iriscloud

"I like that Isfahan is basically our idiot whisperer."

2014-09-23T13:30:44Z

So, the way our research clinic works is that there are four RNs including myself, and each week we rotate who's on call. Whoever is on call is responsible for any patients we may get during the evening or night (which doesn't happen often), as well as blood draws/processing that is timed for evening/night during an overnight stay (more frequently). Starting with the first week of the month, call rotation order is Crazy Alpha, Crazy Beta, myself, and Crazy Omega. This week, Crazy Omega is on call.

Now, here's the thing: Crazy Omega has a bad habit of calling me at eight or nine in the evening when she doesn't remember how to process her blood work (which is frequently). True to form, my phone rang at something like 9 PM, and it ended up being her number. This time, however, I didn't take the bait and actually answer. I think this did the trick, because she didn't call back. Not sure if she called the supervisor, but according to our lab tech, the specimen processing was completely wrong, despite both her having the processing manual right in front of her and my showing her for the second time how to process it, while she took notes.

This, frankly, gets on my last fuckin' nerve, because she kept telling me over and over again that she didn't need my help, no, she could handle this one on her own, and I didn't need to offer any assistance despite the fact that our supervisor told me to go check on her yesterday because she was afraid something like this might happen.

To be honest, though...I'm not really surprised. Every time she's been on call, unless the supervisor has been here helping her the entire time, something has gone wrong. Hell, even with help, things have gone wrong. Yesterday she got a call from the coordinator in charge of a study she did weeks ago^*
, and even though all they wanted was a set of vital signs from the chart, something she looked up without any trouble, she threw a goddamn fit about it. "Ugh, it's always SOMETHING with these people." Yeah, how dare they ask for information about their own study.

This morning, I'll be doing the 24-hour draw on her patient so he can go home. She's probably coming in late today, since she was here late last night. Our LVN cracked up when I told her Crazy Omega called me last night, because apparently she called it yesterday, but that's like calling that water won't be dry. Like I told her, Crazy Omega is technically an adult, and I'm going to let her make her own mistakes, because I am neither her babysitter, her supervisor, nor her mother.

Christ.

^{*a study that she screwed up so thoroughly, the coordinator actually told our supervisor they didn't want her working on any more of their patients.↩}

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"And my signature says 'Come say that at the Gathering and see what-' OH I'M A JUGGALO?"

2014-09-22T13:50:35Z

Good news: The Mabon ritual was wonderful. It was interesting to see how the Egyptian mythology factors into the flavor of neo-pagan practice this group follows. (Although the HP chose the contentions of Horus and Seth as the best story for the evening. Look that one up if you want to see something truly interesting.) Also, I got in contact with a lady running a woman's weekend retreat in October, which sounds like a lovely time.

I found out they do initiation in the summer, which gives me enough time to decide whether I really want to take it that seriously, but on the other hand, I see a need for further assistance in organizing and practicing the actual ritual part.

The cuddle party was also fantastic. Getting the rules in place took about half of our time, but it was necessary. I actually spent most of the time in the kitchen having a delightful time talking to some of the people who came along. Apparently, the Pride parade was Sunday, so a fantastic conversation ensued between about six of us Citadel-style. After that, I actually managed to do some cuddling at the cuddle party, which was great fun. When it was all said and done, I went home and did a number on myself with my nova, royal, and nox. I haven't slept so deeply in ages.

Bad news: Right as I left home this morning, I got a text saying four people, including Crazy Alpha and Crazy Beta, are out sick, and then got a call about ten minutes later saying we apparently had a 7AM admit. I got there as fast as I could, only to find out that Crazy Omega had taken charge of the admit. Our LVN printed off a nursing flowsheet with the patient's information on it, and I took it over to CO only to find that she already had one.

The very first thing she said after I came over and said hello was, "I can handle this on my own". Not fifteen minutes later she started texting me asking for a specimen ice bucket and EKG electrodes. Uh-huh.

That women's retreat can't get here fast enough, tbh.

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"Bunch of wanna-blessed be's."

2014-09-19T22:56:14Z

So, the Mabon ritual is tomorrow with the pagan group, and I've decided I'm either bringing cake balls or getting another box of cookies. I had the intense misfortune of running into the Grand High Priest of Look At How Cool I Am and his friend Too Much Information at the store the other day. You can guess how that went. I can't remember if they said they'd be there, but whatever. As long as my good friend Dorothy shows up, I'll be just fine.

The nebulous "cuddle party" is Sunday, and I still haven't decided whether to be excited or anxious. I guess we'll see.

