Sept 29: General stuff
Writing this at work, not a literary masterpiece. Lots of starts and stops.
Nothing tremendously dramatic. This is good. The back door is being finished, needing to be divested of it's layers of paint before being hung, last night Nelson (handyman/light contracting work) got the holes drilled for the hinges and lock placement, cut the door to size with the help of a friend and put on a coat of paint over the primer. He's hoping to get it installed tonight. There is hopefully going to be a meeting of all involved with the windows on Friday night: salesman, Nelson, project manager, installer. The sales guy says it takes 4-6 weeks for the windows to come in, which puts us well into November--a little later than I was hoping.
The DF has been acting up again, not for any reason I can determine. This necessitated cutting back on my walks. On a really bright note I took a yoga class on Thursday. It's at a new place only a mile and a half away from my house, run by a woman from a UU Fellowship which is closer, so nice people. Gael has developed a whole other system of yoga, knows many different disciplines. I took a one hour 'introductory' class with her a couple weeks ago and really liked her manner, she has a lovely aura about her. I missed the first class in this session because of the patient who coded, so last Thursday was my first time with her. Much to both of our surprise, no one else showed up, so I had her entirely to myself for an hour and a half! She was wonderful about adjusting positions and showing me different ways of doing things to accommodate my (multiple!) issues. I left feeling fabulous and really looking forward to tomorrow's session.
Last Thursday I also got my flu shot and then had the side effects 36 hours later, which is standard for me. Getting the reaction is actually a good sign, because it means you are developing lots of antibodies, but it pretty much wrecked my weekend. Still vastly better than getting the flu without the protection.
Runner-up for Most Stupid Person: Stress test patient on Friday, has had three prior tests, just routine. She's a nurse. On treadmill after usual instructions, now in Level 3 at 8 mins, 10 secs. The next increase will be at 9 mins.
Pt: I'm getting more short of breath and I'll need to stop soon.
Me: OK, do you think you could continue for 45 more seconds?
Pt: I don't know. How much longer would that be?
Winner of Stupid Person for that week: 61 yr old, looks 15 yrs older. Smokes 1 pack/day. In for work-up after passing out.
Me: How much alcohol do you drink in a day/week? (standard question)
Pt: Oh, I don't drink at all anymore. I used to drink a lot, but I stopped all that whiskey and stuff about 5 years ago. I used to pass out when I was drinking.
Me: Were you drinking when you passed out this last time? (Just a hunch....)
Pt: Oh no, I told you, I quit 5 yrs ago. I'd just had a few beers.
Me: How many?
Pt: Hard to say.....
Me: A 6-pack? 2? (Always best to guess high, then they correct you. Except....)
Pt: I guess at least 2 by then.
Me: So...How many cases a week? One? Two?
Pt: Usually at least three. But I told you, I gave up the real drinking.
Honestly, you just can't make this stuff up.
On a more serious note: My 'save' from two weeks ago died at 2am. He came off the ventilator and was speaking full cogent sentences yesterday morning. Then something went wrong. He went into arrest again. He was conscious after this for a few hours, back on the ventilator. But then after midnight everything just caught up to him. His kidneys were failing, he couldn't have dialysis because his BP was too low, massive fluid build-up. The wife was rather prosaic when ML talked to her: "How many lives does one person get? He's gone through an awful lot of them." Was anything good accomplished by his being alive for two more weeks? I don't know. It's always nice to make a difference, feel that something like this was for a reason. But maybe sometimes stuff just happens. Maybe there is someone else who has been affected by this. Who knows?
Deeper stuff another time. Thanks for checking, Laurie
Nothing tremendously dramatic. This is good. The back door is being finished, needing to be divested of it's layers of paint before being hung, last night Nelson (handyman/light contracting work) got the holes drilled for the hinges and lock placement, cut the door to size with the help of a friend and put on a coat of paint over the primer. He's hoping to get it installed tonight. There is hopefully going to be a meeting of all involved with the windows on Friday night: salesman, Nelson, project manager, installer. The sales guy says it takes 4-6 weeks for the windows to come in, which puts us well into November--a little later than I was hoping.
The DF has been acting up again, not for any reason I can determine. This necessitated cutting back on my walks. On a really bright note I took a yoga class on Thursday. It's at a new place only a mile and a half away from my house, run by a woman from a UU Fellowship which is closer, so nice people. Gael has developed a whole other system of yoga, knows many different disciplines. I took a one hour 'introductory' class with her a couple weeks ago and really liked her manner, she has a lovely aura about her. I missed the first class in this session because of the patient who coded, so last Thursday was my first time with her. Much to both of our surprise, no one else showed up, so I had her entirely to myself for an hour and a half! She was wonderful about adjusting positions and showing me different ways of doing things to accommodate my (multiple!) issues. I left feeling fabulous and really looking forward to tomorrow's session.
Last Thursday I also got my flu shot and then had the side effects 36 hours later, which is standard for me. Getting the reaction is actually a good sign, because it means you are developing lots of antibodies, but it pretty much wrecked my weekend. Still vastly better than getting the flu without the protection.
Runner-up for Most Stupid Person: Stress test patient on Friday, has had three prior tests, just routine. She's a nurse. On treadmill after usual instructions, now in Level 3 at 8 mins, 10 secs. The next increase will be at 9 mins.
Pt: I'm getting more short of breath and I'll need to stop soon.
Me: OK, do you think you could continue for 45 more seconds?
Pt: I don't know. How much longer would that be?
Winner of Stupid Person for that week: 61 yr old, looks 15 yrs older. Smokes 1 pack/day. In for work-up after passing out.
Me: How much alcohol do you drink in a day/week? (standard question)
Pt: Oh, I don't drink at all anymore. I used to drink a lot, but I stopped all that whiskey and stuff about 5 years ago. I used to pass out when I was drinking.
Me: Were you drinking when you passed out this last time? (Just a hunch....)
Pt: Oh no, I told you, I quit 5 yrs ago. I'd just had a few beers.
Me: How many?
Pt: Hard to say.....
Me: A 6-pack? 2? (Always best to guess high, then they correct you. Except....)
Pt: I guess at least 2 by then.
Me: So...How many cases a week? One? Two?
Pt: Usually at least three. But I told you, I gave up the real drinking.
Honestly, you just can't make this stuff up.
On a more serious note: My 'save' from two weeks ago died at 2am. He came off the ventilator and was speaking full cogent sentences yesterday morning. Then something went wrong. He went into arrest again. He was conscious after this for a few hours, back on the ventilator. But then after midnight everything just caught up to him. His kidneys were failing, he couldn't have dialysis because his BP was too low, massive fluid build-up. The wife was rather prosaic when ML talked to her: "How many lives does one person get? He's gone through an awful lot of them." Was anything good accomplished by his being alive for two more weeks? I don't know. It's always nice to make a difference, feel that something like this was for a reason. But maybe sometimes stuff just happens. Maybe there is someone else who has been affected by this. Who knows?
Deeper stuff another time. Thanks for checking, Laurie
posted by Laurie @ 9:07 AM
1 Comments:
At 9:42 PM,
Anonymous said…
Laurie,
I love the patient stories... you should include at least on monthly.. I am still laughing. Some radios do that.. dumest crook of the week type think. Anyway was a good laugh.
Sorry to hear about your patient. And my belief is even if for only a brief time I would want to be brought back to tell my loved ones how much they mean to me.. so often we over look telling those close to us that daily. People like you often - even if only briefly give us the blessing. The rest is in gods hands whether we stay.
Deneen
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