anyah7

New car and accidental roadtrip

2009-06-27T07:06:52Z

So, multiple people seem not to have heard the news that I bought a new car. Well, new to me anyway. I have been pretty low-key about it, what with everything else in my life of late, but still, this is sort of like the passing of an era. I'd driven that Blazer since 2001, and lived in four different states with it. Driven it from Texas to New York by way of several Civil War battlesites in 2003, then on the massive, nearly-three-coast 2006 road trip, from upstate NY to Baltimore then Texas (via Graceland and Kansas), followed by NM, the Grand Canyon, Vegas, and on to Oregon via Salt Lake City.

But the last person to change my oil in the ol' red Blazer stripped the threads on the oilpan drain plug, which basically meant that the oil could no longer be changed without great effort to jury-rig some new type of drain plug. The engine would have to be removed from the chassis in order for the oilpan itself to be replaced. So while my dad was here helping me after the motorcycle accident I told him about this and it made him very grumpy. Just to be sure we got an estimate from a shop on what it would take to replace the oilpan on a 1995 Chevy Blazer with over 100K miles on it (and you don't want to know how obscene that estimate was). Then we went car shopping.

I'd been looking at the Escape Hybrids for a long time but new they are a little too pricey to be ideal, and there were some bad reviews of the revised version that came out in 2008, and I don't know if they had time to respond to feedback about the 2008 models before the 2009 models came out. The Highlander Hybrid is out of the question for cost reasons also, and because it's too big. I very much prefer the SMALL SUVs. Fortunately for me, there are enough Hybrid drivers in this area of the country that occasionally you can find a used Escape Hybrid. We found a couple, and I ended up buying the one that had lower mileage and was NOT being sold by a really shady-seeming dude off a super-crowded lot in a seedy part of Tacoma.

Then I donated the Blazer to charity. I just got word last week, it sold for $100 at auction.

Anyway, here's the new wheelz, a 2005 Ford Escape Hybrid:

You will note I have added my own, ah, personal touches already. ;-) Finally found a place for that political bumper sticker the guys in Rochester gave me a few years ago; the sentiment is certainly still applicable!! The only other thing I have on the car that isn't in this pic is a sticker just above the "Hybrid" on the back that says "Start seeing motorcycles!", which was in my completion packet when I took the motorcycle safety course in OR. And you can't really see them, but there are a pair of dark green fuzzy D20's hanging from the rear view mirror. Woohoo geekery!!

Speaking of geekery, I was supposed to be at the Origins game fair in Columbus, OH this weekend. However, I missed my flight. Usually this is only a small problem, as I fly standby on whatever they can get me on, and I slink in to my destination city several hours late, often after having slept or otherwise loafed in the SeaTac airport overnight or at least for a few hours. But with Continental, if you don't call them when you're not going to be able to make a flight, they take your money and call it a day. No credit, no flying standby, no nothin'. It is as if the plane ticket never existed, except for the fact that Continental now has $400 of my money and I am nowhere near Columbus, OH. Sortof makes me want to call my Congressman to agitate for that Airline Passenger's Bill of Rights to be revived.

So, powerless to reverse such airline thievery, at least for now, in a fit of spite I decided to drive to Columbus instead. Yes, I am insane.

But insane is often relative. I did make sure that I'd exhausted all my options for air travel before I sat down and pulled up Mapquest to figure out what I would be getting myself into. 2500 miles, about 36 hours by Mapquest's calculations, from Seattle to Columbus, OH. Doable, I said. And I got in the car and went.

Now, that was on Wednesday, at about 3pm by the time I got back to my car from the airport with all my junk. I made it across the Cascades and across the Continental Divide, and about halfway through Montana before problems occurred.

I was using my car's navigation system to plan the route, as my road atlas normally is in my apartment for trip planning, not in my car for spontaneous crazy cross-country road trips. But the nav system had me taking I-94 from Billings, which veers north, through North Dakota and Minnesota, before putting me on north-south running interstates to get down to Ohio. That added at least an extra 4 hours to the trip relative to just taking I-90 through Montana, the corner of Wyoming, and South Dakota. By the time I broke down and bought another road atlas to figure this out, I was a couple of hours down I-94 already. I decided to take a back road south to link up again with I-90 and proceed with a route of my own devising. Damn you, 4-year-old nav system!

But then my car started giving me a high engine temp alarm. After I figured out how to get the hood open (car manual is also in my apartment, as I was actually reading it, dork that I am), I detected no such problem. The engine block was only comfortably warm to the touch and fluid were all ok (as far as I could tell without the manual). I got back in the car and restarted it, and the alarm was gone. I continued on my way, as I really needed to pee and I had stopped out in the middle of nowhere.

Well, it kept giving my the same alarm periodically the rest of the day. I tried driving without the A/C, without even the fan - no help. I tried driving without the criuse control, without the nav system, tried keeping the RPM below 3000 - all no help. No rhyme or reason to any of it, apparently. Finally it got to be every 30 minutes, almost on the dot. I pulled over every time, not knowing if my car was crying wolf or if there really was a problem this time. Then it seemed to randomly disappear. I drove from Sturgis to Wall along I-90 in South Dakota without even the hint of a problem. I stopped in Wall (at Wall Drug, of course), and gassed up, but not 20 minutes on the freeway and it was alarming again. This time I tried driving despite the alarm but the car beeped at me and made me pull over. Damned smart cars!!

By this time I'd been in the car for 30 hours, having just caught a couple hours snooze twice in the night when I felt tired. Sweating all day long trying to drive without the A/C (on a really hot day with an unforgiving High Plains summer sun beating down the whole time) and still fighting a cold (after I crossed the Continental Divide I wasn't able to pop my left ear until I got past Billings), I'd had enough. I pulled over and found a motel.

Next morning (this morning), I started calling Ford dealers who handled Hybrids within a 300 mile radius of where I'd pulled off I-90, a dinky little town really close to halfway through South Dakota. Nobody within 200 miles of my position could even look at it today, much less fix it today. So I figured I'd have to throw in the towel and go home; I was just hoping I could still drive home rather than pay for towing across several states. I was briefly tempted to make another run for it when I got in the car and it didn't alarm for me within the first hour or so of driving, but then I figured that with my luck, as soon as I turned the car around it would probably start alarming again, and then I'd be in the same boat all over again. I might be insane, but stupid - no. At least not usually.

So today I drove back west, but indulged in a trip on the Badlands Scenic Loop Byway. Yes, that does exist, and it is scenic. I'm not sure that I would have ever ended up deliberately vacationing in South Dakota, but since I'm here, I saw the sights and they are striking. I also went to Mount Rushmore, which had been on the list of possible stops on the Great Move-To-Oregon roadtrip, but was just too far off the route to justify a visit. It is a massive tourist trap, set inside another massive tourist trap (Keystone). I felt like I'd run the gauntlet by the time I was driving out of Keystone. And the highway to and from is littered with other, less well-known tourist traps, the biggest of which pelt you with multiple billboard ads along the freeway, sometimes for 50 miles before you get there. But the monument itself is worth seeing, it is just as amazing as you might think it would be, to see it in person. I also got caught in a brief but VERY intense High Plains thunderstorm. The rain-falling-sideways type. Rain falling so forcefully that I was really quite convinced it was hail, until the storm let up and there weren't any hailstones on the ground. Reminded me a lot of the fierce storms we get in west TX in the spring. The climate and geography is not a whole lot different, for all that the two places are thousands of miles apart, essentially on opposite corners of the Great Plains region.

Interestingly, the car did not alarm ONCE for me today.

The other thing about South Dakota is the motorcycles. I don't think I went 5 minutes without seeing one, and usually several. Mostly helmet-less cruiser riders blowing down long, flat stretches of highway, but the occasional helmet-wearing, even street-bike-riding outlyer was seen. Every town big enough to have a car dealer also has a Harley dealer. I even saw a TRIKE dealership in Sturgis. Having driven these roads on 4 wheels now I can really understand the appeal they have for those who enjoy 2 wheels also. One of these days...... One of these days I'll make it back here on 2 wheels. It's just too much fun not to. (Except for when you get caught out in a thunderstorm like there was today. I really felt sorry for those guys, huddled under every overpass for a scrap of shelter, hoping those wind gusts don't knock their bikes over onto the highway.)

Anyway, tomorrow I have decided to visit Yellowstone, and to make my way back toward western Montana, the Idaho panhandle and eastern WA. I'm also going to stop at Lake Coeur d'Alene (in Idaho) on my way back, because it knocked my socks off when I passed by it the first time. I have to say that, as boring and plains-like as eastern WA is, the Idaho panhandle and far western Montana are spectacularly beautiful. And I'm glad for the crazy, serendipitous chance to have seen them.

