Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Wednesday's Digressions



  • Recently I was reminded of the old fear that hospice care will hasten (and is in fact its purpose) a persons death. Most people know better and just a minutes clear thinking would show the problems with that kind of silly thinking but, once I really had a good object lesson on that worry. I was called in on the case of a woman on hospice for end stage heart disease with pain, shortness of breath, wasting and imminent death for continuous care criteria for nursing at her bedside until her death. On entering her room I encountered a gray complected, larger woman with very shallow respiration. Her eyes were closed and family reported she was sleeping and had been for past 18 hours. To make a long story short she was suffering from overwhelming pain which caused her to withdraw to a sleep-like state causing her blood sugar to get off and cardiac problems to worsen because her diet and meds were disrupted. Although she needed supplemental oxygen she did not appear distressed- she was breathing too shallow but, to an inexperienced person may have not looked in trouble.
  • I put her on oxygen. Elevated the head of her bed. Talked to the family about administering morphine to strengthen her heart and improve her respiration. We then put her back on a heart med, water pill and steroid that had been (rightly at the time) discontinued.
  • The last I heard the nurse who relieved me did not get to finish her shift because the patient had improved too much and had to be cancelled from crisis care. She was up on a walker with assist and had dinner in the dining room with family from out of town whom I'd been asked only to try to help her live long enough for them to see her alive and say their goodbyes.
  • As I writes this (05/17/2014) at the pool a strikingly hawt female stopped in front me to make sure I saw her very decent for a 40 year old backside and then she engaged me me about the temp. of the water and kids etc. Admission: I got some instinctive butterflies. In my defense: The first thing I thought of was FG and how hawt mama was wasting her time and breath. I was actually listening to music in the background on the laptop that reminded me of FG.
    The Phantom Korean Photographer disturbed people at Scarborough enough they physically steered clear of him.
  • There is a big deal being made over Dale Hansen's diatribe regarding where the homosexual football player fell in the draft, how there is no way there were 258 better players than him (based on his rank in the draft) and blah, blah, blah... while also in typical Hansen fashion bullying the audience into believing whatever it is he is saying. A funny thing about that- nobody cares about the guy's homosexuality and even though I make no effort to keep up with sports I have come to understand through osmosis he was maybe only drafted at all because of his gaydom- the NFL was not going to allow him to not be as it would make them look monstrous and backward. Scouts and talking heads all had him at 6-8th round based on his stats, health and presentation.
  • Sad thing about this subject? I am not sure of that guys name. It is Sams, Samm or Samms-right? I have no clue as to his first name and couldn't confirm or deny if I was hearing it correctly if you said it in front of me.
  • In people's minds he is, The Gay Football Player.
  • We are our own worst enemies.
    Artisan at SRF being artisanal.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I deal with a lot of people with HIV at my job. Some of them end up in hospice - there are places in town that are just group hospice locations for people with HIV/AIDS.

Some have some really good days after going in. Some last a hell of a lot longer than I would have ever imagined. None come out.