Plop Plop Fizz Fizz

It was an unusually busy three to eleven shift on our med/ surg. floor. Everyone was “flying solo.” As long as they could do a task without asking for help, we did it. Everyone was trying to get “their own work” done, without pulling someone else away from their assignments.

The call bell rang out and one of our R. N. s, Babs just happened to be at the desk and answered the call light. It was that old man who said “I really need to go bad!”

It’s always a better choice for a nurse to help a patient to the bathroom than to have to change the bed linens.

That evening Babs was wearing brand new pant uniform and shoes and almost glowed like an angel beneath the fluorescent lights. She was the only nurse at the station and stopped taking off the doctors’ orders, hurrying into the patient’s room.

The man was thin, with wispy white hair, and unsteady on his feet. Babs helped him to stand, then stepped up behind him to help him keep balanced. She placed a hand beneath each of his armpits, to support him as he walked to the bathroom. After a few wobbling steps, Babs found herself in a dilemma. The old man began to move his bowels. Like a cow, his loose feces dropped, “PLOP! PLOP! PLOP!” on the floor, splattering Babs’s new shoes and pant legs.

Babs couldn’t let go and allow the shaky elderly patient walk unaided, but she didn’t want the poop to continue splashing onto her new clothing. All she could do was to hold onto him and keep going. She kept spreading her legs wider and wider to try to avoid stepping in the feces and to keep her uniform from being splattered.

By the time she made it to the bathroom entrance, her stance was almost too wide to go through the bathroom door. She eased the man through the doorway and sat him on the commode. Leaving him with the call bell cord, she exited the bathroom, cleaned the mess on the floor, and went to the nurse’s lounge to wipe off the worst of the feces from her shoes and pants. She couldn’t remove enough of the feces from her new pants and wore a pair of operating room scrub pants, allowing her new pants to soak in cold water.

For most of the evening, she was upset, but after a few times of us moving past her with our arms out in front of us and walking with our legs spread wide, she saw the humor of the whole incident and managed to smile by the end of the shift.

Losing Your Cool

        Dot was one of the nurses with whom I worked in the emergency department. She was an older woman who was meticulous. Her uniform was spotless , her shoes were shined within an inch of their life, and she always fastened her nursing cap securely on top of her dark curls with a bevy of hair pins.

            An emergency room doctors was her complete opposite. If you remember the television program, “The Odd Couple” you can understand what I am trying to explain. His clothing was always rumpled and more often than not, covered in dog hair. He wore his gray hair longer, unkempt.   He had one big bug-a-boo. He hated when a restroom door was left ajar. He wouldn’t just close it. He would slam any door that was open. You knew when he made rounds, somewhere on the floor a door would BANG shut.

            Dot was fastening her hat in the restroom one afternoon when Dr. Vandy entered the adjoining lounge. He poured his cup of coffee and as he turned to leave. He saw the door was open. BANG! He slammed it shut. Turning on his heel, he walked out to the desk at the nursing station.

            A few seconds later, Dot stormed out of the lounge. She was as hot as the doctor’s coffee. Her face was red and there was dirt and debris strewn across her hair, her hat, and spread across the shoulders of her crisp, white uniform. When the doctor slammed the door, the air pressure lifted up the ceiling tiles and dirt that collected for tears on the top side of the tiles rained down on her.

            She stood beside Dr. Vandy until he sat his cup of coffee down. She grabbed his coat sleeve and dragged him back into the lounge. She shoved him into the bathroom and slammed the door shut, not just once, but… WHAM, WHAM, WHAM! We could hear it in the nursing station. She left the lounge and went into a patient’s restroom to brush off her uniform and to pick the dirt out of her hair.

            A few minutes later, a much chagrined Dr. Vandy emerged from the lounge with a sheepish smile on his face. He was covered in a large amount of dirt, dust, and debris on his head and shoulders. He rolled his eyes, ran his hand through his hair, and brushed at the dirt on his jacket.  It didn’t seem to faze him, but rather seemed amused about it all as he picked up his cup and took a sip.

Always Something Else to Do

The usual editor and composer of the Chestnut Ridge Historical Society’s newsletter is unable to continue producing our quarterly publication, so I am trying to shoulder some of the burden. I have never done this before; assimilating and coordinating the information needed for our members in an interesting way. Hopefully, with some encouragement and help from a few of my friends I can create something that I need not be ashamed of. Let me say this, composing a newsletter was never in my bucket list. For any of my new readers, my last post was about bucket lists and how I thought they came into being.