39cm, 69 staples: The Saga of the Motorcycle Accident

2009-03-23T11:26:37Z

39 cm long incision
69 staples
10 screws and one large plate
"3 spoonfuls" of cadaveric bone graft material installed
8 weeks non weight bearing on the left leg
10 different medicines/vitamins to take daily (for now at least)
27 days that I was not able to get into my apartment

This accident has been one gigantic slice of humble pie. Pain is a great equalizer, and I have not dealt with it very gracefully most of the time.

Weirdly, I kept my eyes shut almost the entire time from the moment I knew I was going to lay the bike down to when I finally arrived in the ED. I remember squinting my eyes tightly and hearing the pavement making deep grooves in my helmet's visor, and screaming (but whether from pain or fright I couldn't tell you) inside my helmet, where it sounded almost like it was coming from someone else. I remember trying to push the bike off the injured leg with my uninjured leg, feebly, ridiculously, until the guys from the auto shop on the corner ran up to me and pulled the bike off my leg. Then I rolled over and quickly realized that my leg was broken. I couldn't catch a deep breath, so I just kept hyperventilating, even though I knew I was hyperventilating. I hyperventilated for what must have been a couple of hours, all told, but I never had tingly lips or anything, at least not that I noticed. While I was lying on the pavement I got my helmet and gloves off, and then I kept squinting because the sun was in my eyes. I remember somebody who was standing over me saying with surprise that I was a girl, which I chuckled at in one tiny corner of my mind. As my family members arrived one by one and hovered over me, I remember opening my eyes to look at them for a half a second, then I went right back to squinting them closed. All through the ambulance ride, even as the paramedics were asking me where my purse was (!!) and scrutinizing my driver's license for a motorcycle endorsement (and quizzing me about it), I still kept my eyes closed. (Turns out, my grandfather was under the impression that I had taken a purse with me when I went out riding, and when he didn't see it at the scene, he started telling the cops that someone had stolen my purse.)

My hospitalization was deeply frightening, both in the way that it should have been and in many ways it shouldn't. I had the accident around 6:30pm on Wed 3/11/09. I then arrived in the ED at shift change, around 7pm. Even before I arrived at the hospital, I had to keep asking the paramedics to stabilize my leg to relieve some of the pain. For a long time in the ED I had no call button, and the registration clerk had misspelled my last name so when my family initially checked for me they were told I was not there. It took them a while to figure out the error. I was far from the medical settings that I was familiar with, and even though it should have been reassuringly similar, it wasn't. I was just another patient, powerless, dependent, and I did not like it one little bit.

This post ended up being a gigantoid monster, so I'm breaking it up into bits:

When my family finally found me, I was never so glad to see them as I was then. This is especially true of my sister Laura, who had decided a few weeks before my vacation to join me in visiting our grandparents. From the very beginning she was a godsend, fiercely guarding me, loyally helping me, protecting me from any unnecessary pain, confidently using her medical knowledge to make sure I was getting the right care, harassing staff politely but firmly as often as needed to do what I asked of them. She put up with all kinds of crap from me (literally and figuratively), got interrupted sleep on an uncomfortable hospital cot, and had her vacation summarily hijacked by my injury. She bore it with grace and professionalism and a maturity that I didn't even know she had. At some point when I wasn't looking, my baby sister grew up to be a compassionate, confident, skilled and very loving young woman, and I'm phenomenally grateful that she was there with me. I cried when she left; I was genuinely scared to be without her.

Back in the ED, I got a cursory exam and was sent for X-rays. I was hyperventilating with pain and had been since the accident, so my BP was running low and initially they wouldn't give me morphine. The nurse actually told me that the morphine would make me feel short of breath; this is patently false, as morphine is used in terminally ill patients to ease the sensation of air hunger. Eventually they did give it to me, and as I stopped hyperventilating my BP went up. Still no call light though, and the initial morphine (5mg IV) only just took the edge off. Going for XR was horribly painful, as it involved transfer from the gurney to the XR table and back again. Even though I was still on the backboard, it was quite painful. The XR techs were pretty good about getting their shots with a minimum of moving me around, though. Back in the ED, I asked for and eventually received a second dose of morphine, and that allowed enough pain control that my sister was able to take off my socks. Earlier, one of the ED nurses or techs had been (very roughly) trying to take off my boots and in the process had bumped up against the bottom of my left boot, resulting in a distinct pop of something moving in my leg (and me screaming).

Eventually they let me off the backboard and I got myself out of the motorcycle jacket (which I wouldn't let them cut). That's when I really noticed the ribcage pain. They told me my chest XR was negative though, so I figured it was just bruised. Couldn't sit up even with the head of the gurney elevated until I'd had another couple doses of morphine. ED doc came back, told me about the fractures in my tibia, said he'd ordered "plenty of pain medication" and was sending me upstairs after they put a knee immobilizer on me for stability. Yeah, the knee immobilizer wasn't much fun to get put on, since I had to straighten my leg. More screaming. Never thought of myself as a screamer before this.

Dr. Fulp was the ortho on call, and apparently the two docs had spoken on the phone. I expected the ortho to come by for an assessment/admit H&P but hours passed and my sister's questions about him continued to go unanswered. I started asking if he could be paged just to answer my questions over the phone. The ED doc came back in to answer my questions as well as he could (which was not very well, as these were specific ortho questions). I asked for a muscle relaxer for the abdominal spasms I was starting to get (in retrospect, from the rib fractures), and he wrote for IV Valium. So then I passed out for a while. Apparently my BP was no longer a concern.

Eventually, by about 1am, they came to get me to go upstairs. Hadn't had any food since arrival at this point, apparently the ED doc had written for me to have dinner but no one ever brought me anything. Fortunately, I wasn't hungry. But I was off the backboard at this point, and at first the nurses wanted me to just scoot on over from the gurney to the hospital bed. Both Laura and I went several rounds with the nurses explaining why there was no way I was going to be able to do that. I asked to be premedicated with morphine and a muscle relaxer but the ED doc had written the valium as a once-only. They called somebody, got a different muscle relaxer, and dosed me up. But they tried just sliding me over on the bedsheet, which was both ineffective and exquisitely painful. They wanted to roll me to put different sheets that were supposed to slide more easily underneath me but I refused, since I could barely do a half-roll because of the pain in my ribcage. Laura kept asking them to find a rigid roller board as is used commonly in the OR but the said they had called the OR and other floors and couldn't locate one. The nurses decided to call in "manpower" which turned out to be all the male janitorial staff, basically. Laura got really nervous at this point. They tried once with similar results to the first time. Finally I asked if they had ANY rigid board available, like the boards placed beneath someone during a code, which is often just the headboard from the bed; they're made to be detachable for that purpose. The rocket scientists then pulled off the headboard and got that far enough under my trunk that we were able to move me with only a lot of pain rather than excruciating levels of pain. I was still laying on my cut-up jeans and the sheet from the gurney, but we left all that to deal with later.

The next morning they brought me breakfast. I was not expecting this; I was expecting to go to surgery. The nurse checked and reported that I was not on the OR schedule for the day. He paged Dr. Fulp, the orthopedic surgeon, several times before he was finally able to find out that I would be going to the OR the next day. I still hadn't seen a doctor, of any kind, other than the ED doc. My pain was only controlled if I didn't move - at all. Around mid-morning, a transport guy came for me and took me down to CT; they seemed to be unaware that the CT of my knee (because the fracture went through the joint line) had been done the night before. When I pointed that out they double checked, then apologized and wheeled me back upstairs.

Late in the afternoon a hospitalist (usually a family practice or internal medicine doctor who works for the hospital taking care of patients who don't have their own local doctor) came by; at this point it was nearly 24 hours since I was admitted. He spent about 10 minutes in my room, did an extremely cursory exam, took the medical history that I'd dictated to Laura, and ran off to do his documentation. I told him that my pain was not well controlled and told him about my abdominal muscle spasms whenever I tried to roll or sit up. I asked him to put me on a PCA pump (where I would have a certain amount of IV pain medicine continuously and then a button to dose myself, up to a certain limit, whenever I had pain). This is normally the type of pain control that people have post-operatively, and it made sense to me to move to that since it could easily be turned off for surgery then turned back on again once I was in recovery. He chose instead to put me on a Fentanyl patch in addition to the as-needed IV pain meds that I'd been on. This patch is applied topically and releases pain medicine slowly through the skin, but it takes about 12 hours to 'kick in'. At the time I didn't question his decision, but later I've come to view it as highly questionable. He wrote that order less than 24 hours before I went to the OR (and when he wrote the order we had no idea when during the following day I would go to the OR), and when I came out of the OR I still had it on. It didn't actually get applied until the middle of the night before I went to the OR. So it was probably just kicking in as I went under general anaesthesia, and I'm not sure that the anaesthesiologist was aware that I had it on. Combine that with the fact that no one had yet diagnosed my FOUR rib fractures, nor made certain that I hadn't punctured a lung or something with said rib fractures, and it's a friggin' miracle that I got through general anaesthesia without complications.

