Archive for the 'hello, nurse!' Category

October 3, 2006 | Filed under: hello, nurse!, loves, misadventures

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or Flash via blip.tv!

Sometimes you have to know when to call in the professionals. This is one of those times.

(I do realize that I am, in fact, a professional myself. It doesn’t mean that I get taken seriously or that my health advice ever gets followed. Hey nurses: feel free to add to the public shaming but don’t be too hard on him…oh, nevermind. Be as harsh as you want!)

Aside: this is the first video shot entirely on my new cell phone. It actually looks better than I expected, but it sounds like hell.

[prozac]

August 16, 2006 | Filed under: hello, nurse!, misadventures

click here or above for Quicktime
or here for Flash at BlipTV

If this one is a little dark because it was, in fact, filmed in the dark. I lightened it up a little, but it’s terribly grainy. Sorry. This one’s more for the audio, anyhow.

It has been sheer hell at work these last several days. For whatever reason, an excess of mid-winter nookie, the astonishing changes in barometric pressure after that thunderstorm this past week, the full moon, and who knows why else, there has been a sharp increase in the baby-havin’ at my hospital. That would be fine except that there has been an accompanying sharp decrease in nursing staff. Why? It’s Summer. Those who hold a grudge about not getting any Summer Vacation have chosen to abuse their sick time privilages. Folks are cancelling their overtime left and right, and one of our RN’s got exposed to the chicken pox and has been determined to be non-immune and has been quarantined. For two weeks. Did administration cover her shifts? No. So on a floor that should be staffed by eight nurses at all times (and really, we’re lucky to ever have six anyway) we’ve been running with four or five. It’s stressful. Actually, it’s damn near impossible, but somehow we pull it off. I’ve decided to attempt to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem by forcing myself to show up to work instead of calling out sick because I’m so burnt out…I hate to say it but it’s not an easy decision to make.

On the night I filmed this, the five of us managed to help get everyone delivered as safely as possible given the circumstances (every day this week I’ve come home and kissed my nursing license because no patient has yet suffered from our lack of staff thus lessening my chances of being sued and keeping my malpractice insurance costs nice and low) and the Charge Nurse managed for us all to get breaks–no small feat.

But with a full house, there’s noplace to take a break except the nurses’ lounge which is across from all the delivery rooms. Not exactly a quiet place to rest, as you’ll see. How can you rest with a patient screaming “IhateyouIhateyouIhateyougetitoutgetitoutgetitoutwhywon’tyouHELPME???!!!” over and over combined with the cheerless cheering to “push!” by that night’s less-than-stellar resident team?

Please know that although the MD comes into the hall screaming for a nurse to come in the room that I didn’t rush to my feet because I knew there already WAS a nurse in the room and that for some reason although there were THREE residents in the patient’s room and only ONE nurse those bozos STILL expected THE NURSE to page the attending.

I really don’t like that MD team. They just don’t mesh well, they don’t know how to talk to patients (”No yelling! No yelling!” are you kidding me??) and they treat us like poo.

April 17, 2006 | Filed under: un-vlogged, hello, nurse!

Overheard on the Labor & Delivery Unit, 4/17/06 Overnight Tour

Patient’s Boyfriend With Limited English Skills: Where comes from things my wife need to go to bathroom?
Nurse’s Aide: (taking a “logic leap” and bring the man a pack of Kotex, this being a labor and delivery floor, and all) Here you go…they’re called “pads”.
PBWLES: (looking confused) No. (pointing to his feet) Socks!

Moral of the story: Sometimes “going to the bathroom” literally means “walking to the bathroom”.

April 6, 2006 | Filed under: videoblogging Week, hello, nurse!

Videoblogging Week barrels into Wednesday! This will be my “cheat” day. I dip into my small I Hate This Video and Therefore Never Posted It vault to bring you a brief tour of the hospital unit where I work. I hate this video because it reveals my big secret: I have a separate “Labor & Delivery Voice”. It’s that awful sing-songy, kindergarten teacher, ever-so-slightly-patronizing nurse voice. Since I filmed this, I have nipped it in the bud. If I was a patient and someone came at me with that voice I’d kick her.

Behold the bright lights, sharp objects and bad artwork that make up Labor Room 5! And every other labor room we have on the floor…and probably every labor room in the country. This video features the font Comic Sans in honor of TinaPoPo, because she absolutely loathes it. Does it fit into the Year of Vlogging Dangerously theme? Oddly, yeah, because I’m sooooo not supposed to film anything at my job.

…and I ain’t going to feel bad about not posting a new video today. There’s always tomorrow. And Friday. And Saturday. And Sunday. This video project is taking place during a week when I have a three-shift run, and I’m in charge tonight as well. I’ve actually never posted anything on days when I’m working, because my “day” is something like 3 hours long (I’m awake from 2:30pm then head to work at 6). So Videoblogging Week has taught me a big lesson: Vlogging on work days not the complete impossibility I thought it was–but it’s not easy, either. Partly because there’s only so many hours in a day and frequently life is for living, not filming, and partly because my camera is not small enough to cart around with me all day and capture video willy-nilly…but that is currrently being rectified. I loves me ebay.

videobloggingweek2006

March 10, 2006 | Filed under: hello, nurse!

This is a long one. About 6 minutes–three minutes over my self-enforced limit. Sometimes limits were set to be broken. Click the pic to see the state I was in when I came home from work this morning. I was unsure of whether to post it, so I hurried up and did it anyway lest I change my mind. No titles. No editing…hence the length.

I only hit around 40% of the points I wanted to make, but that’s what happens when there’s no script. There’s a fair amount of rambling here, and I just kind of plotzed. Inspired by Monika, I meant for this to be a post about why I became a nurse and why I enjoy it so much and instead the post turned out to be something else altogether.

A detailed work-related text post will follow offering clarifications, definitions and more fleshed out ideas…maybe tomorrow. I’m really very drained.