Mind reader

I survived the weekend!!  It actually wasn’t bad at all.  We only had fourteen patients on the floor on Saturday (we can take up to 38 when we are completely full), and then on Sunday we only had eight when I showed up at 3pm.  I guess people aren’t getting sick or are deciding not to come to the hospital.  It doesn’t help that there are no scheduled surgeries on the weekend.  (A surgeon is on call for emergencies, but no planned surgeries occur on the weekend.)  My patients were fairly easy as well, except one of my patients was a bit different . 

She was old old…there’s old, and then there’d “old old,” which is people 85 years old and older.  Although hard of hearing, she was totally with it.  I walked into her room to check on her, and she had been throwing tissues on the floor and exclaimed, “Where have you been??  I’ve been yelling all this time!”  Maybe I just didn’t hear her, but I’m fairly certain she wasn’t yelling.  Also, she had been using her call bell throughout the day, so if she needed something, she most likely would have used the call bell.  I asked her what was wrong, and she just kept saying, “You’re the nurse, you’re supposed to know!” I explained that I can’t help her unless she tells me what is wrong, but she repeatedly told me that I just needed to know.  After going through a series of questions (Are you in pain?  Having trouble breathing?  Do you need to go to the bathroom?  Are you uncomfortable in bed?  Are you nauseated?  etc etc), examining her, and checking her vital signs, I ended up repositioning her and she thanked me for my help.  And then continued to throw tissues on the ground.

I have no clue what any of that was about, but I’m apparently supposed to be a mind reader.  However, she later told me that one of her friends was blind, and she prayed for her and then she could see.  I’m not really much of a religious person (but if you are, more power to you), but that seemed a bit of a reach for me.  Interesting people in this world, let me tell you.

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Since I switched my running schedule around, I had my 17 mile long run this morning.  The nice part about working evening shift is that I can get long runs in before work without waking up at 4am!  I ended up getting off work around 1am  last night (we had two admissions and a transfer between nine and ten…yikes), so I woke up at nine and was on the road at ten.  The run was really nothing to write home about.  I carried water with me and was able to refill, but it wasn’t even that hot so it was a nice run.  Lots of people said hi back to me as well.  :)  Nine miles to go after 17…woo!

Monday, August 24
17.1 miles in 2:20:53, avg pace of 8:14
Splits:  8:17, 8:23, 8:36, 8:14, 8:21, 8:10, 8:08, 8:17, 8:41, 7:48 (oops?), 8:12, 8:35, 7:57, 8:03, 8:07, 8:05, 0:46 (7:36)

Garmin got a little crazy in the middle (it was telling me I was running a 4:30 mile…ummm no), but I was kind of consistent overall and able to drop the pace a little at the end.  I should probably still be going slower, but overall I’m pretty happy with this run.

I got cancelled from work today, so I’m off to work on my to do list and then head to Princeton until Wednesday…yay!  Mondays aren’t so bad sometimes.  :)