Journal of Nursing Jocularity

When I was younger I was such a perfectionist!

Everything had to be done by me personally; everything I cooked was done from scratch. I used to clean everything, sew, knit, paint walls, dress my kids perfectly and try to look like a fashion plate every day.

People would come to my house and say, “Oh, I love your drapes!” and I’d say, “ I made them myself!” “I smell bread! “baked it myself!” “Are those your children?” Yeah, I made ‘em myself!”

I think of the silly things I said back then such as “You could eat off my floors.”

Now, isn’t that special? Imagine having people over and having them eat off your floors?

I was also a slave to rules. I did things and didn’t even know why I was doing them. One day, I was cooking roast beef, and I cut the ends off and threw them away, as I always did. It occurred to me to wonder why, so I called my mother. “Why do we cut the ends off?”

“I don’t know why you’re doing it,” she said “I did it because it didn’t fit in the pan.”

After thirty or more years of mopping, scouring, dusting and checking to see that everything is right, I’m seriously considering ( if you’ll excuse the expression) of throwing in the towel.

Life is not just a daily list of “to do”s. It also needs a serious sprinkling of “ta Dah’s”.

So here are some suggestions for those of you who feel compelled to work yourself into a dither about everything and have to have everything and everyone around you perfect:

1. Make a “not to do” list. Write down everything you’ve done already or what you have enough of. For example, “Have plenty of toilet paper, soap, and remembered my mother’s birthday”!

2. Make your bed but leave one side undone. As you leave the room remind yourself that the “bed checkers” are not coming.

3. Tell one person one thing that you don’t do well. Maybe the underwear and socks in your drawers are not lined up perfectly.

4. Go outside when it’s raining and get all wet. Try it sometime when you have something “good” on.

5. Let someone borrow your good pencil or pen when you’re at work, and let the family use the good towels. After all they are your loved ones.

But most of all don’t forget to enjoy your life. That the greatest TADAH of all!

Loretta LaRoche writes the Get A Life Column for the Patriot Ledger.

• Asked pt family member "R U closest relative?" response "Oh no, I live all the way in Pennsylvania!" (don't have 2 make this up!) #
• Woman's abd pain turns out to be foot long surgical instrument–oops! How'd we overlook that?! http://ow.ly/19sAU #

• 404 Moment: when med records/chart can't be located during doc's rounds (From HTTP 404 error "Not Found") #
• FF# @NurseTogether, @BlueSky107, @socialEspeaking, @LorettaLaRoche, @DonnaCardillo, @LeAnnThieman, @franlondon, #
• More FF# @PattyWooten, @NurseTalk, @DrRobertHolden, @realpatchadams, @ronculberson #

Dear Nurse Marge,

It looks (and sounds!) like you’re about the same age I am. I have to ask, do you ever think about retiring?

Fixing to Head To Florida

Dear Fixing,

You know nurses never retire, they just go PRN!

There does come a time in every nurse’s life when she thinks about hanging up the stethoscope. Generally, that time comes right after someone said, “Hey, y’all! Watch this — and make sure that video camera’s a-running!”, discovers that gravity’s still not just a good idea, but is indeed the law, and winds up in the ER with their mother, their wife, their baby Mama, their best friend and their spit cup — not to mention a list of medications allergies as long as your arm and a heartfelt assurance that “Just a little Vicko-din will take the edge off.”

Of course, that might just be Tuesday. It’s easy to confuse those two.

Retirement? Maybe, someday. But for right now, I’m hanging in there.

Good Luck!

Nurse Marge

Horoscopes just for Nurses!

Aquarius

Make life easy for yourself and your fellow nurses: use camouflage bandages on combative patients! It’s logical and effective!

Pisces

Your inventive spirit is admirable, Pisces, but we’re not sure it’s a great idea to base your idea for a new g-tube unclogger on a bug zapper!

Aries

Laughter is the best medicine — quick, hold that square needled syringe up to the patient’s TV and see if you can’t capture some of that Comedy Central special. Maybe that’ll help adjust that attitude of theirs!

Taurus

Do nurses who eat their young get indigestion?

Gemini

Rumors from the unit grapevine have you nervous: remember to consider the source! Still uncertain? Try this: in confidence, share a totally fraudulent piece of info with the biggest gossip on the unit. See how long it takes to come back to you — and how different it appears this time around. Still worried?

Cancer

The patient who has all of these nurses and doctors and medical gurus in their family for the entire duration of their stay on the unit turns out to be the exact same person who has no one to help them at home. Don’t let the shock knock you over!

