My Grown-Up (Nursing) Christmas List

[VivaLasViejas]

1. A heated shiatsu foot massager. I didn't even know they existed until yesterday when I was doing a little 'retail therapy' and saw the thing on display at Costco. I tried it out and promptly fell asleep in the chair...imagine how this little machine would feel on your feet after the ubiquitous shift-from-Hell and your significant other would rather eat a live chicken than rub them for you.
2. A year's supply of Depends for the middle-aged nurse on the 'go'. (Sorry, couldn't resist being punny.)
3. Gift card/certificate to a good shoe store...the more expensive, the better. As in Dansko, Z-Coil, Birkenstock et. al. Nothing is more precious---or harder to find---that the right pair of work shoes. Besides, if we had great footwear, we probably wouldn't need item #1.
4. An iPod Shuffle. It's so small that we can clip it inside a scrub pocket and listen to music virtually undetected. This is very useful in drowning out the cacophony that results when a patient, her physician, and eleven family members are screaming at us all at once...
5. Here's an idea for the cost-conscious: Bubble wrap! Especially the larger sizes that pop easily and make a satisfying sound when they do. There is absolutely nothing (short of getting completely trashed on Long Island Iced Teas, that is) that is more effective at relieving the stress associated with nursing. I'm only half-kidding...when I was the director of nursing in an assisted living facility, my staff always knew to step lightly whenever they heard what sounded like overamped popcorn coming from the general direction of my office.
6. A year's subscription to almost any periodical that doesn't have anything to do with our profession. The last thing we want to thumb through on that rare day off is a publication containing the words "health care".......which eliminates Time and Newsweek, as well as all women's' magazines and the local newspaper. (I'm thinking Playgirl here, but that's just me.)
7. A case of chemical de-icer for those frosty nights when we leave the workplace dead tired, only to be confronted with an inch-thick coating of ice on the windshield and the prospect of half an hour of chipping away at it with a credit card. I don't give a hang what the tree-hugger types have to say about it: if they don't want us to use the stuff, they can come and chip the ice off our cars while we wait inside a warm place with a cup of cocoa.
8. Oh, and "Santa", if there's any room left in your goodie bag, there isn't a nurse on the planet who couldn't use an all-expenses-paid vacation in a tropical paradise where there are no call lights, ringing phones, micromanaging managers, impatient patients, bullying doctors, nasty smells, or double shifts.
9. In fact, scratch the rest of the list...I'll take #8!!!!!

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

A remote car starter, so you get into a car all toasty warm, and even inch thick ice has started to melt from the inside. Highly recommended.

Nice! Mmmmmmmmm........

[cchiaffarelli]

I would like to ask Santa for full custody of my two boys (not too much to ask right?)...:icon_roll

[linzz]

I love the remote car starter idea, with the de-icing option. I sat in a heated car seat for the first time in my life last winter, that also heaven.

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

Playgirl? Seriously? :icon_roll:grn: It that cheesy rag still in existence? :rotfl:

I like the remote car starter, the foot massage thingy, and instead of a sanity suit . . how about an invisibility suit? That and a People Magazine!

I always signed up for New Years and New Years Day . . .amazing how many folks want that off instead of Christmas/Thanksgiving. I usually had both off each year.

Now, working hospice . . .I'm off on all holidays unless we get a call.

Someone could come and clean my house - that would be the greatest present of all. :rckn:

steph

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

Playgirl? Seriously? :icon_roll:grn: It that cheesy rag still in existence? :rotfl:

steph

I dunno........the guys' version of it certainly is!:icon_roll

Oh, yeah, I forgot: they buy Playboy to read the articles.

[oguesswhat]

I dunno........the guys' version of it certainly is!:icon_roll

Oh, yeah, I forgot: they buy Playboy to read the articles.

Actually I guess they have really good articles actually. My boyfriend doesn't actually get the magazine though I know he has at least seen them at some point in his life. Anyways he has a book that talks about how to get articles into the different magazines and said that Playboy is really hard to get into! (It talks about how much you get paid if experience is needed ect for every magazine you can think of I guess) Which is crazy! I however have never seen the magazine before...though I love the tv show (girls next door) it's a guilty pleasure ha...though I am not to sure about the new season. :-p

[nerdtonurse?, BSN, RN]

One more, in honor of the train wreck of a weekend I'm having so far, with one day to go....

A tazer. To shock a doctor back into acting like a human being, and not a tin plated excuse for a deity....

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

One more, in honor of the train wreck of a weekend I'm having so far, with one day to go....

A tazer. To shock a doctor back into acting like a human being, and not a tin plated excuse for a deity....

Oh! I want one too!!:anpom:

steph

[cheska_rn, ASN, RN]

That was wonderful! You should try to get that published - in 'Playgirl' of course.

[Abuelita]

Like Steph, I don't even know if it's still around. I don't buy that sort of stuff anyway.

[allthemadmen]

and for me -- i'll take a group of brand new nurses who don't all insist upon having christmas off this year and every year. oh, and new year's, thanksgiving, easter, mother's day and the fourth of july!

i will be a new grad next year, and just for the record, i would gladly work every new year's (eve and day), thanksgiving (the whole darned weekend), mother's day, valentine's, easter, fourth of july, etc for the rest of my life! -as long as i have christmas off. :)

[psalm, RN]

I'd like a monthly subscription to this: At least once a month I would get a heartfelt "thank you" from an alert and oriented patient and/or my manager or co-workers. (my manager and/or co-workers don't have to be A&O but it would be an added bonus).