code blog: tales of a nurse

I've updated the sidebar links again. My loooovely husband got me my Image Manipulation Program of Choice for Christmas and it's been so very nice playing around with it again. I've added some blogs, deleted some, and in checking to make sure the links work, I've noticed that some of your blogs underwent a makeover. So if the mood struck, I went ahead and redesigned your button.

As always, if you don't like your button please feel free to make one of your own and I'll replace it. You need to stick it in a .jpg file that's 90 pixels x 25 pixels. Yeah, it's small.

Here's a story submission from "traumanurse," and she sent it almost an entire year ago:

I am a fun-loving person. I work in a Level One trauma unit. We have a lot of fun as all the RN's and MD's are great people and we make a great team. This helps a lot with all the drama in trauma.

We have a few resus' every week. And these are fine - training and adrenalin take over and we actually manage to maintain a sense of humor before, during and after- but it's going home that gets me.

How do I explain to my small children that I am not a mommy right the moment I get home? That I need a couple of minutes to myself just to become a mommy again? I am the highly professional person that has just witnessed the life seep away from someone's husband, father, child, and now I have to be the referee in the fighting, dish up equal portions and put Barbie's shoes on- so they stop slipping off. I think is the main reason I prefer night shift is because you get home when everyone is asleep - so I can do mindless things like water the garden or feed the cats - or just sit and stare into space.

To explain to a non-medical person what it's like is very difficult. In a resus- it is not a human being. It is not someone's dad. It is an airway, a chest, a blip on the ECG; a vein to put a drip up. A pupil that may or may not react to light. These are the patients that you leave behind when you go home - nonsensical and they don't haunt your dreams. It's the ones that grab your hand, that make you look at them, that make you SEE them, who make it difficult. How do you explain this to your five year old? That fine line between life and death. That fight to keep someone from going to the "light." There is no light in the trauma unit/ICU - there is only the adrenaline taking over - the clear instructions, there is no pain - no emotion - until it's over. Until someone said those words: "time of death".

How do I explain this?

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I've sometimes found it very difficult to come home and act as though something emotionally earth shattering hadn't just happened. Sometimes it's hard to get back to "life" because whatever has your brain scrambled won't leave your thoughts. Sometimes I've found that it's because it doesn't feel right to go back to normal life. After witnessing and being a part of a profound moment in someone's life, it feels like you literally have to take some time and process it and honor it in a way before you can get back to your normal life.

I usually take the drive home as an opportunity to absorb events that happen at work. Sometimes it takes me a lot longer - days, even. There are some situations at work that still haunt me years later. I have a feeling it's like that for almost everyone.

As of this week, I've been blogging here at codeblog for 5 years.

I know I'm not the most updative poster. I know I only post a few times a month, if that. But I still love being a blogger, and I love knowing that codeblog is here when I want to write.

This blog has been mentioned in Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal (couldn't find a link to that), and Nurseweek.

I've hosted Grand Rounds four times.

I still remember starting... My husband and I spent all day coding the site. Well, it was mostly him doing the coding - I just told him what colors I wanted and how I wanted things to look. :) Here's the very first post.

Who knew it would still be here in 2007? Happy Blogirthday to me!

Grand Rounds was hosted this week by Rickety Contrivances of Doing Good.

The results of the button poll are in! Over 90% of you voted to keep the buttons. I was kind of surprised! So I guess they're stayin - sorry to the 9% of you who are tired of them. :)

Now. Who's got an extra copy of Photoshop laying around? :)

Off to the right there, you'll see that I've chosen to do my blogroll in the form of little buttons for each blog. There used to be a few buttons, and now there are a million.

Does it take my page forever to load because of them? My image editing software died on me (long story), it costs way too much right now to get a new version, and I stubbornly refuse to use anything else. Old dog/new tricks and all that.

So tell me what you think of the buttons. If ya'll like them, I'll figure out a way to make them. If you think they're goofy, I'll probably go back to using text links for the blogroll.

