It's finals week. This is all I'm doing this week except for clinical hours. I have basically 3 finals - one is a physical demonstration of a head-to-toe examination and corresponding chart write-up, a Pathophysiology comprehensive final, and an Advanced Physical Assessment final that's also comprehensive. Oh it's fun, let me tell you. I don't know anyone that enjoys taking exams. I think the worst feeling is sitting in your little seat with your pencil in your hand as they start handing out the exams. Even worse is reading about the first 4 or 5 questions and thinking, oh god, I should've studied more. But anyway, it is all that I'm doing. My psychosocial class had no final exam (yay!) -- just a paper, and that is one thing that doesn't bother me, writing papers.
Interesting happening at clinical. I'm going to change some details in this to protect anonymity, but a child was brought into the office for a rash all over her body. We thought it was an antibiotic reaction, something called Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, which can be quite serious. When I walked in, they rushed me over to see the kid because the family was preparing to leave and go straight to the Emergency Department and the docs wanted me to see this. It was an incredible rash, covering the entire little body, very red. I noticed however, that there was a really big stretchy bandage (called Coban) on the child's antecubital, where blood was probably drawn. I thought, why on earth did they have to use that? I guess because I've worked in woundcare, I'm attuned to bandages and dressings. Anyway, later the Doc comes into the nurse's station and asks his aide to tell his 3 waiting appointments that he'll be late. It turns out the child didn't have Steven's-Johnson, she had leukemia. He had just gotten the lab results. The rash wasn't even a real rash, it was acute bleeding under the skin. Her platelets were only 40 (normal is 150 to 450). So the doc had to call over to the ED, where the parents were and tell them that their daughter has leukemia. Kind of ruined the rest of the day for everyone. But you know, I realized that a big goof was made -- that Coban was there because when the lab drew blood, she wouldn't stop bleeding. The doc should've been alerted and that should've raised alarm bells. I suspect they wouldn't have narrowed the diagnosis down to Stevens-Johnson quite so quickly.
My sister's cat is visiting with us for 10 days because she's in Goa, India (doesn't she lead an interesting life?). His name is Mitten, shortened to Mitt and so of course, we call him Mitt Romney. It's a hoot. The first night he was upset and mewed all night. The next morning, of course, we had to say many times "Mitt Romney is a cry-baby." Ha. But now he & Crabby are friends and play together a lot - they even eat off the same saucer together.
I managed to get sick about 10 days ago, and that's been awful. The worst part was that I missed 4 days at the gym, and when I did go back, the first few days I needed to go in later - not at my usual 4:15 am - and there were all these people there - like, what, people at my gym? To cope, I made a mental list of what I hate that other people do at the gym. (Skip the rest if you hate to read rants, that's really what's coming. And I saved this for the end for that reason.)
I hate:
- people who wear hats, especially visors at the gym. It looks silly - are the fluorescent lights too bright for you? And don't they know that most heat escapes thru your head, so that hat is why you're sweating like a pig?
- people who wear dirty shoes to the gym, and leave little trails of dirt or mud at the machines where they stop. Ditto people that wear inappropriate shoes - I've seen sandals and Crocs.
- people who crowd me at the free-weight areas. If I am working shoulders, do not sit on the bench close to me. I should not have to move and readjust just because you are either clueless about what kind of space people need for shoulder work or (& this is worse) - you are trying to strike up a conversation with me. That leads to the next one.
- people who do things to strike up conversation. Hey - notice I am wearing ear buds. Notice how hard I'm working. I am not there to chat. Sure, I'll say hello and/or smile if you're a crack of dawn regular like me - but darlin', that is all. And I don't feel guilty about that.
- people who stand directly in front of the rack of free weights to do their sets. This is always a clueless newbie -- how am I supposed to get my weights while you're standing in the way? I never say excuse me when this happens -- I say oh, excuse you -- funny, I don't think they get it.
- people who want to use 2 or 3 machines at one time to do super-sets. This is fine to attempt, and you'll probably succeed if it's 4:30 am, but do not say to someone, "hey I wasn't done with that machine" when you are busy on another one. I saw a ____ (insert derogatory term) actually say that to someone on the leg press -- a woman had removed three 45 lb plates from each side, then he finally sidles up to her and says, oh I wasn't done with that machine. Look, dickhead, I saw you busy on the hamstring curls over there. I wish he'd said that to me, because I would've said, "oh, show me where your name is stamped on the metal." And he did that when the gym was really busy, mid-morning day after Thanksgiving.
- people who tunelessly sing along or hum to their ipods.
- people who wear too little or too much. Please, I don't want to see up your tiny shorts when you're working abdominals. If you plan to do that, wear capri's or longer shorts. And I get nervous when I see idiots wearing thick sweatshirts in spin class. I think they are trying to sweat off weight - but dehydration is dangerous and doesn't make any fat go away. I know CPR but I really don't want to have to do that.
- people who grunt or moan loudly while they work. Please, unless you are a world-class power-lifter, that is just ridiculous. You really can't hold that in?
So I could go on but I won't. I guess I'm a curmudgeon. But I'm trying to become more tolerant. Yesterday I was getting a drink of water right before spin and I notice that the floor is shaking. So I look behind me and a very large guy is running on a treadmill with absolutely terrible form - massive foot falls, thud thud thud. He's wearing too little, I see way too much skin, and he's even barefoot. And he's singing to his ipod. It's a trifecta. But I smiled and went into spin. I thought to myself, that is absolutely great that he is working out and he's so happy that he's singing. I'm happy for him. Hope he doesn't break an ankle and need CPR.
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