While I am mentioning the Historical Society, I’d like to remind all of my readers that as you clean out your homes or relative’s homes, any local souvenirs, postcards, memorabilia, written documents or photographs that are no longer wanted, may be just what your local society is looking for and may be what is needed to complete the story of the area. If you have old photographs, there is no need to give them up. They can be copied, placed in the archives and be preserved for others to see.

I’ve been cutting up meat for the freezer. I am getting some ready to can and even may even have enough left over to make some jerky. Everything that doesn’t go into steak, I call “chunk meat.” The orts may be too small or too tough for anything but to be canned or to be made into jerky. The steaks are in the freezer, but I will need to get some canning lids and some spices to make the jerky.

I know how my kids love to hear this, and I will certainly get brow beaten, but there was a jolly fat man on my roof yesterday making sure the chimney was cleaned out. The next few days call for rain and I definitely don’t want to be climbing on a metal roof when it’s raining. The dry roof and my rubber soled tennis shoes held well. There wasn’t one slip and the good news was, the chimney was basically clear, so I only needed to run the pole up and down a few times. Some people like to read my hospital stories. Stay tuned, this may turn out to be one.

I’d like to build a small coal box to store a load of coal. Up to now, I’ve routinely burned wood, but I know that adding coal will cause the fire in the furnace to last overnight. No middle of the night waking up and going to the basement to add wood to the fire. It sounds like a promise of Eden to me. For many years, my parents only had a coal furnace to keep our old brown Insulbrick house warm through the long cold winter nights.

Bucket List

Over the past several weeks, I began to think about my advancing age and the things that I still want to do and the things that I’ve done. Looking back, I can see more clearly the things that I’ve not been able to do yet. In today’s lingo, that is called a bucket list. I believe I understand how it got its name. When I was much younger, I had a mental list of what I wanted to do before I died. One phrase to describe dying was to say “kick the bucket.” I wonder, is this where the term “bucket list” comes from?

I remember as a child I was drawn to the continent of Africa. I wanted to see the elephants, rhinoceros, zebras, and lions. As close as I ever came to this desire was to visit zoos in Chicago and in Pittsburgh. It isn’t the same, but I believe that it is as close as I’ll get to actually visit Africa. If I sit in a seat for a long of a period of time my lower legs become cramped, edematous, and my sciatic nerve will cause leg numbness. I’d not be able to enjoy the excursion.

One thing that I’ve been able to accomplish is to write and to have someone actually read the words I’ve written. To have someone enjoy the books I’ve had published and to have people read and comment about the ideas I share in my BlogSpot was one item in my bucket list. One thing I haven’t yet done with my writing is to have a poem set to music as a hymn. I’m trying to get a musically inclined friend to help me do that.

I’ve been slowly going through my belongings and to get rid of things that are no longer useful. I’m not a hoarder, but I don’t want to leave meaningless bits of flotsam and jetsam for my kids to sort after I’m gone. I’m also trying to get my finances in order. The money under my mattress isn’t a fortune, but I am trying to find ways to pass it on to my children without the government taxing the money for a second time. The government must like the Captain and Tennille’s lyrics, “Once is never enough.”

I imagine that I don’t have a lot of years left to get my bucket in gear and to try to empty my bucket list before I kick the bucket.

Emergency

One evening as I worked in the emergency department at our small hospital, Joanne was working with me. Joanne was a Licensed Practical Nurse that we affectionately called Mrs. Kleen because of her overly tidy attitude. She’d just bought a new pair of nursing shoes and was wearing them for the first time. About three quarters of the way through our evening shift, she began to complain that the shoes were hurting her feet. She disappeared into a storage area, then into the nurses’ lounge. When she returned a few minutes later, she was wearing a pair of patient slippers on her feet. At the time, our hospital was issuing flimsy green foam foot coverings. Now, if you use your imagination, think of a pair of green foam slippers on her long, slender feet. It looked as though she had a pair of cucumbers at the end of her ankles instead of feet, but she stopped complaining of sore feet. It seemed to be working.

Near the end of the end of the shift, an ambulance crew delivered a young man who’d been involved in an automobile accident. The man was strapped to a gurney and cocooned in sheets and blankets. Hiding in the sheets and blankets were small pieces of glass from the automobile’s shattered windshield. The pieces looked like tiny cubed dice. When they moved the young man from the stretcher to the bed, the pieces of glass scattered across the floor at both bedsides.

