I've exhausted myself with all this posting of memories of happiness and good cooking.

Hope all enjoyed.

full. metal. jacket.

I accepted a job at Big Scary Teaching Hospital's TICU/SICU.

In a brief psychotic fugue, I had the notion that I am not only in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, but I am, in fact, Vincent D'Onfrio's character, Leonard Lawrence.

I am Gomer Pyle.

And never mind the decidious trees in Kubrick's English countryside Vietnam, I am a stranger in a strange world.

But mostly, I'm Gomer Pyle, sitting in the head with my rifle, loading live bullets. maybe I'm even screaming F-U-C-K-E-D-A-G-A-I-N to the tune of the Mickey Mouse Club song.

Well, okay, so I don't actually have a rifle, and I call the bathroom a bathroom, not a head.

But I can envision myself sometime in the next few months, singing a rousing chorous of "Fucked Again" on my Nazi death march to the shuttle parking lot, at the end of a long, grueling shift, alternately screaming at my companions, "Raus! Raus!"

Or maybe, to shift movie metaphors, I'm in Apocalypse Now. I'm Charlie Sheen, dancing half naked across the room, muttering:

Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one. They brought it up to me like room service...It was a real choice mission - and when it was over, I never want another...

Or Chef:

Never get out of the boat. Absolutely goddamn right. Unless you were goin' all the way.

What I'm saying is, I don't exactly envision the next few months are going to be full of sunshine and lollipops.

bargain basement diet drinks!

Call me crazy, but I am way, way suspicious of my gut.

I'm pretty sure it's plotting to do me in.

I came home Sunday, after a Fun In The Sun type holiday in Florida (with all kinds of solid foodstuffs crammed down my gullet by a mother who replied to my protestations of, "I've gained weight!" with a dubious sniff, "Well, you're not as emaciated as you were before.")

David came up to a very Meet the Parents type scenario, in which Mom Indefatigably Exhausted a Plethora of Boring And Slightly Embarrassing Childhood Stories, Dad Chuckled More Heartily Than Usual, and Jamie Was Rather Glad To See The End Of Said Debacle.

Fun for all, I expect.

D and I then went down to St. Augustine, for a baffling chilly afternoon of Touristy Goodness, of which I have pictures that I am too dizzy and lightheaded presently to bother with posting.

Off the next morning late to Orlando, and later on that day for me, a fun-filled evening transcontinental flight designated for Evevryone And Their Screaming Two Year Old. Pleasant.

The next morn, I awoke to an unwelcoming, depressingly soggy and soaked Seattle, in which it half-heartedly was attempting its best at frozen precipitate (aka snow).

In addition, it seems I also had borne along with me from O-town, a wonderfully nasty GI virus (which Loz believes I contracted from her via internet) and was laid low for two days with gut-wrenching stomach pain and nausea of the likes I have not had for quite some time.

Eh--hew.

Done with The Sickness Unto Death, for now at least, I feel a bit weak, and my stomach seems rather suspicious still of solid foods (which still bother my tummy) but I soldiered on bravely today to Target, where I bought all manner of cheap dry and canned goods.

May I also confess I bought Target Brand Diet Shakes (chocolate flavor, if you must know).

And while I may now be stocked and pilloried, internet-style, and have my ninety-five pound ass mocked for all eternity (or at least until the internet runs out of usuable space, which I am told Is Going To Happen Any Decade Now) may I feebly offer up a small bit of defense on my part for the purchasing of such ludicrous goods?

First of all, Target brand was cheaper by a buck or so than the Comparable National Brand. And I am all for the "penny wise, pound foolish" approach to savings. Second, I can't wait to hear my co-workers not only ridicule me for drinking diet shakes, but for drinking Target diet shakes at that. I mean, there's even the bullseye logo on the can, so I can't even be discreet about my cheapness.

Lastly, let it be known far and wide: I am not attempting to lose weight! But, my stomach dislikes, apparently, for me to eat too much solid food, and yet, I require caloric intake as much as the next person. Alas, eating can be difficult to do when you're running around a unit for eight to twelve hours at a time. Ergo, we arrive, at last, at the logical conclusion: Fake Slim Fast, Target Style.

It's a meal in a completely environmentally-unfriendly steel can, people!--how much more ludicrously, gratuitously American can you get? (Yes, I recycle. When I remember to. No, I don't know why it has to be a steel can. I suppose they had to figure out what to do with all those old steel-bodied cars from the 1950s lying in junk heaps around the nation).

Yes, instead of actually putting effort into feeding myself nourishing food, at thirty-one, I'm still seduced by the promise of fast food as solving my caloric and nutritional needs.

I fully realize I suck as a human being, okay? Just let me drink my cheap ass synthetic Target drinks over here, please, and you take your self-righteous I-cook-all-my-meals-from-home-grown-organic-preservative-and-artificial-flavor-
free-foodstuffs over there thank you.

In the meantime, Much Knitting has been completed, including Linen Kilt from Knit 2 Together and Mystery Gift for Loz's Bump-Which-Is-Soon-To-Be-Baby. Hopefully, Sea Horse Express will not drown on its way towards the fair continent of Australia/merry old land of Oz, and baby will have her baby things before she applies to university.

In other news: I have made up my mind to make up my mind by Monday (or, possibly, Tuesday) on Which Job To Take. The debate must end, before my head explodes, my family disowns me, my friends stop answering their phones when they see I'm calling, and David leaves me in lieu of less frustrating but slightly more interesting company, such as a Rubik's Cube or Jenga Tower.

breakfast of the champions

holiday! celebrate!

I'm on holiday from work for the next week, and headed to Florida.

I have a fun red-eye flight ahead of me, and am actually sitting here in the SeaTac Airport, typing this oh-so-interesting entry.

In work-related news: I have another job offer. When it rains, it pours, people.

This job offer is in a combined Burn and Pediatric ICU. Pros: I think wounds are interesting. (I can also talk, while eating, about digitally disimpacting feces and other people's vomitus without batting an eyelash or turning my own stomach. What I can't do is ride in a car without feeling nauseous and needing Dramamine. I am cursed, I tell you.) Cons: Burns are painful and disfiguring enough-- taking care of burned and traumatized children strikes me, on the whole, as much, much worse than taking care of burned and traumatized adults.

And while I think of intubated, sedated adults with complex medical and surgical problems as interesting nursing, I think of intubated, sedated children as completely sad and tragic.

No more work. Must think of sunshine and beaches and mostly no work.

worker bee, buzzing away!

As any one who has been within 5 feet of me (or, e-mail recepient or telephoe capable) lately can attest, I have been Freaking Out About The Job.

I could outline the Freaking Out About The Job thing, but, I hated when they made us do outlines in school. Does any one remember that crap? I do. Because, like I said I hated it.

I think I hated it because I never really needed to outline my crappy ideas--they just flowed organically, like so much crap.

In any case, it's kind of like a showdown: TICU vs. CVICU.

Oh, did I tell you? Another friggin' two job offers. One on Beloved Stepdown Floor, With The Cool Peeps, and another one at Happy Hospital's CVICU.

For the record, the job version of NBA playoff proportions reads: TICU vs CICU vs CVICU vs Stepdown.

(Continuing the lame sports metaphor, this job debate would make for some great WWF wrestling match ups, too.)

Any way.

One of the sub debates I'm having involves my own work ethic, which is really kind of crappy, from an attendance point-of-view.

I'm usually a very good worker, when I show up. It's just the showing up part I have trouble with. I think I'd be fired more often, if the nursing shortage wasn't so bad, and my work was remotely shoddy, or I quarreled with my colleagues frequently, or smelled badly.