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When you need a wiener as big as your arm, where do you go?

2014-09-18T16:25:17Z

Bad Dragon! I might still be laughing about that three weeks from now.

Speaking of which, though, I had a brief moment of blind fury when FedEx had listed my package as "DELIVERY EXCEPTION WE'LL TRY AGAIN TOMORROW" that was quelled when I saw the sticky note on the door saying it was in the lease office. I went home at like 12:30 yesterday, too, so the afternoon was spent making cake truffles and watching Mental Floss. I put in a work order for replacement light bulbs for my kitchen and living room track lights. Of course, I didn't expect the dude to actually show up within the same day, so when I got a knock at the door I basically went "SHIT" and threw the box into my bedroom before running back out to open the door. Of course, I didn't think twice about the dance pole until he was already gone. Whatever.

I took an early walk and came back to the realization that sex after exercise isn't as enthusiastic as it otherwise would be. Should've figured that. Still, the toys are all great fun, and I'm a big fan of the Infinity Star coloring. I did forget that the Hanns was a 3 firmness, though, so it feels REALLY squishy. Not bad, but certainly different. Also, I have to take the Natascha out for a spin with the harnesses at some point, because dang.^*

The reason I went home early yesterday, however, was because I'm pulling another Long Ass Shift^TM with our friend the EKG machine. I'm going to make a point to go walking once I get home, though. I refuse to let today slide headfirst into laziness and stupidity like Monday did. (Otherwise this week is going to be screwed.)

I went ahead and canceled dinner tomorrow night, mostly because I can't really afford to do three nights out this week, and partly because I get the distinct feeling I'll be exhausted and want an evening off before I get the weekend started. I'm contemplating taking some of my cake balls to the Mabon celebration Saturday.

^{*Because I inevitably get questions about this (though not necessarily here): I'm a woman who enjoys playing with Tenga cups/fleshlights and a strap-on. Stick a vibrator in the harness pocket, and it gets twice as fun. ↩}

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My name is the exact sound that occurs when you sit on a cake!

2014-09-17T16:58:56Z

Monday's 12-ish hour workday was less awful than it could have been thanks to the newest episode of The F Plus (a podcast that is fantastic and amazing). I was actually thankful to have the clinic to myself for an hour and a half so I could laugh like an intoxicated seal in peace. I need to crack open Audacity when I get home and see if I can actually get the PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY bit of Stog's first song as my ringtone.

Yesterday was a long circuitous thought exercise about whether I should go to the Friday meetup. I RSVP-ed yes already, but now I'm thinking I'm probably better off just sticking with the Saturday and Sunday meetups. Especially since my order is supposed to get here tonight, and I'd like some time to appreciate it this weekend.

Sunshine Bunny and the diabetic milkshake study both have a patient here today, but they got assigned to Crazy Omega and Crazy Alpha. This basically means I get to sit here waiting for Sunshine Bunny to call me in asking for help getting the IV in. It's not even a matter of "will he need my help" at this point--he always does. Crazy Alpha has the diabetic study down to a science, so I'm basically just killing time. Again.

Although, about an hour ago a bunch of people from a study I've never heard of brought over an EKG machine and enlisted our (mostly my) help in getting the dial-up modem inside of it to transmit their EKG data via our fax line. This was a long, weird, and frankly ludicrous process that involved us calling tech support and having the guy talk us through the process, which included slowing down the machine's Baud Rate, a term I thought I'd never hear again. I hadn't handled any technology like this since I was like nine, and I still knew more about what we were doing than anyone else there. It was nuts.

As per usual with anything trackable, I've been sitting here for the last two days incessantly refreshing the tracking page on the FedEx site to see whether it got delivered to the lease office or to my actual mailbox. BD doesn't do FedEx Smartpost anymore (or if they do, that's not what I ordered, because FUCK FedEx Smartpost), so with any luck it'll be at the lease office when I get back so I can just go straight there and pick up the box on my way home. At least Bad Dragon has the sense not to put a bunch of fuckmothering brand stickers on their box like my X-pole did. I'm still ticked off about that. Something like three years of amassing my sex toy collection, and the minute I try to order a dance pole, that's when I have to worry about the company name, logo, and FOLLOW US ON TWITTER sticker complete with a bird standing next to a dance pole plastered all over the goddamn box. Jesus.

When the company that makes vividly-colored silicone dragon dicks does a better job of being professional than the company that makes a slightly-NSFW piece of exercise equipment, something isn't quite right.

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Passive-aggressive robot sack of ketchup pee. GAH!

