Nurse Ratched’s Place

Welcome to the Middle of Nowhere. Just in case some of you city slickers don’t know, these are cows. Two of these old gals didn’t know what to make about the crazy lady taking their picture. I took this photo from my aunt’s backyard.
Can you say moo?

I made a new friend today. His name is Darwin. He has a museum in Villisca, Iowa. Here’s a picture of Darwin and my mom. Darwin is a modern kind of guy. Notice the the cell phone clipped on his bib overalls. Yep, people living in Iowa are high tech.

Here is the inside of Darwin’s museum. He said he opened it a long time ago because he didn’t want these historical relics deteriorating out in local barns and garages. As you can see, Darwin has some really cool stuff.

Infection control nurses, please take note. This is an old whooping cough quarantine sign. Thank goodness we haven’t had to use these in a long time.

This painting is in Darwin’s museum. It was painted by a local artist. It’s a picture of the Villisca Ax Murder House. On June 12, 1912, eight people, six of them children, were bludgeoned to death with an ax while they slept. The murders were never solved. Darwin said he bought the house in 1998 and is currently restoring it to its original appearance. He also mentioned that the house is haunted. Darwin gave us a tour of the place after he ate lunch.

Darwin gave us the grand tour. Here is a picture of a room where two little girls were killed. The bedroom was very creepy.

Here’s where the parents were murdered.

Darwin said that people hear children laughing in the house and that there are cold spots in this corner of the kitchen. Darwin rents the place out for sleepovers at $250 a night, but Darwin said that a lot of people leave the house before the night is over. Can you guess who his biggest repeat customers are? Nurses, of course! Go figure. I guess that proves that most nurses are a little crazy. I gave Darwin my name and email address and asked him to pass on my contact information to the nurses that keep coming back to the house. I hope I hear from them because I’d like to ask them what draws them to the house.

See, I told you we know how to have a good time in Iowa. Come back tomorrow for more Notes from the Middle of Nowhere. In the meantime, start typing up your posts for Change of Shift. I’ll be hosting Change of Shift on June 14th. Please send your posts to nurseratchedsplace AT yahoo DOT com. The deadline for sending in your submissions is June 11th.

Hi everyone. Just wanted you to know that I made it to Iowa in one piece. The flight wasn’t bad if you don’t mind traveling like a sardine packed in a can. Sheesh! Whatever happened to flying the friendly skies? Word to the wise, eat before you travel on a plane. They don’t even serve you peanuts anymore.

Things sure haven’t changed much since I moved to the big city. It was a long drive from the airport to get to my mom’s place. I’m blogging from my mom’s computer. She’s my editor and chief proofreader. Scalpel, you’re right. There’s corn growing everywhere. Its well on it’s way to being knee high by the Fourth of July.

Well, I’m going to visit with the kinfolk for a little while, and then I’m going to bed. In the meantime, read these fun facts about my home state.

The state bird of Iowa is the goldfinch, which should not be confused with any criminal masterminds who tried to kill James Bond.

The 31st president of the US – Herbert Hoover – was born in West Branch, Iowa. This is a fact that Liberals living in Iowa would like to forget.

The state song of Iowa is “Corn! Corn! Corn!”, which consists entirely of people singing the word “corn” for 5 minutes, and was the inspiration for Monty Python’s “Spam” sketch.

Burlington, Iowa is home to Snake Alley, the crookedest street in America, which rates an impressive 9.5 on the Haliburton crookedness scale.

Cedar Rapids, Iowa is home to the world’s largest breakfast cereal company – Quaker Oats. I grew up in Cedar Rapids, and thanks to my childhood, I can’t look at a bowl of oatmeal in the morning.

Check in tomorrow and I’ll show you around the place. Let’s have some fun in the middle of nowhere.