I had a rough night that night, in and out of sleep. Had a few run-ins with some extremely humbling bodily functions that I won't detail here (or anywhere). And still the ortho was a no-show, right on through the morning I was scheduled for the OR.

When mid-morning, and noon, came and went I started asking the nurse to find out when I was going to go down to the OR. She was able to find out that I was the 11th case out of 13 that Dr. Fulp had on the board that day. I asked again if I could possibly speak with (and MEET!!) the surgeon who proposed to cut me open in a few hours, and was told that he would speak with me once I went down for surgery. They came for me in the middle of the afternoon, and the elusive Dr. Fulp did finally appear, for about 5 minutes, once I was in the pre-op waiting area. (Time check: this was 45 hours after arriving at the hospital, 44 hours after being diagnosed with a fracture requiring surgical treatment and being assigned to his care.) He informed me that with the type of fracture I have, arthritis in the affected joint is essentially inevitable, even after surgical repair, and that he might have to take a bone graft out of my hip to complete the repair. I asked for details on recovery time and what to expect, and he told me I was to be non-weight-bearing on that leg for 8 weeks. He looked rather uninspiringly tired, and went off to do another case, the one before mine. I believe I overheard that he was running 2 ORs so that he could go right from one into the other.

The anaesthesiologist came to speak to me, and I told him I'd like to be put out before being moved from the bed to the table to avoid the terrible chest/abdominal muscle spasms. I guess it didn't occur to him either that I might have rib fractures. I forgot to tell him about the fentanyl patch. He consented me and took me back, leaving a scared-looking sister and aunt in our wake, and the last thing I remember was telling him that he was pressing the facemask down too hard on my nose.

I woke up gently in the PACU, which by that time of night was very nearly empty (when I got back to my room it was already fully dark outside). Even in my half-asleep state I could tell that my nurse just wanted me to wake up so she could go home already. But apparently my blood pressure was running low again. So I had to lay there for a while. I remember her putting the TED hose on my other leg. As expected, I was on a PCA pump so I had a pretty peaceful night. It was that night that I had a particularly scary nurse, though. The nursing quality overall certainly left something to be desired, and they had nursing students coming around during the day to do 'assessments' when, as far as I can tell, no one had yet taught them how to DO assessments. The 'assessment' I got was a lot more like a head massage, which I really didn't want right then, since it had been about 4 days since I washed my hair.

Anyway, it was this first night post-op (Friday night) that I noticed that I still had the fentanyl patch on. I told my (scary) nurse about it when she came in to do my vitals, and pointed out that it really wasn't too safe to be on a morphine PCA together with a fentanyl patch. She seemed not to hear me, and when I repeated myself she seemed not to understand me. I checked to make sure she spoke English (she appeared to be caucasian, but you never know), then took off my fentanyl patch and handed it to her, stressing that she should make a note that I took it off and document the wastage, as it is a potent narcotic and there are rules about disposing of such things. Well, two nights later (Sunday night), after the PCA had been turned off, I'm asking for pain medicine in the middle of the night and the nurse then comes in and 'reminds' me that I still have my fentanyl patch on, so I can't have anything more. Not only is this a big problem because the Friday nurse didn't document the patch coming off, but if I really did still have it on by then, it should have been changed on Sunday afternoon, so it would have been out of medicine anyway.

Bright and early on my first day post-op (Saturday) I'm looking to ditch the catheter and figure out a way to wash my hair. One sponge bath was humiliating enough, thank you very much. The nurse says I have to get ok'd by Physical Therapy to get out of bed with the walker. Trouble is, it took most of Saturday to locate a physical therapist. Apparently they were a little short handed. Hobble to the door and back, he said. I hobbled. You pass, he says. My 'assessment' took all of about 3 minutes, and then he's gone. But at least I got to take a shower with a little bit of dignity.

It was also bright and early that Saturday morning that my nurse came to tell me that Dr. Fulp had called the floor: my hematocrit was 21, meaning that I'd lost an awful lot of blood in the surgery (normal is 35-45). Dr. Fulp instructed the nurse to leave it up to me whether to transfuse or not. At a 'crit of 21, I didn't need to think about it. I would have to get a blood transfusion to avoid many more problems and a needlessly prolonged recovery. So they drew blood to type and cross, and later that day I got 2 units. My first (and let's hope ONLY) blood transfusion.

On Sunday the ortho comes by (miracle of miracles, he rounds on his patients!) and switches me from the PCA pump to Lorcet, the most powerful oral narcotic you can write without the special prescription pad that the most restricted meds have to be written on. Now, I've gone through 90mg of IV morphine on the PCA in about 36 hours at this point. Hydrocodone, the narcotic portion of Lorcet, is about 2/3 as potent as oral morphine, and oral morphine is 1/3 as potent as IV morphine. Lorcet contains 650mg of Tylenol, so I'm limited to 6 of those a day if I want to not tank my liver. That means I can have, max, 60mg of hydrocodone a day, the equivalent of about 13mg of IV morphine per day, less than one quarter of what I had just used the previous day. I asked Dr. Fulp about that and he told me that he no longer even owns a Schedule II prescription pad, ever since he lost his once and had a scare that someone had stolen it and was forging prescriptions in his name. He eventually found his prescription pad, but he decided not to carry it around anymore anyway.

I'm not sure if he remembered I was a physician or not, but to my physician ears this was a painfully transparent, completely bullshit excuse for not actually doing the math on the pain meds. Frankly, orthopedic surgeons are notorious for avoiding patient requests for pain meds with crap lines like this. I know, because they all then come back to me to treat their ORTHOPEDIC pain, and I resent having to deal with it because the ortho is either too lazy or just doesn't want the hassle to be part of his practice. Most orthos have a strict time limit on how long after surgery they will continue to prescribe, and I think that's quite reasonable. But the excuse this guy had for not addressing my pain effectively was just beyond the pale.

Later when the hospitalist came by, I asked him to put me on MS Contin, the 12-hour form of oral morphine, in addition to the Lorcet, because of that discrepancy in the strength of pain meds. I also had to ask him for a prescription for the muscle relaxer that I'd been taking fairly regularly for the muscle spasms that continued to be a problems with any position change. Still, nobody had diagnosed the rib fractures.

So I got through a rough Sunday night with the change in pain medication. I'd talked with Dr. Fulp about discharge on Monday as I could not have gotten out of there fast enough for my taste, and I needed to book a return flight. After I spoke with him on Sunday I booked a flight for Tuesday, St. Patrick's Day. Well, Monday came, but Dr. Fulp didn't. The hospitalist stopped by mid-afternoon, said he though I'd be gone already by then. But Dr. Fulp hadn't written a discharge order yet and he was the one who had to release me. So we waited.

While we waited, I took a shower, got my dressing changed, put on real clothes and took off the TED hose on my right leg. I'd left mine on since the operation as I wasn't exactly very mobile. Well, when I took it off, there was a burn in a line across my ankle that hadn't been there before. I was wearing high motorcycle boots when I had the accident, and there's no reason why I should have had anything on the right ankle anyway. I didn't think much of it until later, when I told my sister about it; she's an OR tech, the person responsible for positioning the patient, setting up the instrument tables, and often prepping the patient and maintaining the sterile operating field. She's of the opinion that I was probably improperly grounded when they were using electrocautery in the OR, and my ankle was likely in contact with something metal, like a stirrup, long enough to burn me. So it's that much more of a friggin' miracle that I got out of the OR without any major complications.

