Lucky for me, I get to work on Valentine's Day night, again this year. However, it has not dampened my holiday cheer, even a little bit. A friend and I are gearing up to throw a big party next Saturday, in honor of Valentine's day month. In fact, we have been working on throwing parties once a month lately, and so far it's been very fun. In January we had about 60 people turn out.
Our big idea for February is an "in case you missed out last week" party based all around love. (How sweet). Our big activity is going to be a trivia game, with the best movie quotes and song lyrics having to do with love. We are trying to get a few male perspectives, so this doesn't end up being exclusively chick flick centered. We plan to have various movie quotes followed by movie clips, and various song lyric quotes followed by 30 second sound clips. I want a wide variety of both movie clips and songs. With the use of my friend Mike's 60" plasma screen, and my friend DJ's full sound system, I am excited about the possibilities. :) (This is where the rich single guys in their 30's with lots of accumulated toys come in really handy.)
Just kidding Mike. You know I love you.
Anyway, this is where I need advice. What are your favorite movie quotes or love songs, that would be fitting for the month of love..... ? Please contribute to your heart's content. :)
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Lost about LOST
Warning: Do not read this post if you are interested in LOST but are not up to date. This is primarily for people who are as in love with the show as I am. If you are a fan want to be, you may also read this post. :)
First let me say that I do not watch a lot of TV. I've never been one of those people who has a TV show or two every night waiting on their DVR. My first year of nursing school, my roomates started having half the ward over on Wednesday nights to watch the TV show LOST. This was the second season. I started watching, mainly for social reasons, and now here I am, in season five, completely frustrated, and yet religious about Wednesday nights.
So, here we are in season five. Nearly all options of creating confusion have already been used. We have traveled back to the past for three seasons straight, and then when that got old, we started traveling to the future. Sometimes, we would travel to the past and the future. What started out as a great story about a series of really loveable characters learning to live with each other on a beautiful tropical island after a plane crash, intermingled with insights into each characters' past lives, has turned into some weird version of "how to come up with a BIGGER more UNBELIEVABLE catch (like spinning a wheel and making the island disappear, WHAT?) all while turning everyone against each other, and bringing out evil in everyone. I mean, I'm sorry, does Jack (who is beautiful by the way) really have to turn into a druggy? And there is no way you can convince me that Sun is actually going to use that gun next episode. PLEASE!
And did I mention, that we keep introducing new characters, with new issues. All of these characters are ALSO intermingled with all of the other characters somehow, and all the while we keep coming up with plenty MORE issues and questions, and still aren't solving any of the ones that have been building up for the last five seasons.
So the question here is.... do the writers know what's going on? On one hand, if they do, this is going to have a heck of a finale next season. But do they? Or are they just going to make everything so complicated that eventually we are so confused we will jut give up, because we forgot all of our original questions anyway?
Did I mention that now, since we ran out of traveling to the past and the future options, we are traveling through time. Seriously?
All that said... it's amusing to me that nearly everyone I talk to, shares my opinion of how utterly rediculous the show has become. And yet, let's face it, we are as addicted to it as ever. :) Each week, I will be glued to that TV screen, secretly deciding whether I'm in love with Jack or Sawyer, hoping for Jin and Sun to be reunited (Ok, wasn't THAT a great moment last week? I KNEW he wasn't dead!!!!), wondering how the 6 are going to get back to the island, and experiencing the highs and lows of each character's experiences. (I loved the Sawyer moment when he saw Kate last week). Wanting Hurley to succeed, hoping Jack and Kate work things out, loving Sawyer's one liners and wondering when we will see Claire again. The list goes on and on and on.
So amidst all the confusion and silly new plot twists, I remain a loyal LOST fan. The truth is, I missed them the last 8 months. They feel like my friends now, and I love to see what happens to them next. :)
First let me say that I do not watch a lot of TV. I've never been one of those people who has a TV show or two every night waiting on their DVR. My first year of nursing school, my roomates started having half the ward over on Wednesday nights to watch the TV show LOST. This was the second season. I started watching, mainly for social reasons, and now here I am, in season five, completely frustrated, and yet religious about Wednesday nights.