2014-09-15T15:59:52Z

There was a Big Huge Meeting today in the Tower (the office two buildings away) to go over the mandatory Employee Engagement Survey we filled out a good three weeks before our new supervisor started working here. It went about as well as I figured it would (not very), mostly due to the fact that everyone's concerns that we brought up were met with "oh we know about that, we're working on that". Can't really blame them, honestly. That's what I'd have said were I in their position.

We've got a patient in the hospital next door who's part of a research study we've never done before, and since I'm on call this week, they assigned Crazy Alpha to run the study until noon, and then I'm supposed to take over until he goes home at something like 6 or 7 this evening. It's not all bad, I suppose; if I'm going to be here until 5, I might as well stay until 7, since it won't make any difference when you take traffic into account.

I've already had it with Crazy Alpha trying to make me do this fuckmothering study for her, though. Yes, the patient was supposed to come here with the study team, and yes, the doctor needs to get his ass out of bed and actually write admission orders for the patient, but I don't know what you expect me to do. I don't have any more authority over this damn case than you do. Furthermore, WORKING AN EKG MACHINE IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE.

I'd complain more about how I likely didn't make the best decision in eating two bagels at the meeting, but if I'm going to be here all day, it might actually turn out for the best. Might.

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I have an awful lot to say today.

2014-09-12T20:16:51Z

First of all, the LVN who works with us, also known as the only sane nurse in the clinic, just told me that our manager had her switch desks with Crazy Alpha, which was the best news I have EVER heard since I took this job. (Context: Her desk was in a separate room because of reasons.) While the desk move was going on, I decided to take an excursion over to our old abandoned office two buildings away to see if I could find the key to the only desk that has remained locked since the office was abandoned in 2008.

Despite going through every single leftover key in our very disorganized cabinet, I couldn't find it. I decided to see what I could find, anyway. If I didn't live in a state that averaged ten million degrees on any given day, I'd be the kind of person that explored abandoned buildings. As it is, I explore non-abandoned buildings after hours. It's fantastic.

So, as it turns out, the efforts our med tech took with the letter opener and the hammer last time around might have actually made a difference. Even though I didn't have a key that worked, the bottom two drawers were unlocked, which was awesome because I hit Health Fair Swag paydirt. Got a lunch bag, two different first aid kits, and a massive water bottle with a weird wrap-around thing where I can probably stick a cold pack. I swung by the cafeteria afterwards and stuck it all into the plastic takeout bags they have next to the silverware, and now it's in my work bag. The top drawer wouldn't budge, but from the looks of the (seriously damaged) drawer, it was just a bunch of correction tape and paper clips. When you add that to the two storage boxes and the unopened pouch of tea bags I found there last time I went downstairs, the abandoned office is a treasure hunt.

To be clear: absolutely nothing in the abandoned office has been touched for six years. Everyone in the clinic takes office supplies from there all the time. It's just not common that someone wants to take the effort to go down seven floors to the basement, walk through the connecting hallways of two different hospitals, and then take another elevator down to another basement in order to get there. The storage unit is even farther away, but we extracted everything useful from it before we moved it out of the internal medicine building.

Personally, I've always gotten a huge kick out of walking through office buildings and workplaces and churches and stores and other such public areas when nobody else is around. I blame it on the fact that my dad used to take me to the storage closet of his workplace and give me a highlighter or a badge lanyard every now and then. I was like four, but since then I've always gotten irrationally excited about office supplies and stationery.

There's also the part where I used to work Wednesday night child care at my church, and even though only one of the three church buildings housed the child care wing, the other two were open and lit while choir practice was happening on the 2nd floor. Naturally, none of the doors were locked except the ones to the outside. I used to wander through the sanctuary and the church parlor when my shift ended. I should tell you all sometime about the night it was raining and I went into the parlor without turning any of the lights on.

Tonight I think I'm going to try making cake truffles. I'm hoping to god I can find a way to make them that's cheaper than buying them frozen. I'm also hoping I can do this without eating all of them in a single setting, because they're so frigging delicious.

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Right after my patient went home, too.

2014-09-12T16:57:29Z

PARDON ME WHILE I EXPLODE FROM SHEER GLEE

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It photographs your bones, gives you superpowers, and welcomes you to the new age, to the new age...

