Road Trip! Road Trip!

It's been two years since I have had a break. It wasn't that I didn't have the opportunity; it's just that I never really thought about it. But a coming event has provided the opportunity for me to take a much-needed (and eagerly-anticipated) break from the trenches.

What's the event? Well, dear friend, I am glad to tell you: One of my older sisters is graduating from nursing school down in Southern California.

(Can I tell you all how proud I am of her? I am just busting at the seams. She's a good one, she is. And she has also become a dear, dear friend. How lucky can a brother get?)

So, in honor of this auspicious occasion, I have undertaken the heavy and onerous task of driving my customized Mustang down the Pacific Coast Highway all the way (heavy sigh) down the coast to my sister's abode, where I will watch her receive her Bachelor's degree in Nursing Science. She has a job waiting for her in the Pediatric Oncology (her first choice) department of a very prestigious hospital down there. I am so proud of her!

And I get a much-needed rest. I asked my wife if she was at peace with the trip. She said, "God seldom gives us opportunities like this. You need this. Take it. Besides," she said with a wicked grin as she wrapped her arms around me and flashed her amazing grey eyes, "Think about the homecoming."

"Wellll... okay. If you put it that way..."

So tomorrow I am off to drive, drive, drive. The weather is going to be awesome, and so is my vacation. I'll keep you all posted, since I am bringing my laptop.

Hybrid Cars: Death in a Bunny Suit

If the public ever stopped to think for themselves, the 'eco-friendly' hybrid would be banned from our highways.

They are not 'green.' They are, in fact, blacker than Hitler's bastard heart.

Do any of these bunny-hugging, sign-waving morons stop to think about what it takes to make just one of those big-assed batteries? Come to think of it, do any of these idiots stop to think about what it takes to recycle one- which is necessary every five years!?

Of course not. And you can bet your sweet ass that none of the proponents of these toxic deathtraps is about to tell you, either. All they say is that they use less gas. And after all, isn't that what it's all about?

Last summer, when I asked these questions of a greeniac sign-waver who preached the Gospel According to Al "St. Fat Dumbass" Gore, the poor little fly cleared his throat and said tentatively, "Well, that's still a problem that hasn't been solved. But we should still do it, because by the time the mass of batteries has to be exchanged, we'll have the technology to do it."

I smiled wickedly and rejoined, "So what you are saying is that in spite of the fact that these batteries are shockingly toxic to produce, and shocking toxic to recycle, we should still buy only hybrid cars?"

"Well, yes, because they still use less gas."

I must have looked as appalled at his lack of critical thinking as I actually was, because he defensively asked, "What...?"

"Do you have any idea how utterly and patently stupid your rationale is?"

"What do you mean?" The young man bristled.

"I mean, you rail and rant about how America is destroying our ecosystem because of the huge so-called 'carbon footprint' we leave due to our use of petroleum, but you are more than happy to advocate forcing us to buy cars that are even more toxic to the environment- and far more dangerous to the consumer- when you don't even have a frigging clue as to what's really going on here."

"They are not dangerous!" retorted the misguided idiot.

"Oh, yes they are," I shot back, leaning forward. "Think about it. How much does that big-assed battery weigh?"

"I dunno."

"A helluva lot. And if you are driving at 60 miles an hour and aren't watching where you are going while texting your Earth Mama and have a head-on collision with someone else, or a bridge median, guess what the last thing to go through your mind will be?"

"What?"

"That big-assed battery, pal. And if you manage to survive being crushed by the battery, what do you think will be all over your mangled body?"

"I dunno."

"The stuff that was in the battery, Brainiac. And you know what else? No medic team in its right frigging mind is gonna come anywear near your sorry mangled ass while that big old battery is dicharging all of its energy and acid all over you and that ugly-assed car. So you'll sit there in your carbon-neutral happy-wagon and boil your skin off until a hazmat team shows up to make it safe, which could take a long, lonnnnnnnnng time, considering how fast the Department of Transportation moves these days."

I paused for another breath while a few other Berkenstock Boneheads directed their attention towards our exchange, then continued: "Now just suppose you survive your traumatic injuries and the additional insult of being stewed by your battery. Let's even go so far as to say that you survive the trip to my ER in a bumpy, cold medic unit. Do you think I'm going to let your sorry, toxic ass into my ER and jeopardize the health and safety of my staff and other patients? HELLLLLLLLLLL, NO. You're getting your ass scrubbed down of ALL toxic materials OUTSIDE before you get into one of my rooms. Here's a brutal truth, bud: Someone who is stewing in battery acid because he didn't think for himself before buying one of your Utopia-Mobiles isn't even close to being worth four of my people getting poisoned trying to save his stupid ass."