So, here we are in season five. Nearly all options of creating confusion have already been used. We have traveled back to the past for three seasons straight, and then when that got old, we started traveling to the future. Sometimes, we would travel to the past and the future. What started out as a great story about a series of really loveable characters learning to live with each other on a beautiful tropical island after a plane crash, intermingled with insights into each characters' past lives, has turned into some weird version of "how to come up with a BIGGER more UNBELIEVABLE catch (like spinning a wheel and making the island disappear, WHAT?) all while turning everyone against each other, and bringing out evil in everyone. I mean, I'm sorry, does Jack (who is beautiful by the way) really have to turn into a druggy? And there is no way you can convince me that Sun is actually going to use that gun next episode. PLEASE!
And did I mention, that we keep introducing new characters, with new issues. All of these characters are ALSO intermingled with all of the other characters somehow, and all the while we keep coming up with plenty MORE issues and questions, and still aren't solving any of the ones that have been building up for the last five seasons.
So the question here is.... do the writers know what's going on? On one hand, if they do, this is going to have a heck of a finale next season. But do they? Or are they just going to make everything so complicated that eventually we are so confused we will jut give up, because we forgot all of our original questions anyway?
Did I mention that now, since we ran out of traveling to the past and the future options, we are traveling through time. Seriously?
All that said... it's amusing to me that nearly everyone I talk to, shares my opinion of how utterly rediculous the show has become. And yet, let's face it, we are as addicted to it as ever. :) Each week, I will be glued to that TV screen, secretly deciding whether I'm in love with Jack or Sawyer, hoping for Jin and Sun to be reunited (Ok, wasn't THAT a great moment last week? I KNEW he wasn't dead!!!!), wondering how the 6 are going to get back to the island, and experiencing the highs and lows of each character's experiences. (I loved the Sawyer moment when he saw Kate last week). Wanting Hurley to succeed, hoping Jack and Kate work things out, loving Sawyer's one liners and wondering when we will see Claire again. The list goes on and on and on.
So amidst all the confusion and silly new plot twists, I remain a loyal LOST fan. The truth is, I missed them the last 8 months. They feel like my friends now, and I love to see what happens to them next. :)
Friday, February 6, 2009
Necrotizing Fasciitis
This post is mainly dedicated to my dear cousin-in-law Camille, who has a strange love for wound care. (Ewwww?)
I have to say, although I always thought wound care was about the most disgusting and unappealing area of nursing you could possibly go into, I gained a new appreciation for wound care nurses today. (Note: this does not mean I have developed even the slightest interest to become one).
My day began as most do in the ICU.... behind. I continued to get further and further behind as the day progressed and I was deeply involved in maintaining a blood pressure above 60/40 on one patient, while trying to keep on eye on my other patient who managed to "accidentally" pull out her feeding tube while I was dealing with crashing blood pressures. It was really shaping up to be a fabulous morning.
During report this morning, I was told that patient number two, (feeding tube sabotager) had a diagnosis of necrotizing fasciitis. Do you know what that is?
First imagine the most horrific movie you've ever seen. Now imagine the most horrific dream (about the worst kind of torture you can imagine) that you've ever had. Now put the two together, and you get necrotizing fasciitis.
Now that you're dying of suspense, let me give you a brief history of my experience with necrotizing fasciitis.
Case #1- About 6 months ago I am called into work at 9 pm to take care of a patient coming back from surgery. No big deal. They tell me this one is unstable and may die tonight. I groan inwardly, but still feel up to the task. This is, after all, the reality of my job. Little did I know it would turn out to be one of the must grueling nights of my career thus far. They tell me he has necrotizing fasciitis. (What is that?) They tell me it's a strep A infection that develops rapidly into a flesh eating bacteria that literally eats your flesh away.... and fast. "How did he get this?" I ask. "He fell yesterday and cut his elbow on his kitchen floor." They brought him back from surgery, open wounds for me to watch all night long as I worked tirelessly through the night desperately trying to save his life as I watched one system after another go into organ failure in front of my eyes. He died the next morning, three hours after I left. It was 48 hours after he cut his elbow on his kitchen floor.
