And I Thought Manhattan Real Estate Was Bad!

I'm watching HouseHunters International and laughing hysterically. A couple is going to buy a 735-square-foot apartment in Tokyo with no dishwasher, a clothes washer sitting at the end of the bathtub, and a refrigerator the size of the one I had in my college dormroom. The bargain price? $500,000!

What Color Is Your Puke?

I'm reading up on "ileus," which is a bowel obstruction, because my patient yesterday had one, and I didn't know anything about it. I learned that when a patient vomits, what their puke looks like can tell you a little about where the bowel obstruction might be. For instance, clear liquid means it's probably right up by their stomach, and if it's bile-colored and liquidy, that means the obstruction is in the upper small instestine.


Then I got to this:


"Feculent vomitus indicates bacterial overgrowth proximal to the obstruction and is a poor prognostic sign."

It made me laugh. It's terrible, but that statement might be the world's best understatement. Yeah, I would think that if a patient is puking up feces, that probably is a pretty bad sign, prognosis-wise.

Letter to the Charge Nurse: Clinical Day 1

Dear Charge Nurse,


Today was my very first clinical day as a student nurse. Please, in the future, do not ask me to change the bedsheets on a woman who has an unsplinted broken arm that is just wrapped up in a soft bandage because she is having surgery on it tonight. I know you gave her some kind of painkiller, but it didn't work, and her shrieks of pain as I attempted to roll her over in bed to get the new sheets on were extremely distressing. For all of us--me, her, the people passing in the hallway, and the other nursing students who were helping me. That shit could have waited until she went to surgery and her bed was unoccupied.


Sincerely,
Queenjulie

I'm Totally Famous

STFU, Jezzies, just posted a comment I sent in. I am ridiculously excited about this.

Victim Blaming: Mommy Edition

Jezebel has a post up today on birth rape that is causing quite a stir. According to the commenters on there, it's not okay to tell a rape victim, "Well, at least you weren't murdered! What are you complaining about?" However, if a woman says that her doctor sexually assaulted her while she was giving birth, say, by strapping her legs into stirrups and then shoving both hands in her vagina with no warning or consent, it's fine to tell her, "He was just trying to deliver your baby! What are you complaining about?" After all, doctors know best! No doctor has ever done an unnecessary cesarean, or a totally unneeded episiotomy, or tied a woman down during birth!

Or, say, offered a medical student a chance to do a fucking pelvic exam on an unconscious woman who was having surgery, just to practice, because, hey, the lady would never know the difference, right?!

Yeah. Go read these stories and then tell me birth rape doesn't exist.

Scent-sation

I think onions gently sauteeing in butter might be the very best smell ever. Really.

Lamest. Hurricane. Ever.

Whatever, Earl! I bought $100 worth of junk food that doesn't need cooking and enough bottled water to float the entire Navy, and what do I get? No trees down, no shingles lost, not even a power outage! I still have to go to school today! What's up with that, huh? I do appreciate getting to take the kids to school today, since they're going to be home on Monday for the holiday, and three straight days of full-time children makes me sort of insane. But since we still have electricity, how am I going to have an excuse to eat the 18 chocolate/peanut butter granola bars that I bought? Answer me that, dumbass loser hurricane.