For many reasons, I wish I had a perfect memory*. Not the least of which would be the fact that it would allow me to remember all the funny/awesome or even tragic/depressing events of my life. As it is, my memory is pretty shady and selective.
For instance, earlier today, I related the story of how my neighbor used to trace around the lines of coloring books super dark, then fill in the area lighter, and how that drove me crazy, and how I yelled at him from coloring that way in my coloring book when I was seven. But, for the life of me, I couldn't tell you who I shared a locker with in any of high school (if anyone).
The point of the reminiscing, is that I feel like I should write more. When I look back at blog posts of olde, I am instantly transported back to the setting I was writing about. It's like a time travel machine, and it is awesome. The same is true with journaling, but I'm as sporadic with that as I am about actually writing in my blog.
Well, I have decided that, for today at least, I am going to write about my day. I have been hesitant to do so for fear of violating HIPAA - the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which figuratively ties our lips about referencing anything that could possibly maybe sort of let someone else figure out what patient you may or may not be referring to.
Thus, I cannot write about: the really cool diagnoses I've seen; or: the mother who got her kids mixed up for almost a whole day; or even: the multiple complaints/rants I have about various situations I have been in in the past year and a half. So rough! I'd like to write about it more, though, so I'm going to try.
Today started out like any work day. I got up, got ready, drove to work, hoping the entire time that I wouldn't walk into a hectic service. I logged onto the computer to see how many patients I would have, saw 7 (not so bad for March), then did a double take at one of the names: Hortensia (not actually Hortensia, but an equally old-lady sounding name that doesn't quite have that 'so-old-fashioned-it's-cute' sound to it). Then I looked closer, and realized that Hortensia was 83 years old. I looked even closer at the list, and saw that 3 of the 7 patients were over 40 years old.
Adults! On my floor! NoooooooOOoOOOoOOOOOOOOO!!!!
They've been threatening to put adults on the pediatrics floor forever. We moved to a new, bigger (and much, much, much nicer) floor in December. We always knew they intended to put adults on the floor when the hospital was full. And last night, it happened.
Now, for those of you not familiar with the difference between pediatrics and adult medicine, let me tell you one important thing: Adults are not just big Kids.
Thankfully, I am a pediatrician, and can gleefully ignore the presence of over-18s, but the poor nurses are not so fortunate. And oi. vei. This has been quite a day.
See, Hortensia is not only 83 years old. She's 83 with about EVERY medical problem known to man, on lots of medications, and for all intents and purposes, completely non-verbal.
Here's an SAT question for you.
Which of these pairings is wrong:
A. Pediatric Nurses and non-verbal infants
B. Pediatric Nurses and non-verbal adults with a billion co-morbidities
If you guessed B, you're right! If you guessed A, you annoy me.
Anyway. So that has been my day so far: hearing people complain about adults. And they're totally right! They chose to be pediatric nurses for a reason. Adult patients are annoying! And stinky! And I wish I was in charge of the world, or at least this hospital so that I could make things right.
Add to all of this - now I have 3 pediatric patients I have admitted (I sent 2 home first) So now we're almost full, and I can't technically admit any more patients until we get more nurses in here, which might not happen. Which means I'll have to close pediatrics (say no to any more admissions). And for me to close pediatrics, I have to call the nursing supervisor, the shift administrator and the hospital's Chief Operating Officer. No kidding. All because there are stinky adults on my floor!
I'm a tad annoyed.
And apparently, I really wanted to remember this...
(I'm re-thinking the writing about my day idea)
* Has anyone else read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series? You know how Lisbeth Salander has a perfect/photographic memory, but she's all weird and ashamed by it? That alone led me to believe her character was down-right crazy. Photogenic memory would be awesome!
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