So we kept waiting, my aunt and I, twiddling our thumbs in my room. A physical therapist came by, did exactly the same thing that the therapist on Saturday had made me do, and left just as quickly, though with a lot more sleaze. He had the unmistakable air of a ladies' man, but he was at least 60. The nurse paged Dr. Fulp repeatedly for that discharge order. All he had to do was have the circulator return the page and shout a verbal discharge order across the OR to the phone. Literally. My family knew this. The nurse knew this. I knew this. The nurse paged and paged, and all those pages went ignored. ALL DAY. Finally, at about 6pm, when they told us he was still in the OR, I asked my aunt to take a blank order page from the nurse's station down to the second floor, where the OR was, and stand there until Dr. Fulp came out of the OR, to stick the paper in front of him for a discharge order.

A little while later my aunt returned with a different surgeon that I'd never seen before, who quizzed me about my surgery and care plan and did I have my scripts, etc., and when he was satisfied that a plan was in place he wrote the discharge order. It still took us a good 45 minutes more to get out of the place though, since the nurse who had come on at 7pm was very young and a stickler for detail, making him excruciatingly slow. A few weeks later, when I actually looked at my discharge paperwork, I was further irked to see that they'd killed a couple of trees giving me smoking cessation paperwork. I don't recall anyone ever even asking if I smoked. Again, seems like something that would be useful knowledge when doing major orthopedic surgery under general anaesthesia.

So somehow I finally got out to my aunt's car and stuffed my leg into it. Every pothole shot pain through my ribcage though. We stopped at the nearest pharmacy and they went in with my prescriptions. Unfortunately, the hospitalist hadn't written the MS Contin on the special prescription pad it requires so I couldn't get it filled, and they didn't have the muscle relaxer in stock. It was already quite late at this point, so my aunt decided to take me and my other aunt back to my grandparent's house to get me tucked away while she went to another pharmacy for the muscle relaxer.

Getting into the house was difficult to say the least. Using a walker when you have rib fractures is NOT fun. Of course, I still didn't even know I had rib fractures, but I was starting to strongly suspect. I got in the house, ate something, broke down crying at the dinner table, recovered, and shuffled to off to the bathroom. This took me a good 40 minutes, so by the time I was shuffling back to the bedroom, my aunt was getting back from the other pharmacy. I dosed myself up well and went to bed. I had terrible dreams, I think I was being chased by aliens or something ridiculous like that, but it was very stressful, and I woke in the middle of the night with shaking chills and pain. It took me about 20 minutes to work up to sitting up, because of the pain in my ribcage every time I changed position like that. I took some more medicine and went back to sleep. One part of me was really concerned that I was having shaking chills three days post-op, with orthopedic hardware sitting in my leg underneath an extraordinarily long incision (disastrous setting for a bad wound infection), but the majority of me just wished for oblivion and pain relief. So I went back to sleep, and thankfully I seemed ok in the morning.

I got up, ate, packed, and somehow got myself put together enough to get to the airport on time. I have to say, the staff with Continental were extraordinarily nice, and very cordially accommodating across the board. I had to use the aisle chair to board, the tiny, extremely narrow wheelchair they have to get people on who can't walk at all or very little. I became very thankful for not being any fatter than I already am.

Traveling was not painful except when transferring. Prying one's generously-sized booty out of an airplane seat when one has four rib fractures is terribly, terribly painful. On the flight from Houston to Seattle, against my better judgment, I drank a diet coke and had to get up to pee during the flight. Fortunately for my bladder, I was in the row directly behind the bathroom in the middle of the cabin, so it was hoppable, even with a painfully full bladder. But getting out of my chair required the assistance of a pain pill and an off-duty Continental staff person who happened to be sitting beside me and was willing to help me pry my tush out of its tight confines. I cannot ever recall being quite so grateful for an airplane bathroom.

Now, while I was in the hospital, my father was up in arms, being at home and worried sick about me. He was on the phone with my grandparents, my aunt, and my sister several times a day. He kept wanting to come down but I told him not to. He kept wanting to fly down and accompany me back to Washington but I said no. I was determined to get home and make do on my own. I freely admit now that I was an IDIOT to think that I was going to be able to make it on my own. Getting my luggage and my car at the airport alone would have completely been beyond me. Fortunately for me, my parents decided to ignore what I told them and fly to meet me in Seattle.

Boy was I glad to see them, too. By the time I got to SeaTac I'd already gone through 6 Lorcets, and I had no idea how I was going to make it to get the car let alone my luggage. Of course, in a big, very busy urban airport he's not familiar with, it took my dad several false starts before we were able to get all three of us, all our luggage, and my car in the same place at the same time. He also missed no less than 4 exits trying to get back on I-5 from the airport, so we took the "scenic route" back to Olympia, and didn't arrive at my apartment until after 11pm. I'd already taken a seventh Lorcet at the airport, figuring I'd just drink a LOT of water and no alcohol for a couple months and cross my fingers for my liver.

Once we got to the apartment, my mom and dad carried all the baggage upstairs as I attempted to get up the stairs. I had thought that I'd just go up on hands and knees like I did when I had the fracture in the other leg, back when I lived in Rochester. Of course, I could bend the knee on that leg when it was broken, and my left leg was now in a knee immobilizer, with a line of staples running down the front of the knee. I didn't have the stamina to hold it suspended while going up on both hands and just the one knee. And I couldn't go up on my butt because of the ribcage pain. (By now, I was quite sure I had a rib fracture, and even my aunt who doesn't speak any English had diagnosed my rib fractures, just not anybody who had an XR machine at their disposal). So we bagged that idea and went looking for a hotel, after the kitties were fed, of course. I had to drive since I couldn't really articulate directions to my dad anymore, too tired and in too much pain. As long as I didn't steer with my left arm (the reaching motion KILLED), I did ok and got us to a Best Western that Mama and Daddy had found had pretty good rates when they were checking out hotels before they left. I took an eigth Lorcet, no longer able to care much about tanking my liver, and crashed. I was in such bad shape at that point that Daddy had to put a towel underneath me to scoot me away from the edge of the bed, I couldn't move myself.

I'd made an appointment with a PA in the office of my regular doctor for 9am the following day, but I wasn't able to get it together enough to make that. We rented a wheelchair and saw the PA later that day. She gave me reasonable pain meds, in addition to the Lorcet, and did my dressing change. She got the ball rolling on me seeing a local ortho and physical therapist, and I asked her to send me for rib films. Later that afternoon they shot the rib films and a couple days later I talked to her nurse and was stupefied to find out I had four rib fractures (I had not expected more than one or at most two).

Thus I returned to medical care that I could have some confidence in, and became dependent on my parents to keep me fed and in clean clothes, as I could not do much of that by myself even with good pain control and the wheelchair to get around in. My mom stayed for a week, and after a couple of nights at the Best Western we got into the handicapped-accessible room at the extended-stay hotel, which is where we stayed for a MONTH, until my ribs healed and I was able to get up my stairs on my butt. My dad was here for 6 weeks all together, patiently hauling the wheelchair in and out of the back seat everywhere we went, and shamelessly making my cats even fatter than they already are. As weird as it was, as a woman in her mid-30's, to have my dad living with me, I really miss waking up to a cup of coffee and ready-made breakfast every morning. I think my cats were not the only ones being spoiled while he was here.

Props also go out to my friend nick2310 , who came up to help me out for a week after my dad left, and was here to witness the first ascent of the stairs on two feet, after 8 looooong weeks off them. He also makes some mean roasted veggies, and although he would never admit it to his cat Fat Bastard, he is vulnerable to the charms of my black and white cat Grace, whose cuteness powers know no equal.

Of course, I did end up having a wound infection, and part of the incision came open. It reared its ugly head right around Easter. A course of antibiotics and some attentive wound care have put that back on the right track again, and I think I have avoided the infection going deep and involving the bone and hardware. I just have, as nick2310 says, "a giant freakin' hole in my leg". It's healing, but slowly, as these things do. I'm actually learning a lot about current wound care products, so it's been useful, in a roundabout way.

As of now, I'm walking with a cane, and doing limited walking without it. I went back to work 2 weeks after the accident, though I was only working half days for 4 weeks. I break a serious sweat grocery shopping, if I don't use a motorized cart (and they're just so uber-sexy, who wouldn't want to use a cart?). Laundry is still a lot like running a marathon, but I'm getting it done. I never thought I would be grateful for the ability to just pick something up and carry it from one end of my apartment to the other, but boy am I ever grateful now that I can do that again.

Another plus side is that I have tons of street cred with all my biker patients now. ;-) I ache to see everyone out on their bikes now that we're having good weather, but it's clear that I'll need to be able to bear my own weight and more on the left leg before I could get back on the bike, and I'm definitely not there yet. My quads are still actually quite weak on the left, so I think I'll have to strengthen them enough that I can pick up a dropped bike before I go riding again, just in case.

