On Venting

Nurses know there is only so much of work you can bring home.  I recognize the signs in Mr. EDNurseasauras when he has had enough and doesn't want to listen anymore;  the glazed expression, the wandering eyes.  I can't blame him, but other than writing and spewing my frustrations, there just is no other outlet sometimes.  The crew I work with now are unlikely to want to get a drink after work, unfortunately.  I miss those days with my Utopia Hospital and Pseudocity Medical Center people.  There was always someone who didn't feel like going directly home, which led to beer call or 'rita rounds.  There were frequent opportunities to vent at one or another social occasion.  At Utopia Hospital an evening at one of my co-worker's homes turned into a venting session that some of my less experienced staff desperately needed following the ER death of a SIDS child.  We just don't have a ton of opportunity for socializing since we are a small shop.

I go in spurts with this blog thing as evidenced by the paucity of posts in November and December.  While  I may have a lot to say in general, some days I just don't even want to think about work let alone write about it.  It's been one of those spells where I am just not motivated.  Nobody at work knows I have a  blog, it would just be too awkward.  "I journal a lot" I offer blandly as I jot things down on a paper towel and stow it in my pocket.  I write a lot of stuff down because I have a pretty piss-poor memory when it comes to writing all these witty posts. I come home with a few scraps of paper or a post-it note or two which sit in a pile until the urge to write something is overwhelming. Sometimes it's a funny remark, sometimes it's just a "moment" that makes me laugh, think, or just shake my head.  Once in a while it develops into a full blown rant.

Some time around December of last year I began amassing an enormous pile of notes.  They piled up  on a table next to my chair for a few months while I sat uninspired, until I opened the adjacent window to let in a little springtime fresh air.  There went any semblance of organization.  I have yet to plow through them.  And the notes keep on coming.

On occasion, I pick one up and look at it.  Here is one that I can reach:

"The key to good care is poking holes in people"
This is a reference to a conversation Sherry and I had about people who actually require no care at all because there is either nothing wrong, or there is really nothing we can do for them.  In that case, people get downright pissed that we aren't really doing anything other than to reassure them that they are not dying....crazy is another whole story.  "Poking holes" means starting an IV and giving a liter of saline which amounts to the same as doing nothing when the alternative is doing.....nothing.  We do this a lot.

So that is one post-it note down and 4,000 to go.