My work ethic actually puzzles me somewhat, because I was very diligent about showing up for school (well, until certain parts of undergrad, and grad school). I'm sure I won lame Attendance Awards--which I'd like to show to my current employers, to show them I wasn't this loser-ish all of my life.

In my defense, the high stress and the physical bullwork of the job has me succumbing to various minor illness (and the evil tummy issues, which are Largely Mysterious, not to mention very painful). I don't like to go to work feeling sub par, because I'm always afraid I'm going to get a very heavy, taxing assignment, and screw something up, and kill someone accidentally. I'm less worried about the latter than I was two years ago as a new grad, obviously, but, I still worry about it.

Any way, this nattering on about work ethic all dovetails into my current "Which job should I take?" because I realize ICU is gonna be hard. I'm basically going to be a new grad all over again, and the patients are going to be, by definition, more unstable and a lot sicker, and I'm really going to need to be in top physical and mental form to do the job properly.

Only, I don't feel top form at all. I feel sort of soft-around-the-middle, like I've lost my edge. Maybe I freak out less because I know my job better, but then sometimes I worry I've become some lazy ass second rater.

I also don't feel physically up to it, on a lot of levels. The part of me that deeply wishes not only to avoid hard work, but also preserve my joints and ligaments for a slothful old age of bitching about my nursing home amenities, feels a bit worn out. That part of me wants to be Part Time Jamie, with the cushy eight hour shifts, on evenings, a schedule with which my body can actually cope semi-decently.

I don't really want to do twelve hour shifts (because oh! The PAIN! IT BURNS! I say). I've never been a twelve hour shift kind of girl. Because anything over eight hours in a work day = slave labor, in my book.

I don't really want to do nights either, because I don't remember much about my life on night shift last year, except that I was constantly sleep deprived and very, very very cranky. Plus, I was continually disoriented. It was a bleary, post-hangover way to live, without the fun of imbibing or indeed, ever being drunk in the first place.

Unfortunately, I seem to have about 36 years left until I can retire and collect my Fake Social Security. Thanks, Baby Boomers, for consigning me to a few more years of pointless, soul crushing employment!

Any way, my biggest fear (other than learning a brand new job, and staying awake at night--oh, excuse me, I mean, during the day, when I'm supposed to be sleeping--wondering if I accidentally killed someone, even someone on tons of life support) is failing at a) showing up to work at all and b) staying awake on night shift long enough to learn anything about not killing my patients.

There are many, many more tedious sub-debates about this whole Job Debacle, which I subject my loved ones to in a constant, monotonous litany ("What if it sucks?!" and "No, seriously, what if it really, really sucks?!" being the top two favorite variants of the same damn thing). Maybe I'll treat my erstwhile readers to a few of them, in good time.

However, I'm trying not to alienate everyone with my boring prattle, and considering the same people who read this blog also probably are getting fifty e-mails a day debating the de/merits of each and every single facet of my oh-so-fascinating dilemma, I think I'll stop, and spare everyone the grief of recounting it again, in IMAX like proportions.

geeky geekiness

A couple of nights ago, I dreamed I was in Latin class.

Duuuuuuuude.

I soooooooo need some better drugs.

I mean, come on Jamie, how geeky can you get?

Let us count the ways:

1) Dreams about Latin
2) Dreams about enjoying Latin class in a happy, blissful way most people associate with eating their favorite dessert, or watching the world unite in utter peaceful harmony (over Latin, of course).
3) While dreaming, criticizes the choice of textbook used and laments the absence of Wheelock, the One True Latin Textbook.

I think in many ways #3 is even geekier than my favorite Latin dream, which is the one where I'm winning University Honors in Latin.

Oh well. I suppose this beats the dreams I have where a patient is coding and I'm immobolized with fear and dread, whilst others about me beat me on the head to do something, stat.

trauma drama.

I know this this is gonna come as a shock, but I am seriously considering a job offer in a Surgical Trauma ICU at a level one reigional trauma and burn teaching hospital.

I know, I know.

What happened to CVICU Bitch Goddess dreams, Jamie?

Well, you'll be happy to know that those dreams haven't really gone anywhere, they just might need to be delayed in favor of Mega-Awesome Hardcore Trauma ICU Job That Will Kick My Ass.

I really hadn't given serious thought to changing my specialty. Believe me, I was like, 'CVICU or Bust' last week.

The problem is, CVICU at Happy Hospital where I currently work (and despite the bitching, actually really like) was dragging their heels about an interview, and Lofty University Teaching Hospital 's CVICU isn't hiring.

So, I decided to go for what I thought was a second choice, and interview at a hospital I like to call 'Crack Ho's Evil Twin's Inn'--the facility best known for its sexy, hardcore ICUs on the one hand and "charity care," on the other."

Nota bene: "charity care" is hospital corporate speak for "We treat all the crack/meth heads in town." And "sexy, hardcore ICUs" is Jamie speak for "And then, all the crack/meth heads go directly to stepdown or MICU, so TICU doesn't have to take their crappy overflow.")

Suffice it to say I wasn't stoked about that patient population (we often get this hospital's overflow "fake chest pain for narcs" at Happy Hospital, and we begrudingly joke, "Why couldn't Heroin Addicted Bitch go have her totally fake chest pain in [Crack Ho Hospital's] ER?")

Not a place I ever thought I would consider in my ugliest nursing nightmares, in other words.

So, how did I get lured over to the Dark Side?

Well, it certainly wasn't the money (ugh, staff wages again!) nor was it the opportunity to become, once again Vampyre/Shift Work Disorder Bitch Jamie (night shift, alas).

It was, however, a pretty impressive interview and tour, and the unit manager talked up this unit, and every single nurse I've talked to thinks this is the sine qua non of ICU experiences in the metropolitan area.

Plus, the Mega Geek, Mega Type A Bitch in me got seduced by the elitism of it all. This is the floor for which the hospital built a brand new wing! This is the floor that typically has a waiting list of RNs! This is The Floor.

Any way, that was the schtick and schmooze I was sold on, and believe me, that manager must've had my number down when she looked at my application and saw what a dork I was, going to all that school.

I like sick hearts and open heart surgery better, but, I think I'd kick myself in the ass later on if I didn't take this job.

And, I knew, no matter how painful and sleep deprived next year is gonna be, that I was meant to be an ICU nurse when I saw intubated, vented sedated patients on a dozen drips, with more invasive lines than Jesus had disciples, and the first thought I had wasn't "My God! Run away! Run far, far away!" but rather, "RAWK! Patients who can't talk to you or get out of bed! No ambulating those poor bastards to a commode! Beautiful!"

Don't get me wrong. The sight of patients more complex and sicker than any other patients I've ever seen terrified the shit out of me.

But, sick bitch that I am, it was also kind of... well, my version of interesting nursing, where the focus of nursing care isn't a stroll around the nursing unit for a post CABG patient, it's the patient's illness and management of their comorbidities, period.

I feel I'm a better nurse when I don't have to talk to the patient, and can focus on things like memorizing their lab values. I'm not a good "talk and teach" nurse, who's into stepdown type activities like progressive ambulation and breathing exercises. I find I don't care that much about coordinating their discharges with social work to skilled nursing facilities, or any of that psychosocial crap.

On the other hand, give me the medical side of the nursing bullshit, especially on a patient who's about to go south, and I'm all over it.

Like, if I were a patient on stepdown, and I somehow had some version of me as a nurse--I'd think I was kind of bitchy and perhaps, even a bit clueless about stuff I wanted to know about, like whether or not I'm going to get my dinner tray on time, or if I can get up and go to the bathroom.

