Ring ring, Hello?

I've had to tell my mother on several occasions that she has poor phone etiquette. Well, maybe not so much poor phone etiquette as strange phone skills. My dad, who is old, had a health scare a few years ago and ever since then I've been a little nervous about him. I've had to tell my mom that her phone behavior doesn't help. I've had several adrenaline rushes due to her. A few examples:

• At my old job my mom would occasionally call two or three times in a row. I'd panic and think this was her way of calling about an emergency. I couldn't answer my phone in the lab, so I'd wash out and leave the lab to call. When I'd call her back she would say she only called multiple times in a row to give me extra time to answer the phone.

• When she called me and I'd answer, she usually start by saying "Kate," in a very panicky voice. When I'd ask her what was wrong, she'd say, "Oh nothing, just calling to hear how you are doing." I finally got her to correct this and now she always answers in a cheery voice.

Before you think I'm some bad daughter who yells at her mom, she's also given me lectures about the phone. When I lived in Utah, I could only call past 6:30pm Utah time (8:30pm Ohio time) unless it was an emergency, because sometimes she liked to be in bed by 9pm and didn't want to be woken up. She has since moved that time to 9pm as she has a 9:30pm bedtime (she gets up for work at 4am).

Anyway, here is the most recent example that almost gave me a panic attack (which I've never had, but I could imagine this could induce one):

Last Saturday night I got home around 1am. I got ready for bed when I heard the phone ringing in the other room. I was brushing my teeth and figured it was my friend who just dropped me off saying I forgot something in the car. I finished getting ready and checked my phone. To my horror, the missed call was from my parent's house (remember how my parents are in bed by 9:30pm). As I dialed their number, I started panicking and thought about how fast I could drive to their house and if it would be safe to drive myself. My mom picked up the phone.
Me: "Mom, what's wrong?"
Mom: "Nothing."
Me: "Why did you call?"
Mom: "I was just wondering if you were coming to my Memorial Day party. It's going to be lots of fun. Everyone is coming."
Me: "Is this seriously what you called for? Why are you calling me at 1am?
Mom: "I couldn't sleep and thought you'd be up. You were awake weren't you?

Needless to say I was relieved but a little upset.

With friends like these...

I don't mean to complain but this really annoyed me and I had to vent:
Have you ever done a favor for a friend, initially without hoping to get anything in return? You were just trying to do something nice for a friend.
Later, the situation arises when the friend can return the favor, and suddenly they can't be bothered to help; it would be too much of an inconvenience. Seriously? And the friend says, "you understand, right?" Yeah, I understand you're selfish.
Luckily most of my friends are a lot nicer than this.

When I looked up "friends" in Google Images, this came up with the title,
"Friends Forever."
Precious.

Cleveland Rocks!

A friend introduced me to this first video and I couldn't stop laughing. Yesterday I found out there was a second one. So for those of you who don't know much about Cleveland, here is a good introduction:
(caution: brief swearing)


And here is the awesome sequel:



I couldn't be prouder of Cleveland. If anyone would like a tour, let me know. Oh, and in Cleveland's defense, there are great suburbs. Like Medina:

I guess we can't joke about it yet.

I apologize if this picture is offensive. I think it is hilarious, and it goes with the theme of this post.

Today at work I had a patient's family member call in to talk to me. We had been talking about 10 minutes (she thought I wanted to know her entire medical history), when the topic turned to H1N1 virus (aka swine flu):

Family member: "So are you taking precautions against the swine flu?"
Me: "Well, we got rid of all the pigs running around on the floor."
Family member: Dead silence

So I guess it is too soon. But really, did she think we had pigs on the floor?

As a side note, I'm hoping that plane tickets to Mexico will go down because of the panic, because I'm looking for something to do over Memorial Day weekend.

Can I sleep for a day straight?

On Thursday when I was working, the charge nurse was trying to get nurse to come in and work the night shift as they were down a nurse and we were full. No one would/could come in. I told her I'd come in 4 hours early the next morning (at 3am). She decided to work till 3am and then I'd work from 3am to 3pm. So I left work at 7:40pm, fell asleep around 9pm and woke up at 2am to get ready for work.
As a side note, my patients were at the far end of one hallway. All 5 of my patients wanted pain meds every 4-6 hours. We carry the pain meds up at the nurses station, so each time they wanted some, I had to walk up to the station and back again. And you have to reassess how the pain meds work within an hour of giving them.
Anyway, here is a list in chronological order of how the day went:

• Get to work at 3am.
• Sit around looking up labs/test for 2 or so hours to pass the time (boring)
• Start passing 6am meds
• Patient collapses and unresponsive (not mine), crash cart rushed to the end of the hall
• Give out pain meds
• Day shift begins (hooray, only 8 more hours)
• Chart
• Help with complete bed bath to paraplegic patient
• More pain meds given
• Go to my patients room for the 3rd time to tell him to quit taking off his heart monitor and argue with with him why he has to keep it on (apparently having a heart attack isn't a good enough reason for him)
• Discharge one patient
• Lunch
• Admit new patient
• More pain meds given
• Start feeling guilty about leaving work after 12 hours when all our beds are full and agree to stay for 4 more hours
• Nurse yelling "we need help in here!"-patient having seizure
• Pain med time
  
• Ice cream break
• Get chewed out by paraplegic patient's girlfriend who is mad he is being discharged today instead of tomorrow (as if she gets the choice-she wanted to go out to the bar friday night)
• Patient's family bring in pizza for the floor
• Code Grey called-tornado warning. All patients moved out into the hallways
• Help move (along with 8 others) 500lb man from one bed to the next. After we roll him to his side to put the slide board under him, he yells "I'm having gas" to which we all jump back in fear. False alarm.
• Get chewed out again by patient's girlfriend. "If he had fancy insurance, you'd let him stay as long as we like." Um, this isn't a hotel, no one gets special treatment, and who wants to stay in the hospital as long as they like?
• Tornado warning cleared-move patients back into their rooms
• Leave work 7:20pm. Awesome.

This wasn't the worst day I've ever had. I know people have had a lot worse. It was just the longest (and most interesting) day I've had in awhile. And I did it with only have a Coke at lunch (they don't carry DP). I only slept 7 hours. I think I'll go take a nap. Or watch Lost.