Blood Saints

 

This is the part where I say a big Thank You to those folks who work in Blood banks and Donation Centers and all of the great work they do. 

And this is the true story of a first-time blood donor.

Blood Saints

To the team 
That took such good care of my wife,
After she was stabbed by that needle
That looked as big as a knife,
Wifey told me she felt good
No problems had occurred,
But then she passed out
When her tea was being stirred.

For a first time impression
That was incomparable,
From her perspective
It was somewhat unbearable,
To get tossed to the floor
Then placed on a mat,
If she had been awake
She wouldn’t agree with that.

Suffice to say
The Blood Saints responded quickly,
As soon as I called out
"She's dizzy, hot and sickly",
As they came to our table
It was lights out for my spouse,
Not a brain cell was stirring
In dear Lhakpa's house.

I got out of their way
They were an efficient crew,
Although I checked for a pulse
That's what good husbands do,
Who are planning the next move
In this kind of game,
Let the rescuers do their thing
So the husband won’t get the blame.

And a great job they did
Over the course of the next hour,
They helped her wake up
So she could drink a whisky-sour,
It was a remedy we never used
When I worked in critical-care,
But those Blood Saints are so powerful
My wife is now breathing air.

Vitalant probably discourages
Monetary awards,
It is not in the bylaws
Nor in the Geneva Accords,
But having worked in the industry
I know the things they appreciate,
Yes, coffee and chocolate
Are never too late.

What Nurses Do At Home

 

We Nurses know how to bend the rules at work, so I know for a fact we do it at home as well. But heaven forbid, there is certainly stuff we won't say in front of our family.

Things I Can’t Tell My Family

Things I can't tell my family
About that toothpaste cap,
I dropped it into the toilet
That's not the same as on my lap,
I didn't want to throw it away
The toothpaste might dry up,
So I placed it in the UV sterilizer
Then I soaked it in an alcohol cup.

I’m pretty sure the e-coli
The clostridium and staphylococcus,
Was rendered completely inactive
Unlike a toilet sourced in Caracas,
And truthfully the cap only dunked
In the water for a tenth of a minute,
I’m absolutely sure it was sterilized
Not an inkling of doubt of what’s in it.

1/23/22

The story that belongs to the next post

 

In 2014 I had a position in a very busy Diagnostic Cardiology unit. We did pre-op and post-op care and recovery for persons having Cardiac procedures such as Angiograms for heart and peripheral studies as well as acute MI emergencies. Our services also included Dysrhythmia ablations, recoveries for Radiology procedures and also procedural sedation for Bronchoscopy. Strangely, we were not designated as an official surgical recovery area, but we did all kinds of recoveries following general anesthesia. It was crazy. We were also doing recoveries following all kinds of catheter-based heart valve replacements like TAVR, MVVR, Watchman, etc. At the time I was hired, I became the 2nd "ICU" experienced nurse for the unit. 

My story here is regarding a fresh-new-just-graduated RN with no prior hospital experience; this person was completely unqualified to work in our unit. I admit it was hard to find qualified nurses to work in our area; people needed a lot of cardiac experience. So I can't understand at all why this person was hired, except that Management was desperate and the newbie seemed sweet and nice. 

On the day of the event I came to work at 0930, immediately hearing a Doctor demanding to talk to the Charge nurse about the nurse who had been present during a Bronchoscopy. One of our Administrative Charge nurses (she made the decision the day before) and the person who was filling in for her, apparently thought it was reasonable to assign the new inexperienced nurse for the Bronchoscopy. No wonder the Doctor was flaming mad!

