delight | Entries tagged with list of points

first night of chanukah migraine tradition continues. so far i am waiting for an oxycodone to kick in (having already maxed the ibuprofen, being out of toradol, and the valium having worn off; i've also put sombra gel all over my neck) so that i can try to get that menorah lit and not set the building on fire. (this i have never done. i used to set my sleeve on fire pretty frequently by making a common mistake, though. last time this happened i was 19.) pardon my lack of caps, i have only one arm to work with.
i got enough credit card rewards to renew photoshop and lightroom for a year. i missed them both so much. i really need a new DSLR though, since at this point my phone is better quality (12mp) than my actual camera (a nikon D3000 with 10.4mp). but oh, i can make icons easily again. even though everything is still weirdly zoomed out, a "100%" view is actually a 50% view and only at 200% is something the actual size it will be if you put it anywhere else in the world, like printing a photo or putting an image on a website. this is actually super annoying for icons because they sorta blur weirdly at times, but when i was using affinity photo not only did it do this but they blurred TERRIBLY and it made me angry.
i have sent out a lot of emails recently and gotten no emails recently. is it that no one is responding to my emails because they didn't get them, or because they do not want to respond, or because they THINK they responded but it's sitting in drafts (i often do this to my boss, which is awkward, except she's realized i have this problem and if i don't respond in 24 hours will email me with "rue, it's in drafts, isn't it" because i am never late with anything) or because actually none of my outgoing emails actually were received by anyone. it's a problem with multiple addresses and so, i do not know. it is a mystery. if you are waiting for an email from me, i probably sent it to you and you may not have gotten it.
accidentally responded to a work email (aka the one email that is working) at 9pm. since i tapped out of work at 4pm by mistake, i'm really just making up for the time and not overly excited about this IRB approval for this little photovoice project. believe me. really. ~~i'm lying, it's the IRB approval, i'm really excited about it.~~ so everything about work is great at the moment except for how my macbook refuses to acknowledge that my external monitor exists.

I have no energy, so I'm just going to Cliff's notes version this out:

1. My gallbladder ruptured. I was in the hospital from the 18th until the 23rd, and just got off essentially bedrest two days ago. I've had no history of gallbladder issues ever in my life and am abnormally young (not that I'm actually young, so much as that anything under 45 is abnormally young); however, it ended up leading us down a trail that gave us some idea of how my World's Healthiest Man dad got terminal pancreatic cancer.

2. It is the end of the semester and I'm dying of deadlines. I have a couple of professors who want to murder me for my absences and how long it took me to go "yeah, I'm not actually ready to present today, can I go next week?" but they're also letting me go next week.

3. Since of course I'm back at work and school, now Trip has kennel cough and has to be kept home (he was boarded while I was in the hospital, and yes he's current on all his shots but there are a lot of kinds of kennel cough). When there's nobody home during the day because I'm back at work/school. I have today off during the day and tomorrow off full stop, but the next 7 days are going to be difficult ...

4. I'm getting so frustrated with how physically and emotionally wearying my job is that I'm considering quitting without something else lined up. My meds are $1800 a month and I have to support a dog and I only have $4k in savings. So this isn't that feasible, but oh man do I want it. I have to write a thesis that needs to be done by May and I just want to write/research full time. Or at least have a job where any day I work isn't a day where I can't do any of it and have to just come home and sleep because of pain and cognitive fatigue.

5. Someone hacked my VPS with Dreamhost, they've sent me a bunch of emails. How the fuck even. All my sites are down.

1. Dad has an infection (which we initially thought was just disease process and kidney shutdown, but he's been responding really well to antibiotics so it must actually be an infection) and possibly-relatedly can't walk, so he might be moving into inpatient hospice in a couple of days. Which is fine in every way except my ability to get there.

( This is a screenshot of how stupid it is. )

2. The tooth that I have had root canal-ed three times now has a bleeding hole in it and is painful. That's absurd because I shouldn't be able to feel the thing at all. Also my dentist is in Albany and I have no insurance until mid-August. (My dentist needs to stay the one in Albany, for mental health reasons. It's about 150 miles from here, and I can't actually drive that far in both directions in one day, so I need: a) insurance, b) someone to help me get there and c) a day off for both me and that person all at once.)

3. I have been doing lots of RP again, which is great ... though I am also the worst and slowest, because I rarely have time due to the way job's schedule is structured combined with all the family stuff going on and the fact I never actually get any sleep.

4. This book series makes me so ridiculously happy. It is so ridiculous. And so much fun.

5. I'm terrified of where time is going to come from when I'm working full time and going to school full time at once, because of how tired I already am now. But terrified in a kind of excited way? I'm counting down the days until school.

6. And also the days until health insurance (August 15th) because I got a really good deal with the health insurance, here. That's why I have to keep working full time; it's the insurance more than anything else. I can handle being dirt poor, I even already am even with this job (I can't afford rent without a ton of roommates, so I'm going to keep living with my mom instead, because serious big nooooooooooooooo.com on the roommate idea) but it has excellent health benefits.

I have been reading. I have been too overwhelmed by life to comment or to post. I need to amend that vaguely. Here are some things:

1. I got that job, I started that job, I finished training. I now spend most of my life in a busy urgent care clinic in Hell's Kitchen. Overworked and underpaid, but it's really nice to be doing something, even if I am nervous about how beginning grad school will screw with my schedule/availability and hope they won't fire me! (I really need the health insurance, too. Even if it will eat half of my paycheck.)

2. Dad is on hospice now; we have been given the vague prognosis of "maybe weeks or months," but he has multiple organ failure and no intake. We'll see. He's actually feeling somewhat better, which surprises no one, I think.

