I still tend to think that the only people who read my blog are the handful of medical incredibloggers kind enough to toss me pity links, my dog*, and my mom**. When I find out that someone reads my blog, I get red-faced and stammery – like I just got caught staring at the underwear pages of the Sears Catalog. I had a moment of terrible awkwardness last week when Hot Girl told me that she reads this (and, of course, recognized herself,) and I felt a little flush of embarrassment when my whiny post about my whiny life yielded a letter from “K***.”
The awkwardness of learning that someone actually reads what I write was immediately swept away by a raging torrent of whitewater awesome**** thundering down from the mountains of Valhalla.
K brought me a gift.
It’s better than I could have possibly imagined. 2:05 – 2:10! 2:05 – 2:10!!!!!!
Thanks to everyone who sent good will. I’m feeling much better.
* He only reads it because I give him pizza crusts in exchange for proofreading. I have to whack him on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper when he misses a run-on sentence.
** Hi, Mom!
*** It turns out that “K” has a blog. I don’t want to link to it, because it’s better than mine in every way, but I guess I’ll stick out my lip and scuff my sneakers on the floor and go ahead and send you there: Nursebound*****.
**** I know it’s passe to make “awesome” a noun. I don’t care. I still have a jeans jacket with a Def Leppard back patch.
***** Please note my continued dedication to professionalism******.
****** This blog post was made possible through the generous support of our sponsors: House of Leaves and Infinite Jest.
Jul 10
9
Nursing Horrors: The Yonker
A plastic magic wand is connected to a suction hose, and you swish it around your patient’s orifi (yeah, I said that) to suck out saliva, phlegm, and other assorted grossness. When a thing exists solely to slurpily yonk out giant wads of loogey from your patient’s mouth, what else are you gonna call it but “yonker?” Well, it turns out that “yonker” is not an onomatapoetic slang term; the actual device is a “Yankauer” suction tip. Here’s what it looks like:
For a patient with mouth lacerations and an INR that is higher than your valedictorian’s grade point average, the yonker (yeah, I spelled that) is truly a magic wand. The Scrubs Wizard waves it around and, hey, presto! – the patient is able to breathe without sucking air through the extra-chunky tomato soup gurgling around in her oropharynx.
Here’s why the yonker is a nursing horror deserving of its very own post: it is made of clear plastic.
In order to assess what’s going on with the patient’s mucous membranes, the nurse has to be able to see what the yonker is actually yonking out. The nurse also has to record the amount of fluid yonked out, so the aggregate yonkings are collected in a cylinder that is also, you guessed it, totally clear plastic.
In the best of all possible worlds, the tube gets scummy with spit residue. In the second-best world, the inside of the tube gets smeared and coated with the foul yellow slime that you would expect to find on the inside of a McDonald’s straw after you used it to suck a loogey from your lunch tray because Tony Baloney bet five dollars you wouldn’t*. In the worst of worlds, the inside of the yonker gets coated with a viscous gel made of smeared, blood-soaked snot. Swishing the yonker tip in water helps some, but not as much as you would hope.
The collection of yonkings in the last scenario looks pretty much like what you’d get if you mixed a cherry slurpee with half a glass of orange juice, then left the whole mixture to ferment on your dashboard in a disposable, clear-plastic graduated cylinder.
Anything that can put a fella off of melted cherry slurpees is truly a horror.
Bonus Nursing Horror: sleep deprivation! Goodnight, ladies and gents. See you all in about 18 hours.
* Yeah, I know, but I refuse to afford him the dignity of “Tony Bologna;” that bastard still owes me $4.35.
Jul 10
6
Blargh
I’ve recently been fighting bouts of black, mind-numbing depression that are just about starting to bug the hell out of me. I’m not sure what they’re a function of, but these are my guesses:
- Swinging wildly between 12-hour long night shifts and clinical days
- Switching from a diet of tuna and fresh vegetables to a diet of bologna-and-cheese sandwiches and Monster energy drinks
- Going from an exercise routine of cardio and swimming to an exercise routine of answering call bells and log-rolling the morbidly obese
- My conscience finally collapsing into a white dwarf under the pressure of everything I’ve piled on it.
Thank God, literally, for good friends and bad bourbon.
I only have one pair of scrubs, so I wash them over and over between each shift. It sounds like they’re done, which means I can move them to the dryer and get some sleep before clinicals this afternoon. Before I go, here’s something that always makes me laugh (the longer you watch it, the funnier it gets):
Here’s something that makes me laugh even more:
I don’t know why metal-dudes are so hysterically funny. They just are. Also, I would cheerfully give, like, a thousand dollars or something to know what song those kids are jamming to.
Jun 10
28
Good Evening, Miss Ghost
It has been a long, dark night. The ghosts of past sins have lingered like unwanted guests, and I’m waiting for the dawn to chase them back to their restless graves.
Me Cam!
(Updated every 15 seconds whenever I've got the camera turned on.)
