Lucrative Pain

it behooves one to make sure that one's phone can't accidentally turn on. Luckily for me, when my audiobook started playing from my scrub pants' pocket, it was an epic fantasy (hello, Bahzell B...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2023/03/when-in-airborne-and-contact.html

 I deal with death more frequently than the average person. I have no problem with dead bodies. I am respectful when doing post-mortem care. I've learned to cope with the emotional aftermath. Bu...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2023/02/death.html

Every time I set foot in a Walmart, I feel myself slowly transmorphing into a Karen (no offense to any Karen-named peeps out there). I can't help it. I make sure I've eaten something before I go,...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2023/02/walmart.html

I have a confession to make. I am a vegetarian, and have been for almost a year. As much as I love the taste of meat, my love affair with it is over. Over fifty years is long enough! I have wan...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2023/01/say-it-aint-so.html

...because it crows for you. Or not. Dear unknown neighbor who owns a rooster who likes to cock-a-doodle-do between 2 and 4 AM every blessed day: 1. You live in the downtown area of a major...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2023/01/ask-not-for-whom-cock-crows.html

 I haven't posted in a really, really long time. *brushes off cobwebs*  Part of it is inertia. I'd like to blame social media, but I've foregone it for quite some time, only popping in on F...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2023/01/wow.html

 Guess who got floated off of the oncology floor to take care of COVID patients? THIS GIRL! Tired now, off to bed. TTYL.

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2021/11/guess.html

 I never planned on coming here. It's expensive and it's crowded, at least in the Bay Area where I'm working right now. But it's also really, really beautiful here, the weather is generally fa...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2021/10/im-in-california.html

I pull back the curtain of one of my three infusion rooms and greet my patient. He's going to have an hour-long immunotherapy infusion.  I have all my supplies set up to access his implanted p...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2021/09/oooookay.html

 I guess I haven't checked in for quite some time. Like, my entire contract in AUSTIN, TEXAS. I worked on a Bone Marrow Transplant unit, nights. It was quite the educational experience for me,...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2021/09/sothis-happened.html

 The joy of working with youngsters... Like when your pod partner (*cough*Tyler*cough*) writes your name on a white board in LARGE letters and places it at the foot of his dementia patient's b...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2021/02/shenanigans.html

 Well hello there, Strangers!  I'm embarking on a new adventure in a few weeks: I'm finally going TRAVEL NURSING. Watch this page for updates. I have signed with two agencies and two recru...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2021/02/long-time-no-hear.html

***while I was holding the urinal for a male patient with tremors and BPH. "C'mon, George!" I did NOT need to know that my patient's penis is named "George".  That's my dad's name, and his...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2020/03/overheard-in-patients-room.html

from my 88-year-old patient. I answered a call light in the middle of the night. My patient beckoned me over to her bedside and we had the following exchange: "This is gonna be an odd request...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2020/01/not-what-i-expected-to-hear.html

That time when you're working the night shift when Daylight Saving Time starts. And your *very insistent* patient demands that you adjust the clock in her room. Right. NOW. And the clock slip...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2019/03/that-time-when-no-pun-intended.html

So, after having a *ahem* firm discussion with Eeyore* over the phone about why my patient, who's likely perfed his bowel, can't come to the radiology department for STAT PORTABLE x-rays, she fin...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2019/02/overheard-on-cancer-ward.html

I roll my eyes as my ass barely hits my chair when the patient in 403 hits the call light. Again. For the millionth time this shift. I need to get my charting done! I take a deep breath and let...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2019/01/stop-and-reflect.html

That creepy/awkward moment when you realize that your fifty-something patient is calling her *husband* "Dad"... And calls urination "tinkling". *shudders*

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2018/10/creepy.html

you wake up in the very quiet, deserted, pitch-black, middle-of-the-night infusion suite and realize you accidentally forgot to actually START THE MOTHERFUCKING TIMER when you began your break (a...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2018/07/that-moment-when.html

Me: What would you like to drink to take your meds? Patient: VODKA! Me: I'm so sorry...we don't have that... Patient: THEN WHY DID YOU ASK?!

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2018/07/overheard-in-hospital.html

I hate running. OK, let's be real. It's more like a slow jog. A trot, if you will. But, still. I hate it. I'm in the middle of doing a Couch-to-5-K program. I guess my thinking is that I can ...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2018/06/incentive.html

how it takes SEVEN people, including three hospital security guards, to get a 78-year-old, 5'6", 125 pound patient with Parkinson's disease and Lewey body dementia, back into his bed and restrain...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2018/02/someone-please-explain-to-me.html

When your patient describes with relish how he beat the shit out of his wife's boyfriend and broke said boyfriend's nose. I mean, what do you say to that? "Great job! Now here's that Tylenol ...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2017/09/awkward.html

your patient copiously and incredibly foul-smellingly shits the bed. Out of spite.

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2017/08/that-feeling-when.html

to be a little stoked when I'm introduced to patients and family member as "the Night Nurse?" In my head I'm thinking, "Fuck, yeah! I'm the NIGHT NURSE, bitches! Superheroes come to ME for help...

https://lucrativepain.blogspot.com/2017/08/is-it-nerdy-of-me.html