Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Welcome to the Hole!

Part I: Meaningless drivel (movies)
A) Oh Harry Potter the Fourth, you have finally come to be a real movie. How many double entendres did you count? How many Frodo-faces? He made a couple, or rather, the camera did.
And to my dissapointment, the kids don't make face with each other. Sigh.
The people next to me at the Vista wanted to share their popcorn, and so I felt like an orphan taken in from the alleyways of London. The row of gay men in front of me did a synchronized "hand dance" along with the "Enjoy a refreshing cola!" ad before the trailers. People always clap when the ad is over, whoop and holler. It makes me laugh when they do that. People do funny things at the Vista.
B) Joaquin and his not-a-cleft-palate, got-it-in-a-fight-with-my-brother-that-I-refuse-to-talk-about scar. I liked the nuzzling, the scene at the lunch counter, the peanuts, Reese WItherspoon's freckles, and absolutely everything else. Jerry Lee Lewis had some nasty lyrics.
C) I finally got around to seeing Monster too this weekend (and I started Into Thin Air as well, having finished book one of the naval novels). Not a new revelation, but man is Christina Ricci sucky. Fortunately, things tend to work themselves out and henceforth even though I had a hypothesis that maybe Charlize was being overpraised, I was wrong. I would also recommend the HBO documentary.
I am now about to try to watch The Notebook, but I don't think I'll be able to make it through.


Part II: Small, potentially meaningful story from my daily life:
Today was my first day semi-quasi-hemi-solo in the PICU. I had two patients on my own, in the Hole. The Hole is one of our two quad rooms, e.g. there are 4 patients in a room. You might barely leave the Hole for all your 12 hours, except to go for breaks. Sometimes the Holes are vacant and quiet, half-full, and you go about your business. Sometimes you're alone in your hole with an unconscious/sedated patient, so every now and then a heard of medical residents, fellows and attending will meander into the Hole during rounds or someone outside the Hole will pop their head in and say "Come on out of the Hole for a sec". Today there were no vacancies. Four patients, three RNs and two nurse residents, plus assorted family members. Over in one corner was one of my patients, a 14 year old who had taken to yelling "Sarah can you please get my flema?" (phlegm in Spanish, quite endearing). He'd chase this ten minutes later with an expressive sentence en Espanol involving the word 'puta' or 'hija de puta', e.g., some take on "whore". He'd often include his dear mother in the insult. He can't help it. Yesterday he told me to - and I quote -"take it in the ass" when I asked if he wanted pain medicine. We use a universal pain scale with numbers and faces on it to help kids tell us how bad their pain is...I asked him to rate his pain and he said "What the FUCK is wrong with you goddamn people?". He says it with a slur to his speech of course.
I couldnt help but empathize in a way. If I was a teenager and I had a tube coming, say, straight out of the center of my brain and someone asked me to point at a face or a number to describe my pain - no matter how mindful the inquisitor was of not sounding patronizing - I might turn inside out like a sea cucumber after holding up my middle finger to delineate where I fit on the scale.

I was there when some good news about his prognosis came down the line, and there were tears and hugs, so it was a good day.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Using a laser at your place of work: A Primer

Today was neurology review day for my critical care orientation.
I like neurology.
I've decided.
Here's what we reviewed:
1) neuromuscular blocking agents (paralytics)
2) intracranial pressure monitoring and assessment
and then we were regaled with a bunch of horrific but notable stories involving children and their heads by our beloved mentor Fran, and so we will never forget some very important things.

In the PICU, I am becoming adept at manipulating cockstops (not cockblocks, though maybe that too?).
Would you like me to explain the physics of the pleural cavity? No problem! Whenever you're ready.
We use lasers and levels at the bedside. The laser is used to make sure that the drains we use to drain fluid from the brain are aligned against the proper anatomical reference point. If the drain is lower than the patient's head, too much fluid will drain off, equalling *collapse*. If it's too high, no fluid will drain and the pressure in the brain will increase, equalling *squish*.

After brain class, I went to the laundrymat, folded my clothes, read a chapter of my naval novel, then ate a frozen yogurt with my neighbor.

Yesterday I was at Trader Joe's and next to me in line was the guy who played the character/rugby player "Roy" in "Alive". You'll remember him as the freckled, whinging, anxious, consistently annoying survivor.

I don't know if I told you - and forgive me if I didnt - but I saw Keanu in the parking lot of Home Depot last week. He had just purchased a hot dog from the hot dog cart outside near the garden center.

I lost 3 hours of my life to Netflix last night what with its convoluted yet decidedly wonderful site compiling a massive queue filled with PBS documentaries, Return to Oz and Murderball.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Beat to Quarters!

Today my special nautical/historical/flauna-flora glossary arrived from Amazon. It is called "A Sea of Words" and it has been described [per back cover of said book] as "A godsend" by the Irish Times. This is because if you attempt to read what I have started reading without it, the harpies will descend to pluck at your eyelashes. Only a nautical savant could understand Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels (aka Master and Commander) unaided. And only a savant of a totally different variety would even pick such a book up, in this case a filmic-nursing-marine-oriented savant.

In essence:
I don't have to worry anymore - because now I know what a "cunt-splice" is! No more harried nights!

It's a "type of splice formed when two ropes are overlapped and joined in such a way as to form an EYE" (emphasis belonging to the text)
My friend said to me today: I didnt know you were into boats..
Hey, now! That's because I aren't.

In other news, my Saturday matinee of Jarhead was interrupted by the guy to my left who kept readjusting his package every time...well, every time you saw desert in a frame. Today I learned from NPR that Walter Murch doesnt like attending sets of the films he cuts, so if he has to go on set, he looks at the floor until he sees the director's shoes and then looks up to talk to director and then back to floor and he leaves. he doesnt want to see anything that the audience wont be seeing. How does he know a director by his shoes?

I would recommend Jarhead but only in a dispassionate way. Jake G doesnt make that developmentally delayed voice in this movie, in fact he's pretty good aside from the lobotomized way you feel for his character and everyone around him.

That Bob Dylan PBS thing is amazing. I only just saw it. I like it when he says things like: "It was rightly cold."

More importantly, I would like to recommend Danny Boyle's follow-up to 28 Days Later, which would be Millions, available on DVD.
It is amazing!

I had babka tonight
Exclamation point

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

This loser took the longest


Napoleon
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

Mephisto


Mephisto
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.
Danielle in her wisdom chose to carve Mephisto last night, which isn't really Mephisto of the shoe company or the German film, but the Bono version of Mephisto circa 1993 when he would dress up like so and phone frmr. President HW Bush from a concert and leave strange messages on the machine.

Why are you wearing that stupid bunny suit?


Frank
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.
Why are you wearing that stupid man suit...

row o' gourd


The Pumpkin People
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.
Oh look at the little lighted items in our courtyard. It really lit up our little Gateway Ave kibbutz.

The Pumpkin People


Dracula Mr Burns
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.
The annual tendinitis-inducing gourd-scoop out came and went.
They make an electric saw for carving pumpkins and I got one.
My neighbors and I carved through the night and some drank egg nog with rum and others ate mediocre chinese food and we had a few little Darth Vaders, an Obi Wan, two red Power Rangers and baby skunk (trick or treating in a stroller) and a boy dressed as a girl. Way to push cultural boundaries (machismo), brother.
So here we have Mr. Burns, a labor of love carved by Shelly.