I'm back!

Hi guys! OK I've been back a week I know but it has taken me all this time to catch up on everything that you've been writing.
So yep my registration came through (even though the forms had to make a round trip to the Midwest). I just don't have a job yet. I'm working on that, promise.

I always said that I would tell you guys, around the time of my graduation, my name and what I look like. So here's the first bit of the integration of my split-internet-personalities...
You can all now call me Claire.

Hey

Hi guys!
I'm still alive but have to borrow the internet from the camp so I'm keeping a low profile. There's been a few accidents along the way this summer and I've had the joys of experiencing the American health care system from the patient side twice. I *heart* nurse practitioners!

I wanted to post that my registration came through!! And I'm now an Adult Nurse!

Woohoo to no longer being a student, although I thought it would never happen at some points.
Love WardBunny

What Have I Been Doing....

Well... I've been busy. No really I do occasionally move from the front of my computer. The sad thing is that although I have all this time I have spent relatively little time working in any of the hospitals.
Agency-wise I've done 3 night shifts. I hate night shift. I hate more night shift in wards where I don't have a scooby as to what is going on. General surgery for example by-passes me a bit, although by the 2nd night I could at least follow the hand over. It was interesting that I got a shift back on my old orthopaedic ward. I loved that place when I was there and yea it even still smells the same. Not bad, I've been on wards that stink to high heaven, just a certain blend of soap and equipment stocked. It's unique to the ward, none of the other ortho wards I've been on smell the same.
In other places - I've been moving out of the flat. It's gone to mammoth proportions. Of course as world's best procrastinator I've put it all off to the last day. Aren't I smart! No wonder people shake their heads when I try to prioritise!
I've got the optician tomorrow for my contact lens fitting. Well you imagine jumping in a lake with a pair of glasses. Oh and if it couldn't be worse the glasses I do have don't react to the sunlight so I'd be guarding the lake without sunglasses. That's far more difficult than it sounds you know.

Not long till I leave now. I'll be there this time next week!!! So excited!

On This Day....

... in 1990 the World Health Organisation passed a resolution to remove Homosexuality from it's list of mental illnesses.

The World Health Organization's ICD-9 (1977) listed homosexuality as a mental illness, and in 1990, a resolution was adopted to remove it in the ICD-10 (1993).

Wikipedia

The ICD-10 then carried the note-

Sexual orientation by itself is not to be regarded as a disorder.

Movin' On

I've not got long left....
My flights for the USA leave on the 1st of June which only leaves ?15 days. So plan....

17th -
18th - Agency Night Shift
19th - Agency Night Shift
20th - Pack Up Flat
21st - Youth Group
22nd -
23rd - Agency Night Shift
24th - Pack Up Flat
25th -
27th - Move out remainder of stuff
28th - Final Youth Group, Clean Flat
29th - Hand in flat keys
30th - Packing
31st - More Packing
1st June! - Leave for camp!

Dang! See I have to leave the flat and pack for camp and earn money at the same time. We need an extra week in May people! I also have to - find a way of getting a medical for less than the £80 my practice charges; see my dentist (lest one of my teeth decides to abscess/get infected/lose a filling); get asthma review; make sure NMC/college paperwork is finalised; pay off all debts to college; see the doc so they can medicate my panic attacks for the next 3 months......

I should probably do the doc / dentist / nurse on one day (like I don't already spend enough time in the NHS as is). Just realised that sticking all that into one day would be some people's idea of hell. It's my idea of freaking boring. I intensely dislike waiting rooms. All waiting rooms.

The dentist's is the worst simply because you find 2 kinds of person in my dentist's practice. Those with no/bad teeth (that includes me) and those who freak-out at the thought of a check up. (I am sacred of a lot of things but the dentist's isn't one of them.) When I'm in pain I want everyone else to naff off and I can be quite nasty about it too so why in the name of the wee man would I want to listen to someone gibbering on about a simple check-up? Last time I went to the doc's I was (almost) rocking back and forth as I was nursing the tail end of a major panic attack. So you can imagine the looks I was getting that day.

I guess that having other people judge you when you walk in doesn't help. Why are you not limping / bleeding / moaning with pain? Excuse me but when did the GP become A&E? I'm also guessing that anyone sneezing and coughing is black-balled.