But, I'd want a nurse like me around if I was on a stepdown unit, getting acutely sicker. Sure, I'd probably remember to thank the sweeter, nicer nurse who arranged my pillows in exactly the geodesic dome shape I had taken the trouble to diagram prior to my hospital admission. On the other hand, I'd be around to thank her because Bitchatolla Jamie Nurse--who I only vaguely remember as The Bitchy Nurse who barely took the trouble to conceal a sigh of deep annoyance when I asked to be ambulated to the commode--was around to get me back to the unit before I respiratory arrested, or something like that.

I'm not saying ICU is gonna be bullshit free, because if anything, it's gonna be more bullshit. But, at least it's gonna be highstakes, hardcore bullshit, and not some lame drama over a patient who didn't like what the brand of yogurt that had been brought up on the dinner tray.

And, I'm going to probably suck at my job, and feel incompetent for at least a good year after orientation, and this is probably good for me, so I can remember those sweet, innocent days of stepdown nursing and all the complaining I did over largely stable patients.

Well, any way, all this is outloud talk. I reserve the right to tuck tail and pass on picking this particular professional poison, and stay at Happy Hospital, on Friendly Fun Unit, with my peeps, all hanging out and joking for at least part of the shift. After we ambulate our patients and tuck them into bed for the night, that is.

why work is a wanker.

I've managed to figure out a major distinction in my Why I Currently Hate My Life's Work.

It's not really about the job. The job itself, at this particular hospital, on this particular floor, is fine. The people I work with are really nice and mostly sane, and most of the time, I can get a marginal amount of shit done during a shift (which is saying something, given the usual conditions of hospital nursing).

It's more about the profession itself, and the basic job description of a nurse.

For example, I think, baseline, I'm supposed to care about my patient. And I think I do care, in so far as I deliver mostly safe, medically sound nursing care.

But, lately, I care less and less about the patient, and more and more about how very, very bored and frustrated I am with a job that is starting to feel increasingly stultifying and pointless, and never really made me particularly happy in the first place.

I'm tired of the subservience and general all around lack of social status associated with nursing. Nursing, for all its aspirations to be taken seriously as an actual profession, still is and always has been a pink collar job.

I'm all for degrees and professional advancement, I just don't think it's necessary in bedside nursing, and there's a reason why there are multiple points of degree entry that all culminate in the same licensing process and boards: because baseline, being a bedside hospital nurse requires some common sense, an ability to multitask, and a deep enjoyment of being treated like a servile wench.

It doesn't require years of college, however, and I have always thought that my years of schooling are an impediment to tolerating my working conditions, which often require me to modify my vocabulary and communication skills to that of an average seven year old in order to "reach" a "challenging patient" (read: noncompliant asshole).

For indeed, I find half to three quarters of my job duties, while requiring excellent organizational skills, feel to me as if a moderately intelligent fifteen-year-old with a solid babysitting background could probably manage independently if given minimal direction.

Practically nothing that potentially interests or attracts me about the profession (treating and managing disease) is actually in my purview or scope of practice, and ambulating patients to the commode and warning them about sternal precautions and using their incentive spirometer, day after day, frankly, gets a little old.

In short, it's hard to be stuck in a job when frankly, you know your intellectual capacities far outstrip the job requirements. I imagine most nurses end up feeling this way, at some point or another.

I'm really kind of over the profession, to tell you the truth. Going to work feels more like some kind of crappy adult version of detention, complete with writing lines.

I thought, maybe, doing ICU would make me feel more of a bad ass, but, on the whole, I think after a year or two, I'll simply feel like a monkey who's been trained to pull a few more levers and push a few more buttons. And that monkey will probably be even more stressed out, bitter, and overworked. So, I'm not sure I should really do it, even though the annoyingly type A, bitchy competitive part of me wants to do it.

Sadly, I'm currently all out of ideas as to what I should do, or what new stupid job I should pursue. The bad thing about being in a profession you hate is that it kind of starts crushing your soul after awhile, and you end up in this anhedonic, borderline depressive state which pisses off and alienates all your loved ones and colleagues. Especially when the whole ICU application process seems like a never ending scene from a Tarkovsky film.

I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try ICU, though. I mean if it sucks, that's basically par for the course , and I can do something else.

There's always the annual post-end-to-Daylight-Saving-Time depressive funk to resort to, as well, in which Jamie loses interest in her life and takes to sleeping 16 hours a day when not at work.

But, that doesn't sound very healthy, either.

blanket statement

It's been All Blankets, All the TIme Around here. Behold: Christmas Blanket 2007 (Christmas Blanket 2006 met an unfortunate fate in mom's washer, and has been demoted to the lowly status of Erstwhile, Would-Be Potholder 2007).

And, below, my take on a Gee's Bend Quilt.

This blanket was a birthday present for David, although Piper claimed it several times during its inception and completion:

David has brought up the suggestion that I knit a blanket for Piper, so he doesn't have to look all pathetic and sleep on the back of the couch, blanketless, in this pathetic manner:

I'm convinced PIper should be spokesdog for those charity commercials: Save the Endangered Couch Dwelling Dog. I mean, look at the pathos in that pose!

wolly bully.

Piper, status post bath.

why, hello there, may I help you?

it's like you never left. because you never did.

Because the end of Daylight Saving Time came later, I worked a 17 hour shift, from 3p.m. until 7a.m.

Just saying that makes me think of some kind of bizarre preamble to Kiefer Sutherland's 24: The following takes place between 3p.m. and 7a.m.

Bonus: I warded off the scabies/MRSA/fungus admission. This poor person went to another floor, actually. Because the words "open heart surgery patients" should never be used in the same sentence as "scabies" and "fungus." (Really, MRSA should never be used in the same sentence, either, but we'll give ourselves credit for doling out that one all by ourselves!)

Not-so-bonus: I got, instead, a "drug-seeking" chest pain admission.

Amusing part of the shift:

ADMISSION NURSE:
So, what meds are you on at home?

CHEST PAIN GUY:
[in thick working class Worcester, MA accent]

I take Cah-di-zam.

ADMISSION NURSE:

Wha'?

CHEST PAIN GUY
[clearly annoyed by the need to repeat himself for these special needs, developmentally delayed West Coast bitches]:
Cah-di-zam.

JAMIE:
[quickly intervening/translating]
He means Cardizem.

ADMISSION NURSE:
[vaguely huffy]
Yeah, I know.

Not-so-amusing part of the shift:

CLOCK:
2 a.m.

CLOCK:
[one hour later, thanks to the End of Daylight Saving Time]
2 a.m.

what a gas.

In what may well be My Exercise Quotient For The Winter, I went on a run with my friend Nancy at Gas Works Park, an unfortunately named, but pretty, park in northern Seattle. We ran to the Fremont Bridge. David and I know Fremont from our haphazard journey to Woodland Park Zoo a few weeks ago. The neighborhood boasts not only of being "the center of the universe" but even has a Latin motto: De Libertas Quirkas.

It has a Latin motto, so it's settled. I must live there.

My favorite part (other than spending time with Nancy, and getting gifts of Professional Running Clothes Such As I've Never Had Before) was the lunch buffet at Bengal Tiger Indian Restaurant in the U-district. We met up with her friend Donna, also a nurse, and her friend Erica (not a nurse, who looked politely interested as conversation turned, inevitably, to shop talk.)

Any hoo.

In other news, I threw my keys and wallet down the trash chute today.

We won't even get into how I managed to accomplish this feat of incredible ridiculousness, but due to some unnamed maintenance person at the apartment complex, I have them back, in non-compressed form.

Instead of discussing my retarded behavior, we will laugh at the even-lamer remark made by one of the front desk people, who misheard the word "keys" and said, "Wait, a tree? Is it your tree or someone else's tree that's stuck in the trash chute?"

