Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The Joint Commission is on the way. Hide the food and coffee cups. Cross your eye's and microdot your tea. Resistance is futile.

JC Blues

The Joint Commission
Is now in session,
Waiting to hear
Our collective confession,
Of all our mistakes
The foibles and flaws,
With a justified punishment
For every cause.

The Joint Commission
Is a devious delegation,
Recording secret notes
Derived from information,
We so generously shared
In the spirit of humanity,
Historically, their pickiness
Borders on insanity.

These cretins from JCAH
Will be changing their name,
They sought counsel above
With a bigger player in the game,
They’re wearing white collars
And counting sandalwood beads,
Come children, to Joint Confession
We’ll absolve your evil deeds.

Fibril_late;
4/21/09

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Oh bother; here comes ye olde Joint Commission, on their rounds again. Hmmmm, wouldn't it be wonderful if they were what their name implies? A commission dealing with joints? You know........weed, marijuana and the like.

A Giant Doobie

The coming Joint Commission
Will look for your omissions,
In other words
If you don’t commit,
The Joint Commission
Will give you shit.

What I’d like to see
From the Joint Commission,
Is a giant doobie
To smoke, while fishin’,
Because that is what
Their name implies,
Some righteous weed
With burgers and fries.

Fibril_late;
4/18/09

Friday, April 17, 2009

Emergency Departments the world over, are dangerous places to be. Heck, if you're in California, you just might want to drive over the hill to Nevada; no sales tax and more.

Just Stay Home

When you’re lodged in the ED
For hours and hours,
And the Doctor won’t order
More than one whiskey-sour,
The thing you must do
Is to claim you see bugs,
They’ll think you’re in DT’s
And they’ll give you some drugs.

For one reason or other
People seem to get worse,
In that dungeon of an E.R.
It’s an unholy curse,
And in this litigious time
Of frivolous law,
You’ll have everything scanned
From your arse to your jaw.

My advice, to Joe Public
If you’re sick, just stay home,
Put on a pot of tea
With a dash of mondo-foam,
You’ll be floating to Nirvana
With all your parts intact,
If you insist on coming to the hospital
Your system may be hacked.

Fibril_late;
4/17/09

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Sometimes it's easy to understand why Nurses drop out of their career, and don't look back. One of those reasons, revolves around one's "bad luck" in the assignment of care, for the days work. Frankly, this is a testy subject, because it may seem like your Charge Nurse is a bully, or just plain brain-dead; a person who doesn't give a snot about how heavy an assignment they are dealing you, for your 8 or 12-hour shift.

Or possibly, you are enlightened like myself, and figure, it must be due to some cosmic, astrological, karmic, evil-mojo-spirit-demon, hovering just behind my back, and stabbing me repeatedly, with an ebola saturated cactus spline, into my first chakra. Then it all becomes perfectly clear; kill, or be killed!

Assignment Misalignment

Certainly, there will be times
When you question your assignment,
You will ponder your earthly Karma
And your astrological alignment,
But any actions beyond that
Are but, futile wasted motion,
One round of work, is like a drop of rain
In your entire Nursing ocean.

Like the travails of early explorers
With tests of other-worldly endurance,
Horrendous shifts of reckless mayhem
Have a cyclic frightening occurrence,
You never know when your number is up
Though some attest, they can feel a vibe,
From finely honed, critical thinking skills
And genetic memory of the tribe.

About the time, when you’re thinking
You've had your very worst night,
The Grim Reaper is chuckling
Think again, you’re in for a fright,
Because I have recently cooked up
The worst, frickin' assignment,
After tonight, you'll know misery
And need a karmic realignment.

Your shift will be so horrid
Like a nightmare you're dreaming,
And after only two hours
You'll be silently screaming,
One hour more, you'll be cussing a blue-streak
Four-letter words, by and large,
Promising heaps of bad mojo
Upon the head of the Nurse who's in charge.