Leo

Just for fun, record the ‘night sounds’ on your unit and see if you can get the crew from MonsterQuest to believe you’ve got a Yeti in your backyard. Wouldn’t watching their analysts trying to discern the source of ‘those unearthly sounds’ be great?

Virgo

Technically, you can’t tell people you’re a gastroenterologist based upon the character of the people you work with. Something to remember while pondering updating your resume!

Libra

When you start the “how long until the shift is over” countdown at 11 hours, 59 minutes and 30 seconds, it might not be the best day ever. Try holding off on the countdown until after lunch break and see if that changes your workday!

Scorpio

Why is it, Scorpio, that the better it feels to say something, the more likely it becomes that it was the totally wrong thing to say? This week will give you many opportunities to ponder this.

Sagittarius

If a student nurse hits another student nurse with her Fundamentals book, it that a textbook concussion?

Capricorn

A lovely trip down memory lane will let you recall those long ago days when you had a gag reflex.

Star Charts by Suzanne LaBarne are for Entertainment Purposes ONLY!

A prominent cardiologist died. At his elaborate funeral, a large, anatomically correct floral heart was set on the dais behind the casket.

At the end of the service, during the final prayer, the large heart opened, and the casket slowly rolled inside.

A physician in the audience burst into loud laughter. As his friends shushed him, he chortled, “I’m a gastro! Can you imagine my funeral”?

Contributed by Dr. Patricia Raymond

It’s an old concept. But in today’s economy, this non-revolutionary idea is really taking off. And in what better profession to do this than nursing? Hospitals can save lots of money, which will save lots of nursing jobs. So it’s really for our own benefit. Isn’t it?

And what’s the big deal anyway. Nurse shmurse, we’re all the same. Right?

For example, I’ll start with my own personal favorite specialty: Med Surg.

Snooty-tootie ICU nurses, who think they are G-d’s gift to humankind (second to neuro and cardiac surgeons) may need therapy to handle such devastating and shocking news, but these two departments are basically same thing.

Med Surg nurses: have 7 pts, 2 tubes apiece

ICU nurses: 2 pts, 7 tubes apiece (more…)

Over the years a myriad of books about the differences in male/female behavior have been published. Women in particular have driven the sales and the continued interest in how to deal with the male species.

Men have always found women to be somewhat unpredictable, mysterious, and hard to understand, but seem to have very little interest in discovering the reasons. They are happy to share and validate some of what they feel in male bonding situations while watching football games or talking over a backyard fence while spraying weed killer but I’m sure they don’t share or recommend the latest research or books on how to handle their mates.

We women on the other hand think that somehow we can fix who we’re with so they can become the person we thought they were when we first met them. It’s hard for us not to try improve everyone or everything that crosses our paths.

Believe me I have spent a lot of energy doing this myself and I was left exhausted . I am certainly not an expert on how to create the perfect relationship, but I have come to the conclusion that men have a hard time with  us because we tend to confuse them.  Our conversations are often labyrinthine, whereas they seek to get the facts and get on with what they’re doing.  

We often ask questions that if answered incorrectly could mean hours of intense interrogating on our part until we get the answer we’re looking for.  Have you ever asked your partner the following: “Do I look fat in this outfit?” This is a no win situation. If he answers “You look great” we will inevitably respond with “You’re just trying to make me feel good, what do I really look like?”

If, God forbid, he stated that we looked like we gained a little weight, hell might be his next stop.

How about when you cook something and you ask “How did you like this”? If I heard “It’s good” or “Not bad”, my inner twisted sister made a solemn oath to never make the particular dish again. My grandmother would storm out of the room and pout for hours.

Perhaps real equanimity between the sexes comes as we get older and we finally realize that acceptance and the ability to laugh at oneself is a far better choice. It certainly leaves more time for fun and frolic.

Loretta LaRoche writes the Get A Life Column for the Patriot Ledger.

An elderly male patient in a LTC facility appeared to be very sad and depressed. His nurse asked him if wrong.

He replied, “Yes, my Private Part died today, and I am very sad.”

The loss of virility is not exactly unexpected among this population, and each patient experiences it their own way. Knowing this, the nurse said, “Oh, I’m so sorry. Please accept my condolences.”

She didn’t think any more about it until the next day, when the patient went walking down the hallway, with his Private Part hanging out of his pajamas. She stopped him, and said, “You can’t go around like this! Please put your Private Part back inside your pajamas.”

“I can’t,” he protested. “I told you yesterday it died.”

“And it can’t be inside your pajamas why?” she asked.

“Today is the viewing!”

‘Well,’ he replied, ‘Today is the viewing.’