Flesh eating bacteria that kills you 48 hours after a cut, WHAT? Is this stuff contagious? Wouldn't I have liked to know after spending nine hours with it. (Luckily, it's not, or you might be reading my eulogy instead of my blog.)
Several months after that, a man with a diabetic foot ulcer has to have an amputation. (Did you hear about Larry Miller?? This was not him). The wound was closed with infection still inside and it rapidly developed into our good friend necrotizing fasciitis. The surgeon and I caught it and sent him to emergency surgery within a matter of hours. (I had nightmares for days about what would have happened had I not caught it when I did). He came back to me, much less serious than nec fasc. case #1, however, because they had to continue the amputation further up the leg and leave it open until the infection healed, but they couldn't cut into the bone, he came back to me with a very see through dressing exposing his femur... yes that's right.... I was looking at a real femur bone... not like in anatomy class, but a real one attached to a real person. That was weird.
So here I am on nec fasc case 3 in a six month period. I am thinking, "Why do I get all the necrotizing patients?" Especially since it's an extremely rare, freaky disease. It's starting to disturb me. I certainly hope this is not one of those "prepare you for life experiences" things.
This woman cut her finger cleaning her oven. Yes, seriously disturbing. I cut my finger just two days ago, cleaning out a blender to make smoothies. In any case, Cut finger day one, intense redness spreading up arm day two, Operating Room day three. In this case they managed to save her arm. However, they cut away all the tissue down to the muscle from her armpit to her fingers. Today it was my duty to assist the wound care nurse in a dressing change...... that took two hours, and the kind of narcotic doses that would knock you and I out for a week. Meanwhile my hypotensive patient next door goes into respiratory failure and gets intubated. All in a days work.
But the thing I wanted to say is that although at first, I was quite sure I might vomit (and trust me, it takes a lot these days), I was amazed at how fascinating (in a gruesome sort of way) that arm looked! As the wound care nurse skillfully cut away the dressing, it slowly revealed an entire arm that was cut down to the bare muscle, exposing the anatomy of the arm that I have only seen on cadavers back in nursing school. I could see not only muscle, but tendons, bones, and even veins! And the miraculous part about it is, that it was still functioning! I could actually see the veins with blood still running through them, supplying oxygen to the fingers, and the rest of the tissues up and down the arm. This arm is going to heal! Amazing. Modern medicine is amazing.
Necrotizing fasciitis on the other hand.... I'll put that on my list of "experiences not to have."
I have to say, although I always thought wound care was about the most disgusting and unappealing area of nursing you could possibly go into, I gained a new appreciation for wound care nurses today. (Note: this does not mean I have developed even the slightest interest to become one).
My day began as most do in the ICU.... behind. I continued to get further and further behind as the day progressed and I was deeply involved in maintaining a blood pressure above 60/40 on one patient, while trying to keep on eye on my other patient who managed to "accidentally" pull out her feeding tube while I was dealing with crashing blood pressures. It was really shaping up to be a fabulous morning.
During report this morning, I was told that patient number two, (feeding tube sabotager) had a diagnosis of necrotizing fasciitis. Do you know what that is?
First imagine the most horrific movie you've ever seen. Now imagine the most horrific dream (about the worst kind of torture you can imagine) that you've ever had. Now put the two together, and you get necrotizing fasciitis.
Now that you're dying of suspense, let me give you a brief history of my experience with necrotizing fasciitis.
Case #1- About 6 months ago I am called into work at 9 pm to take care of a patient coming back from surgery. No big deal. They tell me this one is unstable and may die tonight. I groan inwardly, but still feel up to the task. This is, after all, the reality of my job. Little did I know it would turn out to be one of the must grueling nights of my career thus far. They tell me he has necrotizing fasciitis. (What is that?) They tell me it's a strep A infection that develops rapidly into a flesh eating bacteria that literally eats your flesh away.... and fast. "How did he get this?" I ask. "He fell yesterday and cut his elbow on his kitchen floor." They brought him back from surgery, open wounds for me to watch all night long as I worked tirelessly through the night desperately trying to save his life as I watched one system after another go into organ failure in front of my eyes. He died the next morning, three hours after I left. It was 48 hours after he cut his elbow on his kitchen floor.
