Thursday September 29 2022

nursej22, MSN, RN · Sep 29, 2022

Good Morning. I couldn't sleep past 4 am so I just got up and read my new (to me) Ken Follett book, Edge to Eternity. And I've been peeking at coverage about the hurricane.

Yesterday at work was frustrating. It was sort of like herding cats, but there were only two cats. Both co-workers were wound tighter than 10 day clocks. Yes, they had been busy, but they had charts and forms scattered every which way. We use an Excel spreadsheet to track patients, and they hadn't updated it for week, so I was trying to figure out who needed what. But when they gave me report, it's more like a vent of everything that has gone wrong. I finally figured out a to-do list for today. And all the misplaced charts lab results are found, labeled, and stored in the chart cabinet. I am going with sis today to her follow-up appointment at the cardiology clinic for her heart failure with yet another new person. She and I think she has gone back into a fib, so I don't know what the next steps are.

My dh has decided he is going to tell his boss that he will work until the end of October, to train his replacements (they hired 2 people to take his place) while taking his pre-planned 10 day vacation in middle of the month, at his same rate of pay. He feels like he has bent over backwards to stay on until they hired his replacement, and they should have been better prepared for his exit.

I trust Tweety is safe, and just waiting until he can get to work. I wonder if his hospital will have gotten more patients transferred in. The pictures of empty Tampa Bay were recalling amazing.

Hang in there Joe, with the surge of workload. I am feeling your pain.

Hi Dianah, I hope you and your hubby are rested up.

Hi Annie. You seem like a wonderful step-mom and have done more than many would do. Hoping the best for you and your family.

NoStars, I open this website every day hoping to see that your hubby is doing better. Perhaps today is the day.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Sep 29, 2022

G'day!

J22, hope your sister will be okay. Cardiac problems can be frustrating and touch and go (like you don't know this).

Most of the hospitals and nursing homes in evacuation zones went to sister facilities. One of the hospitals transferred only 40 patients as it's not snowbird season.

Miracles of all miracles I kept my power. I slept well with a sleeping pill. I was so anxious about losing power that I ruined my mood in the evening. It's still windy but no more rain. Took a walk and neighbors are cleaning up debris but everyone is thankful it was a minimal storm for us. However many thousands of people lost power. Mercifully it's cool out and with the windows open should be good for people. Miracle of all miracles the power came on for my immediate neighbors that were without power through the night. Must have been an easy fix.

Anyway the lockdown at work ends at 12:00 but dayshift is required to finish at 7pm unless people volunteer. Naturally I volunteered and am going in at 12:00. I have no mess to clean up (weird), no kids and have power.

One of the bridges are closed due to the high winds but otherwise things are returning to normal.

Such devastation to our south and to think it was heading to us. I feel bad for them. I hope they are safe and I do some donating soon.

Have a great day.

Editorial Team / Admin · Sep 29, 2022

Tweety, good you are safe!

Ado Annie, ASN, RN · Sep 29, 2022

Joe, you do seem to manage your hectic days pretty well. I go off my diet for all kinds of reasons -- stress, boredom, peer pressure ... ?

J22, how frustrating for your husband (and you) to have all this difficulty and uncertainty after having tried to be flexible to help out the company. Hope your sister's OK and able to get everything under control. Thanks for the kind words about stepson. I can get frustrated with him and put off by him but I also remember the cute and fun little boy he was. My sons only remember his more difficult years and they have little attachment to him, although when they were very little he was a fun big brother. They just don't remember that.

Tweety, how great that you didn't lose power! That's nice of you to go early to relieve the storm crew. I'm sure they will be very happy to see you.

Hi, dianah and Stars and anyone else who came to play.

Stepdaughter went to stepson's house last night with his wallet/ID, etc. and sent us a panicked message that he wasn't there. Turns out he had the police take him to the local behavioral health unit. Whew. Coincidentally, I was looking through presentations from the risk management conference yesterday and one of them was about case reviews. One of the cases they reviewed involved that very behavioral health unit, including the very doctor stepson has been seeing. Huge coincidence. Nothing came of the lawsuit for various reasons (the hospital ER discharged the teenage patient with schizophrenia who then went home and killed his grandfather) but it drives home how complicated and dicey mental health care and the legal system are.

Choir practice last night was good. Then hubs and I went to the grocery store. It has been a beautiful day (80 degrees right now and sunny).

Editorial Team / Admin · Sep 29, 2022

Hello all!

I have been following the hurricane news, hopefully most of what needs to be done has moved from preparation, to enduring, to mop-up. Tweety, that is good of you to volunteer to help at work. Amazing, that you didn't lose power! Is your bf's power on?

nursej22, I hope your dh's work will agree to keep him on to train ppl. What a weird arrangement they have presented. SMH. Hope your sister is stable.

Ado, hope your stepson is in a good place, and will continue to stabilize. Fingers crossed he will continue with his meds and therapy -- whatever helps

Joe, hope work wasn't crazy today! How is J doing?

