Monday January 8th 2024

[Joe NightingMale, MSN, RN]

Stars it sounds like a very productive day

Hi TMB

NJ22 I wish we had that kind of weather here

Ado that's good that she doesn't wander

Yesterday was pretty good and productive.  Got the cooking done for the week before church.  After church I finished up baking bread.  Baked part in loaf pans and part on a baking sheet, the latter turned out better.  Exercised and watched The Crown.  And finally started on a dating profile.  Was tricky and not quite done yet, although what I have current seems pretty good

Have fasting labs this morning, will stop by the doctor's this morning and probably work through lunch to compensate.  Otherwise it should be a fairly ordinary day, or so I hope

Going to be in the mid 30s again, snow will likely start tonight and continue until sometime tomorrow.  Looks like it won't be too bad, only a few inches

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

Good morning!

Too tired and lazy to post after work last night.  

When I did dating apps it was usually a spontaneous decision to get on an app and make a profile.  No forethought or anxiety about it.  

We lost a dementia patient on Saturday night.  His nephew found him asleep in his car which is miles from the hospital and he was wearing hospital socks that he had worn down.  Good thing we don't have winters.  Sunday another man with dementia got dressed and was wandering.  He was in his street clothes and if he just walked out people probably wouldn't have noticed.  He was easy going and easy to predict but 60 seconds later forgot everything and started to wonder again.  I didn't feel the need he needed medication.  But, nothing wrong with giving an agitated patient sedation or psych meds to keep them on an even keel.  They are often in distress, never mind the stress they cause caregivers.  

Today, I have to go get a dental CT scan prior to my root canal next week.  I'm ready to get this all over with.  Thankfully my broken tooth is not painful.

New bowling season starts tonight.  One of my teammates is sick with a respiratory virus.  Lots of crap going around.  Hope I don't catch it.  Yesterday we got four admissions, all four with respiratory stuff like pneumonia, RSV and Influenza.  

 

 

[No Stars In My Eyes]

Yup, it is 'back to the masks' up here, also, because of all the crud going around. Now I just have to remember to start using them again! 

Woke up at 8 AM  and looked for the wall clock, but I have not put it up yet, so when I looked to the direction where the clock was in my small bedroom, there was a window, instead. Went back to sleep and got up at 11:30 AM. Had my first cup of coffee, got dressed, and made my bed. Came down and got Nannie up, dressed, to her recliner, and breakfasted. She already has closed her eyes. ? I love it when that happens!

 Used her last Seroquel last night, so checked with the pharmacy and the script had not been called in yet. They will send a fax to the doc's office, and I also called the doc's office to expedite the refill. I want to get that med into her, because in my opinion Seroquel is the "magic" pill which keeps her tolerable. She takes 50 mg. morning and evening. Have a laundry going (what else is new?!) Now I have to get a 2nd cup of coffee to 'come to' so I can do something besides sit here feeling stunned. When the Seroquel is called in, I will drive over to Walmart to pick it up. Maybe on the way I will drop the shredding off at UPS and be done with it!  w00t!

Sunny and in the low 50's today; tomorrow is the day we are supposed to get a frog-drowning rain. I hope to start in on picking up the stuff piled up in the smaller bedroom, and also shuffle the boxes out of the bottom of the closets in both rooms. It would be nice if I was like Samantha (of Bewitched) so I could wiggle my nose, nod my head once, and it would all be done: BING! ....Dream on, Stars!

All for now. You KNOW I will be back here later on!

[dianah, ASN]

Hello all!

Joe, you are ambitious, always doing something, always trying to better yourself.  It's encouraging!  Good luck with the dating site!

Tweety, sad about the dementia patient.  Unfortunately, if they don't have 1:1 sitter, they just might elope.  Dh and I are SO glad to be done with our flu/whatever-it-was!  Can't imagine being so sick to be admitted!  Grateful we were not that sick.  So, if one of your bowling teammates is out, do you still bowl with reduced numbers, or do you have a spare (pun intended) or do you forfeit?

No Stars, you are an inspiration as well, plugging along!  Bet you are anxious to have The Big Room to yourself, with room to stretch around!

Yesterday we spent the afternoon at Disneyland!  Got our steps in (12K), and probably 5 miles.  JUST in Disneyland park, didn't go to California Adventure.  One of my bracelets broke, had to throw it away as there was no repairing it, either on the fly or at home.  I had put some anti-pronating inserts into my shoes, and they apparently changed things so radically, that I developed, not one but TWO blisters at the back of the heels.  So, had to get band-aids for those at First Aid, and (since I went Dapper) I had to practically undress to get the pantyhose down so I could apply the bandaids!  (sorry for the visual, it was kinda comical, actually).  Yes, I removed the inserts and though it was still painful to walk, it was better with the bandaids. 

It never got higher than 60 degrees, and as soon as the sun went down, the temperature dropped to probably 50 or less.  We brought heavy coats and gloves, and were glad to have them, but my feet were still cold.  We got to visit with a couple of our musician friends, a cast member we had met at another visit, and we met a very nice couple from Long Beach (he is a nurse and a musician as well!). 