I did some precepting with this new nurse and that was a role I was commonly assigned and enjoyed. This new person was the type that always replied "Yes" when asked if he knew how to do a task. One busy evening when I was occupied with a new sedation-recovery, the newbie was staying late to help us. I had a patient that needed to ambulate before discharge to go home. A foley-catheter had been inserted during their procedure. I asked newbie if he knew how to remove a Foley-catheter and he replied, “Yes”. I handed him an empty 10-cc syringe which is necessary to remove the sterile water from the inner tip of the catheter that is located in the bladder. Okay; a few minutes later I noticed him standing at the door of the room I was in. He said, “I need some help, the catheter won’t come out”. I wondered about that and followed him into the room. I asked him if he had removed the water from the catheter balloon, since I did see the syringe out of its package at the bedside. Newbie had a vacant look on his face so I knew he didn’t know jack about removing a Foley catheter.

 Unfortunately, there were quite a few more events just like that, where he had originally said, “Yes, I understand how to do that”. One day he had been assigned to administer sedation for a Cardioversion and the patient became apneic. He didn’t know what to do. Well of course he didn’t; he was untrained, unqualified and had not even had a procedural sedation class. But who was in Charge? Mother-Charge-nurse who loved him. 

Inexperienced

 

What nonsense! This decision
To assign to the neophyte,
Be the Bronchoscopy nurse
Like an untrained boxer in a fight,
Who has had no previous training
What’s there to know? Just make a fist,
Well, the Doctor surely noticed
And he was properly pissed.

I heard about the plan yesterday
When Ma Boss made that dumb decision,
And she wasn’t even here today
To witness the failure of her vision,
Her favorite little acolyte 
Won’t speak up to say, “Not me,
I know that I’m not qualified
I’ve never done it, can’t you see?”

What a team they make, these two
Like mother and son,
The two of them are dangerous
When all is said and done,
She ignores his weakness
And he says “yes” to everything,
Boldly going where he should not
While mother coos and sings.

When I arrived the Doctor was fuming
And spoke his pretty piece,
I totally agreed with him
About the boiling grease,
Then I volunteered my services
For the next bronchoscopy,
An expert for that procedure
Of course, that would be me.

Advanced airway skills?; check
Expert cardiac of course,
Highly trained in procedural sedation
I could anesthetize a horse,
Code-Blue master of renown
A crash and burn magician,
Or just assign the newbie nurse?
Ya, that’s our public mission.

Well, there were no complications
At Bronchoscopy number one,
But I’m sure if that had happened
Mother would still have coddled her son. 

What Every New Nurse Should Know

 

Your first Nursing Instruction in the Hospital.

On Admission
 
The most important thing
That we explain,
It's not the heart
It's not the brain,
It's not the
End of life decision,
It's the wired remote
To the television.
 
What is more important
Than our Nursing role?
The channel-choosing
Volume control,
But heed my warning
You better listen, right now,
That Nurse-call button?
Don't teach them how!

Remember Tamiflu in 2009?

  

Here we are again with another Fluish dilemma. I wrote about it in 2009.

Tamiflu
 

I got myself to thinking
Why they call it Tamiflu,
The aggravating aching joints
Are what come over you,
When you fail to take precautions
In the presence of the beast,
I'm warning you be careful
Cover your ears to say the least.
 
The Tamiflu vaccine
Is highly recommended,
It offers wide protection
In the case that you're dead ended,
In the hallway near the kitchen
By the linen cart and more,
The Tamiflu vaccine, my friend
Will even up the score.
 
It was tested in the morning
It was trialed in the night,
Yes, the Tamiflu protection
Was clearly out of sight,
A shield of cosmic ions
Floats gently around your face,
So the Tamiflu infection
Can not violate your space.
 
Supplies are currently limited
While demand is ever growing,
The Tamiflu is spreading
Despite everybody knowing,
That the best way to prevent it
Is avoidance at all cost,
If Tamiflu gets a hold of you
Why surely you'll be lost.

How I was Blessed One Time

Gesundheit !

I wonder sometimes
What stories I'll tell,
On my way to Heaven
Not heading for Hell,
Some might think I am crazy
The things that I'm saying,
But if you are religious
I know that you're praying.

