Tuesday March 12 2024

Tweety, BSN, RN · Mar 12, 2024

Good morning!

Joe, hope you have a good day.

J22, hope your hip feels better.

Ado, hope that nagging cough goes away. It's crazy how these things linger some times.

Stars, hope the hard work doesn't show up in gypsies today. I agree it can be satisfying to destroy things.

Dianah, that is so frustrating when there are glitches like that. Hope they can fix it for you.

It was nearly 1AM when I went to bed because I wasn't tired from sleeping so late yesterday. Dogs let me sleep an hour and a half past their meal time. I guess they aren't used to the time change yet.

While I bowled relatively decent last night our team was defeated by the last place team that decided last night was the night for them to bowl well. They are still in last place but we fell from 8th down to 10th out of 14 teams. Oh well.

Scheduled a hot yoga class this morning but not much else going on. Need to do some housework. This morning I finished up the annual training modules. I did one module each day off until it was done. I'm done a month early. So much satisfying that sitting and doing all at once for over four hours or more at the last minute.

In talking about my old friends that passed away the other day I started thinking about that group of friends I had back then, about 25 or so years ago. Mostly gay men I met at church. Several of them have passed away young. Another of that group passed away from lung cancer. I feel guilty I wasn't there much for his spouse, but it seemed to private and closer friends were with him at the end. A couple of others passed away, including my ex. Life sure can be short for some people. I appreciate my robust health for sure.

On that note. Have a great day!

Have a good day.

No Stars In My Eyes · Mar 12, 2024

Okay, I'm up and so is Nannie. She is squinting out the back door, at the VERY BRIGHT and SUNNY back yard. Supposed to get up to 71 degrees today. I'm on my 2nd cup of coffee, and have to go back upstairs to take my meds. Will have to fill Nannie's and my mediset.....oh joy, with the accent on the OY!

j22, hope your 'popped' hip un-pops. I don't like that "it only hurts" when you walk on it! It is disconcerting to hear (feel) a noise from inside your own body! I can still recall the sound of my ankle bone cracking when it broke. I hope to never hear that noise ever again!

I feel pretty good today, and I hope saying so doesn't jinx me! There are no terribly noisy gypsies visiting, AND my head is out from under the mental clouds of gloom for a change.

I had two blouses I saved from when I was too big to wear them, and now they 'fit' me... hanging down like I'm wearing a cardboard box. Toooo big! So, it is added now to the thrift shop donations.

Don't have anything pressing to go out for (amazing!) but there are plenty of things to do upstairs, putting clothes away, tossing more old magazines, and finding more stuff to pitch out or donate, and generally straightening things up. I guess I am rather a messy person, tho I don't often think of myself that way. Oh well, so what, who cares? I USED TO BE neat when I lived alone and didn't have anyone else to take care of, once upon a time.

Nannie is admiring how her TAN shoes match her TAN pants.....she sits there staring out at them (legs raised up in the recliners footrest.) She is fascinated with both pairs of the new shoes SiL got her, but today, just to change things up, I put the tan ones on her, and not the purple ones. Maybe she hypnotizes herself?

Or, because of the 1 + 1/2 of her AM pills she takes..... the half pill was a little larger than 1/2 today, so maybe she will doze off soon? I hope so! It is one of those meds that keeps her calm. Many people take it at night, but she has several pills she takes at night and adding this particular 1 and 1/2 pills to the night time meds would probably make it much more difficult to get her in to the bedroom....personally, I think that, if added to the other pills she takes at night, it would likely zombify her! So, the meds are spread out to keep a steady amount of 'soothing-ness' in her bloodstream.

Speaking of zombifying.....remember when everyone used to be get Thorazine to keep them 'calm'? THAT med made dry-mouthed zombies of a LOT of people! There are a few other meds that are pretty much not being used nowadays for the same reason; these 'newer' ones are subtler, and work well without completely doping a person out of this world. Nannie does nap a lot, but we all agree (doc, me, and SiL) that it is more likely a 'product' of her age and boredom, to do so. She doesn't read anymore, or do crossword puzzles, or sew....except in her sleep! Lots of folks nap frequently when they are 94, like she is. And it's better than her being so restless and argumentative like she used to be! If she still had her mind, she wouldn't be getting these meds, but the swiss-cheese factor of her brain is getting more pronounced by the month.