One thing's for sure: I'm going to be a heck of a lot more careful the next time I get on a bike. This accident has shown me that I could not have asked for a better or more supportive family, and I owe it to them, at a minimum, to not pull any more stupid stunts like this.

bike accident

2009-03-14T16:26:41Z

Well, when I do things, I do them big. Not two months after getting a motorcycle endorsement on my license, I've now had a pretty significant accident while riding my uncle's bike on vacation in TX. I took a corner too fast (ironically, the last turn back to my grandparents' house) and low-sided on top of my left leg. I pulverized my tibial plateau, then had an axial fx of the proximal tibia below the plateau, then a spiral fx about 2/3 down the rest of my tibia (shin bone). I scraped my left shoulder and bruised my face a little on the helmet padding, but other than the leg, I'm not too bad off. I was successfully surgerized yesterday and will probably be able to fly back to WA early next week. The surgeon says I have an incision from mid-thigh to lower calf, and a metal plate about a foot long installed. The good thing is, no cast. Bad thing is, no weight bearing for at least 2 months.

So, after all this pain, will I get back on the bike after I'm healed? Haven't decided completely yet, but probably I will.

Xmas '08

2008-12-28T06:10:44Z

A good Christmas, I must say.... For those who doubt my stunning ability to miss flights and still have my travel turn out ok, BEHOLD! Even after the Great Northwest Blizzard of '08, when so many were stranded for days in Seattle and waiting for something, anything to open up, I miss my flight but get on another, actually a direct flight, cutting out one stop from my original itinerary, less than 8 hours later.

I actually had a park'n'fly hotel room this time, which has worked well for me before, and my original flight wasn't that early, only 8am. But the hotel shuttle bus only runs once every 30 min, and the guy was late on top of that so I just missed the check-in cut off.

I originally had a 5-hour layover in Dallas so that I could hang out with rdholmantx , but as it happens I ended up crashing at her place for the night instead. With my luggage already in Lubbock. I've been hesitant to consider Lasik surgery, but after spending a night with contacts out any no glasses to wear instead, I'm starting to mull it over.

Crashing for a night in Dallas also gave me the chance to catch up with someone I went to HS with, which is always an interesting experience. It's been 20 years - TWENTY YEARS - since I first met these people. I'm amazed I don't feel any older than I do, and I'm amazed at how we all turned out. Most of us were such obnoxious little punks in HS.

Anyway, I finally got home the next day, on a prop plane no less (thought those went out of commercial circulation in like 1978), and commenced fighting with my sister and being fantastically annoyed with my mother. I cooked again this year. Made dressing from scratch for the first time, as the parental units are on a diet. It has been a family tradition for many years to consume Stove Top stuffing at holiday meals, but this recipe didn't turn out half bad. Doubt it was much more healthy than Stove Top, but what I made was definitely more healthy than the recipe my mom had picked out. I made greens that nobody (but me) liked, and asparagus that everybody liked, despite the fact that my sister picked up some truly awful bunches of asparagus before I arrived, and by the time I discovered the state of things it was too late to get any more.

I continued to use my family as guinea pigs for testing some breakfast recipes I've been wanting to try, and everything turned out pretty well. Today I made tofu with spinach and quinoa for dinner, and my father actually ate it. Haha!! I am a COOK, hear my water boil!! ;-)

Gift giving (and receiving) was fun this year too. It was a kitchen-heavy year for all of us. The parental units wanted a blender and a can opener, and got both. My brother wanted a Griddler and I got that for him. My sister wanted "a good knife set", which I scoffed at and bought her a high-end Wustof chef's knife and paring knife instead. Everybody's pets made out like bandits, as they've become the surrogate grandchildren at Christmastime. Bessie, my sister's Boston Terrier, is snoring contentedly right behind me now. She *is* a very cute dog, I must admit.

My kitties got some treats and a 5-compartment feeder with a timed door mechanism. I'm trying to put them on a diet, but I predict that Grace will stay fat and Charlie will starve if his only source of food is what's in the timed bowl. I'll have to figure out a way to have some special Charlie feeding time that Grace can't get access to.

I got a dutch oven from my sister, which I'm very excited to break in, most likely either with some homemade chicken noodle soup, or a nice hot pot of chili (Texas style, no beans!), if we're still snowed in when I get back. She also gave me a USB hub with an E-Sata port, which I'm delighted to have since I means I can actually connect everything wirelessly now, and maybe use my dining room table for its intended use rather that the satellite home office that allows me to watch TV while working. ;-)

My brother, smartass that he is, got me a magnetic tank bag that's being shipped to me at home. But what he wrapped and put under the tree was a Ziplock bag, on which he'd written "magnetic tank bag", and in which he'd put one of those fridge magnet clips and a couple of grocery store plastic bags. We all got a good chuckle out of that one. I got a blender/food processor combo from the folks, and some assorted motorcycle-related stuff. That, combined with the dutch oven, means there are a lot more soup recipes I'll be able to make without a huge hassle. Very excited to play with all those new kitchen toys. Very excited to put all those bike-related items to good use once we thaw out from the blizzard. Very sad site, my poor motorcycle, parked under the carport but surrounded by snowdrifts. At least my carport didn't collapse onto the bike, though.

Also got the Matrix trilogy, a portable hard drive, and a CD of a guy covering David Bowie tunes in Portuguese from friends. I'm actually really interested in the Bowie covers. Can't be any worse than Nirvana's butchery.

Buying for the folks was really tough this year. They sent us a Christmas list that basically consisted of socks (for my father), a new printer/scanner, some T-shirts (for my mother), and some new plastic drinking glasses, since the ones they've had since about 1975 were starting to 'get worn out'. Then they went out and bought themselves a printer/scanner right after Thanksgiving. I even threatened my father with a fluffy pink tutu if they didn't think of at least a couple more things to tell us, but no dice. Then I get here and notice the following:

- The dishwasher leaves spots on pretty much everything that comes out of it, even though my dad pre-washes everything he puts in it. Dishwasher also has to be turned on with a pair of pliers as the main knob is gone.

- The floor lamp in the living room has to be turned on by turning on the switch, then unscrewing and rescrewing the light bulb, for unknown reasons.

- The DVD player broke shortly before we arrived, and unfortunately AFTER we rented some movies we realized that we had no way of watching them. Couldn't even find the right cable to hook my laptop to the TV.

- My mother apparently doesn't believe in hand towels. She has a (old, rather skanky) full bath towel hanging where the hand towels should be, and there aren't any hand towels in the closet.

Ahh, well they wouldn't be my folks if they behaved like normal people. And I just have to get through one more day of the insanity.

Merry Christmas everybody!!</lj>

The Great Seattle Snowstorm of '08

2008-12-18T14:21:50Z

Yesterday and today the Pacific NW has been getting dumped on by a winter storm. I think at the most some places have had 10" of snow, but of course the infrastructure to clear that quickly doesn't really exist here so it's a big deal. Lots of schools are closed, the morning news is not really reporting on anything but the weather and the traffic, and lots of people are driving very stupidly. Of course, I scoffed and just pulled out "the sleeping bag coat" and the snow boots. I've used the coat a couple of times since I moved out here when it got really cold, but the snow boots are seeing the light of day basically for the first time since my last winter in Rochester.

But I have to say, the snow coming down, wet and thick, on all the evergreen trees layered in the distance on the hilly horizon right outside my window is amazingly beautiful. Definitely worth all the hassle. ;-)

You know you're an old fart when....

2008-10-30T14:02:18Z

you seriously consider getting your roller skates fitted with orthotics.

I went roller skating on Sunday with my friends in Aberdeen who have five kids, and it was a lot of fun. But my right foot is STILL killing me, and it's all in the arch and the inside of my ankle. I think I was doing that thing that you see kids doing, splaying my feet out for balance but bending my knees inward so I don't end up doing the splits, which puts all my weight on the arch and the inside of the ankle. Ah, well. I'm probably still going to go rollerskating whenever I have the chance.

Hellish day

2008-10-23T04:57:07Z

Boy have I had a hellish day. I was about to say 'the day from hell', but having worked at that job in Salem, I know it could always be worse.

First, I had to be up for a staff meeting at an ungodly hour. I was on call last night, and an ER doc paged me at like 2am then when I called back had the nerve to say that I sounded like he'd woken me out of some sound REM sleep. Gee, thanks fer noticin'.

