Cell Phone Trauma

Here's a little synopsis of a traumatic event involving my cell phone yesterday evening. it took a little swim, causing me great angst. I decided to post this, b/c...no real reason, but now that's it's been resolved, it's kinda funny. 

Here's the email I frantically sent to many of my phone contacts. Entitled: My Phone went Swimming 

Hey everyone. So...I just dropped my phone in water. and I don't mean it just got a little wet. i mean it actually went swimming. oops. anyhow, now my life has come to a screeching halt b/c I'm pretty sure I've lost several years worth of phone numbers (most of which I haven't actually memorized). if you would like me to have your phone number again, please email me, and if you've been looking for a way to cut off ties, now would be a good time. ;) Thanks.

After being panicked for a while. I realized there was only one or two of my contacts with whom I'd lose contact without my phone,  and that there are many people in my contact list I don't really even talk to anymore...or I can just find on Facebook. Well, here's some of the responses I got:

Oh drat!

Phones aren't good swimmers!

Never thought of such a great way of getting rid of records of those who don't get in touch.... which models of phone... what body of water, how deep, for how long,...what temperature: may consider doing the same!

Noooo! That is so sad.

awww, sorry to hear that, did you try turning it on, if not let it sit for a few days to dry out all the moisture before turning it on, then again i think you wanted a new phone anyway.

Poor Caitlin's phone! I'm sure it lived a very full life, even if its dream of being an Olympic swimmer went unfulfilled.

Sorry about your aquatic phone!!! What a bummer!

Caitlin, you goof!

And here's the "scratch that first one" email when I realized all was not lost. Entitled: Resurrection Phone

well...it must be christmas. after the surgical procedure i performed on my phone (i.e removing the battery, memory card, and sim card) and allowing it to dry out, the prognosis was 50/50. (it was touch and go for a while. as it crackled and sputtered, i shouted orders left and right: nurse! give me 10mg of Morphine, STAT! (i don't even know if that's the right dose, but i think i got the other rights--drug, route, time, patient), oh wait, i was the nurse...not the mention the surgeon, anesthesiologist, and physician's assistant, as i battled the water alone. just kidding.) would it survive the night and be able to recover from the evening's trauma, and if it did, would it recover fully or have permanent scars. or, would the damage be too substantial for life as a phone knows it rendering it "brain dead" (would that be microchip-dead? well, whatever it'd be, i mean a loss of vital functional abilities). i figured the latter would be more likely as i imagined how the water would have infiltrated the inner-workings of the phone and taken all my contacts under siege, ripping names from numbers, creating havoc and washing them away into oblivion (as is likely to happen to seattle when all this snow melts!). now just think if i'd dropped it in salt water! that damage may resemble an immune response where the macrophages/salt (who eat up and digest material to destroy) just start chewing up phone numbers, while i watched helplessly... "ack! wait! that was my cousin! oh no. there goes my best friend!  uhhh...who's that next one? oh, you can eat that one, i don't even know that person!" 

ok, where was i going with this...oh. this morning, my tachycardic heart (ok, that's maybe a little dramatic, i wasn't really that nervous), i dared to assess the previous night's potentially life-saving interventions and replaced the guts of the phone, said a prayer, took a deep breath, and pushed that little red button i had taken for granted so often before. after a few seconds, the screen came on. it survived extubation and was breathing on it's own, but would it wake up? to find out, i had to select "phonebook" and hope my contacts would appear. here was the real defining moment. another deep breath.........................oh my gosh! is it true?!?! was i hallucinating? there in front of me i saw contact after contact. listed just as i'd remembered! friends, bosses, relatives, people i haven't talked to in years, other random numbers...people near and far....all there! the final test would be to make a call. i was so gleeful i didn't care what happened now, it didn't matter if the phone actually worked, i had my contacts and life could continue.

as it turns out, the call went through and all is well with me and my resurrection phone. it made a solid recovery, though some evidence of that treacherous night remain. the screen wallpaper looks like clouds, i can't seem to check my voicemail d/t the # button not working correctly, and it has developed some form of cell phone Turrets and beeps erratically during calls.

all this just to say, you don't have to email me your numbers anymore. i've got it covered. 

Thanks and Merry Christmas, etc!

Sweet Relief

Friday, 12 December 2008, 09:25am. Finals over. Brain checked out. Quarter 1 of nursing school complete, I hope...grades pending.

Now, off to guilt-free TV watching and doing nothing remotely productive.

Skills, skills, skills.

I was thinking maybe I should talk about something nursing related in this post, since I have not so much as even thought about even thinking about posting something for quite some time now, and b/c my last few posts seem to have as much to do with nursing as Ludifisk has to do with Tibetan Monks. 

As of late, a fair amount has happened in my small, but rapidly proliferating, world of nursing. 

1) IM injection (flu shot). Not really too difficult, just "throw it like a dart"...though it is possible for the needle to sort of, "bounce" out of the pt's arm if all the planets line up. And that's all I'll say about that (don't wanna break HIPPA regs).

2) Glucometer. Well, it didn't hurt me. This procedure was uneventful. This is the finger prick to test blood glucose for people /c Diabetes.

3) Rectal Suppository. Clearly my favorite thus far (I don't know how to express sarcasm in writing, but that was an attempt). This one was for constipation. Real easy to give...unless your client's just not havin' it. Technically, pt should be in Sim's position (lying on left side), and then you deposit the suppository. It is just medication injected into a wax "bullet" so it dissolves pretty quickly and then you wait 30mins or so for the receipt (i.e. a BM). Wow, that's an interesting way to explain it.

4) Staple removal. This woman, well into her 80s, had a Right femur Fx, I think, and her staples were ready to be removed (generally 10-14 days /p surgery). This was an interesting experience. I didn't actually get to remove the staples, just observed...which in this instance, I was perfectly okay with. The client was not thrilled, to say the least, about having her staples removed, though she didn't know that at first. Everything started out well. She was calm and cooperative. We told her it would hurt a little...but then the nurse removed the first staple: "OW THAT HURT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? YOU STOP THAT!", same with the 2nd one.

Total staples: 15-20 staples (incision basically knee to hip). Total tolerance: zero. 

Then, "Oh Lord, please make them stop. Don't let them hurt me anymore!" In the most pitiful voice you have ever heard. You would have thought we were ruthlessly torturing her. After about 5 or 6 staples and one that was harder to pull out and had some skin grown around it, she'd really had enough and resorted to threats and violence: while swinging her fist at or pounding the nurse's shoulder, "YOU STOP THAT! I'M GOING TO KNOCK YOUR TEETH DOWN YOUR THROAT! YOU STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!" We tried to distract her, but no use: "S____, it looks like the weather is going to be nice for a few days." her response: "Oh yes, I hope so...YOU STOP THAT! I'M GOING TO KNOCK YOU TEETH DOWN YOUR THROAT! COVER ME UP! I'M COLD! STOP THAT! Oh God, I'm praying, please don't let them hurt me anymore. I'm too old for this."