To the tune of "Summertime": "Amyloids, and the thinking gets queasy; try'n to speak, and confusion is high. Parents 'r' gone, but she doesn't remember, so hush little Nannie, just close your eyes."

YAY! Nannie's eyes are tired from staring into the sunny back yard, so she has just closed them! Hope they stay that way for a while! Her mouth is starting to hang open, and I think she will probably start talking in her sleep soon.

Momo is sleeping too, but if I move just to shift my position, she is WIDE awake. Her main concern is ALWAYS where I am and what I might be doing if I move even a hair. She is that kind of a 'watch-dog'; she watches me a LOT! She may come up to the top step if I go upstairs for long, and if I click my tongue to her she comes dashing into the bedroom with a great deal of excitement. I lift her up onto the bed, and she positions herself under the covers, but with her nose and eyes sticking out so she can keep track of me.

Okay, enough blathering. I will set aside my laptop now and go upstairs to prowl around. Hope everyone's day is going well.

Later!

nursej22, MSN, RN · Mar 12, 2024

My hip does feel better today, just sort of like a pulled muscle. I know the dogs want to go for a walk, but I think I want to let it calm down a little more. I was really hurting about 3 am last night, and I took one of dh's leftover percocet. Oh my, I am a light weight. I slept until 9! I haven't stayed in bed that long for a year!

I was going to watch an online seminar about joint replacement but they did it with Microsoft Teams and my computer didn't like it. Oh well. I was just curious, because of the clicking and pain and I get in my knees.

I remember giving Thorazine, but I think it was going out of favor when I entered nursing. At my first job, in a nursing home, we gave Haldol, and Mellaril (which I think is no longer made). There were some other psychoactive drugs, too, that I think are ancient. And there there a lot of tremors, shuffling, chewing motions and drooling as long term side effects. Whenever I see TV commercials for drugs to treat tardive dyskinesia, I remember that nursing home.

I've got laundry going, and not much else. I am filling another bag with old office work clothes. Playing online Trivia tonight. Samuel L. Jackson is one of the categories, so I have youngest ds's word that he will be home in time for that.

My goofy little dog has been plucking flower buds off my camellia bush to chew on. What a weirdo. And now the two of them are chewing on each other's lower lips and hind legs.

No Stars In My Eyes · Mar 12, 2024

Know what I have done today? 🤔

... NUFFINK! 😄 Nuttin' at all!

Ado Annie, ASN, RN · Mar 12, 2024

Drinking from a firehose at work right now. NHSN annual training is all next week and there are hours and hours worth of online modules I could watch. There's a new requirement for Antibiotic Use/ Antibiotic Resistance that I've got to figure out how to manage. Then a workshop on RCAs put on by our PSO. Just got assigned annual training from the hospital. And they're updating Epic and calling it "Nurse Well-Being" -- the changes are meant to simplify and I guess they do -- but that was one more task. And since I don't do inpatient nursing every day (or even every week) I'll still have to rediscover how to do things when I do. It doesn't sound like that much, but all together it feels very heavy.

J22, I hope your hip continues to improve. It's a little disconcerting to read "it only hurts when I walk" !!

Gma has topical haldol (I never knew there was such a thing) as part of our new arsenal for when she gets agitated. If the hospice nurses and aides will give Hubs an idea when they will arrive, he will plan to use it a few minutes before. They sent a male aide to bathe her the other day and Hubs was afraid to even try that. I am of two minds -- generally speaking, I think a nurse or aide can be assigned without regard to their sex (or race or what have you) and we should all accept that. On the other hand, my 93-year-old batty MiL is highly likely to freak out over a man trying to get her to undress and bathe. (I mean, she even does that with her son, even though she sometimes thinks he's her husband). Since she has been more alert lately she wants to get up and go in the kitchen, then she fixates on a mess she has to clean up. For instance, the area where we feed the cats. The cats are VERY MESSY and we keep paper towels down to make it easier to clean up but she wants to pick up all the little bits of cat food and put them in a napkin. And I don't trust her not to put them in her mouth.

Oh, enough about Gma. Time to figure out what the crew is going to eat tonight. I have no good ideas. Not even any bad ones.