Even more annoyingly, she said it in that flat tone of bureaucratic indifference that translates,"I-really-don't-give-a-fuck-and-hope-I'm-not-the-one-responsible-for-
doing-anything-about-your-dilemma-but-I'm-standing-here-so-I-suppose-I'll-
have-to-feign-interest-and-ask-you."

If I hadn't been more worried about my keys becoming one of those tidy cubes-o-crap you see in cartoons involving the joys of trash compactors, I would have told her to go back to looking unhelpful and dour silently, please.

I mean, seriously. Why bother to pretend you were listening if you're going to say something that asinine as your response?

bye, bye, blackie

I woke up today and like a lazy ass, I didn't bother to get out of bed until about 11 a.m.

When I did, I went hopefully to the mouse cage. After a leisurely shower, which I now somewhat regret.

I was even thinking, as I washed my hair, that maybe I should call the vet, now that Blackie (my mouse) was seemingly getting better, and see if they could change the antibiotics from po (by mouth) to IM, or SQ, or whatever the heck it is they give to something that weighs slightly more than the supposed weight of a human soul (didn't you see "21 Grams"?)

Maybe I should have taken Blackie's refusal to take her meds these last few times for what it what: 'Dude, I know I'm dying, get over it, you big stupid human, and stop trying to feed me this pink gooey shit out of a dropper.' But she seemed to be eating more, and a little more active, and I was stupidly hopeful that she'd do one of those Miracle Mouse Recoveries.

Alas.

Blackie 'waited' long enough for me to amble over the cage, notice she was breathing in a close-to-death, horrible sort of way, and dragging her left side around in a panic. She was gasping, miserably, and looked at me.

I understood she was dying, and I knew it was probably too late to ask for proper help.

I picked her up, thinking crazy thoughts about mouse CPR and intubation, and how did secure the airways of rodents the size of chicken eggs, any way?

I called the vet.

Less than five minutes later, I knew she wasn't gonna make it to the vet. So, in vain desperation, I called to ask if I could bring her in now.

Just as the the receptionist said, 'Sure, bring her in, dear." I knew it was too late, and I told the receptionist so. The mouse died as I hung up the phone.

I don't know. It was pretty horrible, because she went the same route as my adopted rabbit Mookie did last year.

In fact, Mookie died on October 16.

Other Pets of Jamie, take head: October is turning out to be a historically crappy month in this household for Unfortunate Pet Expirations.

I didn't think I was gonna cry over a pet that cost less than a gallon of gas, even adjusted for inflation.

But, I did.

Then, I took Piper to the vet for his annual check up (I learned today they check a dog's prostate in the same way the check a human male's prostate. Eew).

I just about cried when I saw the bill for his vet exam, but those tears were (almost) shed for a different reasons, namely, my poor wallet.

a mouse, a mouse, a kingdom for my mouse.

At the risk of shitting on Shakespeare, I just have to say...

My poor mouse.

I know it sounds nuts, but I really do have a pet mouse. Two, actually.

I didn't really name them, and refer to them even now as "the black one" and "the fat ass."

However, since "the black one" while descriptive, doesn't sound like much of a name, I decided to call her "Mousie" or "Blackie." Well, I kind of had to fake like that's been her name, when I drove to the clinic. (Drove to the clinic, got lost, was forced to drive back home again, and then drive back to the friggin' clinic. It took me an hour to drive 4.4 miles. For a mouse.)

(And, incidentally, since "the fat ass" sounds just plain rude, I call "the fat ass" mouse "Martha Stewart." Maybe "fat ass" is less rude than calling her Martha Stewart, I don't know, but she's fat, blonde, bitchy, and makes a mean mouse nest, so it works.)

Any way, the black one is My Favorite Mouse Child. She's friendly, inquisitive, enjoys climbing, and isn't shy at all.

However, the black one is also Very Sick. And I feel I have been a Very Bad Mouse Parent, watching her get more and more snuffily, and thinking "oh, she'll get better."

Any way, I think it was Hagrid of the Harry Potter books who said it best when he tells Ron to forgive what he thinks is Hermione's misguided love for her cat, saying, "Well, people can be a bit stupid about their pets."

And how.

Case in point: I took a little pestilential creature worth a few pennies to a specialty vet clinic today, and paid eighty bucks for a vet to look at her and tell me what I already knew: mousie is very ill, and is probably going to die from pneumonia any day now.

He gave me a a milliliter of antibiotics to assuage the Pet Owner Guilt, and declined to put her down, although he didn't think she was going to make it.

I call tell he was thinking this way, because he started giving me the same speech about the mouse that we give to family members of human patients when we think their people are super sick and won't make it.

It goes like this, "Well, we can hope for the best, but really, you need to prepare yourself..."

Translation: "You're loved one is a goner."

David, in all his dry humor, encapsulated the comi-tragic scope of the thing when he said: "I think he was thinking he'd save you the extra fifty bucks to put her to sleep, considering what you spent already on a vet visit for a pet that cost you less than a Happy Meal to purchase."

Yes, thank you, Nurse David, for that wonderfully heartwarming sentiment. I'm sure the hospice patients all love your warmth and sensitivity in times of crisis.

Clown.

Any way.

So, I'm doing the Fake Hope Thing, like when a stroke victim's wife says hopefully, "Oh, he's doing so much better today! See, he's practically talking!" and I'm looking at the patient, and he looks at me, and I'm thinking, at best, he has expressive aphagia, which is nowhere near talking coherently at all.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, I'm pretending the Fake Antibiotics (I guess they're real, but whatever) are making her feel better, even though I can practically hear the poor mouse's agonal breathing from across the room.

It's very silly (my sadness over my little mouse) because I've only had her as a pet for about a year and a half, and she's just a little mouse, and it's hardly like her suffering matters in the great big plan of God's Craptastic Universe.

But, I feel very guilty I can't give her more palliation, as opposed to stupid fakey doses of antibiotics. I think the vet is convinced I will feel better about her death if I go through the motions of allopathic cure, but I just feel like that time they made me tie down that demented patient so she could die this really crappy, prolonged death.

I do draw the line at mouse CPR or radiographic studies of her lungs for definitive diagonsis, though.

And, who knows. Maybe the abx will do the trick, and she'll be able to breathe better, and I'll feel less guilty about not putting her to sleep.

Although, based on my experiences in the hospital, I sort of doubt it.

represent.

Work has been a mite better than say... oh, last time I blogged.

My assignments were pretty decent, in that my patients a) stayed in bed b) complied with treatment c) weren't on the call light every five minutes d) had appropriate family members, or none at all.

As horrible as it sounds for the patient, I sometimes wish they didn't allow family/friends to visit for hours at a time, because my God it's such a fucking inconvenience to have to talk to them.

I loathe talking to the family, who always want to know something mysterioso I can't possibly answer, but they think I should magically know. My least favorite question du jour is When The Doctor Is Going To See Their Dad/Mom/Brother/Sister/Pet Hermit Crab?

Dude, if I had a dollar for every time I was asked that question, I could quit nursing and do something marginally more useful with my time, like knit blankets for homeless pet hermit crabs.

Then, for some reason, they want to know How Dad/Mom/Brother/Sister/Pet Hermit Crab is doing.

Like, what the fuck do I look like, Font of Hospital Wisdom 2007? The Great and Powerful Oz? An internet search engine?

How the fuck am I supposed to know, exactly?!

Half the time, the doctor's don't even know precisely what the fuck is going on, and I'm magically supposed to know myself?

Fuck the Nurse Friendly crap. I wish it was possible to say, "I don't know how they're doing, but give me fifty bucks and I'll make up some half-baked story, like I'm doing now, so you maybe won't bother me for fifteen minutes, so I can go see my other patients and make sure they aren't dead."