3. The housing market terrifies me. Spouse and I do not make enough between us to afford a studio. Once we have to stop living in mom's house, we're in huge trouble. I cannot do roommates. Not will not, but actually cannot. I would never, ever sleep. I don't trust people. I couldn't even have roommates when I was in the dorms in undergrad, and had to prove my OCD was bad enough I needed to be given a single. The fact that that worked at an overcrowded state university just tells you a lot about how much I can't cope with roommates.

This update is happening not even from having my computer fully booted up; it has the Linux-based HP Quickweb, and that's all I have time for (I still need to get on my dad's computer to get my Dirty Life stories to function and to do some research on some medical stuff that won't load on a netbook either) but I really just needed to post stuff so I had a record of it. Especially one thing, which is not the first thing.

1. American Idiot! It was spectacular, as were our seats, and I was really impressed at how they even made the two Green Day songs I do not like (Wake Me Up When September Ends & Good Riddance, both of which I liked and then got annoyed by) a wonderful experience to listen to. The end really made me sadder than I expected, because I was prepared for it, but as I hadn't known the words to "Whatsername" in advance ... Also, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" in acoustic is really beautiful. And, uh. "When It's Time." Just. Yeah.

2. Successfully got presents for:

chimbleysweep, my dad. Completely failed to get anything for:

distractionary,

zarhooie,

nehi and/or her daughter, and ourselves. But if Scout's birthday gifts are three months late, I suppose it's fitting everyone else's might be too? Except Brady still has a chance for an on-time present. (Actually, we found the perfect present for Brady until we discovered it cost $180.40.)

3. What was my third thing. I'm so tired I forgot my third thing. I know I ended up with a 2nd Avenue Deli hat! I missed it there. At least its current address is just as easy to remember, even if it isn't, you know, anywhere near 2nd Avenue.

4. And while we were there, we met this guy who asked us if we were from out of town (answer: no, he seemed pleased) and then pointed to a poster on the wall and asked us if we thought he looked like that guy. Mom and I both said yes. I said, "Is that you?" He said, "Yep." Who was he? Sid Bernstein. Normally I would operate on the assumption that everyone knows who Sid Bernstein is, but since my dad didn't even remember, here is an obligatory wiki link.

He was a little unsteady on his feet, and ended up reaching out -- instinctively, operating in Nurse Mode, out went my arm, and I helped him take a few steps. He thanked me and gave me a card for his latest act, said he'd be big someday. I hope so, because David Ippolito seems sweet and I'm sure I've seen him play a couple times. He's quite talented. Has to be to get Sid Bernstein's attention.

5. I'm sure there were other things, but the only thing I can still remember is that I lost a set of my pills, had to buy a new one (thankfully had a scrip) and the insurance decided not to cover it. Being out $300 makes it hard to pay the apartment complex their due rent in three days. So I have to call the insurance company and beg them to reimburse. I hate phones and I hate asking people for things and this is just going to be awful.

Right so I really have to go okay good talk to you all later.

by the Day Paramedic Class, collectively aged 6 months

Always make sure to check the quiz and see if there are things on the back.
A Spanish guy doing interpretive dances to demonstrate arrythmias looks amazing on a really big screen, and is even better when a tall guy with a head of bushy curly hair is yelling out translations of the Spanish. (You can see the video, but not our professor, sorry.)
Cold shumai is actually pretty gross. Eat it when it comes out of the microwave. Not thirty minutes later.
Don't use your defibrillator in the water.
Atropine and epinephrine are used for the same thing, not one for one and one for the other.
NPR is sometimes relevant for stuff.
Some people, in their entire EMS careers, only learn one algorithm — the asystole algorithm. Because everyone gets there eventually. But that’s not a very good way to take care of people.
It’s not nice to cardiovert someone at 350 joules while they’re sitting there talking to you.
Monkeys are good at CPR, but you have to teach them how to do it first.
You can do a serious care critique on a scene in There's Something About Mary.
If someone writes a bunch of stuff on the board, then tells you there's going to be a quiz on Tuesday, the material might be related.
Parents who forget to give their children their meds get reported. If you tell the class about the case, they get reported about 30 times.
The truth about morphine. (Actual slide from actual pharm lecture.)
You don't write "Patient was a bum." No exceptions.
There's no such thing as a Wellbutrin patch.
Prostoglandins are the chemicals that say stay off your ankle, stupid!
Don’t just stick a big needle in somebody’s bone for preventative purposes.
When all newborns do is eat, sleep and poop, it is not a sign of a disease.
Relieving pain is good, stopping breathing is bad.
Adriamycin actually damages the Northway.
COX-II inhibitors cause heart damage. Damn.
That's French, it's not Latin. Unless it is.
Medtronic makes music videos.
It's possible to overdose on eyedrops.
Your protocol manual is not a cookbook.
Kids are, like, 80% swimming pools.
Using a rectal suppository in your ear is just not going to cut it.
The paperwork for breaking your patient’s leg when you drop him on the floor is just adding to the hassle when you started out on a cardiac call.
Don't tell people that if they knew what they were doing they wouldn't be working at whatever assisted living facility you're at.
The three most common places to find people's medications are the lazy susan in the center of the kitchen table, the table by the lounge chair the patient sits in all the time, or in the kitchen window where they get lots of bright, bright sun.
That last option is extremely stupid.
You don't say 'Epocrates crapped out,' you say 'a communication error occurred.'
If one person has an Oreo, everyone has an Oreo.
Before 1906, the United States was walking around totally narcolized.
You don't cut open a down jacket in the back of an ambulance.

sketches & ghosts

partially parented by parrots.

Entries tagged with list of points

4 things to make a post with

IT'S BEEN SOME DAYS.

Brief update of briefs.

Three things apparently make a post.

life continues happening, regularly apace

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