Flesh eating bacteria that kills you 48 hours after a cut, WHAT? Is this stuff contagious? Wouldn't I have liked to know after spending nine hours with it. (Luckily, it's not, or you might be reading my eulogy instead of my blog.)
Several months after that, a man with a diabetic foot ulcer has to have an amputation. (Did you hear about Larry Miller?? This was not him). The wound was closed with infection still inside and it rapidly developed into our good friend necrotizing fasciitis. The surgeon and I caught it and sent him to emergency surgery within a matter of hours. (I had nightmares for days about what would have happened had I not caught it when I did). He came back to me, much less serious than nec fasc. case #1, however, because they had to continue the amputation further up the leg and leave it open until the infection healed, but they couldn't cut into the bone, he came back to me with a very see through dressing exposing his femur... yes that's right.... I was looking at a real femur bone... not like in anatomy class, but a real one attached to a real person. That was weird.
So here I am on nec fasc case 3 in a six month period. I am thinking, "Why do I get all the necrotizing patients?" Especially since it's an extremely rare, freaky disease. It's starting to disturb me. I certainly hope this is not one of those "prepare you for life experiences" things.
This woman cut her finger cleaning her oven. Yes, seriously disturbing. I cut my finger just two days ago, cleaning out a blender to make smoothies. In any case, Cut finger day one, intense redness spreading up arm day two, Operating Room day three. In this case they managed to save her arm. However, they cut away all the tissue down to the muscle from her armpit to her fingers. Today it was my duty to assist the wound care nurse in a dressing change...... that took two hours, and the kind of narcotic doses that would knock you and I out for a week. Meanwhile my hypotensive patient next door goes into respiratory failure and gets intubated. All in a days work.
But the thing I wanted to say is that although at first, I was quite sure I might vomit (and trust me, it takes a lot these days), I was amazed at how fascinating (in a gruesome sort of way) that arm looked! As the wound care nurse skillfully cut away the dressing, it slowly revealed an entire arm that was cut down to the bare muscle, exposing the anatomy of the arm that I have only seen on cadavers back in nursing school. I could see not only muscle, but tendons, bones, and even veins! And the miraculous part about it is, that it was still functioning! I could actually see the veins with blood still running through them, supplying oxygen to the fingers, and the rest of the tissues up and down the arm. This arm is going to heal! Amazing. Modern medicine is amazing.
Necrotizing fasciitis on the other hand.... I'll put that on my list of "experiences not to have."
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Jumping on the bandwagon
I have been thinking lately, that I don't waste enough time on the internet. Facebook and hotmail just aren't taking up enough of my day anymore, and I need another reason to stare blankly at my computer screen for hours on end.
The truth is, this is actually a way for me to journal some of my life events as they happen, in a way I might not if I thought no one was reading them. (So if you aren't, don't tell me. It may be detrimental to my posterity). In addition, I have lately been inspired by my cousin Janssen's writing skills, my cousin Merrick's beautiful art, my sister Laura's fun baby pictures and parenthood experiences, and my cousin Ashley's exciting New York City adventures, among many others. I figured being a part of the blogging world might be fun, and maybe you, my friends and family, would enjoy some insights into what life in an ICU is like. (I'll try to cut down on the graphic details.)
So, for any and all who are interested, here are some insights into the mind of a 26 year old ICU nurse, living in the big city and experiencing the joys and dramas of single adulthood.
The truth is, this is actually a way for me to journal some of my life events as they happen, in a way I might not if I thought no one was reading them. (So if you aren't, don't tell me. It may be detrimental to my posterity). In addition, I have lately been inspired by my cousin Janssen's writing skills, my cousin Merrick's beautiful art, my sister Laura's fun baby pictures and parenthood experiences, and my cousin Ashley's exciting New York City adventures, among many others. I figured being a part of the blogging world might be fun, and maybe you, my friends and family, would enjoy some insights into what life in an ICU is like. (I'll try to cut down on the graphic details.)
So, for any and all who are interested, here are some insights into the mind of a 26 year old ICU nurse, living in the big city and experiencing the joys and dramas of single adulthood.
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