I've been taking a little break from blogging. However, I have a question... Looking through referrers, I keep seeing "http://blackboard.umaryland.ed...=default&nav=discussion_board2." I cannot log in to your little discussion board, so would one or two of you who ARE on the board please tell me just what you're all talking about?? :-)

My husband worked some more on the definitions feature, so now it's working again! (Go ahead - try it - PEG!) I also added a few more links to the side and did a bit of re-arranging. (According to color, of course. We can't have all the blue icons clumped together.) (ABG!)

A few blogs that I've found interesting as of late: Blogborygmi, which is described by Doc Shazam here.

Then there's The Helix, which is written by "a final year [med] student studying medicine at Melbourne University in Australia." (BP!) I came across Veshland today and liked it so much I immediately added it. I gather that he's an MD that works in Urgent Care (which isn't supposed to be called Urgent Care, apparently). Also in the Urgent-Care-or-Whatever-It's-Called biz is Enoch from medmusings, a fellow Bay Area medblogger.

Lastly, there is Ipecac Aperitif, which is written by a teacher friend of mine, and I added Lisa's Learning the Lessons Of Nixon, which I started reading recently. (IABP!)

A rare weekday day off has come my way, so I'm off to make the most of it. (beta-blocker!)

I had some trouble coming up with the name of this blog, believe it or not. I still wonder sometimes if it's fitting, but it's not like I'm going to go changing it now. What I did change, however, is its' home. Tilegarden (so named because I do mosaics) is the address of our personal blog, and codeblog became an extension of that. Now codeblog has been moved to its' very own domain, codeblog.com.

You can change the address in your RSS thingies, or not. My extremely patient and talented husband has made it so that, through a maze of redirects and such, the RSS feeds for tilegarden should still work. This also allows any codeblog links from other sites to remain un-rotted. For now, anyway.

There are a few new features as well... a little search engine, and we're working on getting the "keep reading..." to just expand on the page instead of going to a new page (Thanks to SeaDoc for that idea, as well as the idea of doing the same with comments. Not that you came up with it, but that's where I saw it first.) I believe it works with everything but Safari for now.

The definitions won't work for a few more days, but they'll be back. Anyway, that's all. Thanks for reading n stuff. :)

You may have noticed that I have been away. I'm a Mrs. Geena, RN now!! :-) Not surprisingly, I assumed that I would have just a few minutes here and there during wedding preparations to post story submissions during the time I was gone... And not surprisingly, I found that it was an impossible goal to achieve during all the hustle and bustle. Actually, this blog became lower than the lowest priority. It wasn't even on the list. :-)

Now that I'm back, irregular posting will resume!

So. Who wants to see a picture?!?

We've added a little feature to Codeblog - definitions! I realize that some people that read this site may be laypeople and might not know what CVP's or NG's are. Hopefully, your browser will have dottedly underlined "CVP" and "NG." If you find a word that is underlined, I have defined it. To get to the definition, just put your cursor over the word and wait a second. The definition should magically appear!

Unfortunately, my very own browser doesn't support this yet. Apple's Safari is relatively new, though, so hopefully it will in the future. It seemed to work with Internet Explorer and Mozilla. Let me know in the comments if it doesn't work for you and what your browser is. Not that I'll be able to do anything about it, but... I can go ahead and commiserate with you! I'd also love some feedback as to whether it's helpful.

Lastly, feel free to go to "submit your story" to e-mail me with anything else that's on your mind. I love to explain things and teach, so although I can't diagnose or explain your symptoms, I can explain why some ICU's don't allow flowers or plants in patient rooms (because we want all the flowers out at the desk where we can see them!) or why gurneys are so uncomfortable (oops... actually I can't help you out there).

The Requisite FAQ

Disclaimer: All stories are composites of different patients, doctors, nurses, and situations. Details about stories have been changed to protect patient and healthcare worker identities.