We hurried to asses and treat the patient. Joanne was there helping to disrobe the man so a thorough examination could be completed. As she hustled around the bedside, the foam slippers were almost no protection from the shards of glass. They were like caltrops and Joanne began to complain about the glass hurting her feet. “Ouch, my poor feet,” she cried as she stepped on one piece of glass after another. The auto accident and shattered windshield was trying to claim another victim.

I said, “Joanne. Go back to the lounge. Change back into your shoes, before the glass really cuts you feet.”

She looked across the patient at me and said, “Those shoes hurt my feet worse than the glass does.” Okay Joanne, end of story.

Checking Things Out

The chill is on and I am trying to get myself ready to go hunting. Not like the man of the nursery rhyme and looking for a rabbit skin to wrap my baby bunting in, but for venison. Deer hunting with my brother has become an annual tradition. I’m not the trophy hunter like some. I can’t eat antlers. It was and still is all about putting meat in the freezer.

Yesterday, I walked around in one of our usual places to hunt to see what I could find. I’m not as spry as I once was, if I was ever spry. Last year I was summoned to jury duty in Fayette County. For hours upon end I was forced to sit on hard wooden benches and chairs, waiting for trials that never came. Long before an end came to the first day, my right leg was aching and my foot was numb. I complained to the woman in charge of jurors. She listened to my plight and excused me for that session. To this day, I still have pain in that leg and occasional numbness in that foot. It has aggravated my sciatic nerve.

The tour of the hunting area was slow, walking, stopping, listening, and watching for deer sign and for any deer that might be sharing the woods with me. It was a chilly start, but the sun came out and warmed the air until I could no longer see my breath. Birds and chipmunks were out searching for their breakfasts. The leaves underfoot were still damp and made little noise as I walked. The only other sound was made by the wind, high in the trees overhead. I moved slowly, searching for movement.

I had just moved to an area that was more open than a brushy spot I had been standing, when I saw a silent, slinking form that moved in from my left sign. As it drew neared, I made a soft snort.  The animal came to a stop. It was a fairly meaty three point buck. It stopped and stared in my direction. The wind was in my favor. I stood just as still as it was. Finally, it bounded away into thick cover, giving a few soft whistles.

I continued to circle back to my car without seeing anything but a few birds. I drove home to rest my aching leg. Oh, by the way, the Monday that followed my jury duty and release, I found another summons for jury duty.

Egging On

I am sharing some random thoughts about some eggs in my life. Of course, the eggs I am proudest of are the three eggs that my wife made and became our children: Amanda Dawn, Andrew Thomas, and Anna Elizabeth. How could I share any stories about eggs without naming them? The next proudest would be of my granddaughters, Celine Noel, Moriah Ann, and Hannah Elizabeth, but I use them as a lead in to my thoughts. These are just bragging rights and have nothing to do with the story I plan to share.

I had no idea what to write until I recalled something that happened last Friday while at the Ohiopyle Buckwheat and Sausage Festival. Someone gave a dozen free-range chicken eggs to the sausage fryers to cook on the grill for some breakfast sandwiches. Some of the volunteers like to make a “McOhiopyle” sandwich to “sample” the sausage and to curb their early morning appetites. Buzzy, one of the volunteers cooked six of the eggs on a side griddle and put them on a plate for the other workers. He then began to cook the remaining eggs. As is sometimes the problem with finding and collecting free-range eggs, the less diligent farmer cannot attest to the age of each egg.

Buzzy, the rotund cook, cracked open one egg, then two. When he cracked open the third, it began to sizzle. It was then that the stench hit him full in the face. The white of the egg bubbled around the black yolk simmered on the griddle. The egg was rotten.

Immediately, Buzzy began to gag and dance. Not just once, but deep gasping, stomach wrenching sounds. Those around him expected a geyser of gastric contents to erupt at any second. Another volunteer across the griddles escaped hurriedly, unable to listen to the great gagging sounds. Later, he told us that had Buzzy actually hurled, he would have been through for the day.

Buzzy finally gained control of the waves of nausea and managed to clean the now hardened and stinking mess from the grill. As he threw the fetid mess into the garbage and before he could get rid of the already fried eggs, another worker entered and constructed a “McOhiopyle” sandwich. Buzzy noticed him just as he was about to take a bite and stopped him. The “McOhiopyle” sandwich and the entire batch of eggs ended up in the trash. All day long, the workers teased Buzzy with rotten egg jokes.