You wonder if there was a memo
From your commander (who lacks all refinements),
During 2009, give old BillyBob
The most god-awful, frightening assignments,
Test his mettle, let's see if he's breakable
After all, he's a pain in the neck,
Yet you know, beyond a reasonable doubt
They're expecting you to pick up the check.

Fibril_late;
4/16/09

Thursday, April 09, 2009

You don't want to know what drove me to this........................it is too horrid to tell.

The "Slime and Phlegm Triumvirate"

1. Slime and Phlegm

Slime and Phlegm would hang out
At Billy-Bob's on Main,
Mucus-Masters in their own right
Always poised to slime your brain;

You could never accuse those bad boys
Of ever carrying a decent scent,
In fact wherever Slime and Phlegm were found
Their buddy, Mal Odorous also went.

Could any redeeming qualities
Be found, amongst these two?
Well if you can imagine those by-gone days
Before the discovery of Super-Glue,
And the Industrial complications
When two surfaces wouldn't adhere,
Versus the serendipitous clinginess
When Slime and Phlegm were near.

Indeed, those were the incubation days
For the mother of invention,
It all began in High School
Where the rowdy bunch met in Detention,
For flinging phlegm and slimers
At young ladies, in their class,
And the seeds of ingenuity
Were bubbling out their ass.


2. They Were Known

Some thought Slime and Phlegm were twins
But that's not the way it was,
Some proposed they were from the same neighborhood
Exactly why, who knows, or just because,
They both were known to slink around
Dark alleys or outback places,
Dropping in unexpectedly
Upon unsuspecting faces,
They were known to keep company
More with adolescents or kids,
With a general lack of untidiness
What was sliding, would be on the skids.

Slime and Phlegm were best of friends
But at times, they wished for three,
Easily bored, they'd scream at each other
"Oh Bro', you are boring me";

Now both, do look back fondly
Remembering the wonderful day,
They were hanging out at the putrid pits
When Snot came out to play,
You couldn't have picked a happier bunch
This slippery, sticky trio,
Whether in Pelican Bay or Folsom
San Quentin or Camarillo.


3. Nothing Left To Chance

It's really hard to say
If yonder Phlegm is my friend,
Surely, he's a sticky kind of guy
But you never know, how it will end.

Can one posit a preposition?
The superlatives, the pro's and cons,
About the subtraction or the addition
The historical figures in nickel-bronze,
Because there must be some deeper meaning
Some enduring value, in its place,
Perhaps there are some redeeming features
When it's stuck all over your face,
Possibly, it is no coincidence
That in the middle of your face, is your nose.
Shielding you from the wicked winds
And brutal ice and snows.

And once again I've detoured
On the road, that's called my journey,
Kind of like planning to be a Doctor
And ending up as an Attorney,
Parallels can be found
And this is one of them,
I've ended up with Slime
When I started out with Phlegm.

Some will find the topic
Too gross to contemplate,
And admonish me, dear Sir
Don't you know that I just ate,
I will apologize sincerely
But continue with my dance,
When you deal with Slime and Phlegm
There is nothing left to chance.

With retrospective analysis
You could say their point is well made,
Slime and Phlegm are so unique
And so few would dare to trade,
But those of us, who are in the know
Revere them in abject wonder,
Slime and Phlegm, can not be trifled with
Or surely, you will rue your blunder.

Fibril_late;
4/9/09

Sunday, April 05, 2009

Even in 2003, Administrative Nursing held no vision for me.

Not For Me


Administration
Is not for me,
Too much
Paperwork, you see.

Fibril_late;
2003
The doorway into the infinite, ya, just another name for room 2988. Sister Euphemia, thinks differently:

Paradise Portal

Two men died
In the course of 8 hours,
They had a destination
Beyond our paltry powers,
To maintain the slightest grip
On the leash that held their souls,
Poised at the edge of eternity
We held the minor player roles.

