TUSAL March and You Pick It

Feels like a year has gone by since the last New Moon for my TUSAL post.

Copying Cookie, pick your title:

1. I did NOT ask to ride this roller coaster

2. I should have packed a clue-by-four today

3. Can we check out and possibly resume this on Monday

4. Birds- Natures little prozac.

First I'll get the TUSAL out of the way.  This is my spaghetti sauce jar that I purposely made spaghetti just for the jar.  I think there is more thread this month from working on my Dahlias in the beginning of February.  It seems like a year ago, so I can't remember for sure.

The other night, my neighbor almost fell off her couch when I was telling her about all the clueless people I run into all day, mainly on and around the elevator. I said, I need to pack a clue-by-four to hit some people. She'd never heard that before.  Need to come hang out on Ravelry, it's where all the cool kids go.

New nurse last night.  Didn't care for her, didn't have the energy to deal.  Went home and prayed for the best.  Slept through the night with constant nightmares.  Attempted murder on the alarm clock at 7am.

Stupid thing said to me last night, the anal night nurse told me to "have a good one" as I was leaving for the night.  Yeah, I'll get right on that.  (my snark factory is working over-time)

Walked on the unit, stopped at the desk long enough to say a cheery, "Good morning, and thank you."  I have them fooled into thinking I'm a cheery morning person.  Sponsored by Folgers and the fact that I can be good actress at times.  I deserve a Golden Globe for pulling that one off.  I have also found that the more people you have believing you are a reasonable, sweet little lady, the more seriously they take you when you have to pull off the mask and show your true evil self.

(que the Theme From Jaws:)

Then I walked into his room.  He was all turned funny in the bed and exposed for the world to see.  Looked like someone had just picked him and flung him onto the bed like a rag doll.  Sedation medication way high, him out cold and his glasses off and found by me on the med cart.  I covered him up and go out into the hall and stand in front of his door with my arms crossed.  His nurse comes out of her other patient's room, looks at me and says, "His a-line crapped out.  Nothing else has changed since you called an hour ago.  I'll talk to you later."

I went back into the room fuming.  You know these past two weeks, I've had some personality clashes with a few nurses, but the care wasn't lacking so that I was ready to go to the nurse manager and request a new nurse.  The palliative care team came up to his room door and was talking so I went out and vented my concerns to them.  Besides figuring out the proper sedation, pain and anxiety control, they are also my liaisons when I'm about to blow up.  If you have ever read my post, Eleven Years Ago, you remember how little patience I have for what I consider low quality care.

While I was speaking with them, his nurse went into his room.  We all walk in, so they can do their liaison thing.  She has his radio by his head turned way up, dancing to Michael Jackson, while messing with his a-line.    Not cool.  That might look good on Grey's Anatomy, but so not cool in real life.  Especially, when the patient's family is ME. His sedation was turned down, I put his glasses on and we went on from there.

Because I'm a grown-up, she was able to gain some of my confidence as the morning progressed.  It took a lot of energy on my part.  D always tells me, "It's hard to be the few grown-ups in a world full of really big children."

During rounds, the Dr. went into the room and talked to me about the possibility of a trach.  He's not progressing as fast as they need him to. Good thing, Rudee warned me last week, or that would have thrown me for a loop. They are going to see how he does over the weekend and discuss it on Monday.  I'm counting the days on my fingers, and guess what happens on Monday?  Yes, a new attending should probably be coming on.

D was pretty alert during that conversation.  I asked him if he understood any of what was said.  He shook his head, no.  I said, "I love you and I'm doing the best I can to make the best decisions for you."  He nodded his head, yes.  Which brought tears of relief.  Yesterday, he would only respond to the nurses questions.  I was afraid he was angry with me for letting them stick all those tubes in him.  Which I feel would be a reasonable response waking up after two weeks to all that.

The resident dr. from Renal didn't want to do dialysis today.  He wanted to skip a day and see how he does.  The attending for ICU said, he wants it done every day, that D is still pretty water logged and he believes the x-rays are showing a build up of fluid in his lungs.  He wants to get him to a dry state.  I agreed with ICU dr. and told him so.  We do not need renal dropping the ball yet again and fouling the everything up causing him setbacks.  If they drop the ball again,  I might pick it up and whip it right at their heads.  (sorry, my evil side showing)

That's the past 24 hrs.  Woke up feeling like something the cats beat up over night.  Right now, I have the energy to take on the world.  Right now, that is.  Who knows in another hour or so.

As promised, The Parakeets.  I can hear them all the way into the parking lot when they are really chirping, that's with the door and windows shut. They are usually very quiet when I walk up to the door, then they hear it open and they get all excited with really loud chirps, jumping from perch to perch. It always makes me smile at their greeting.

They chose not to be very active for the camera yesterday.  But I will get them yet.



Thank you keeping up with me through all this. Pray that he gets a good nurse tonight.  I don't want to have a reason to take my sweet little lady mask off.