And Finally.... was out for dinner with the Milkman, Tex, the Artful Hustler, Hollywood, the Milkman's BFF, the Artful Hustler's BFF and Mr. Sensible tonight. Hollywood is not known for a manly sneeze and so when the giant phallic symbol (sorry they call it a pepper mill) got knocked over he started a sneezing fit. The Milkman's BFF yelled at the top of his lungs -
"SWINE FLU!"
And proceeded to try and climb over the partition wall thing in an attempt to get away. He only brought the attention of every diner in the restaurant to our table. Of course we are a big attention draw the 8 of us, our conversations can be on anything from movies and books, to Ann Summers and the dark side of the internet!

I Feel The Need To Spam

SCORE! The best Trekkie meme ever!

Your results:
You are Deanna Troi

You are a caring and loving individual.
You understand people's emotions and
you are able to comfort and counsel them.
Deanna Troi - 95%

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Beverly Crusher - 65%

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Spock - 64%

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Chekov - 60%

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Leonard McCoy (Bones) - 55%

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Uhura - 55%

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Will Riker - 50%

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An Expendable Character (Redshirt) - 50%

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Data - 48%

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Worf - 45%

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Mr. Sulu - 40%

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Jean-Luc Picard - 40%

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Mr. Scott - 35%

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James T. Kirk (Captain) - 30%

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Geordi LaForge - 25%

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Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Test

Anyone else think that Deanna would be a kick-ass nurse?

Florence Nightingale's Museum

I recommend that if you like your history / nursing / history of nursing you need to go to the Florence Nightingale museum.
It has an amazing amount of information on her life and the work she did. There is also an exhibit on Mary Seacole (who is also a total idol of mine!).
We couldn't take photos inside sadly and as I look back over the contents of my digital camera most of the photos really aren't worth cluttering the blog up.

On a similar note the keyring in the photo from the post before is Nurse Bean (it's from a collection). I have a larger one too but I thought since I couldn't be in the photos my keyring could be. That actually turned out better than I thought.

So nothing much more to report. My visa was granted so I shall go to the States!
Only 2 weeks to go!

Sleepy

Someone's put something in my drink. I'm exhausted.
I do have photos.
They are stuck on my camera... except this one.
Did go to Flo's museum - will report on that tomorrow.
Visa was approved so I can go to camp this year!
Right... can I sleep now?

London

Well tonight I board a train and head down the illustrious capital of this tiny isle...

Oh all right. I'm dragging my butt to London so I can attend my interview at the American Embassy. It's a requirement of me getting my visa so I can actually work at camp this year.

I said to Karin over at 12 Hour Nurse that I would go to the Florence Nightingale museum and post photos. So in about 24 hour's time I should have a post up with my London hi-jinxs. Or there will be a news story about a mad Scottish woman getting arrested.......

The Elephant in the Room

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
By Terry Kettering

There’s an elephant in the room.
It is large and squatting,
so it is hard to get around it.

Yet we squeeze by with,
“How are you?” and, “I’m fine,”
and a thousand other forms of trivial chatter.

We talk about the weather;
we talk about work;
we talk about everything else—
except the elephant in the room.

There’s an elephant in the room.
We all know it is there.
We are thinking about the elephant
as we talk together.

It is constantly on our minds.
For, you see, it is a very big elephant.
It has hurt us all, but we do not talk about
the elephant in the room.

Oh, please, say her name.
Oh, please, say “Barbara” again.
Oh, please, let’s talk about
the elephant in the room.

For if we talk about her death,
perhaps we can talk about her life.
Can I say, “Barbara” to you
and not have you look away?
For if I cannot,
then you are leaving me alone
in a room—with an elephant.

My elephant isn't bereavement but the poem is true all the same.

Red

Currently I'm all red, literally. I'm sunburnt. Yes, in Scotland. Yes, in April. Sometimes it does happen! I think I have 1st degree burns on both my arms. If it blisters tomorrow I'll have a real problem. I burn so easily I usually wear factor 50 but it is Scotland in April, I wasn't expecting burns.

I've also re-dyed my hair mostly so that I don't have to mess with the blog header. I was brunette for a month back there but it just wasn't me. I'm back to being a red head. My mother doesn't understand. She didn't get my need to dye my hair purple and have a crew cut years ago. And to think that NO-ONE thought I was gay! Mind you even I didn't know back then.

So I'm red from head to foot! Well not exactly my feet.... they didn't burn today.

Wow

I didn't know there were that many people out there who read the blog.
Shucks.

I wish I could hug you all!

Update Fail

Sorry guys! I've even been tagged and I've still not updated.
I'll post later honest.

Tired...

2 very long days.... 12 and a half hours each.... 4 hours sleep between......
Very, very tired. Sorry folks.
I'll try to get out of bed tomorrow.