I slept well (though was awake most of the night, the night before), and made another run to the store for a few things I'd forgotten yesterday. I also wanted to make a dish I hadn't made in a long time, so I got ingredients for that. It's a Hungarian Mushrooms Paprikash. Dh and I used to have something similar at a now-gone restaurant in San Francisco. A few years ago, I hankered for it, so looked it up on the web, and found a recipe that that, at least, was similar.

Dh made reservations for us to spend one night in Carlsbad in early November. A local hotel is holding a bluegrass get-together, -- like a local festival! -- and there will be jamming outside, in a large grassy courtyard area, all hours of the day and night. We figured we can feed the cats then drive out (it's about 1.25 hr away), then spend the night and drive back the next day. We are looking forward to it!

Friday we have a singalong program with The Big Group, at a board-and-care establishment. We have done music there before. Will report at 5:30, and the program starts at 6:30. They are usually good singers, so it should be fun!

Dh is doing the online jam. I opted out, as I was still cooking when it started.

It was *only* 87 degrees today! No triple-digits!!

Have a good evening!

Tweety, BSN, RN · Sep 30, 2022

Work was 6:1 busy but at least the assessments were charted by the day shift and I didn't add to it.

I was shocked to see only two of us RNs volunteered to come in and none of the techs. So most of the crew from the hurricane was still there and not happy that no one would come in.

Yes, Dianah, bf lost power yesterday afternoon, but mercifully had it restored this afternoon. I just checked and there are 143K customers still without power and that is down from the 160 I saw yesterday. This company has over 550,000 customers without power at the moment.

It was a lovely sunny afternoon from what I could tell from work. Nice cooler, less humid air as well.

Ado, glad your stepson is still in some kind of controlled space.

No Stars In My Eyes · Sep 30, 2022

After looking at the videos and photos of "THE Storm", I hurried over here to make sure Tweety is okay, and am quite relieved to find that he is! Whew! What a mess in other places in Florida, though.

I wrote the above paragraph around 5 PM(?) -ish or so. Have since had supper, cleaned up, took out all the trash and the bins at the roadside. Hope the wind doesn't launch the bins somewhere during the night! We're 'posta have wind and rain overnight.

Our cable wasn't working, so I called the company rep and she helped me get it straightened out. The cable and the TV were not 'talking to each other', but they rebooted our cable, and I did get to see the very end of the network news, then turned over to the Weather channel. Hubby said he heard on NPR there were two bridges in Florida out. I know one was the Sanibel Island bridge, but haven't heard mention of the other bridge. Hubby seemed to think it was the BIG bridge, (Tampa /St Pete /Bradenton areas?) but if it was, no one said anything about it on TV.

Nannie went to bed around 7:45 PM, I had to help her in the bathroom, to get out of her soaked pull-up and 2 pads and pants, and help clean her up after she had a BM. This might be gross to say, but she has the BIGGEST (in diameter) poops! Anyway, she has been going to bed earlier and sleeping much later in the day now, like until 1 PM, and sometimes it gets so late we have to go wake her up! Maybe she's 'winding down', maybe?

Yeah, well, as you all probably have already guessed, hubby did not go to the appt w/ the Gut doc. Hubby said, "What's the sense? They already know what it is." ...meaning it supposedly wasn't anything to worry about. His argument was that the doctor who looked at it right after the MRI was done said he'd seen it in other MRI's before (like the 2 spots on hubby's pancreas) and didn't think it was anything to worry about. Except the first time he told me this was right after he had the MRI, and it was the tech who did the MRI who ventured that opinion. Nothing I said made a bit of difference.

He called and cancelled it this morning. I actually felt like calling his PCP and "telling on him" about cancelling the Gut appt. MY thoughts were that the gut doc was going to talk with him, at least, about his symptoms and the results of the MRI. But....I didn't call and tattle.

Tonight he is saying that he believes he has bronchitis again. He'll have to go to his PCP about diagnosing that and writing for antibiotics or whatever. Probably won't see his PCP, but an alternate doc at that office, and I don't know if anyone would pick up on the MRI results. I would think they would have a record of the results of that MRI at the PCP's office, even if there was nothing indicating he skipped his GUT appt.

Whoooooo knows where this will all end up? (Only Gee-Zuss knows.)

*sigh*

Tweety, BSN, RN · Sep 30, 2022

Stars, thanks for the concern. Sorry he didn't go to his appointment. Remind him of this the next time he complains of pain. Denial is all this is. "If I don't know about it, I don't have to deal with it" and he probably knows they will tell him to stop drinking which he isn't willing to do. Hope his health isn't declining while you still have Nannie to deal with.

He's probably talking about the Skyway Bridge. It connects St. Petersburg to Manatee County (were Bradenton is). It's never been really tested with a major hurricane but hopefully is as hurricane proof as a Florida Bridge can be. It was closed for much of the storm and was still closed yesterday morning because of winds when I took this picture on my walk yesterday morning. But it opened up in the afternoon.