In fact, I think I have a reputation around the unit as being a bit of a hard-core bitch when it comes to whiny family/patients. I make the unit nurses laugh with my blunt expressions of apathy and toneless, ironic wit, but I think I also scare them just a little bit.

I know.

Me. A bitch.

Who would have thunk it?

I'm actually kind of honored, though, that other bitches think I'm a bitch. It's kind of like getting jumped into a street gang.

That totally makes me like, Bitch Goddess of the Unit, or something.

I know that's not exactly something to be proud of, but it is kind of funny, because before I became a nurse, I thought of myself as a nice, mature person who didn't play petty power games with others, or have to suppress the urge to roll my eyes and look totally annoyed when families ask how old, craggy grandpa hermit crab is doing.

But, it turns out, I really am an impatient, half-crazy Bitchatolla with very little emotional self control when it comes to high stress situations that aren't life threatening.

Stunning revelation, that.

For example, this weekend, I happened to be totally bitching to my coworkers about some wacked out Uber-Weird, Uber-Bitchy interventional radiology nurse. This nurse was totally giving me the shit-end-of-the-guiac-stick, so, in retaliation, I decided to page him a few extra times, just to piss him off.

I knew it was totally immature, and that he wasn't gonna answer the pages, but I know how fucking annoyed I get when my pager goes off multiple times in a row over the same crap, and he'd been such a fucking asshole, and left me with about an hour's worth of extra work to do, that I decided, "Ha ha, bitch! You just fucked with the wrong bitch, bitch!"

It was a very Cartman moment. I get kind of teary-eyed thinking about it.

By now, the unit nurses have all gotten used to my style of The Sky Is Falling tantrums when I get stressed out over nothing. I think they sort of treat it like, "Oh, here goes The Jamie Show. Tune in next time, same Bat Station, same Bat Channel."

I seem to only have this reaction to minor, bullshit situations. When Real Shit Hits The Fan, I'm pretty reliable and get down to bid'nez, and that's why I think my colleagues overlook my unfortunate tendency to hyperbolize when I run into some small snafu.

But, when I was a new grad, on the floor where I was a new grad, guaranteed, this little crap incident would suddenly snowball into some multi-faceted situation that would totally suck ass for the rest of the shift. In Ghetto Nursing, you had to have your back up 24-7, or you totally got beaten down and taken out. So, I kick Freak Out Mode into high gear, totally over-compensating, because that's what we all did back in my Ghetto Nursing Days.

It's like East Coast meets West Coast, and West Coast is all, 'What the fuck is wrong with that East Coast bitch, all stressing over nothing? It's all good, man. Tell the bitch to chill out!"

(Telling my East Coast Ghetto Nursing stories to these West Coast Kayak-Granola Nurses, I notice there's a huge disconnect between my New Grad world full of thugs and hos, and their world of Duuuuude, Possession of Pot Is Just a Misdemeanor Here, Quit Freaking Out, It's All Good. )

Any way, one of my colleagues, who I consider to be a sharp nurse, but even more of an abrasive bitch than I am, laughed at me as I was muttering aloud like a psycho, planning my petty paging-fest revenge, and said, humorously, "Oh my God, Jamie! You're a such a fucking bitch!"

I know it sounds fucked-up, but this was her version of a compliment, and I took it as such.

"Yeah, well, bitch shoulda never given me his pager number, that dumb fuck idiot." I declared in a self satisfied way, as I imagined that Bitchy Interventional Nurse going all status epilecticus as his pager went off for the fourth time in a row, courtesy moi.

I'm glad I spent all that time in divinity school writing essays about compassion and forgiveness, because it certainly hasn't come in handy when dealing with boneheads on the job.

scarfing down the goodness.

I look hideous and unglamorous, with my pasty white complexion and smart-ass smirk (not to mention woolly looking winter hairdo) but check out the newly completed Seattle Scarf #2, which I intend to surgically graft to my neck, so I can't lose it, like its poor predecessor, Seattle Scarf #1.

the magic words.

PATIENT:
[sitting up in bed, watching t.v., in no particular distress at all]
I'm... having... chest... pain...

JAMIE:
[arching eyebrows]
Oh, really? Where is it, how does it feel, and what would you rate it on a scale of one to ten?

PATIENT:
[eyes glued to t.v screen, utterly calm, fakes some shortness of breath]
Nine out of ten.

JAMIE:
[nursing sixth sense telling her to engage the PIFN protocol, or Patient Is Faking For Narcotics protocol]
Oh, really? Well then, I guess I'll have to give you more nitroglycerin [n.b. not a narcotic].

PATIENT:
I don't want that shit! It gives me a headache, and it don't do nothing for my pain.

JAMIE:
[tersely]
Well, sir, you can refuse the medicine, but if you're really having heart-related pain, I strongly advise you take the medicine, because it will help your heart pain.

PATIENT:
[lapses into grumpy silence, apparently able to ponder this plight at length while forgetting to fake his life threatening cardiac-related pain]

JAMIE:
[unable to conceal annoyment]
Do you want it, or not?

PATIENT:
[begrudgingly, after a minute's consideration]
Yeah, I guess so.

Later in the shift...

JAMIE:
[walking into room]
So, how's the chest pain? I'm going to give you some more morphine, now, okay?

PATIENT:
[ now watching third episode in a row of syndicated CSI: Miami. Starts moaning dramatically, and faking shortness of breath as if on cue]
It ain't better.

JAMIE:
[barely faking concern]
Oh, that's too bad.

rattle and hum.

PATIENT:
[whining]
...And can you fix the head of the bed? It's rattling... see, when I move like this [wiggles around in bed]... See! The headboard sort of rattles! And it's been driving me crazy!

JAMIE:
[envisioning disengaging said headboard and connecting it swiftly with the back of patient's head]
Sir? All the headboards rattle--they're old, and this is a hospital. I'm not sure what you'd like me to do about it.

PATIENT:
[still whining]
But this is important!

diagnosis; rule out intelligence

JAMIE:
[on phone with an attending]
So blah blah blah complaining of chest pain blah blah blah blah patient is and has been stable blah blah blah ruled out for MI... blah blah blah real issue today is actually hypertension blah blah blah.

DOCTOR:
Is he on anything at home for the hypertension?

JAMIE:
Cocaine and marijuana.

DOCTOR:
[chuckles]
Oh, I see.

uncle.

I'm about to put my ring tone "Take This Job and Shove It" back on my cell phone to channel my utter disgust with nursing at present.

Work this week needs to die bitch, die.

For one: I do not endorse open heart surgery on heroin abusers. Especially heroin abusers without medical insurance.

There were about one hundred other very tedious, unpleasant, ridiculous things about work this week which are too tedious, unpleasant, and ridiculous to account for here. Things, incidently, that make heroin-abusers look like candidates for the Miss America Pagent.

I am bone weary tired, and working some insane schedule from hell on top of it.

I feel like Tom Hanks's character looks when he goes to work in that scene from Joe Vs. The Volcano.

And, all annoying patients and their family members can proceed directly to hell as far as I'm concerned. Do not pass the nursing station, do not collect free legal narcotics.

And, you know it's been a rough week when you liked the alcoholic patient in withdrawal better than the heroin addict, but you still have yet to meet the other heroin addict on the floor. Plus, you're taking care of your second massively huge bipolar guy in two weeks, and a developmental delayed guy who spent the better part of the shift constantly on the call bell, screaming down the hallway for "his nurse." Which, unfortunately, was me.

I feel like work has become some cross-over, hybrid show: Cardiac Fecal Pouch, meet Psych Issues Douche Bag... Psych Issue Douche Bag, meet Cardiac Fecal Pouch.