Then I had to induce an OB patient so I was on pins and needles all day. I don't think I like doing so few deliveries here. It just means that I'm really self-conscious about the deliveries I do have, because the hospital staff don't yet really know me. Many opportunities to create negative opinions at this stage of get-to-know-each-other between FPs who do OB (increasingly rare birds) and labor nurses.

So, my OB patient in the hospital is Spanish speaking. Well, we scheduled this induction today because the TWO Spanish-speaking labor nurses were scheduled to work today, but they called in sick. So guess who gets to translate everything? Puts me even more on pins and needles because I never really know that my patients understand or can make themselves understood when I'm not there.

Oh, yeah, and I had the bright idea to take on the care of a baby who was born yesterday to a mom with no prenatal care who is a member of some indigenous group from Mexico, so even her Spanish is a little spotty, and strangely accented. And she can't read. And her husband is really creepy. And since she had no prenatal care she is a social work train wreck. And the hospital has no social worker, much less one that speaks Spanish.

Then my induction starts to stall, then shows signs of going south, in the middle of a jam-packed afternoon clinic. I had a patient booked with me for a pre-op evaluation but the surgeon didn't feel it necessary to send with him any information on the surgery or anaesthesia he has planned. My deaf patient who is chronically ill and chronically hard to get to come in checked in almost an hour and a half before her appointment, and her translator was nowhere to be found. By the time for her appt came around she had walked out. My 1:30 patient showed up but the front desk forgot to check him in for an hour. A woman came in for a pap smear and had a list of no less than six other issues she wanted to talk about.

Then it becomes clear that my induction will go to section and I have to pick up and leave, ditching the rest of the afternoon on my so-new-he's-still-wet-behind-the-ears PA. I get to the hospital and the staff have waited for me to consent the patient for C-section rather than using the phone translator. We do the C-section, which fortunately goes well, and the baby is cute as a button. I do my paperwork but before I can escape the nurse for my other patient (the indiginous lady with no prenatal care) who also doesn't speak a lick of Spanish asks me to ask her how many times she's fed the baby. I go in her room no less than three times before I can catch her when she's not on her cell phone. I try not to be pissed that she has a cell phone but didn't have prenatal care, especially when she tells me she was talking to her mom. I ask her what I'm sent to ask, the go out to find that her nurse has disappeared. I tell another nurse what she told me and get the hell out.

I return to clinic to mop up, but find my PA mired in discussion with one of my colleagues about one of my more complicated patients, whom my PA is considering sending to the hospital. And there's still one more patient waiting, and it's 5:30. I'm starting to get the stink-eye from the staff, at least the ones who haven't already gone home. I'm in the middle of seeing the other patient, who of course is someone who really loves the sound of his own voice, when I'm interrupted by the PA, still on the fence about sending the pt to the hospital but is leaning in favor of it. I go take a look, decide he's right to send her, go through the requisite "oh doc I really don't want to go to the hospital but if you really really think I should well I guess I will but are you really sure, you don't think you can just give me a pill to make me feel better?" and then go back to finish with the last patient, who asks for a flu shot after he and I both have already stepped out of the room and concluded the visit. At that point I had no more strength in me to resist so I ordered the flu shot.

Then I called the ER and the hospitalist service that admits our patients at the hospital that I sent the earlier patient to. My PA and I faxed his note and a relevant cat scan to both the ER and the hospitalists at the fax numbers they gave us. Then I sat in my chair, surrounded by yet more work undone, and wished I could crumple into a pile on the floor. Ultimately I decided to scrap the office, ordered take out and went home. Once home, while trying to warm up tortillas for my take-out Mexican (they forgot to put in the tortillas), my colleague (who is on call) calls my cell and says that the ER is calling him about the patient I sent in, asking him what he expected them to do for her. He nearly makes me burn my tortillas before he decides that he's not going to dump that mess on me and will call the ED back himself.

Oh yeah, and my car engine has a low-speed miss. It's probably just the spark plugs but who knows what it's going to turn out to be? I have my Russian class tomorrow night so I can't put the car in the shop tomorrow. Fri AM my boss called another staff meeting at an ungodly hour, but I have to drive to Portland on Monday for another unpleasant reason that I will save for another rant, so I have to drop the car off on Friday. Sure wish I could ride the bike well enough by now to commute on it, at least in town.

So here I sit, bone tired and REALLY bitchy, just getting bitchier the more I think about the rest of the week and how early I'm going to have to get up. I feel really overwhelmed right now. But, the good thing about the blues is that it helps you keep perspective. It could **always** be worse. So I'm gonna eat some chocolate and go the hell to bed.

SQUEEEE!!!! No. 2

2008-10-20T23:17:43Z

Transferred the bike title to my name today, and got insurance for it. Even doing the paperwork feels good. Now I'm legal, as soon as I get a helmet. ;-)

Well, I managed not to crash the bike yet...

2008-10-20T05:38:33Z

I took the bike for a spin around the parking lot today. I'd been putting it off all week because I was afraid I'd drop it if I was by myself. Dion was supposed to call me this afternoon and come over to spot me but he's AWOL. So I figured, it's Sunday night, everybody's at home - if I laid the bike down there would probably be a loud noise followed by lots of loud cursing and somebody's bound to poke their head outside. And if not, well, I guess that's what the horn is for.

But I managed to ride it around the apartment complex without getting into any trouble that I couldn't get myself out of. Without a doubt, even in first gear it has more kick than the 125cc I was riding during the safety course last February. And it likes the throttle. My kind of bike. ;-) Next step: HELMET!! It felt very odd riding without one. And I need to find a nice, big, flat, empty parking lot. But I can see that this is just the tip of a gigantic iceberg of fun and challenge waiting for me in that lovely V-twin engine. I should really give her a name. Anybody got suggestions?

SQUEEEEEEE!!!!!!

2008-10-16T03:55:59Z

Behold! My motorcycle....

As fantastic as it is to get this bike, my long-awaited first bike and the first vehicle-type-thing I have purchased on my own, I have had a doubly fantastic day because the Russian books I ordered also arrived today. My favorite Russian author is Dostoevsky, and my favorite work of his is actually a short story called White Nights. I have a special attachment to his novel The Idiot, because I had loaned my English copy to a close friend shortly before his untimely death. I managed to find a Russian-language volume containing both White Nights and The Idiot, and ordered it along with a volume of Anna Axmatova's poetry, also in Russian, from this bookstore based in NYC. Flipping through those pages gives me almost the same kind of delicious little thrill of anticipation that I got when I cranked my bike up for the first time tonight.

Oh, yes, life is good. I'm a lucky woman, and grateful for it.

OMG, I actually did it!

2008-10-13T08:31:35Z

So, on a complete whim, I bought a motorcycle today on ebay.

Months ago when I took that motorcycle class I started scanning ebay for a likely starter bike, but never really found one that seemed like it was the right bike at the right time. So tonight, I actually logged onto ebay to modify the search I had set up, but lo and behold, there was a 1980 Honda CX500 for sale by a guy in Burien, right up I5 from here, and the auction was ending in 16 minutes. The bid was very do-able, and I didn't even have to go up very much on it before I won it. The bike was still in use until very recently, a very no-frills, workaday bike but maintained in good working order. The seller even offered to ride it down here to deliver it if I could give him a ride back. I am so frickin' excited!!! And I can't believe I actually did this. Woohoo!!!!

I can haz friend??

2008-09-30T03:39:07Z

Most of you know that my transition to the NW has not been the idyllic walk in the park I might have hoped. I work too much and still get behind, and have had little time to go out and make friends, which makes for some lonely times. But things are finally looking up.

Thursday night I had a stressful talk with my boss about my being behind on charts and not making much progress so far. I was pretty upset, at myself mostly, afterward. I really, really needed a friend. Some support, maybe a hug. I'm not sure I've ever needed a hug so acutely before, it was weird and very unpleasant. It was too late to call anybody not on pacific time; I tried calling Nick, who tried to be supportive in his own special dunderheaded way but just wasn't very helpful. So I went home and did some crying and feeling sorry for myself and a lot of feeling very lonely.

The next day I mentioned this to my new friend at work, Dion. Dion is a crusty 50-something dude who runs the lab and plays guitar in his spare time (at work and at home). He's also the office prankster. He and I just clicked, personality-wise, and he recently taught me to drive stick, something I'd always wanted to learn. Of course, he is sort of one of the 'populars' in that (almost) everybody likes him, but he doesn't really have the carelessness usually characteristic of popular people. He immediately gave me a big hug and was hugely supportive. I was so relieved I started crying again. But the kicker is, at lunch he bought me flowers.

