blue·stock·ing (blstkng) n.
An educated, intellectual woman.

bid·dy (bd) n. Slang
1. A woman, especially a garrulous old one. 2. Nickname for Bridget.


Tuesday, May 10, 2011

What do you do with a mis-delivered UPS package?

I feel like I have a string of things to say that are totally unrelated, but which might be interesting, so here they are:

1. Yesterday I came home from work and found a package outside the front door, addressed with the name of someone who doesn't live here, but sent to our address, except in "suite 300." Unless there is a hidden staircase I don't know about somewhere in this house that leads up to a magical 3rd floor, we don't have a suite 300. Jeff brought it in, and he of course wanted to open the package, but I'm pretty sure that's illegal so I didn't let him. With no phone numbers or anything on it, what are we supposed to do with it? I guess we'll have to get in touch with UPS at some point, when we find the time.

2. Our fat gray tabby is no longer quite as fat as she was-- she has gone from morbidly obese to just obese. Sometime during the last year, she has lost 2-3 pounds, and while one might worry that this is a sign of illness, she seems to be in very good health. We did not restrict her diet in any way (our other cat is of normal weight, and we can't really feed them separately without it being a huge headache), but we did get a new laser toy so she's been running in circles more.

3. Jeff and I took a trip to Toronto to visit with Jeff's family. We had a lovely trip, and when I got back to work after being away for a week, I was shocked to realize how stressful my job is. It's like I've sort of known that for a while, but been fighting it, and now I have come to a point of acceptance that my job is just stressful.

4. Here are some of the types of patients I have had to deal with (either directly, or behind the scenes) at work in the past two weeks: Two women with the same name who died within hours of each other on the same floor of the hospital (and related to that a near miss on attempting to console a man over his mother's death, when his mother had actually not died yet), two women whose partners inflicted near-deadly violent assaults against them, a young woman who woke up delirious and confused and thinking she was being assaulted when her doctors were lifting her gown to examine wounds on her abdomen, a young woman who lost a pregnancy due to injury in a car accident but due to brain injury didn't even remember she was pregnant, victims/perpetrators of gang violence (an individual is usually both), a young woman who had to choose between jumping about 40+ feet from burning building or burning alive (she jumped, but is badly injured), and a few people my age who have suffered strokes. Also there was a guy I saw who was having psychogenic seizures (of course he has an extensive trauma history), and it seems like all of a sudden there is an epidemic of people coming in to the hospital for back pain, and going home with a diagnosis of metastatic cancer. So I guess it's been a downer of a work week.

5. Summer is "trauma season," meaning that lots of people get injured on their summer adventures (or construction projects, or mowing the lawn). It appears to be gearing up early this year-- the hospital is suddenly just about full to capacity, bursting at the seams with injuries. I hope it doesn't stay this way for the rest of my time here, for my own sanity and for the sake of public health. Keep your fingers crossed for a safe healthy summer!

6. All my posts degenerate into complaining about work. Oh well. It's temporary. And hopefully it's vaguely entertaining. If not, let me know and I'll try to come up with other topics :)

3 comments:

Emily said...

Good lord! You should write a book about the crazy stuff you see!

Anonymous said...

))<>((
forever.

elaine said...

It certainly is entertaining, but makes me stressed for you! How do you deal with all this stuff?