I turned on my heel, walked to my 26 MPG, 320HP Mustang, revved up with a lusty, throaty roar, and rolled down my window.

"Peace out, dude," I said as I roared out of the parking lot and drove to work.

Heroes

He was sick, sick, sick.

I inherited him at the change of shift. He was completely with it, but his body was failing him fast.

The offgoing nurse offhandedly reported that the patient was a bomber pilot because his wife of nearly sixty years had mentioned it. (Sixty years! Can you imagine being married that long?)

This man was the only person I had at the beginning of my shift. I signed off on the report and, after reviewing the chart, went into the room to introduce myself as the oncoming nurse.

The patient was asleep, so I spoke with his wife. She informed me that the man was a B-24 "Liberator" pilot. I informed her that I was an amateur World War 2 aviation historian, and she brightened visibly.

"Are you familiar with the B-24 forces that flew out of North Africa in 1943?"

I answered excitedly, "Are you telling me that your husband served in that theater?"

"Yes, I am. He was there."

Something in our conversation awakened the patient, who asked his wife who was there.

"It's your nurse. Do you know that he knows what you did?"

The man raised himself up from the stretcher. "What makes you say that?"

I approached him and said one word: "Ploesti."

My patient looked me straight in the eye for a moment, and then he began to cry.

"Oh, sir!" I said. "I am sorry that I have said somthing to hurt you!"

"It's not you," he said. "I lost so many friends that day..." he said, his voice trailing away.

"Sir, you are one of my heroes. I have read so much about your friends, and of you. I can't tell you how honored I am to serve you."

The patient looked at me as if I was joking.

"I mean it. I've read abut the Ploesti run."

"What do you know?" He asked.

So I shared all that I had read about the B-24 raid on the German oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania, over the years. He filled in the gaps. He was my only patient for more than an hour. And what an hour! The stories he told- I must have seemed like a child at his feet, listening wide-eyed to his accounts of the hardships and terror he and his friends encountered during one of the most horrific parts of the war.

I was finally told by the charge nurse that I had another patient coming in- a young man who got drunk and hit his head, and who was belligerent and combative. I stood up from the bedside and excused myself. The patient took my hand and thanked me.

"How can you thank me after all you have done for me?"

He took my hand in his big paw, and answered simply, "You remember."

That's Just So Wrong! -Then Again, It Makes Sense...

It was about 4PM on a Sunday. The waiting area was packed with malingering whiney-baws, harried soccer moms and their bruised, violent hooligans, armchair football warriors who tripped over their coffee tables and sacked themselves- right into the TV-, and the "Bucket Brigade" (seasonal GI bug sufferers). I was float RN and I was covering the Charge RN for a lunch break when the Charge RN's phone rang; I picked it up. On the other end was the Triage RN. Her rather hushed tone was laden with, oh, I don't know... a strange, pressured awkwardness, I suppose.

(I am here to tell you: it's damned hard for an ER nurse to feel awkward. Just think of all those tubes we wave around and where we put them.)

Awkwardness usually is not an issue with us unless we encounter something so shockingly unexpected that our brains just sort of go Gah-WOOOOO-gah. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it can be entertaining.

...Such as in the case of the conversation I was having with the triage nurse.

"Why are you whispering?" I asked.

"I don't want them to hear me," she answered with a very strange lilt and timbre to her voice.

Let me try to recreate the nurse's tone of voice for the reader. Imagine you and your friend are in Dracula's castle and you have found your way to the vampire's crypt. It's pitch dark down there, and your friend lights a match while you are turned the other way. There, illuminated before your friend's eyes by the frail light of the lit match, is the Ole Bloodsucker himself... sound asleep in his coffin.

...But the Count also happens to be dressed in a neon yellow tutu, a huge green foam-rubber cowboy hat, a blue feather boa, and bright red patent-leather seven-inch platform shoes. Oh, wait, wait... And he has on those really, REALLY HUGE plastic sunglasses.

(I know what you're thinking: "Hey, wait! That's Elton John!" Well, that's just ridiculous. Stop being silly.)

Anyway, having recovered from the inital shock, your friend says to you in a voice that tries to convey the full color of what he sees without waking the monster, "Um, there is something over here that might interest you..."

