Nilknarf News

Natterings, Notions
and
Notes

Friday, 28 May, 2004 18:22

Daily Nilknarf Haiku

Holes in theories, holes
in heads and hearts and graveyards
Fenestration rules!

Tard.

OK, so I've decided that today I will talk about how tard I really am.

On second thoughts, though, I think that I won't, I'll show some restraint. I'll just describe the day.

But really, describing the day would be way too painful, so I'll talk about the night.

Not much to talk about, though.

Two and a half hours' worth of sleep.

Could *not* get to sleep. Was up, was down, went back and forth three times at least. I just could not turn my brain off. Last time that I looked at the clock, it was 04:00, and I woke Karen up so that she could rub my legs, and that finally put me to sleep. The first time that I went to bed, she gave me a nice backrub, and that shoulda done it, but no.

And that made what would have been a pretty routine (read:busy) Friday into a nightmare. It was go-go-go, think-think-think. Catch all of those mistakes.

Well, almost all.

We have three fantastic computer systems that we use.

None of them can flag a patient for allergies.

So I had a nursing home patient about 85 years old, seemingly very lucid, that told me that she had no allergies. Told me twice, and I believed her.

She had had contrast exams in the past.

I injected the contrast.

She had a reaction. Fortunately, not a very bad one, and easily cured.

Purely a matter of luck.

So I pulled up the report from the previous contrast exam, which I hadn't bothered to read because it was not pertinent to the current exam. And there, in the body of the report, was a statement that the patient had a reaction to the contrast.

And I am pissed. I cannot for the life of me imagine why a medical system could be built that did not consider an alert system for allergies. It's simple, you have a database, insert a field that, if true, blinks an alert on the screen every time that an allergy to anything on that patient has ever been documented.

Maybe the pharmacy has a system that we could link to, or something like that.

Right now we're using a rolodex (true! Pieces of paper!) to store that information. And relying on patients and their caretakers and their doctors. And it ain't working. I really hope that it doesn't take a death and/or a major lawsuit to get something done.

That was the first thing this morning, and the day didn't really get any worse, but it didn't get any better, either. And I was the runner, and sure enough, running was the order of the day. Except that I got to do a drainage procedure, and got to sit down for a while. Unfortunately, I had to get up, too. The sitting down brought my attention to the fact that I was dead tard.

OK, enough of work stuff. Beautiful day today, it is. Supposed to get some nasty weather in tomorrow afternoon and evening, though. Springtime stuff, big fronts and tornados and all that stuff.

I'm going with Kim and Karen and Lacee and Matt and brian to Parsons tomorrow, they're gonna put flowers on graves and I'm gonna look over GEDs' tools so I'll know what I need to get when the damned shop gets built. No, they didn't work on it today either. Dammit.

Sunday will be a day to work around here, at least until 19:00, when I go on call. Yep, I'm taking call for another tech Sunday night through Tuesday morning.

Taking call for two reasons: Money, and the fact that I don't want to have to use a PTO day for Monday. Gotta save that vacation time!

OK, we're back to tard. I feel like I've been beaten, I do. And some way or another, I pulled a muscle or something in my groin, so I'm kinda limping anyway, and the longer I sit, the harder it is to get up.

Karen was kinda planning for us to go to see some jazz tonight, and it would indeed be a beautiful night for it, but I just can't do it. The Topeka Jazz Festival is this weekend, all kindsa great musicians will be there, and some of them will play for the free stuff. Went last year and had a blast, hate to miss it.


Thanx for being here!

All Material © 1996 - 2004 by Douglas C. Franklin