Friday's Dispatch

• This morning (today is 06/17/2016) I read an article about a woman who tested positive for meth- while in a hospital to deliver her baby. The crux of the story was that the test was erroneous although the take home should be how terribly you will be treated by society if members of it feel you have a moral failing in your fiber. She was treated like a monster by nurses.
• A nurse if no other person, doesn't get to choose how she treats or really even how she- views other people.
• PS- the prevalence of false positives for drugs (especially meth) in drug tests is one of the worst kept secrets in the medical and law enforcement fields.
• At a clinic where I worked 3 back to back patients had identical vital signs. After I took note of that, I repeated the second and third persons to make my sure my equipment (and me) were not stuck on stupid. That time, all the numbers came back in line with the first signs collected but had the slight variations one would expect and as the first sets were already signed off on- I left them. The odds are wildy against 3 people having the exact same numbers from respirations to temp to pulse to blood pressure- but it happened. A terrible supervisor came to me with a raised eyebrow and said, Soooo Kevin. All 3 of your last 3 patients had the exact same vital signs!? I have never seen that happen before. That is odd- don't you think? She was hinting that I was lying and falsifying my charting.
• Yeaaaah, I have been a nurse for 20 years. Believe me- if I was going to lie about something; it probably wouldn't be about something that would take maybe 120 seconds to do properly, that everybody can see me do (or not do) and everybody from a clerk to the patient themselves will expect to see me do.
• Today, an office buddy gave me chicken tamales for lunch. She bought them from a guy in a laundromat. They were delicious.
• Ugh. My stomach hurts and feels kind of bubbly- wonder what is up with that?!