Are you imagining that tone of voice? Yes, that's what I was hearing.

"Okay," I said with an exasperated sigh. "You don't want who to hear you?"

"The strippers!" she snapped in a hissed whisper over the phone (which was, I may point out, actually loud enough to awaken the Count and send him into a frenzy of... of... hmm... well, into a frenzy of whatever the hell he was doing wearing that preposterous getup).

"Strippers!?" I blurted out. The entire Western Hemisphere turned around to look at me. I smiled wanly. It was my turn to feel awkward.

"Yes. Strippers."

"How many?" I asked. Now I really had coworkers tilting their heads toward me to listen. This was looking bad- really bad.

"Six," the triage nurse reported.

"Well, what do they want?" I asked, as if they were a 60 Minutes crew coming to do an ambush interview. (I still roll my eyes at myself.)

"Umm, they say they want to be seen," The triage nurse replied.

"Why else would they be strippers?" I asked drily. (I'm sorry, but I really did say it. It just sort of slipped.)

"Dammit, that's not funny!" she hissed.

"Okay. Okay. I'm sorry." I said, drawing another very heavy sigh. "What are their chief complaints?"

"They are all the same," she answered.

"Hmm... okay, I'll ask. What is it?"

"Rash," the nurse answered flatly.

"Rash?"

"Rash."

After fighting very, very hard to keep imagery and snappy remarks at bay, I asked, "Do they have fevers?"

"Umm..." I heard the nurse rifling through papers; then, "No."

I looked at the bed board. Quick Care was just opening, and had ten beds. All the other patients were going to need more complex care, and those beds were opening up soon.

"Okay. Send the six of them to Quick Care along with the two people with finger lacs (cuts), the migraine patient, and the one with the ankle injury.

"The ankle injury has a nine-year-old son with her."

"Put her in a room that has a DOOR."

"Okayyyyyy. Bye-bye."

I hung up the phone. The Charge RN arrived from lunch a few minutes later.

"Everything okay?" she asked.

"Yep. No problems," I said.

"Great. Let's see here," she said, looking at the assignment sheet. "Oh!" Quick care is full, and there is only one nurse and no ED Tech. Why don't you go help them out until 1900?"

(Cue Symphony of "Oh, Crap" in D minor.)

"Uh, sure. Okay."

The Charge nurse tilted her head, looked closely at me, and asked, "Are you okay?"

I must have actually gone pale. I thought I just thought pale.

"Yeah. I'm okay."

I walked like a condemned man to Quick Care.

The, um, entertainers were given their own rooms, handed warm blankets, and instructed to change in to the gowns provided to them. I gave them time by seeing first the ankle injury, and then the migraine (a frequent flyer). Grabbing the first clipboard, I knocked on the wall and asked the patient if I could come in.

"Sure," she answered.

I pulled the curtain and walked through. The woman had her gown on "Hollywood style" (that is, open in the front). And untied. Hanging rather loosely open. (If they were real, they were spectacular.)

While looking at my shoes, I instructed the patient that the gown was to be open in the back (in the BACK, for God's sake) and exited the room.

It was the same with the other five strippers.

During the interval in which the strippers were correcting their gowns, the MD came in. It was the darling, slight, quiet, staid MD from Ole Miss herself.

Dear God, I am sorry for whatever it was I did to deserve this fate. Please can you make it stop now?

The MD hummed to herself as she looked through the charts. Looking at the migraine sufferer's chart, she asked, "Typical migraine?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"She has a clinical alert. No narcotics for the Princess. It's Toradol and Compazine in the butt for her," she said, scrawling the order on the chart.

"Got it. I have also put in the order for a three-view ankle X-ray for the patient in Nine. Status-post hysterectomy."

"Great!" chirped Ole Miss.

"Both finger lacs have up-to-date tetanus shots, and have been infiltrated by Mags (the other RN).

"Awesome." The MD then began looking over the remaining six charts. After the third stripper's chart, the humming stopped and Ole Miss furrowed her brow.

"We have six patients with rashes."

"Yes, we do. They are all entertainers from the same, um, establishment."

Ole Miss looked up at me and cocked an eyebrow. Then she caught my meaning.

"You mean they're all strippers..." The MD said flatly.

"Uh, yes. They are all strippers."