There, glad we got those introductions out of the way.

devolution.

It was one of those kind of weeks at work where I congratulated myself at the end of it for not becoming an alcoholic, narcotic drug abuser, or convicted of murder one.

I've had a headache for six days.

And, considering I'm going back to work tomorrow, I'm likely to have a headache for another six days.

Goddamn fucking job.

apocalypse, yesterday

I've come to the conclusion, based on the last two years of a Real Job, that I was never meant, on any level, to be a nurse.

I keep thinking there's something wrong with me.

Like, I'll be thinking, "Dude, I should like cleaning shit up off the floor more!"

Or, "Come on, Jamie, isn't lifting a 300 lb woman with weeping bilateral lower extremity cellulitis back into bed the highlight of your day!?"

Or the classic, ever-popular: "What don't you like about shitty power-play games with ingrate coworkers who don't want to do their jobs?"

But, mea culpa to all my peeps out there--I just wasn't cut out for this continual barrage of crap, burn out, endless demands, and pithy rewards ("Oh fucking yey, some person finally said 'Thank you.' You know what? That would mean a lot more if I got a big salary bonus and promotion at the end of the year like most people when they worked their fucking asses off.")

The way I know this simple truth is that I continually think longingly of Yesteryear Jamie, and how she used to be Good At Stuff, and now all she feels good for is wiping ass and running her own off.

Back in Ye Olden Days of Grad School, I never had back pain. I didn't have IBS. I didn't have frequent anxiety attacks, borderline anorexia, headaches that last for days, chronic insomnia, and a slew of other physical problems that have cropped up since I became a nurse.

I feel like I've aged about ten years in a mere two and that just can't be right, people.

It's like, you shouldn't spend three days at work and feel so burned out by the end of it that you need a two week vacation just to recover from your fucking stupid ass job.

And, I hate to say it, but I frequently miss Smug Academia Land, where people, are you know, continent of bowel and bladder, and if they aren't, they don't shit all over the bed, all over the floor, proceed to roll around in their own filth, and then request that you "lift their folds and look at that itchy rash down there."

Also, people in University Wurld are cultured, and learned, and stuff I really miss about people.

Because you see so much ugly and plain annoying about people in nursing, not to mention deal with so fucking much stupidity on a daily basis, that it can make you really miss when people made annoyingly erudite jokes about Derrida and told funny little jokes, the punch-lines of which were in Latin (even if when you graduated, you thought you'd never miss the snotty little gaggle of geeks with whom you matriculated.)

My academic training was focused on issues very different than the ones I find in nursing. For example, in college, I learned how to concentrate, and focus on textual analysis, and suffer through very long, very dry, and mostly completely incomprehensible English translations of complex 19th century German philosophical texts. I'm not saying I was great at it, but it's what I was used to doing, and I did it very diligently, for the most part.

Then, I became a nurse, and realized dude, none of these skills are necessary to be a nurse! Like, none of my patients want to learn about the Kantian phenomena/noumena dichtomy or make fun of the French language, or laud Latin! What the fuck?!

This revelation has come as a fairly large epiphany in some ways--because if you come from a background as self-absorbed in its own minutiae and esoterica (yes, I said esoterica, not erotica, people) as academia--you are always faintly aware that most people don't think like you've been taught to think. But, you also have this fatal Achilles heel: that stupid humanities-schmanities idea that you're gonna be the one to finally convert the American Idol watching slobs of the world to your own unique set of pedantic ideals, which includes forcing every one to read at a college level before they go to junior college and take remedial reading courses and making Rhetoric and Logic required courses in kindergarten.

And then you get on the floor, and all that learning just goes to complete shit. All your years of precious extremely expensive education is wasted on little old people who can't hear you any way, or young people who feign deafness whenever anyone tries to tell them simple truths like: 'crack use is really bad for you,' or'you shouldn't sleep with men twice your age and except they'll stick around to raise the resulting babies you make with said idiots.'

Your colleagues are pretty much all nice, sometimes very sharp, smart people, but generally too busy and fucked-up-the-ass with their own crappy nursing assignment to talk to you beyond some perfunctory shop talk, and most doctors don't think you're really worth talking to, except as a piece of furniture in the room, or they do so in very condescending teacher voices, possibly with hand puppets and some pantomime thrown in for good measure, because nurses are obviously too retarded to be talked to directly and plainly as free-thinking, educated adults, or something.

If I sound bitter, it's because I am. Of course, I have no one to blame but myself for choosing such a fruitless, frustrating career, but it doesn't mean I can't bitch about it, because by God, I will, until I've finally, at age 96, become the oldest person to earn a PhD in Career Regret.

Oh wait. I already have.

the fray.

I've taken care of more than my fair share of open-heart-surgeries-gone-badly-wrong lately, and I'm burned out.

Not only is is physically exhausting (Jamie the 95 Lb Weakling Vs. 250 Lbs of Dead Weight Patient) but it's emotionally gut-wrenching too. People walk in, looking forward to getting this crappy heart surgery over and getting on with their lives, and they end up lying in bed with tubes shoved in more places than G-d created orifices, not getting on with anything.

Some of them can't talk to you any more. You ask them questions, and they just stare at you. And it's like, you don't even want to know what they're thinking, and you're not even sure why the hell you're asking the Aphasic Stroke Guy how he feels, because you're pretty sure if he could tell you, which he can't, he'd say he felt like shit.

What I've noticed, is these stroke patients all have the same look in their eyes. If you look in their eyes long enough--and it doesn't take very long--you notice that same, haunted, fearful look.

The look that says, "Oh shit, am I gonna be like this forever?" and "Please fucking take me out of my misery."

I can't bear that look.

So, I have to cope with my role, which is in theory, to help rehabilitate the patient to their highest level of functioning, or whatever.

Usually, though, we "rehab" them to the whatever stage of prognosis, and they stay for weeks or months on the floor, flopping around like mop dolls when we turn them, diligently, every two hours. They're unable to speak, unable to move themselves, unable to enjoy real food or tell their family how much they love them.

And it sucks.

So, I cope with my role by looking at the patient as a series of tasks to perform, a set of vital signs, labs, meds, and assessments.

I stopped a long, long time ago looking at the patient as a real person, because if you stop and take a look at the pictures the family brings in of dad with the kids at a baseball outting, in some pre-stroke, pre-crap life, all of them smiling obliviously into the camera, their future as-of-yet-unknown fate hanging right around the other side of that shutter click, it can drive you crazy.

And I'm crazy enough on my own.

I do not need that shit. No one needs that shit. Because the reality is, it could be anybody lying in the bed like some helpless overgrown baby. Anybody.

The nursing role, personally, gets harder when I have a family member--a well meaning, concerned spouse or partner, or kid--who insists I see the patient as a person with acute thoughts and feelings and a personal past.

It's like, I want to do that bullshit holistic thing they teach you in nursing school, but I can't. Because if I did, I'd have nothing left not only for the other three or four or five other people I have to take care of that day, and I'd have precious left for myself and my people on my days off.

So you let the wife sort of micromanage your care of their spouse, because you kind of get it, that to her, your patient is That Guy who eventually became The One, even though to you, he's literally just some room number and diagnosis.

But, you also feel kind of annoyed and wish you did nursing tasks in a bubble, without family/friends intervening.

At least, I do.

Some nurses are very good at the talk and teach thing.

Being distractable, and a basically misanthropic person, I hate doing the talk and teach thing.

Give me labs, give me diagnoses, give me clinical signs and symptoms and I'm usually pretty good at putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

I just know I'm not going to put the person--or his life--back together again, so that's where I stop, and I know it shows sometimes, and family members probably think I'm as much of a burned out bitch as I feel.