I can count on one hand how many times I've been given flowers in my lifetime, and all but one of those times it was my family that gave them to me. It was so unexpected and generous it took my breath away. Then I really started crying again, but in a good way this time. Dion is good people, that's for sure. He even took a couple of punches from jealous co-workers after he came in here with a bouquet. ;-)

Then Friday night a bunch of people from work were going out for beer and I decided to join them. I was still feeling pretty low, just because my task list was daunting. But I worked until 7pm or so then decided to go get a beer. Well, what I got was one beer, a Black Opal, a Tic Tac and some other random shot-based thingy while we sat around and took ridiculous pictures of ourselves then laughed at them. It was a heck of a lot more fun than it sounds, even before I was drunk. Eventually the group thinned out and we decided to move to a nearby Mexican restaurant that has karaoke. There I had a margarita and then a Cadillac, which they tell me is a margarita with two kinds of tequila in it. Note to self: Yes, you really should stay away from tequila in the future, shots or otherwise.

After I sobered up a little I rocked War Pigs and Bohemian Rhapsody on the mic (oh, yeah, you better believe I rocked them!) and by the end of the evening I was almost the most sober in the gang. Which means I had some very fun times driving a couple of people home, and getting calls from them the next day when they didn't remember anything that happened. Good times!! I managed to avoid illness but I was as close to hungover the next day as I have been in a few years.

Anyway, I hope there are many more good times where that one came from since it sucks having to drive to Portland to go out. On the strength of so many good things last Friday, I managed to get out of the house both days this weekend and get a chunk of work done. And sitting here next to a beautiful bundle of flowers continues to lift my mood. It's amazing what a difference the small things make.

And now, I'm going back to work, but for once I'm happy doing it.

the mysteries of attraction

2008-09-26T03:53:12Z

You know how some people get a rush on the cheers of a crowd, and end up in show business or something like that, because they thrive on that high? I think I may have a similar addiction, except I'm hooked on the thrill of attention from popular people. I was just sitting here thinking about some stuff that has gone on this week and it occurs to me that my last several crushes/relationships have been on/with guys who were really popular (or at least cool in some new way to me), and I always get such a rush when they pay attention to me. People who have that kind of charisma, the kind that lets them wink or smile at you from across a crowded room and somehow make you feel that there's no one there as important as you, because you just shared that little connection with Mr. Popular. The downside of this, of course, is that when the special attention slacks off, all kinds of ugly things like jealousy and insecurity can set in.

I suppose everyone is susceptible to some well-played special attention, but I think I need to look at my old self-esteem issues again. I suspect they're sneaking in and driving my attractions more than I realize. Sometimes that works out great, at least for a little while, but usually it ends up being a roller coaster that I'd kind of like to get off.

what the f**k!!?!!???

2008-09-25T01:41:25Z

I just read about this, which happened not at all far from where I used to live in Salem. For Chrissake, what year is this, 1963? I am LIVID. But also very, very glad that I no longer live in Salem. Go Obama!!

Things looking bad in SE TX

2008-09-17T05:34:28Z

Well, Ike is no Katrina, but it sounds like things are bad in the Houston/Galveston area. Coastal poverty is only a smidge worse in MS and LA compared to TX, so now the same sets of people - the ones with the fewest resources - have had their homes wiped out. The federal response has been conspicuously more rapid than with Katrina both before and after landfall, but there are still some grim stories in the media. And grim photographic evidence. This is Bolivar Penninsula, before and after:

Now the holdouts who stayed are apparently dying from carbon monoxide poisoning, and law enforcement sounds like they're just waiting for the bloated bodies to start washing ashore. Grim, and terribly depressing. All the more so because those people had the chance to leave and chose not to.

It also sounds like FEMA is again stepping on toes but at least it seems like they're actually managing to do their job this time. Houston is under a curfew though. That is really disconcerting to me. Houston, fourth largest city in the U.S., under a curfew. I'm starting to wonder if I need to be looking for free clinics to go work at in Houston! I think maybe I should just avoid the news about Ike. I can't get away to go help or anything, and it's just going to worry and upset me.

On a completely different note, my brand-spanking-new 4th generation 16GB iPod nano (RED) has now been shipped. Of course, it's being shipped from China so I won't have it until probably next Monday. I'm delighted to have a nano that not only can hold all the music I want it to, but also has video capacity. I just downloaded software that allows me to rip DVDs to iTunes, so theoretically I can watch movies on flights without pulling out my large-ish laptop in cramped coach conditions. Of course, the screen is only 2 inches wide. I guess we'll see how well that works.

Flooding in Houston - deja vue

2008-09-14T02:46:00Z

What with Ike hitting Galveston and causing pretty bad flooding, and the subsequent stories featuring painful-but-true caricatures of shotgun-toting idiots who stayed behing on Galveston Island "to protect [our] property from looters", then calling for rescue from overworked cops and firefighters, I'm having bad flashbacks to Tropical Storm Allison. I found a link to some interesting pictures though. There is a section of Hwy 59 that's sunken as it passes through my old neighborhood and into downtown Houston. There are four beautiful bridges spanning the freeway, connecting the neighborhood streets on either side. My old apartment was just half a block north of the freeway, very near one of those bridges. Here's what the freeway normally looks like:

It doesn't look that deep but believe me, it gets pretty deep in the middle. And during Tropical Storm Allison, which sat on top of Houston and dumped nearly 40 inches of rain on us in 6 days, this it what it looked like:

The worst of the flooding happened on Friday night. Every freeway in the greater Houston area was under water and generally impassable by Sat AM, and the water came right up to the bottom of these bridges. I got flooded out trying to go home from a friend's house, and spent a shivering and miserable night soaked to the bone and stuck in a Whataburger whose manager had locked out the air conditioning controls so the employees couldn't change the setting. An employee there who had a very large truck drove me as far as she could in the morning when she got off, and I walked about 10 blocks home, past all kinds of people still dressed in club-wear, sitting on top of cars parked on every scrap of high ground to be had. Even on the sidewalk, the water was above my knees along Richmond from Shepherd to Mandell.

It was a week before I could even have my car towed to a shop. To my surprise, the insurance company approved repairs on my beloved '90 Bronco II. But of course, water had gotten into the transmission, and a few weeks after it was repaired, the seals in the transmission gave out and at that point it was unsalvagable.

Far more significant were the losses in the Medical Center, which had an unprecedented and catastrophic failure of flood doors and backup generators, leading to huge losses in research and a lot of narrow escapes for patients. I was in grad school at the time but was lucky in that my work wasn't affected that much. Allison also killed a total of 47 people, a really high number considering that it never was even the mildest of hurricanes. Hopefully, Ike will not be as lethal.

Despite the number of holdouts in Houston and Galveston, at this point it looks like there won't be many casualties, but there is a lot of damage in Galveston, which also suffered fires as we saw in New Orleans, and in southern Houston and the suburbs. Clear Lake is under water, the Kemah boardwalk is submerged, several historic Galveston landmarks are gone, and a bunch of the bayous are close to overflowing but it looks like they might not actually overflow. On the coast and in downtown there is a lot of wind damage also. But, as we know from Katrina, it could always have been worse. I am sorry to see the damage to a city that I'm so fond of though.

uuugh

2008-09-11T08:03:05Z

I am a sad, sad slave to Apple and iTunes.

I STILL have not been able to pare down my music selections enough to fit on my 8GB iPod nano (2nd gen in case anybody cares). It's been over 6 months since I've been able to sync my iPod, what with the whole Nick-meets-hard-drive and subsequent recovery stuff, so all the new music I've accumulated in that time is currently held hostage on my computer and I'm getting really tired of not being able to listen to it. This evening as my frustration mounted I checked the Apple store (I've completely forgotten why now) and found to my surprise that they have just come out with a 16GB nano, in like 9 colors no less. It is a measure of my depravity that it was harder to decide between red and purple than it was deciding to buy the thing.

I had looked into this last week but the only middle ground between the 8GB nano and the 80GB classic was the iPod touch, in 16GB or 32GB capacity, but it looked like it was uber-customizable, meaning too high maintenance for me, and it was WAAAY too pricey. I guess the rocket scientists at Apple saw that donut hole also, and were only too happy to put out a product that I would practically trip over myself to purchase. Guess we'll see how fast I outgrow 16GB. I've only had the 8GB for a year and a half. As ridiculous as this is, after all the time I've wasted fiddling with my music to squeeze it onto the 8GB, just not having to do that anymore feels like it justifies the expense.

