Rainbows & crying wolf...

On my way home from work this morning, I saw a beautiful rainbow in the sky. Rainbows amaze me - I love looking at them. They are a good reminder that in order to see the rainbows in life, you have to endure the storms that come your way .

I am sooooooooooooooo tired of newscasters. If I hear one more thing with the word Ernesto in the story, I will scream. They have blown this tropical storm out of proportion. News coverage began on Saturday. I'm not talking just a little update here & there, I'm talking that 99% of the newscast was all about this storm. This is the problem when it comes to hurricanes - newscasters blow it out of proportion so much that people don't believe a word they say. Even with 7 hurricanes in 4 years, I still don't believe them because they don't really know anything until about an hour before the storm is about to hit. However, just like most trainwrecks in life, it also gets to the point that you can't help but watch. Then the stress sets in because you begin imagining the worst....until reality strikes again to remind you that weather forecasters are only right like maybe 1% of the time.

It is raining here...but is that uncommon? Nope. Besides, Florida needs the rain. And it allows me to see the rainbow. :)

Ok, my tough 2 days at work...yep, that's all I'm working this week - well besides the computer class I have to take tonight for 8 hours. I can't complain, my patients were relatively easy to care for. I learned a little bit...way more about tapeworms than I ever really wanted to know. I've seen one of my patients get news that is devastating - her lung cancer has spread to her bones. Once it gets there, it's all pretty much downhill. She started out a little grumpy (who can blame her), but I charmed her & took time to talk with her. I still don't really know what to say when someone gets news like that. I find it's better to try to get them to express how they're feeling, because I know nothing I say will make a difference.

I had some interesting conversations with a couple of docs. The first one....my patient was on Heparin, her PTT (lab test) came back at 154 = extremely high. Protocol says to stop the Heparin immediately & call the doctor. So I did...at 5 am. I could tell I woke him up...but so what...this is a critical lab value. I tell him the PTT level & he says "Well, what does the protocol say to do?" As if I had never bothered to follow it or something. So I tell him "Stop the Heparin & call the doctor & here I am...talking to you now." It's like he didn't know what to do & was hoping the protocol would give him a clue. His wise answer..."repeat the PTT in an hour & follow whatever the protocol says to do." Ummm, ok.

My second doctor incident was regarding a patient I just got report on last night. He had been there for a week, had a surgical procedure when he came in & everything was going well - until 2 days ago when it seems he had a stroke as he has the facial droop & is unable to move the right side of his body. They ran some tests & it is looking like a stroke. Welllllllllll...no one has bothered to talk to the family about what is going on. All they know is that their once fully functioning family member is now unable to move the right side of his body. His speech is slurred & they want to know why. They were point blank asking me if he had a heart attack. I was able to tell them no, that his heart is ok. I can't tell them the real test results because the doctor has not talked to them regarding what's going on. So they ask me for the doctor's phone number. I give them his answering service number & tell them to call during the day because it's unlikely they would hear back from him at night (it was after 9:30 pm). About an hour later I get a call from the doctor. He says "This is Dr. so & so"...I said "hello Dr., let me find out who called you." Because 99.9999% of the time a primary doctor calls at night - it's because someone has paged him. He says "No, no one paged me." I say "Oh, ok." He says "You know, you really should take the time to find out why I'm calling." My response "Ummmm, ok." Have I mentioned that I really can't stand this doctor to begin with??? He goes on to tell me that a family member called & wants to know why. Well....wouldn't it make more sense to call the family member & ask them why??? It irritates me how some of them will avoid the family & their questions. I told him they basically want to know what is going on with the patient, that they don't understand what is going on because no one is telling them anything. He asked me how the patient was doing & that was that. Who knows if he ever called them back.

Ok, time for me to get a little sleep before computer class tonight. Peace all!