At work that one night
I performed some good feat,
The nurse that I helped said
God bless you, Pete,
And it caused me to wonder
If she somehow had the power,
Bestowed on her by God
To bless me that hour.

I didn't notice any difference
That a blessing could have made,
Perhaps the blessing is in storage
To be sometime later played,
To my better advantage
In a time of greater need,
Like when I stick myself with a needle
Causing me to bleed.

What makes people think
They can randomly send a blessing,
As personal agents of God
It's almost depressing,
Because that's what the whackos say
Before they poison their flock,
It fills me with trepidation
As I prepare for the blessing shock.

Who knows what it means
When you're blessed for a sneeze,
Though I've always preferred
"Gesundheit", if you please,
That kind German wish
To offer me good health,
But I'd really prefer ten dollars
And wish me good wealth.

 

Heavy Lifting

 

In the trenches of bedside nursing everything is like the movie scenario presented in "Groundhog Day". The same events happening over and over and over and so on, until somebody realizes the way to get out. 

Nursing exists in its own Groundhog Day. I've been writing about the same topics every decade with only nuances of change. I have a lot of poems regarding the difficulty (logistics) of Nursing care with very weighty people. However, it is worth noting that in 1978 when I began a healthcare career in a hospital, the prevalence of morbid obesity was quite low. (Major medical center in Los Angeles).

Here I address the claim that hospitals are looking out for us and providing Lift Equipment and making it available to everywhere in the hospital (but not everywhere at any given moment)

Buxom and Girth

Dear Bertha with the buxom bosom

Had sepsis, pneumonia and shock,

To keep her alive we infused 30 liters

Adding four-stone in four hours on the clock,

Each turn in the bed for her skin care

‘Twould take the muscles of three mighty nurses,

Pausing to share a reflection

And sort out their favorite curses.

With a gnashing of teeth and straining of spine

These three groaned in triplicate unity,

Knowing quite well if they busted their backs

The hospital would deny with impunity,

Management argues we have the equipment

To maneuver the oversized clients,

They blame us for slack or impatience

Without truly understanding the science.

Suffice to say we nurses are tougher

From the keelhaul we had this past decade,

Throw anything at us and we will just cuss

We don’t succumb to the brute or the blade,

Better to back Nurses than Wall Street

Unlike a bitcoin account, we add worth,

Protect the nurses who are the backbone of the workforce

In this arena of buxom and girth.

Prognostic Lament

 

Perpetual pandemic? Not likely. However, it is going on far longer than the average bear can tolerate or understand. I read the tea leaves today and this is what came through via Haiku. 

Please Bro, make it stop
Covid is such a bummer,
So tired of the idiots.

Price-Check Incontinence

 

When you work in healthcare, whether you take care of babies or adults, the likelihood is that you (like the rest of us) have had it up to your ears in bodily secretions. I won't write the names of these things because I would rather not trigger a seizure or panic attack in my audience. 

While reviewing the past forty years of writings I realized that the fullest category of poems is that which talks about all the gross stuff. Here is a new one:

Holy crap!
I don't know why I never looked this up before,
How much does a Flexi-Seal cost?
Don't ask; it will blow you out the door.

Heck, those things were flying off the shelf
Back in the MICU,
When 60% of the patients had C-diff
And if you didn't wash your hands enough
So would you.

When I "Googled" Flexi-Seal
It was in the #1 position,
The second listing was Flex Seal
Like the runner up at the audition, 
The first one requires a Doctor's order
And the patient is charged over four hundred bucks,
Whereas Flex Seal costs fifteen dollars
Leaving enough money left over for
Seventeen, 30-per-pack, Chux. 

Nurses are really smart
When faced with adversity they show no fear,
They could easily imagine how to configure a garbage bag
Along with Flex Seal, to the average patient's rear,
Once again my genius ingenuity
Is proven to be without bounds,
Oh, wait a second, I have to get out of here
I think I hear the Sheriff with the hounds.