2014-09-12T14:25:30Z

I need to take a radiation safety class before I can do any bone density scans by myself. This is the same class I could have stuck around for something like three months ago, but everyone told me "no, you don't need to do that, yet". I understand why it's necessary, but it's still kind of weird to take the safety course AFTER we all got DEXA certified. jfc

There's only one patient in the research clinic today, and predictably enough, he got assigned to me. Actually, lemme break this down for anyone who doesn't work in the weirdest office ever. We have 4 Registered Nurses, one Licensed Vocational Nurse, a diet tech who does bone scans, and three office-administrator type people. We do clinical research here, so most of our patients are healthy volunteers. All of them are at least mobile enough to transfer from a wheelchair to bed without more than one person's assistance. It's a far cry from the hospital I used to work at, and I like it that way.

Here's the thing, though: the place lost funding about a year or two ago, and nearly everyone quit, including the manager of the clinic. It got picked back up by a grant recently, at which point they hired like five new people. Nobody here has been here longer than a year and a half except for one RN, and she's completely insane.

This actually brings me to the point I was making yesterday about Crazy Alpha, Crazy Beta, and Crazy Omega. They're the other three RNs I work with here at the clinic, and they all drive me up the frickin' wall. Before I go into too much detail, I should mention that in addition to being the only nurse here under 35 (I'm 23), every other nurse here, including the manager, has children who are my age or older. So when I describe these people, recognize that they're grown-ass adults.

Crazy Alpha is pretty straightforward, as far as crazy goes. She's passive aggressive, plays the victim constantly, drives our manager crazy by being a god-awful tattletale, and she's so nosy I had to move desks to keep her from looking at my computer screen over my shoulder. She's constantly terrified the terrorists and the government and the new world order are all out to get her (because they hate Christians, of course). The hell of it is, since she's been here the longest, she knows more about how the clinic runs than anyone. Unfortunately, she's completely obstinate when it comes to using techniques and equipment that haven't been considered good practice in something like 15 years. Pretty much everyone does their best to avoid her.

Crazy Beta has been here about six months longer than I have. She's the most self-sufficient and competent out of the three, but she's a goddamn sociopath. She absolutely refuses to acknowledge that she might be wrong about something right up until it's a situation/technique she's never seen before, at which point it's someone else's problem. She has a persecution complex the size of Australia, and if she feels like someone's wronged her, all she can focus on is getting back at them. You're either on her side, or you're against her. Basically, she's a bully, even to her own children. Ask me about the "hilarious" story she told me about when her daughter was 3 years old and kept pulling her bow out of her hair, so in response she took a pair of scissors and cut the bow out of her daughter's hair without so much as a warning.

Crazy Omega might be my least favorite of the three, because she's the type of crazy I keep running into. She's codependent as fuck and completely incapable of doing anything without someone's help. She has no idea how computers work, and because I know you can't open a PDF with Microsoft word, she thinks I'm some kind of super genius. This has made her cling to me like a goddamn lamprey. We have a system where we each are on call for a week every month, and more than once she's called my cell phone at 9-something at night because she's on call and doesn't know what to do. (YOU HAVE THE PROCEDURE MANUAL, NOT ME.) The worst part, though, is the fact that due to an unfortunate coincidence, I have the same first and middle name as her oldest daughter, and she's got a hardcore case of empty nest syndrome. It took me nearly a month to get her to stop calling me the same pet names she calls her children. She honest-to-Christ asked me what kind of car she should buy, and when I responded with "I don't know, it's your life", she countered with "oh come on, it's your job to help me out". No, it really isn't.

Not that I'm a saint, by any means. I'm lazy as hell and (clearly) prone to venting to the internet behind everyone else's back. I mean, If a patient has my name next to them on the assignment sheet, I'll keep up with them, but I won't volunteer to take a new one. So I guess that makes me Crazy Delta, or something.

Fortunately, my patient today is here for Sunshine Bunny's study, and Sunshine Bunny loves it when I'm the nurse, since apparently I'm the only nurse in the whole world who knows how to start an IV. (This isn't true, but I also think he's a bit dazzled by my vein finder light, which has helped us both out on more than one occasion.) Also, all of this study's patients are really nice, which is more than I can say for the patients enrolled in the Purple and Gold coordinator's studies. Again, I'll explain that later. I have tubing to prime.

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Barbados? BARBADOS!!

2014-09-11T20:24:59Z

I've come to the conclusion that the trip to Seattle I've been planning needs to happen sooner, rather than later, or I'm going to blow an artery.

With the help of Sunshine Bunny, which is my made up name for the research coordinator who works on an infusion study our center runs, I've figured out how to get research coordinator certification in about a year and a half, and how to get a certification I don't have to re-test for every two years. I'm extremely grateful that he's even bothered to tell me how to go about it, let alone offered to lend me his study materials. Coupled with my BSN, this could seriously take me places in a couple of years. Like, for instance, out of Texas.