1. What is this?

This is a weblog specifically for personal medical stories. Many many interesting things happen in hospitals, clinics, schools, hospices, at ball games, recitals, and on planes and trains. Almost everyone that comes into contact with someone in some sort of medical situation has at least one good story, be it an RN, MD, LPN, nurse's aide, unit clerk, unit support, manager, or volunteer.

2. Great.... but what is this?

Oh... Well, it's a place for sharing stories. It all started on our personal weblog. I am an RN, and started posting stories about what happens at work, and people really enjoyed reading them. A friend suggested that I start an entire blog dedicated to medical stories. I thought it was a great idea.

3. How does it work?

If you want to submit a health-care related story, click on "submit your story" at the top of the website. It emails the story directly to me. You can also use this link to email me with any other questions, concerns, etc.

4. Why are some words dottedly underlined?

Some words have dotted underlines because they are defined. Just hold your cursor over the word and a definition will pop up! Also feel free to email me with any other questions you have about what has been posted... or leave a comment.

5. What will be posted?

Any health-care related personal story. Stories about patients, nursing school, med school, that unbelievably awful night your Med-Surg self had to float to the Psych floor....

6. What will not be posted?

Detailed identifying characteristics. Definitely no patient names, not even specific ages. No dates. Location is okay if you feel comfy with providing that.

Otherwise, obviously no gratuitous profanity, vulgarity, solicitations, nude photos or recipes. Certainly no research papers, journal articles, or anything academic.

7. What are the guidelines for submitting stories and comments?

Submission Guidelines

Commenting Guidelines

You know, just use common sense.

8. Can the general non-healthcare-public post anything?

Absolutely! Was there a nurse or doctor that made an experience especially awful, or especially good? We're only human... Sometimes we forget that we're being perceived somewhat skewedly because patients typically aren't thinking completely straight when they're in the hospital. Some of us really like to be reminded of what it's like to be a patient. And some of us NEED to be reminded.

9. What's up with the book picture off to the right under the links?

I like reading medical books and will occasionally put a picture and a link to Amazon.com for a book that I've found interesting.

10. I submitted a story weeks/months ago! Why hasn't it been posted yet?

Because I procrastinate. This is unfortunate, I know, but that's how it is. I also work full-time and don't post as much as I'd like. Every story submission is read and the ones appropriate to post will be posted in due time.

11. How is this different from RN Yahoo! Groups or other health-care forums?

Yahoo! Groups currently have 3,795 groups dedicated to "health care" and 13,459 for "Professional" under Health & Wellness. I have tried to sift though the RN groups (800+) looking for something like this, but it was terribly time-consuming and I got bored. Also, once joining a group, you often get slowed down by ads.

12. Who did that awesome Nurse Blythe painting in the upper right hand corner?

This guy!

13. Who made the buttons on the right side of the page?

I made them in Photoshop using the actual graphics from the blog, when I could. Some I had to do myself using the colors of the blog that I was buttoning. If you download any of these for your own use, consider linking back to my site. If you'd like to have a button, the fastest way to get on the sidebar is to make it yourself and email it to me. The first 20 buttons were really fun to make, the rest - not so much. I tend to really procrastinate on adding links to the sidebar for this reason. But! If you make your own, it will be up within mere hours to days! It needs to be a 90pixels x 25pixels. Likewise, if you already have a button and think you could do better, be my guest.

When commenting, try to keep the whole confidentiality thing in the back of your mind.

All comments are the property of the commenter and we take no responsibility for what has been written. Blah blah blah... just be careful, ok? Thanks :-)

When emailing a submission, exclude information that would lead to a break in confidentiality. Feel free to include your name and location, but try to leave out specific dates and the obvious (other names, facility names, etc). In other words, use your noggin'. I'll change around whatever I feel is inappropriate, such as "My patient Mr. Bird, who is 52, had a knee replacement the other day at Grand Hospital in the Bahamas. He was such a card." You get the idea.

While it is preferred that stories be true, the only real requirements are that they be entertaining and thought-provoking and stuff.