But to them, this medical calamity has just happened: the stroke, the massive MI, the septic shock, the respiratory arrest.

It's personal to them, and it should be.

But it's not to me. It's just work.

Because for me, "this"--stroke, MI, septic shock, whatever--happens almost every day I go to work.

I'm not superhuman. I just can't be warm and receptive and endlessly patient and understanding when I have a multitude of other things to get done before I clock out. Some nurses are very good at hand-holding and coddling family members; I tend to be the sort of nurse that isn't. Some days, I'm not even all that good at faking care and concern. I feel bad about this tendency, but I also am trying to learn to live with it.

I'm not an ogre; I understand these people want the best care for their family member, and I do my share of comfort measures throughout my shift.

But catering to every goddamn request--be it from patient or family member--can be agonizingly annoying to a nurse, and I think I can say that without invoking too much name-calling and demerits on my Good Nurse badge.

The job often feels like playing nanny/mother to a bunch of grown adults who should damn well know better, and it really feels that way when I need a break from the whole kit-and-kiboodle.

I try to look at this way, in order to minimize my own feelings of guilt and job inadequacy, not to mention overall personality fault-finding:

I do my job (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean).

At the end of the day, I've done whatever it is that I can do, and that just has to be good enough.

Does it work?

Nah, not really.

But nothing else seems to, either.

save patients! win prizes!

So yesterday, I come into work in a patented Jamie Foul Mood.

I wasn't about the work, the bullshit, the work, more bullshit, more work... you get the idea.

On days like this, even when a very nice patient asks, "Oh, and could you please rearrange my bedside table so it's parallel to the bed, not perpendicular, and all the items on it are arranged in strict 45 degree angles in relationship to each other, and there's only 3 inches of water in the cup, not 5, and oh, I don't like paper cups, could you get me a real glass cup..." ad naseaum...

I want to scream.

And scream I do, silently, in my head.

Over and over and over again.

On days like this, when you just can't get it up for the job, figuratively, and you're like, growling under your breath about the needy, annoying post-op open heart surgery (Dude! It can't hurt that bad!) the minute you get out of the room...

Well, those always seem to be the days in which you receive a major reality check.

Not that you wanted one, mind.

Not that you needed one.

You just get one.

It's like, the cracker jack prize-in-the-box for nurses who wake up on the wrong side of the Clinitron bed.

Mine, yesterday, was a fake-out respiratory distress situation on a patient, who was actually just having some kind of weird COPD exacerbation. Apparently I appeared to the rapid response team as if I were having hallucinations, a mild TIA or complete lapse of professional judgement (or all of the above)--so I'm telling you, gentle reader, so that someone knows: Dude, it looked exactly like she was about to respiratory arrest.

Trust me, you get a feeling about these kinds of patients after awhile. The ones who look okay at 3p.m., maybe slightly wheezy, but nothing that makes you go, "Oh, crap," and by 4p.m., are a little huffy and puffy, so you keep a close eye on them. You've got enough experience under your belt to know you don't want to run and call the PA yet, who isn't going to be impressed by your Fakey Nursing Skilz if you haven't given the Lasix or tried breathing treatments on yet, but you've also done the job long enough to know that This Could Be A Situation.

However, as I'm sure most nurses will agree, no one is gonna take your Special Nursing Intuition, "I Gotta Bad Feeling About This One" seriously if you don't back it up with some mega-shitty ABGs or crap chest X-rays, even if the patient turns out not to respond to mega doses of diuretics, or like three breathing treatments, and by 5 p.m. is wheezing so badly you can hear it across the room without a stethoscope. Especially if you're some new-to-the-floor nurse who no one knows from Adam. (The political and social hierarchy of nursing is a whole 'nother game, probably a post or six, but I digress).

Any way, I knew no one was gonna take me "fo' real" when they heard the numbers, and I was gonna get some variation of: "But dude, she's like, sating 95% on 2 liters! What the fuck did you page for, you fucking minor league bitch?!"

I mean, they won't come out and say that, outright (although I've had doctors at other places come pretty damned close) but, you know that's what they're thinking.

In nursing, this is called The Dreaded Numbers Game, in which the nurse is actually tempted to fake pulse oximetry readings to get someone to care that you know, the patient looks like shit and can't breathe worth a damn. But, since "looks like shit and can't breathe worth a damn" isn't an actual diagnosis, you gotta dig for proof to back up your shit nursing claims.

Because, you know the minute you say "She's sating fine, dude, I have no idea what the problem is," you're totally gonna be blown off as some total amateur crappy stepdown nurse who clearly is overreacting to some minor, bullshit situation that's gonna blow over if you give it enough time.

And, even when the respiratory therapist is urging you to call a rapid reponse team (which, as charge pointed out later "wasn't all that rapid") you know the next few minutes are gonna be devoted to the weird pissing match thing ICU nurses do when they come up to a stepdown floor and decide the stepdown nurse is full of shit and can't manage own her patients.

I don't know if this is a good comparison--it does, however, speak to the fact that I'm watching way fucking too much late-night t.v.--but, dude, I felt exactly like Jimmy Smits' character in those NYPD Blue episodes I saw a couple of days ago, where he spends his entire screen time getting his balls busted by the Special Task Force, who come in on his turf and keep trying to show him up on a serial killer case. His Captain keeps telling him to take one for the team, and Jimmy Smits, who's done all this snazzy detective work and knows deep down inside he's got some good leads, man, gets all pissed off and slams men's restroom doors in frustration, because he keeps getting railroaded by the Special Task Force.

Jimmy Smits, man, I feel your pain, bro', I feel your pain.

Because it was like that, with me as Jimmy Smits getting silently pissed off and thinking thoughts of slamming heads into walls, and the ICU nurses as Special Task Force, all huffing and puffing and stomping around because "Oh my gawd, you floor nurses don't run your own ABGS?! What do you mean, stepdown nurses don't have an I-stat to run ABGs? What kind of a floor is this?!" etc. etc.

Yeah, it was like that episode, except without the serial killer (unless you count COPD as a serial killer, which it kind of is, actually) and there was no vindication on my part, as there was, eventually on Jimmy's part, and no slaming of men's restroom doors, either. (Well, the patient did pull herself out of this godawful respiratory distress, apparently responding to, uh, no acute interventions whatsoever other than ICU nurses kind of rolling their eyes and going, "Oh yeah, this patient. She does this. She like, did this on your floor a couple of days ago and went to the unit where we did nothing for it. She'll pull herself out of it.")

Like, you know, information that might have been nice to know when they transfered her at 2:30p.m. to stepdown.

Any hoo, despite apparently annoying people into doing their jobs with the false alarm, I felt okay about the situation, even if I was made to feel like a big goofy moron who might well be a first-day-nursing student. I mean, I like to think I've Learned Some Things in two years. Not everything, but you know, some things. And one of the things I think I've learned pretty well, is recognizing the basic signs and symptoms of patients when they can't breathe.

But, I've also learned other, more difficult lessons (which I conveniently forget from time to time prn.)

For one thing, I kept my big mouth shut. (And if you know me well, you know how desperately hard this is for me to do, especially in situations where I Think I'm Right; harder still in situations where I Know I'm Right.)

This has been one of the hardest of all the transitions to make from years of schooling to Wurk: in school, you're supposed to know the right answers, and you are encouraged to give these answers. You're even rewarded for these answers. In Real Life, you may know the answers, you may even know the right answers--but very few people are going to want to listen to them.