I feel like some context is in order. Sunshine Bunny is a super-energetic gay dude who comes into the research clinic singing show tunes first thing in the morning. He's awesome right up until you pick a fight with him, which one of the nurses did the first time I even met him. He nearly called his PI to tell them they needed to take the study somewhere else. This was Crazy Beta, but I can explain Crazy Alpha, Crazy Beta, and Crazy Omega later.

I just hope to god nobody writes fanfic about them in the meantime.

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This journal just might contain adult concepts.

2014-09-10T15:19:20Z

I picked up my lotion bath from the post office yesterday and mixed up a few test drops. Both versions (Esthe Pururun and COLORS) work amazingly. Even better than the old model of Honey did.

It now occurs to me that nobody has a fuckin' clue what lotion bath is, so I will explain. Lotion bath is this stuff from Japan that you pour into your bathwater. It turns the water into, for lack of a better term, slime. Think super-silky moisturizing shower gel. An entire bathtub full of it. This isn't like Gelli Baff where it's just a bunch of powder that sucks up the water and feels like a soggy-ass diaper (because sodium polyacrylate is what's used in incontinence products the world over). This stuff is absolutely loaded with collagen and moisturizers, and it's liquid, so instead of feeling like those weird air freshener beads, it feels like the slickest, smoothest, most gloriously weird thing you've ever felt. It leaves my hair feeling ridiculously soft. I love it.

The only downside I've come across so far is that I have to order it from Rakuten, which takes way longer than it should. Like, six freakin' weeks, and most of that is just waiting for the store to process the order. THERE IS A REASON I'VE ONLY ORDERED ONE NON-INVENTORY BAD DRAGON TOY.

Also, breaking news: my life must be going pretty damn well if that's what I complain about.

In other news, I've signed up for an 8am session on, not kidding, Pelvic Floor Disorders a few Saturdays from now. I wouldn't have bothered if I didn't need 5 more continuing education credits this year, but either way, I fucking guarantee you that symposium will be kegel city. Kind of like the way the bone density scan power point got me to start taking calcium.

Not sure yet what I'll be doing this weekend, but next week I'm going to the Mabon ceremony/food drive on Saturday and something the local poly groups call a Cuddle Party on Sunday. So that could go either wonderfully or horribly. I'm tempted to show up for the Poly dinner Friday, but I'm afraid that might be overbooking myself. Introversion is a crapshoot.

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Well, this is new.

2014-09-10T13:05:13Z

A full year and a half after making this account, I actually have reason to post to it. Not a very good reason (I'm bored as hell and tumblr doesn't lend itself to longform posting/being accessed at work), but still.

I've got more than half a mind to go in tonight when I get home and spend the 15 bucks to change my username to something less "made out of desperation at 11 pm". We'll see how I feel about spending that kind of money once I get out of the post office. You see, the computer-logic of the postal system basically means that they attempted to deliver a package that needed a signature at 2:30pm on a Monday, so now I have to drive over there after work today and pick it up. I'm wondering if this is going to happen every time I try to order something off of Rakuten.

I'll likely make a whole other post about the stuff I ordered (bath lotion, which is stuff you mix into your bathwater to make it thick and viscous and wonderful-feeling) later tonight. For now, I have another two and a half hours to kill before I can drive over and pick it up.

In other news, I went to a full moon celebration with a local Pagan group this weekend. I debated the ethics of this for a good while, since I'm not actually religious at all, but I had a wonderful time. The thing is, the local freethought/atheist/humanist meetup groups seem to attract a much higher proportion of asshats than I was comfortable hanging with^*, and I had a couple of Pagan years in high school, so I remember most of the elements of the ritual. I met some of the coolest people (as well as some of the most annoying people) ever, and I'm not remotely sorry I went. I've already RSVPed for the Equinox celebration later in the month.

I'm also playing with the logistics of possibly taking a trip to Seattle somewhere between November and January. The only real problem with this is the fact that I just found out that the Christmas-New Year's unit shutdown is going to use our vacation time, which is irritating, but makes sense. You can't very well pay us to not come to work.

^{*when I join your meetup group, immediately sending me a PM saying WHY HELLO GORGEOUS, I DON'T USUALLY SEND PMs RANDOMLY BUT YOU'RE A SPECIAL CASE, CAN'T WAIT TO SEE YOU AT THE MEETUP~~~ is not the kind of thing that makes me feel, you know, safe.↩}

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