I wore a necklace of several strands of small pearls, attached to one clasp.  First time wearing it, wasn't real familiar with the clasp but I did OK -- until I tried to take it off, at home.  Apparently I tugged too hard on one area (doing it all by braille, not able to see what I was doing), and broke one of the strands.  I was able to retrieve the mini pearls that dropped, and will now have to take it to be re-strung (I don't think I can repair it). 

We ate at a new-to-us restaurant that featured Cajun food.  I don't eat beef or pork, and the choices were pretty slim for me.  Of course, these days there is ALWAYS a "vegan" choice on the menu.  The choice, however, wasn't very tasty (to me) -- a risotto with Winter squashes and spinach.  I would have gone for different flavors, myself.  So, this was the first Disney restaurant that I was a little disappointed with.  Plus most of their seating was outside, and it was cold!  (can't believe they had no heaters!)

So, we did enjoy our visit, seeing all the lights and meeting ppl, but there were disappointments to the visit this time, too! 

We got up early today to drop off the car to get the body work done, and we have a rental.  All they had was a late-model RED, convertible camaro!  Dh and I are both rolling our eyes, getting in and out of this low-slung sporty car.  It's just not us.  It's too low to the ground for our tastes (we are used to an SUV).  It's just meh.  Will be happy when we get OUR car back!

Have a good day!

[nursej22, MSN, RN]

Good snowy morning! Awoke to some fat, wet flakes floating down. Only about an inch or two accumulated, now it is melting. I drug my chubby bum to the park for a jog. It was actually pretty nice, although my cheeks and ears were bight red when I got back. I treated myself to Starbucks on the way home. Our insurance claim payment came through, woot! Now we are going to get someone to update the casements and interior doors to match what we had done ten years ago. Dh has always been irked that we didn't do it originally, but we were out of money and I wanted my house back! Now he's going to have to clean up some more of his stuff (not quite a hoard, but close). 
 Dementia really is awful, but Seroquel has really helped a lot of people. When I first started nursing we had haldol and Mellaril, and many of my nursing home patients were like shuffling zombies. One patient was a retired MD and his wife refused any meds, except IM vistaril. That's tricky to give when some one is swinging at you or pulling your hair. And he would run off frequently. I quit when I got reprimanded for letting him leave. 

I got my bite guard kit in the mail, so I'll being doing arts and crafts. And we're going to watch the Huskies play this afternoon. Go Dawgs! Woof!

[Ado Annie, ASN, RN]

I learn something new everyday. We had a patient with cold agglutinin showing up on his/her type and cross for a transfusion. Borrowed a blood warmer (I've never used one) and avoided having to transfer the patient. 

Tweety, I'm glad your patient didn't wander out into subzero weather. It's scary how easy it is for them to slip past us, isn't it?

Risotto with squash and spinach sounds pretty good to me, depending on how it was seasoned. Don't know about Cajun seasoning, whether that would be good or not. 

It is our day for rain. It rained all night. I even heard thunder in the wee hours. Supposed to be windy tonight and tomorrow. A front moving in over the weekend that won't be bad but then some very cold air early next week. (high 15, low 1 per the forecast). Brr. 

Have had some low back pain the last couple of days and have to make myself get up and move after sitting at my desk for awhile. Can't think of anything I did to deserve it ?

Did have a chat with my sister the other night. She and stepdaughter both just don't seem to know how to get off the phone. I love talking, just don't want to be tied to the phone for 2 hours. She is finally feeling "over" everything with the gall bladder issues and then c diff. She repeated a couple of things that she'd already told me about but I guess that's not too abnormal for her age. 

It *is* getting harder to get in/out of low-slung vehicles! On the other hand, we sometimes make short little 93-year-old Gma climb up into Hubs' big pickup truck (GMC Sierra). He keeps a stepstool in the truck for her to use and she does pretty well. 

 

[No Stars In My Eyes]

When I had to buy another car, I decided that although I MUCH prefer driving a stick, with the gypsies visiting so often, it would be wiser to get an automatic. And a car that didn't sit very low to the ground. Trying to rise up from a car seat with your knees higher than your butt is awkward, but really quite difficult when gypsies are in residence.

Saw our lawn-mowing neighbor, I told him I wanted to give him hubby's big red toolbox with all the drawers. It won't be for a while, not until when BiL and SiL and I get around to cleaning out the shed, once Springtime weather arrives. I only plan on keeping the basic tools I had when hubby and I got married, and maybe keep a few things BiL can use over here without having to tote his tools back and forth. Doubt that BiL will need too many of the tools from hubby's collection.   Since only *I* get to decide what to distribute (or sell or donate or toss out), I am going to give the neighbor a whole bunch of tools, because he can really use them. He's had a tough life, and he has always been good to us, and I think he deserves them. He does a lot of odd jobs. And if he decides he has to sell what I give him, when he's in a pinch, that's fine with me. I saw him a couple of weeks ago, working outside on a VERY cold day with NO gloves on, so I just gave him 3 pair of hubby's gloves today.