No, I’m not leaving the blogosphere, but I am taking a little vacation back home to Iowa, so if you’ve ever wondered what the middle of nowhere looks like, you’re about to find out. Starting next week, I will be writing a series of posts called, “Notes from the Middle of Nowhere.” I’ll be visiting all the hot spots in and around Clarinda, Iowa. My mom said that there is a Sub-Way in town, and I can’t wait to visit the town’s old state mental hospital. And to top it all off, I’m going to be in Clarinda during the Glenn Miller Festival. I told you that this is going to be fun. Trust me. Do I hear snoring? Wake up! I’m telling you that this is going to be entertaining. I’ll have my camera with me, so you can see all of the famous Iowa landmarks, too. I hope the weather cooperates. It’s storm season in the Midwest, and I’m traveling to a part of Iowa that is nestled away in Tornado Alley.

I hope I don’t end up in Oz, but I’m packing my ruby slippers just in case.

Road Trip! Stay tuned, and enjoy your weekend.

Some of our best medical bloggers are packing up and leaving blogosphere while others are taking down their public blogs and are going private. I have a theory about what’s going on. Do you believe in conspiracy theories? Here’s one that even Fox Mulder from the X-Files would find intriguing.

Doctors and nurses are telling their readers the truth about what’s happening in the health care system, and big business is not amused. The health care industry wants consumers to think that everything is hunky-dory in Hospital Land, and they don’t want health care bloggers telling patients and their family members about what’s really happening behind closed doors. We know all about the skeletons in the health care closet. At one time blogs were viewed as cutesy journals written by lovelorn teenagers and computer geeks, but not anymore. Big business has learned the power of blogging, and they don’t want doctors and nurses bashing health care services online.

There is an old adage that says just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that they aren’t out to get you. Is it paranoid thinking to believe that some powerful forces want to shut us down?

The Truth is Out There.

Look at these poor medical students sitting through another boring anatomy lecture. I think one of the students in the front row is nodding off. Hey, wake up! You don’t want your professor to know that you are sleeping in class. I have a soft spot in my heart for medical students. They study all the time, except when they are blogging, and they are very nice to my colleagues and me. Medical students love nurses. I know why everyone is anxious to leave class. They want to race home to read Grand Rounds. This week’s edition of Grand Rounds is up at Medskool. Go check it out.

I love a lobster feast. It looks good, too. There’s nothing better than lobster and Coke. Too bad I’m not going to barbeque today. I’m going to work. I know I should stop whining. Nobody held a gun to my head to make me sign up for the extra shift, and I’m getting paid double time and a half for working on a holiday. Yes, I sold my soul to the health care devil, at least for today. I wonder if the typical Memorial Day weekend crowd is starting to drift into the hospital yet. The ER gets swamped with all kinds of injuries related to the holiday. They treat burns, cuts, and sprains, and unfortunately we can always count on someone falling out of a boat and drowning. That’s always a heartbreaker, especially if the victim is a kid. We get the drunks on psych. People who drink too much during the holidays get depressed, or turn into fighters, and they end up on my unit. I love it when they come up from the ER trying to “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.”

Not on my shift. Kindly take your Haldol and go to sleep, thank you very much.

Enjoy your day off.

Photograph by Mother Jones, RN

Forrest Gump said that life was like a box of chocolates, but Millie would have disagreed. She had a different view on life. I met Millie in 1974 when she was 100 years old, and she was quite a lady. I learned many secrets from her about living a full life.

Millie had been a schoolteacher and a suffragette. She told me that the first presidential candidate she voted for was Woodrow Wilson because he had an honest face. Millie lived through the Great Depression, two World Wars, and witnessed countless scientific breakthroughs that changed our planet forever. She was a very wise woman. One day I asked her to tell me how she lived to be 100 years old. She said that life is like traveling down a bumpy road in a Buick. She said that a Buick has zip and vitality just like we have when we are young, and then, over the years, they wear out as they travel down the road. She said that we get more dents and dings in our body over time just like a car does, and that if we live to be 100 years old, our body is ready for the junkyard. She said that the secret to longevity is the ability to understand that we don’t stop living once our body turns into a rust bucket with worn out tires and too many miles on the engine.

And so it goes. Enjoy your weekend.

As most of you already know, individuals are pulling down their blogs or are going on hiatus because of things that are happening in the blogosphere. Nurse blogger and NJO columnist, Labor Nurse, is creating a discussion about these recent events, and she is calling for your submissions regarding health care blogging. Please send your submissions to:

labornurse@nursingjobs.org

Come check out Labor Nurse’s new column, “You’re Being (Web) Paged.” The writers at NJO are waiting for YOU!