So, recognizing the latter situation for what it was, and realizing these were colleagues who, like it or not, I was going to have to endure and/or outright need the assistance of in future situations, I bent over, and took the passive-aggressive abuse, because well, whatever, it wasn't nice, but it also wasn't the time to start bitching at people who could like, do important stuff like intubate my patient and help out in real codes.

And, it was kind of funny, because at the end of the day, one of the floor nurses, who's like, the cheerleader for the floor, except in a good, non-fakey way, was like, "So, you saved someone's life today, huh?"

It struck me funny, because dude, that's the last thing I would have thought about or called that situation. I actually kind of felt like the moron who keeps insisting they really did see Elvis or a UFO or something, and every one else kind of humors them like, "Sure, sure, Jamie. Sure it was a COPD exacerbation. Sure." It was less medical heroics, a lot more like throwing a big surprise party complete with a cake-popper, and the wrong person walks in on it.

I laughed, and genuinely surprised by his response to my Big Ado Over Nothing, said, "Dude, no, I don't think so. She pulled herself out of that one--so I guess she kind of saved her own life."

And he kind of laughed, and gave me a thumbs up sign.

So, yeah, I guess felt all warm and fuzzy inside for a quick second, kind of like I'm sure Jimmy Smits's character did at the end of that NYPD episode, when Dennis Franz's character says all gruffily, "Good work, detective."

Some days, that's about as much validation in this often-shit job as you can hope for.

nursing: it's not a job, it's a fricking endurance trial.

You may have noticed my absence from my own blog.

Or, you may not.

Or, you may have noticed, and simply been relieved, because my last posts have been even more inane and pointless than usual.

This is due to a scientific, poorly understood but common occurence called Wurkus Schmurkus, in which the brain is so pummeled by annoying patients and their family members that one's grey matter oozes out one's ear, rendering one incapable of even the simplest tasks, like blogging.

Last week was so crappy, between Multiple Wound Rotting Full Code Nightmare and Three Hundred and Sixty Lbs of Schizoaffective Hypertensive Yeast Infected Abdominal Folds Thoracic Aneurysm Double Nightmare, that Jamie, who generally loathes being floated, was, if not ecstatically happy, majorly relieved to be taking care of nauseated status post laminectomies and nauseous, vomiting fresh post-op carotid endarterectomies.

Yum! Happy goodness!

Well, it was better than 360 lb guy puking up his entire, and enormous, dinner, which also happened, and makes me never want to eat egg salad sandwiches ever again.

The people at work are very, very nice, but I decided it's floor nursing I dislike. It's boring, and when it's busy, it's often tedious and insane, not fun and challenging.

I'm misanthropic on a good day (have you noticed yet, in two years of bitching about crazy people?) and it pushes all kinds of the wrong buttons when I have to deal with needy family members. It's bad enough when the patient is a whiny little shit. (Shock! Horror! Yes, it ain't a pretty truth, it's not even particularly professional, but behind closed doors and on very public blogs, we do talk about our patients in less than complimentary ways at times--hopefully while abiding by some semblance of HIPAA.)

I'm not very good at the Nurse Friendly schtick, especially when I'm tired of them already, the patient is really sick, or even not that all sick, and you've got some freaked out family member who's demanding, during some annoying, self-entitled McTantrum, that you page the docotor right away, and Where's the doctor? and What are you doing with that medicine? etc. etc.

In fact, based on my random sampling of patient family members and psycho patients, people, in general, totally creep me out now. I try to avoid all eye contact in elevators or out on the street, because I'm desperately afraid someone's going to confront me like they do in a hospital. I'm also not joking about this phenomenon, and it worries me a little bit, because I feel kind of insane myself, because it's not like they know I'm a nurse, or something.

But, it's clear that this job kind of intensifies those social phobia tendencies I already have.

I also tend to think I chose the wrong profession, and it would have been loads better if I had gone with my original inclination in high school, which was to become a medical examiner, and I could skip the niceties of "Hi, my name is Jamie, and I am going to perform your autopsy today." I could also skip the bullshit waitress part, because no needs ice water or "a little something" to move their bowels when they're dead.

You know it's a bad week week at work when you wish all your patients were dead, but then you don't, because that means even more paperwork and bullshit than if they weren't.

dawg.

I actually wish Piper had looked more surly and annoyed--as per his usual camera mugging--because he would have looked a lot more thug in this shot, especially with silver chain around his neck:

I don't know. Maybe he's Stoner-Dog, or something, with that vacantly happy expression on his face.

It's all about the love, dawg.

mom hair cut.

So, Piper got a "mom hair cut" today. He submits to these rather docilely, and he doesn't know what a mirror is for--thank God.

Piper's post-walk-post-hair-cut-look-of-non-plussed-mild-befuddlement:


He seems to be saying, "Where's my cookie, woman?!"

three questions

If you've wondered where I've gone... well, predictably, it's not far.

I've been spending a great deal of time this week thinking about these questions:

What can I know? What ought I to do? What may I hope?

(For all you Kant geeks out there, you'll recognize those questions as part of his treatise on the categorical imperative.)

So far, these are my answers:

What can I know?

Uh, not a whole lot, apparently.

What ought I to do?

No clue.

What may I hope?

Ditto above answer.

Today is one of those "I don't feel comfortable in my own skin" kinds of days. The kind of day I wish I were my dog, who doesn't have philosophical plights to ponder, or have to get off his ass and pack his own lunch.

Oh, the mundane banality of it all!

oh, the decisions.

Or, "In Which Jamie Waffles On Again About Her Boring Life."

I am not complaining about my job. The people are great, the work is usually not too bad, and the doctors are some of the easiest I've ever worked with, on the whole.

In fact, as stepdown jobs go, this is as cushy as it's ever gonna get.

So, it's a hard to face the fact that stepdown is starting to bore the hell out of me.

My Inner Geek wants to know more.

Unfortuantely, my Outer Geek is getting tuckered out.

And, my Inner Geek is so f-ing indecisive, it's a wonder I get out of bed in the morning.

My Inner Geek, truth be known, is also a huge job-commitment wuss. It doesn't like the idea of committing to twelve hour shifts as staff, at a job that might just be its complete undoing.

In fact, I would go so far as to say My Inner Geek is doing a very good job of balking at labor negotiations with my Outer Geek, the part of me that actually has to get off my ass and start figuring out the logistics of all this crap.

Oh Inner Geek, you were such a font of knowledge back in the day, when equivocal responses to professor's essay questions got you out of more tight spots than you can remember! How you curse and taunt me now, oh turn-coat Inner Geek!

Sigh.

sweet.

I had a little old patient today who was talking to her husband on the phone while I was in the room.

When she hung up, I said, conversationally, 'Was that your honey?'

'Oh, yes!' she said, and her eyes twinkled brightly for the first time that afternoon. "And he is a honey. He is the sweetest man, ever."

'How long have you been married?' I asked.

Beaming at the thought of him, she said, 'Well, it's been sixty-one years of honey.'

And I thought, 'Ain't that just the sweetest thing?'

daytrippin', Piper-mache, and more!

David came for a visit this weekend, and managed to talk me into standing around at the ferryboat docks (at five thirty! on a Friday! with the crowds!) in order to take a ride out to the bay, where it would be easier to dump my lifeless body.

Just kidding.

But, look, LOOK I say, at the Obligatory Photos of the Seattle Skyline, with the Ultra Obligatory Shot of the Space Needle:



Some random guy said I have "Happy Hair."

We went over to Bainbridge Island, where we saw lots of Tourist ShopsFull of Gratuitous Waffle, including one which sold what I call Piper Mache:

After a tasty meal at a local Mexican restaurant, we took the ferry back, and lo, I have another Obligatory Tourist Picture to show you, entitled Seattle At Night:

And, David's favorite shot: Ivar's House of Clams at Night: