Urgh.. I'm on break and I'm dragging my heels. I guess another 4 hours of sleep wasn't enough. I woke up wide awake at 5:15am and couldn't get back to sleep.

Apparently we're 3 nurses short today. LOVELY.

E

Fluffy has a virus :(

No, Fluffy is not my dog. If you go waaaaaaaaay back to one of my first posts, you'll notice that fluffy is the name for my computer. My computer has a virus.

I'm currently typing on Mr E's computer. My computer is formatting.

It's sad, because I'm so busy with formatting, I forgot I only had 4 hours sleep and that I have another day shift tomorrow.

By the way, today was the first day I took a full assignment by myself and nailed it! If only the gentleman in a room didn't decide to not answer me 20 minutes before the end of my shift! 40 minutes later, I finally left the ED. I guess that's what happens in nursing, you can't just leave when the clock strikes the hour... your patients come first.

Anyway, more updating later, especially bitching about reinstalling every convenience I had on my compy.

'night fluffy!

So sad...

I think talk should stop about Iraq and money should be put into the education system.

Read this.

Change of Shift

OK so I've been sucking for posts, but there is one thing you have to check out:





Is up at Emergiblog. CHECK IT OUT NOW.

.....

One medical condition I am prone to is migraines. I haven't had one in almost 3 years... I find if I can attack a moderate sized headache with ibuprofen (migraine relief extra strength) I can usually get ahead of a migraine and kill it before it starts. Also part of the regimen is to get to sleep as soon as possible.

Well last night I went to bed with a small headache, so I figured going to bed would kill it. I had, been up for almost 20 hours, and about 19 hours the day before.

I was wrong.

This morning I woke up with a bad headache. Two aspirin's later (i didn't have ibuprofen in the house.. big mistake) NOTHING happend.. My headache was getting worse.

I tried to have a nap. Sleep was lovely, but my headache when I woke up fell into migraine territory: photophobia, nausea, dizziness. Shitty.

The worst part about it was that I had to go to a wedding today. So here I was, showering in the dark, head near the toilet while dressing, eyes closed and bent over a bucket while drying my hair.... Until my most handsome amazing boyfriend Mr. E arrived with some extra strength Ibuprofen. I think i may have taken way over the limit for ibuprofen for the day, but I made it to the wedding with only mild dizziness and a mild headache. Note to self: I really need to plan ahead better and have Gravol and Advil on hand AT ALL TIMES. But of course I don't.

I'm just arriving home now, and am headed to bed. But of course I had to catch up with my daily reading and figured I might as well contribute to the blogisphere.

I was tempted to head to work to grab some PO Toradol, or to call a friend who gets chronic migraines for some prescription relief, but I withheld.

Thank god my body responds to ibuprofen.

I am lucky.

Although I complain on this blog, and I moan about how I want more action in the big city emergency department, I consider myself very lucky.

I’m lucky because I am healthy. Yeah, I had a bum knee for most of this summer and still do physio for it, but I’m lucky because I have the opportunity to heal.

There are so many people we see in emerg who are relatively young who have to battle ailments that I couldn’t even imagine having. For example:

I met a young lady who had had multiple benign tumours removed, but they continue to grow in random areas and now she was partially paralyzed.

I met a gentleman who was in a motorcycle accident 20 years ago at the age of 21. He is a paraplegic, and riddled with bedsores. In hospital because of sepsis.

I met a 40 year old male with MS. Septic because of a UTI.

Also I have met another 20 something year old with an MI. And a 20-something with a stroke.

The people I have met have taken their illness in stride, and remain optimistic. It has blown my mind. I hope I never forget this, no matter how bad my day.

Smartphones

After numerous months of debating, and researching, and peer reviewing, I went out and purchased a smartphone.

There were many to choose from, the newest being the iPhone, as well as many other choices such as Blackberry (from an Ontario company called RIM), as well as Motorola, Palm, and Microsoft.

There have been many reviews of which PDA is the "best" to use and why. I poured over these and looked at the different options.

Some love the new-ness of the iPhone and its advanced technology. I would have loved to get one, but in Canada for the basic plan its over $90/month for an email/internet package, not including the phone service or the phone itself. If I was to spend that kind of money on the phone I would want all options to be unlimited, without forking over a ridiculous amount of money/month. (A friend of Mr E's bought an iPhone, and his first bill was over $800. Yikes!)

I'm a <$30/month kind of girl, have never used my phone for surfing the web, and have never even had a camera on my phone. The thought of paying that much a month just so I can look at Facebook a few times before my maximum was just not worth it. I also don't own an iPod *gasp*, or any type of portable music device. So then I thought about just getting a cheap phone with basic services, and buying a PDA that would be a separate purchase. Those left me with a few options, Palm being one of them. The problem lies in the fact that most PDAs are now also smartphones, and honestly I didn't want to have to carry two separate machines. I used to own a Palm Z32, and up until it died it was a good purchase to have especially for the calendar software, the contacts, and the memos. One thing about owning a Palm AND a Cell is that you hardly ever look at your Palm, especially if you also had a laptop and could access the Palm software that way. No, my phone would have to have both a decent calendar option which was compatible with my current software (harder than it seems), as well as be a decent phone, and if it was a smartphone have easy access to email. Surfing the web would be secondary as at the hospital it is easy to get computer access, and at home my laptop is my baby. There aren't too many things I would need to access the web for when I wasn't at home. Ultimately, I was looking for a smartphone with a decent calendar, and the ability to put medical software on it. After wheeling and dealing with the phone company, I managed to finagle a deal where I would pay $15 for unlimited email, plus the cost of my monthly phone package. Not being one to surf the web, I was ok with not getting an internet package. Now I would just have to find a phone. I could do a thorough analysis of each phone available by my phone carrier on this blog, however I think I would do it a disservice; there have been many already done, and I'm not that technical nor would I actually care that much to do it. So that leaves me with my choice of phone. Since I have had experience with Palm software, am not interested in fancy gadgets nor pretty design, it seemed that a Palm phone would be the most logical choice. My phone carrier only had one Palm option: the Treo 755p.

I have to say that I love it. To me it's a new Palm pilot, which also just happens to have phone capabilities. With it not only can I check email regularly (nice because I'm a head of a not for profit organization, and would need to be contacted fairly regularly), I also have access to my calendar, and my contacts would have easy transition. I also would have ability to back up my currently calendar on my laptop, just in case one or the other dies (which I was worried about ever since my old Z32 died!). There is a music option, as well, which I might not use, but for those techies out there, it is there and the sound quality seems quite good.

For 3 months I will have unlimited internet available to me, so I will use the internet option. However chances are I won't use it post-3 months.

Not only can I access my email really easily, it also has access to Google Maps, something I used regularly this weekend when I went to Toronto. Having it handy during a traffic jam was AMAZING, especially since this weekend there was a large explosion of a natural gas station, which clogged up a lot of the major highways going in and out of Toronto.

I have also placed Epocrates (the free version) on my Palm, and plan on putting more medical/nursing software on it soon. Any software tips would be amazing.

I'm tired

I'm tired of this New Grad program.

I'm tired of having to appease everyone because I do not have a permanent full time job and want to make a good impression.

I'm tired of being asked what I can and cannot do yet.

I'm tired of being told what to do.

I'm tired of worrying a job will not be available for me by December.

I'm tired of not getting teaching cases which will prepare me to be an emerg nurse.

I'm tired of waiting for my registration license to arrive.

I hope i won't be tired for long.

Pssssssssst....

It's been the fastest two weeks ever. Head over to Emergiblog for Change of Shift

Fail.

Thanks to some of the med-bloggers who have made me addicted to this site:


see more pwn and owned pictures

FINALLY

I have started to see some action in the ED.

If you have ever read any of the ED med-blogs out there, you may have heard that the ED is roughly 90% of slow, non acute times, with 10% of holy shit factor. My ratio lately has been about 98% slow, 2% holy shit.

However, the tide has turned and in the last few shifts I've had a VSA/trauma, sudden angioedema's, and multiple OD's with significant risk factors. The ED itself has also had a tropical animal bite (with the animal coming with the patient to the ED, as they had caught it to show proof), which is interesting.

Overall, finally my chance to strengthen my abilities in resus has begun.

OH something to be proud of (at least for me): I was able to get a large bore IV into a resuscitative patient today. It was the 2nd IV to be initiated (we already had 1 line) so they felt I could have a shot. I did it on my first try, and it didn't take me 10 minutes!

Sad that the misfortunes of others (aka the patients) allows me to have a good day at work. I'm a sicko.

On another note: it's interesting how simple a positive patient-nurse interaction can be, and how much it can really make a difference to a patient.

Ah, the weekend, a weekend completely off from work for the first time in a while. Despite what they say about having the equivalent amount of weekend shifts off compared to the traditional schedule of every-other-weekend off, I can honestly say I feel I work weekends A LOT MORE than my colleagues doing the traditional rotation. Not only is it a weekend off, it's also a long weekend.

Mr E and I have decided to leave our city and head out to Kingston to visit friends. Needless to say I will not be blogging over the weekend.

Hope you have a great one.