2nd batch of laundry just finished, so into the dryer they go!  I'm going to put some more tatty and/or unused blankets, sheets, covers, and towels in to wash. I will probably have a 50 gal. trashbag or two stuffed to the gills by the time I get through. Then I have to find out where the animal shelter is!

I just love off-loading unused stuff that will be useful to others! 

Anyway, pretty soon it will be time to go pick up Nannie's Seroquel refill. I think I will stop and get us some SUBWAY sandwiches for supper. Not sure I will be taking Momo along, though. Oh well for her!

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

Dianah, sorry to read about your woes with blisters.  

When a bowler is absent they get an "blind" or absent score which is their average minus 10 points.  If it's the start of the season and a person isn't there it counts as a "vacancy" as if you don't have a team member and there is a standard score you have to take for that.  

I'm not a fan of risotto.  Too mushy.

The scan was quick and easy.  Next week is the root canal.  Ugh.  The location where I got the scan is on the opposite side of the county and I got every light, but arrived with one minute to spare before my appointment.  The scan took 10 seconds.  I had to wait about five minutes for the endodontist to read it to make sure it was a good scan.  I stopped for a quick veggie burger lunch and came home and took a nap.  All in all nothing much happened today.  

My Toyota seems to be easy to get into so I'll probably keep a similar car as I age.  My worst habit for my back seems to be when I'm at my home computer doing stuff that takes time eventually I'm slouched way down in the chair not having good posture.

I guess I have good bone density because I left work last night out an exit I never use as the one I use is the ER and they were on lockdown (probably a shooting).  I was looking at messages on my phone and missed a step and wiped out and fell on my hands and knees on hard concrete.  No one saw as it was a remote location but I'm sure it's on security camera somewhere.  Silly me.  Lesson:  Don't walk and look at phone at the same time.  LOL

 

[nursej22, MSN, RN]

Ouch! The older I get, the more painful the fall.

[No Stars In My Eyes]

 My first attempt to get Nannie's refill, which they said they had gotten from the doc, I wrongly assumed that meant they had it READY. But when I got there they told me the wait would be "at least" 1/2 hour. ? That was toooo long for me to wait. I brought supper home and after we ate, I left again. I took Momo on the 2nd trip over there. Then I had to stop at Food Lion....wanted to get dog food ('evolve' brand) but they were out of her favorite, salmon. When I was checking out, I handed the empty box to the cashier, and told him to make sure to tell the manager of the dog food section, it  needs to get restocked pronto! But I did get some that she does like, except for some reason she is not too hepped up about eating today. Not acting sick or anything, tho' she only ate about 1/4th of the food I put down when we got back. I'm not very worried, because sometimes she prefers to eat when she's alone. She may eat it later this evening, who knows?!

When I was rolling the grocery cart out to the car, a man was walking up through the parking lot, looking at his phone....never saw me, and stopped short just before he walked into the cart. He stopped and looked up at me, and I smiled bigly and said, "Hello!" Guess he thought I was being sarcastic, but I wasn't; he didn't say anything back to me. 

Okay, over and out. Be well, watch out for the concrete steps....

[dianah, ASN]

Ow!  Tweety, be CAREFUL!! 

Yah, if the risotto had a great flavor, or even some spice to it (cajun, yanno), I might have liked it better.  It was pretty bland, and yes, a little mushy.  I ended up eating all the veggies and leaving most of the grain.  Not a fan, I'm afraid, of that version.

We got the rental then turned in the car for its body work.  Came home and I napped a little (last night's sleep left a LOT to be desired, and then we got up early).  Then we ate lunch and watched some Poirot (half an episode) and dh lay down for a nap (he woke up at 5 this morning, and has been nonstop with car 'things' and pet care 'things').  I went into sit on the bed to read, and promptly fell asleep!  Well, there goes sleeping tonight, I'm afraid, LOL!  Dh says I must have needed it...

Have a good evening!

 

[No Stars In My Eyes]

Watching HGTV. It never occurred to me before that I might enjoy this station, but I do. And it is a nice change from all the murder/crime/detective shows we've watched for years. But sometimes, on the House Hunters show, I think we are seeing pre-divorce proceedings in the making, with a lot of disagreements between the couples, including whining, pouting, etc. "I want only move-in ready.", and  "I want projects to work on so I can build equity." and, "No carpeting; This floor has to go!," and "I hate this color."(Nannie and I keep saying BUY SOME PAINT!) And so many parents have to have their eyes on the children AT ALL TIMES; and no stairs because the kids might fall. OY.  I actually enjoy watching the demolition and rebuilding better than House Hunters. I would LOVE for some of the people from one of those shows to come in here and gut this house, see all the improvements they could make to bring in more light in; but it ain't happenin'. But these shows keep Nannie 'busy' until bedtime.....which is coming up SOON (25 minutes!)