Geocaching....Poison Ivy

Hello, every one. Its been awhile since a posting. Things have fallen into a routine with not too much new going on. But wait...I have been doing some geocaching. Sort of a scavenger hunt type thing by using Lat. and Long. coordinates from your handheld GPS. (For those who want to know more about geocaching visit http://www.geocaching.com/) I took Miriam to find one. I think she is hooked on the idea of it. This particular one was a tough...long walk down wooded trail, lots of mosquitoes, we looked for 30 mins, didn't find it. To top it off I got poison ivy. It brought back memories about when I played "The Purse Game" with my two neighbors when we were about 13 years old. The game was we lay a nice looking purse in the street, tie a fish line to it and hide in the bushes until someone stops to look in it. The punch is once someone stops we quick pull it from their hand before they grab it and run away. The anticipation of a car coming and slowing a little was all part of the excitment. Of course nobody ever stopped except for once. A guy stopped we pulled the line as he was reaching for it. We freaked out after he started yelling at us what rotten kids we were. He sped off and we ran through the weeds and dropped to our knees in uncontrollable laughter literally rolling in poison ivy. Needless to say, all three of us for weeks went through the stages of the rash.
Any way, this past weekend I went with Miriam and Al and her sister and husband to Norwalk, Connecticut. Very nice place to visit with a little town to walk through with a bunch of restaurants. The trip back was a very good sail. I was a little doped up on benadryl and really slept most of the time. I thoroughly enjoyed being a passenger and napping on the deck. When we got back the poison ivy was getting bad. Miriam took me to the med center. I got a prescription for some prednisone and cortisone cream. The redness and swelling is down and I am doing much better now. I haven't had to immerse my body in cold water for 2 days now to stop that panicking itch that comes over me. Thank goodness for the air conditioner I bought a few weeks ago for the hot days. It really has saved me a lot of grief.

Work has been going pretty good. I have worked in 4 different areas now. ICU, CCU, PCU (pulmonary) and EDIP (ED holding area). The worse part of this particular hospital is their scheduling and staffing is a nightmare. Not to mention they have a lot of call-ins, people show up when they aren't supposed to be there, and other never show when they are supposed to be there. Also the scheduling people for example will know that they are short 3 nurses here or there and do nothing about it until they see who has actually shown up for work. And then about 1-2 hours of getting your assessments and meds done, they tell you you have to go to that unit where those 3 nurses are missing. Ok so I am the traveler and I expect that stuff to happen but please take care of it at the beginning of the shift instead of waiting.
Aside from those few complaints, I enjoy being a nurse bottom line and I enjoy spending time with my patients, intubated or talking (english or what ever other language these people speak). If all else is wrong at least I can help some one get better or help them be more comfortable.
Haven't taken too many pictures lately. I'll post them when there are some.

Until later.....