Random Word Splats

Blood Spatter!

Test you blood spatter analysis skills with the New Scientist.
Clearly I've watched far too many CSI eps and documentaries. I only got one wrong and it wasn't even totally wrong. Saying that sometimes you have to figure out where blood on sheets / floors has come from. The missing venflon isn't always obvious!

With thanks to William the Coroner!

You Thought You Did Odd Things

I've spent this evening trying to learn these snazzy moves.

The chronic unfit (myself) should probably not attempt this kind of thing. Well not in public!

EDIT: This video is only part 1 of 3. And I've still not mastered my left from my right!

Being Green / Being Mean (the toilet talk)

This is an odd balance...
I can be really stingy. Have to be; my money's running out and with this supposed placement over my head I'm not taking as many agency shifts as I could because I really don't know what I'm doing next week. (Honest he's not given me a placement yet and agency needs at least some advance warning.)
This brought me to an interesting thought do you have to compromise on being green so you can be mean instead? There's a toilet paper advert running that states for every tree they use, they will plant three new ones. We don't use this brand in the flat. We use the cheep as chips, supermarket value brand. This costs about £1 for 12 rolls. The brand planting all the trees costs £2 for 4 rolls. Does a cheep roll wipe less asses than the expensive one? I'm not going to test that sorry. But lets make the scientific assumption that the expensive one is slightly longer and more absorbent. You seem at least to get far more for your money with the cheaper rolls.
(I promise you I'm not obsessed with toilet rolls. Bin bags and washing up liquid are far more obsessional.)
I think I'm starting to see where their money for saplings might be coming from.
So back to the question do we have to choose being green over being mean? I'm sure you are aware that greener / fairtrade / healthy products cost more. They do fairtrade coffee has always cost far more than even Gold Blend (and that's not cheap either). People wonder why the west of Scotland has a crappy health record (our 3 biggest killers are heart disease, stroke and cancer). All unhealthy food is cheaper in the supermarkets than the healthy stuff!

Another point I'll make before leaving. How much waste does your hospital produce in a day? The average (read small-ish) operation produced at least 3 large bags of clinical waste. That's 1 small operation. There could be 10 of those per day per theatre. The wards aren't short of stuffed bin bags either. The least green industry in the UK has to be healthcare. A lecturer once said that 'I'm here to do my job. Not save the NHS money.' She meant that if we had to use expensive dressings, or open 15 packets of something to make sure it was right then we did it. But look at the waste we generate. Sterile packages for surgery are double wrapped and 90% of patient contact materials are all disposable. I'm not for a minute suggesting that we abandon disposable gloves, aprons, sterile packaging and our beloved paper-pulp products. Abandoning these would send infection control into meltdown! There is little or no way to cut down the waste created by the healthcare industry. We have to toe the best policy guidelines and it is never in the patient's best interests to cut corners. So other suggestions? Recycling? Er lets not go there shall we?

So is it a valid choice? Yes lets all save the planet but not when I'm on a budget. People should do what they can. We need to recycle more. We need to cut down on packaging (although maybe not in healthcare). Maybe that's where I could be better since I cannot afford the 'green' bog roll to do it for me.

WardBunny of the Dump (like Stig of the dump only less clean)

I am living in a tip. The flat is a tip.

And none of it is mine. I've been away for ages and in the meantime people have been moving out and moving in (we should have replaced the front door with a revolving door). Unfortunately when people have moved out they forgot to take say the contents of the freezer or the stuff in the shower. We now have more bottles sitting around the shower than on the shelves in Morrison's. However the cooker is covered in someone else's dirty pots. I can't actually cook anything. The oven's manky, the hob is otherwise occupied, the microwave is a health hazard and there is a pile of plates trying to make their way to the door from the sink.

My room is a mess but at least I created all of that. None of the kitchen / shower mess is mine. I can't make anyone clean it but I spend my days helping and cleaning up after other people so I'm not doing it at home.

So I've come up with a few helpful notes to put up around the place.

• If it's yours, keep it in your room.
• Lights don't turn themselves off.
• Neither your mother nor the cleaning fairy lives here so clean up yourself.
• If you don't move your crap it's going in the bin.
• Everyone uses this room, not just you.
• Socks don't live on the dining table.
• I'm not the postman; redirect it yourself.

Any better suggestions? I'm not moving out but I can't live on junk food forever!

SNOW (Canadian not British)

Had to post this from the Canadian photos collection. I have huge feet! I'm a size (women/men, it's all the same at that size so long as they fit) 10/11 over here which makes me a US mens 11/12.