Both of these final exits
Shared the same departure room,
Notoriously superstitious
A Nurse will claim, a vibe of doom,
A mysterious lurking power
Inhabits room eighty-eight,
They want to call the hospital Shaman
To exorcise, this psychic gate.

Sister Euphemia, holds a different opinion
More positive, in the heavenly light,
We all must depart this earthly plane
And let our souls take their ultimate flight,
This hospital, offers a timeless service
A pathway, for departure immortal,
"We invite you to visit, our V.I.P. suite;
Sister Euphemia's Paradise Portal".

Fibril_late;
4/5/09

Saturday, April 04, 2009

A close friend was in the hospital, suffering from too many specialists. Here is her story.

They Were Specialists

Imagine, if you will
Her dilemma, in this dominion,
There were 14 assorted doctors
All with a different opinion,
Supposedly, they were specialists
But she had a rare disease,
They said, "Come on Honey, we know what's best
Sign the paper; let us do what we please.

Surely, you jest, Dr. Dudes
I'd laugh, but first let me cry
Yesterday you told me a different tale
About a transplant, and how soon I might die,
Today you are saying, I just need a valve
And tomorrow, I wonder what's next,
I think I'll go home, while you make up your minds
Don't bother to call, send a text.

Discharge me, they did, in such record time
The Ward-Clerk, was given a plaque,
When I landed at home, dear Sam and Elizabeth
Plucked all of the knives from my back,
Some doctor will call, in the next day or two
To tell me, the latest great plan,
In the meantime I think I'll just knock back a shot
And hideout with my best canine-clan.

Well, that was a story, with bad sound and fury
Oh Shakespeare, a tragedy for sure,
17 specialists can't make up their minds
Though they claim, they just found the right cure,
In the meantime, convalescing in the comfort of home
Her condition, still advances with time,
Reluctant she waits, for Dr. Dude's invitation
To return to the scene of the crime.

Fibril_late;
4/4/09

Friday, April 03, 2009

A couple of weeks ago, Brother Coot, had an aborted MI, with a life-saving stent to his RCA and one jolt of electricity to remind him of the good things in life. Here's the latest follow-up.

Concerns

The old coot has done well
Though I'm not surprised,
Between his colleagues and family
He was certainly well advised,
And the Attorney, that he is
One could easily assume,
He could gather enough information
To fill up a room.

Now these days, your doctor
Just isn't the one to ask,
Their business today
Is like an overfilled flask,
Spilling with patients
Like wine at the brim,
There's no time for answering questions
It's just a diagnosis skim.

Gone are the days
When our doctors sat down,
To truly listen to our concerns
Without a hurried frown,
Rather, we must rely on
The Internet and friends,
To get reliable information
Before our life ends.

Like I said, the old coot
Is doing quite well,
But I'm 2000 miles distant
So, what can I tell?

Fibril_late;
4/4/09
This is gloomy, but I made the mistake of reading the news this morning. Current events, are tomorrow's, horrid history.

Citizen Terrorists

Who needs Al Qaeda
With a gun country like ours,
More citizens are slaughtered
During daylight hours,
By loved-ones and hated ones
Family friends and foe,
Real terrorists, in our homes
People that we know.

We don't require religionists
Whacked out, with interpretations,
On suicide missions
In our gun toting nation,
No, we have home-grown angry folks
With automatic guns,
Shooting women and children
Fathers and sons.

The threat of death and mayhem
Is an industry we foster,
No matter, how good your background check
There's a nutcase on the roster,
Probably sitting on a comfy couch
Festering with personal frustration,
Dreaming of bullets and bloodshed
To assassinate, the aggravation.

With a chip on your shoulder
Or the wrong glance your way,
You go home for a weapon
Just to make it my day,
Without preemptive warning
Or psychiatric clues,
Ten thousand citizen terrorists
Who need to pay their dues.

Fibril_late;
4/3/09