This nursing pulp fiction book is a classic. It was published in 1961.

“Her first impression was a huge head with silver-white hair, and fierce eyes. It was like seeing the Eiffel Tower or the Colosseum for the first time after having looked at it hundreds of times in magazines or on post cards. Lily’s professional smile was frozen on her lips.

Usually she would approach a patient briskly, her hand outstretched, and introduce herself. She had been taught how to do it in nursing school—with just the right amount of cheerfulness. But this was a man who simply didn’t lend himself to this kind of approach. This was a man who had terrorized the White House, a man even the President was said to be afraid of……”.

Who was Mister X?

If this were a current book, I’d guess that Mister X is Dick Chaney. He has a huge head, white hair, fierce eyes, and he shoots his friends when he goes quail hunting. I don’t blame President Bush if he is wary of Dick. Look out, George, Dick is watching you. Mister X didn’t want anyone to know that he was in the hospital. Today his secret would be safe thanks to HIPAA.

HIPPA is a great idea on paper, but it can be a pain in the posterior when you’re trying to talk to a patient’s family member over the phone.

Me: Hello, Mother Jones, RN, may I help you?

Family: I brought my wife/husband/child to the hospital last night and they were admitted to your unit. How is my family member doing today?

Me using HIPPA-speak: I’m sorry, but I can’t confirm or deny the presence of anyone on the unit due to confidentiality laws. If that person is here, I can give them a message and ask them to call you back.

Family: HUH? What are you talking about? I was there last night. I know the person is there. WTF?

These phone calls often end badly, and things get more fun when the family member, who now thinks I’m a jerk, comes to the unit for a visit. I humbly apologize for the frustration that I caused them by following the law, and explain, once again, why I can’t give out any information about their family member. I’ve had people ask me why I won’t give out information over the phone even if their family member has signed a release of information form. I tell them that I am protecting the patient’s confidentiality. After all, anyone can claim to be anybody over the phone, and how can I tell whom I’m really speaking to over the phone? I generally am able to make peace with the family, but only after spending copious amounts of time soothing their ruffled feathers.

As a side note, there’s been a lot of chatter in the blogosphere about medical bloggers and HIPPA regulations. Let me make this very clear. I write composite stories about many different people that I’ve cared for over the years. Names, dates, and other identifying factors about patients and their family members have been changed to protect the innocent AND the guilty. You are having ideas of reference if you recognize yourself in any other these stories. These stories are not about you.

Let’s hear it for HIPAA. Where would we be without those glorious regulations?

I’ll never forget those immortal words, “Double your pleasure, double your fun.” Chewing gum was fun, except when you got caught chewing it in class. We had to wear the offending wad of gum on the tip of our nose if our teacher caught us breaking the class rules. Of course, I was the perfect child, and never chewed gum at school. There was another reason why I didn’t chew gum. I wore braces, and I didn’t want to get gum tangled up in the wires.

Check out this old Doublemint ad. It says that chewing Wriggles Doublemint gum helps a woman keep the youthful contour of her face. I didn’t know that chewing gum could make a woman look beautiful. Somehow I don’t see women trading in botox and expensive plastic surgery for a pack of chewing gum.

Today, I’m doubling my pleasure by writing a double meme. I received these memes from Liana from Med Valley High and from 24 Hour Nurse from Nursing 24 Hours A Day . Liana wants to know 5 reasons why I blog, and 24 Hour Nurse asked me to write 8 random facts about myself . Here we go.

Five reasons why I blog:

Writing helps me relax. The creative process relieves stress.

I enjoy sharing information with others about things that are important to me.

I enjoy developing “pen pal” relationships with people from around the world.

Writing is a way of advocating for my patients.

It’s fun.

Here are eight random facts about me.

I am a huge animal lover.

I wrote a book about Fiesta dinnerware.

I am a perennial college student.

My kids think I’m the coolest mom on earth because I’m a blogger.

I’m a thrift store junkie.

I play the cello.

My favorite actor is Robert Redford.

My car is a Scion. I named it Milton Harvey.

I’m not into tagging people, so feel free to tag yourself.