First things, as always, first: yesterday's supposedly wonderful start on the entry:

I, like almost all men, live for the admiration and adulation of beautiful females. I had my turn last night when I woke up.

Karen and Lacee were trying to get a rubber snake out of the space under the kitchen floor. It had "accidentally" fallen into the hole, according to Lacee.

They had been trying to get it out with a coat hanger, a totally inadequate tool for this particular job. However, I've got a spring-loaded pick-up too that is just right for the job, and I retrieved the snake forthwith. Both Lacee and Karen were very pleased with me...

I got up later than I wanted to, but I did get a good sleep in. After the snake retrieval, I just had time to check my email and get a quick shower before coming to work.

It wasn't crazy when I got here, but it was within the hour. One of the evening techs, bless her little heart, stayed over an hour to help me out, and it was pretty well all sewed up by midnight. A few patients occasionally, nothing big or interesting so far...

O'well. In my memory it was good. So much for my memory... mem-o-ries are made of this... bop, bop, bop-to-de-bop-bop...

One girl... one boy...

O'crap.

Last night was really hard on me again, but not so much as Thursday. Back hurts, legs hurt. Pretty busy night. Some fun, but mostly not. Eileene mentioned at one point that she would like to have an audio recording in the ED... there was a patient retching in room seven, one coughing a lung up in room three... seems like there was a kid crying somewhere, too... just the thing to listen to if you miss the place on a night off. Yeah, right.

I'm continually amazed at how we health care workers take so much for granted... people screaming, coughing, freaking out, dying... all the fucking time. Mostly we aren't even really conscious of it, which is in itself pretty damned scary. We have our own problems to take care of, the screaming patient belongs to someone else right now.

And we hope the next patient doesn't take a swing at us... or sometimes we wish they would...

Just get by.

Don't take on anyones' problems unless you have to. Do your own work. Lend a hand if you can... people will reciprocate. A little contradictory there... but that's the way it is.

Goodnight.