Sarah Palin and diet coke

2008-08-30T23:31:38Z

For all you who, like me, might be just a wee bit incensed by all those people who think that McCain, Mr. anti-equal-pay, is somehow now more palatable to female voters than he was before he chose as his running mate a novice governor of a remote state who is also a gun-toting mother of five: did anybody see Samantha Bee on The Daily Show last night? I have never had such a hard time deciding on whether to stand up and cheer or roll on the floor laughing! She laid down a fantastic morsel of sarcasm, skewering McCain's choice of VP and their insulting play for female (but we prefer Vagina-American) votes. My favorite quote: "Women don't vote with the big head, they vote with the little hood." Oh, sooooo funny!!

I've also been meaning to post on a recent significant accomplishment. I am officially off the sauce. The sweet, sweet caramel-colored aspartame sauce - diet coke, beverage of champions. There is a Brita pitcher in my fridge where that 2-L bottle used to be, and I have a jug of non-icky tasting water at work and a nice Land's End canteen to go with me. Though I'm seriously thinking about getting a dorm size fridge for my office. I have the room under the desk, and it would make it easier to keep a Brita pitcher at work also. The communal fridge gets way too full anyway.

I don't remember how many of you I've already told about this, but I'm planning on trying to conceive on my own (well, with the help of a friend who's agreed to be a donor). I have a few loose ends to tie up first, but you might say I'm looking at my life with baby eyes these days, and baby said I had to get off the sauce, so I did.

NOOOOoooooOOOOOoooooOOO!!!!1!

2008-08-30T16:50:52Z

Looks like Star Trek: The Experience is closing. I'm so sad!! I'll never be able to pay $8 for blue beer - I mean Romulan Ale - in Quark's again! Well, I guess I no longer have any reason to go to Vegas.

Longbottom? Awwwww...

2008-08-25T06:17:41Z

Your result for The Harry Potter Husband Test...<h4>Mrs. Longbottom</h4>Your perfect HP man is Neville Longbottom.<img src="http://cdn.okcimg.com/php/load_okc_image.php/images/0x0/0x0/0/15442234833226636548.jpeg" width="370" height="425" />
<div>You like the nice guy. You don't need the best looking guy, or the most talented, or the most popular, or the most powerful. You want a guy who'll be there when you need him, who knows how to stick through the hard times, who isn't afraid to do what needs to be done, and who stands up to even his friends when necessary. You can't go wrong with a guy like this. 
 
 
(fanart by jeremia http://jeremia.deviantart.com/ used with permission)</div><a href="http://www.helloquizzy.com/tests/the-harry-potter-husband-test">Take The Harry Potter Husband Test</a> at <a href="http://www.helloquizzy.com/">HelloQuizzy</a>

SO not true. I might be a goody-two-shoes but I'm not THAT bad.

Delinquent posting about F.A.R.T.

2008-08-24T21:15:46Z

So, my pal rdholmantxhas created her very own fan club for sarcastic fanfic writers/aspiring standup comics/friends and family of same, and I'm proud to be a charter member.

ah, small towns....

2008-08-24T21:08:16Z

Well, I had another 'small town' moment this morning. I went to church and ran into a patient. I was just on the verge of joining that church, too. But realistically, Olympia is small enough that I'd have to go out of town to find a church where I wouldn't run into patients. So I guess I'll have to make my peace with not being able to live incognito. At least until I can move to Portland.

Man, it's annoying to live in a small town. Even one as cool as Olympia.

geeking out big time

2008-08-16T08:02:04Z

Well, Gen Con is fantastic. It's just phenomenal to have a gathering of this magnitude of fantastically geeky people. I blathered a lot about that last year, but I still love it, just the size of the whole thing. I have to resist the urge to giggle just riding through downtown on the bus from the airport, when I see the now-familiar Union Station, convention center, and the associated hotels, all with geeks streaming into and out of and all around them. And oh, there are soooo many sexy, sexy geeks here. (And boy is it apparent that I have some serious issues, given how much I'm like a moth to a flame with these geeky guys!!) And of course, plenty of not so sexy geeks, but we're all here to have a good time playing games and that is certainly being accomplished.

I've been introduced to Werewolf (not the RPG, the other one, I guess it's a card game but not a typical card game). Been trying to get into True Dungeon but no luck so far, will have to stake the place out tomorrow AM. Having a very good time with the old gang from Rochester. No one from Houston is here this year which is too bad, but last year was maybe a little too busy, with me splitting my time between the two groups and trying to get in some games too.

Hoping to actually do some gaming tomorrow, since all the games I had wanted to join were either already full or I missed them on account of missing my flight. A new thing that Gen Con is doin this year is an expanded program for the 'gaming widows', which actually includes a lot of stuff that I find very interesting, like knitting workshops and belly dancing classes. I guess we'll see what I manage to squeeze in tomorrow.

One of those days....

2008-08-14T05:04:18Z

Oy vey!

Today I assisted on a C-section for one of my patients who had a fetal demise at term. She was about 3 weeks from her due date and the baby just died. Don't know why yet. This just happens sometimes. From one day to the next, even with all the proper care, sometimes that life just slips away. People don't think about things like this, but when it happens and a group of people start talking about it, inevitably everybody knows somebody that had this happen to them. It's awful. Truly awful. I'm going to be a little graphic here, so if you are sensitive or squeamish, skip the next paragraph.

After the baby was delivered and the cord was cut, it was my job to carry that dead baby over to the bassinet. That lifeless, limp baby - who looked for all the world like it should be hale and screaming - just flopped down where I put him with the sickest thump I think I've ever felt. I don't ever want to experience that again. It was straight out of my worst nightmare. That's so cliched to say but I don't have any better words for it. I don't want to be able to describe that better.

Times like these, I get so mad when I think about all those people out there who decide that childbirth and childbearing proceed just fine if left alone, free of interference from cruel and controlling modern medicine. People who elect to attempt childbirth at home, alone, simply to avoid delivery in a hospital setting, putting themselves and their babies at great risk because of some very misguided ideas. We have completely lost touch with the risk involved in childbearing. Even under the best of circumstances, it still kills a lot of women and babies every year. I don't want to be the rain on the parade, but I do wish people in general knew more about these things.

In other news... The interview with the medical board I had to do didn't go great, but it could have been worse. Hopefully this thing will get put to bed soon. I'm really ready to have done with it. I just hope it won't be too painful. It was emotionally difficult to get through and I'm hoping that nothing like it ever comes up for me again.

This weekend I'm on my way to GenCon in Indianapolis to get together with my old Rochacha pals. Had a lot of fun last year, and I could use the break. Of course, I missed my plane. This time it was because I ran out of gas. I worked in the office really late last night since I'm going out of town, and I forgot to fill up on my way home. Then I was running late this morning on my way to the C-section so I didn't fill up then either. At the hospital I parked on an incline, oblivious to the fact that I was still running on fumes, so when I came out the truck wouldn't start. It took 45 minutes for my roadside assistance to bring me a gallon of gas, which they charged me $5 for. Then I proceeded to waste more time trying to get gas at Safeway.

Seriously, the pumps at my local Safeway gas station move like molasses and half the time it's as if they've never seen a debit card. It's fantastically annoying. So I left, and paid more but actually GOT GAS.

And now I'm killing time, on standby for the red-eye to Chicago, hoping to catch a morning flight to Indy. Along with at least half of the not-completely-destitute gaming geeks in most of the northern US. Best laid plans.... Doug from Rochacha had come out a couple weeks ago to visit other friends who live out here, and we were booked on the same flights to Indy. But he ended up staying in the city last night with another friend, so he actually caught the plane while I was flaking out about getting gas, still in Olympia. I think I have conclusively proven that I will be late to my own funeral.

But now it's time to pack up and endure the requisite violation of my Fourth Amendment rights again. Good times.

Trying not to wig out

2008-08-07T01:46:14Z

So, my last (and most unpleasant) "boss" did a very rude thing (aside from firing me) that continues to result in fallout, even now. Tomorrow I have an interview before a committee of the Oregon Medical Board. I'm really trying not to flip out or get too nervous, and I do have a good lawyer so I know I've done as much as I can to protect myself. In addition to actually not having done anything wrong, of course, except get behind on charts. But I am still not pleased that this hasn't gone away yet. And some part of me is terrified. That part also feels very much like a failure for even being involved in something like this. You know, I'm not homeless, I'm not on drugs, I'm not a criminal, and most days I'm a productive member of society, but there are times like these when I am all-too-acutely aware of how I fall short of my potential.

Well, here's hoping that that which does not kill me makes me stronger.