"Oh, crap. They never learn, do they?" the MD said as she turned on her heel and strode to the first stripper's room. After knocking, the MD entered the room as I followed her with the patient's chart.

"Where is your rash?" asked Ole Miss.

"Oh, it's all over!" answered the stripper, who stripped off her entire gown to emphasize her point.

Oh, God. Get me out of this.

The reddened areas were, indeed, everywhere, but in a discreet pattern. The patient had red areas to her inner forearms, her inner upper arms, between her breasts, running in a straight line down her abdomen, along both inner thighs, and on her inner calves.

"That's not a rash. That's cellulitis." The MD said.

"What's that?" the stripper asked.

"A bacterial skin infection." The MD answered. She scribbled an order for an oral antibiotic on the chart and departed the room. I told the stripper to please (PLEASE!) put her gown back on and left the room.

I caught up with the MD in the next stripper's room. Same nonchalant exposure, same pattern of reddened skin, same diagnosis. Same plea to re-cover. Same hasty retreat.

The scene was repeated on down the line. Finally, completely exasperated, the MD had all six strippers get dressed (inasmuch as their street clothes allowed for it) and come into one exam room.

Having gathered the girls together, the MD handed discharge instructions and prescriptions to each girl, sat down heavily, sighed, and finally poleaxed the six of them with four words:

"WASH. THE. DAMN. POLE!"

The MD then stood up and left the room, shaking her head.

The strippers looked at each other with "Hey, wowwwwwww" expressions. The light came on for a moment- perhaps flickering and crackling from a short in the wiring somewhere, but at least it was on.

I handed each a large, hideously bitter antibiotic tablet and a cup of water.

"Umm... any questions?"

A Long, Dry Spell

To all of my readers,

Thank you for your patience. I have been very busy. I will post again as soon as time allows. I've been working extra shifts and my butt is dragging so low that sparks are flying off the ground. I love you all. Please stay safe. -NW

Chicago Attorney Keys Marine's Car, Hides Behind Law

Okay, I try to stay away from politics and hot-button topics on my blog, but what is being done to one of our nation's finest by a suckegg, military-hating attorney really pisses me off.

BlackFive has taken up the clarion call against the felonious damage perpetrated by the hateful, arrogant Chicago family attorney (that's right- family attorney) Jay R. Grodner. Grodner has committed his own brand of hate crime.

Grodner is trying every dirty trick in the legal book to see to it that justice will not find him. Grodner even stated to the Police that his victim accused him of keying the car because Grodner is Jewish.

I know my readership is not nearly as large as the other blogs. But I know that you are among the finest, most intelligent people that I could ever have the pleasure to call my friends.

Read the story. Get the facts. Draw your own conclusions. My own conclusion is that disbarment and prosecution is too good for this SOB.

Building a Boat (Or, The Coolest Christmas Present Ever!)

My closest friends know that my pre-nursing years were spent in the Merchant Marine, sailing around the world and living in exotic tropical island locales. When I was a sailor, I spent a period kicking around the South Pacific on a great big sailboat courtesy of my former employer (who lent a shipmate and me use of his 40' sailboat in lieu of a bonus).

We spent the better part of three months sailing to the Marquesas and back to our home in Tahiti. It was one of the most treasured experiences of my life, simply for the sheer adventure of it.

But I am married now, and I have settled down a bit (although that point is up for debate by many who know me).

My beloved bride met me when I was still very much a wild, brash, untamed sailor. We fell madly in love at first sight, and we married less than three months after we met. I was at sea for more than half of that time. That was nearly nineteen years ago.

Well, she tamed me. And she opened up a life for me that I had never dared imagine. Nineteen years later, I am still absolutely nuts about the girl, and she is lovelier than when I first met her (and let me tell you- that's saying a LOT).

But I still missed the feel of a deck beneath my feet, a sail above my head, and the smell of the sea in my head. I never missed the going away- after meeting my beloved, I hated parting with her- but I loved the sea. I still do.

My beloved knew this. She knew it for years. I tried to get a boat some years ago, but it fell through. I did not realize it at the time, but she knew how I missed it.

Well, this year, she gave me the best Christmas present I have ever received: The plans and finances for a sailboat I will be building myself!

The sailboat is called The Weekender. The design has been around for decades. But the boat itself it perfect for me.

My bride, she hates the sea and everything in it. But she loves me, and she knows how I miss sailing. Now, I get to build my own boat, sail when I can, and never go away from my beloved bride. I have the best of everything. God has blessed me.