Pass the Cheese, I've Got the Whine!

You can win some people over and then there are those who will always be impossible to please. Those squeaky wheels irritate the hell out of me. I've long ago forsaken the nurse as handmaiden to the physician. Even most docs I know treat us in a more collaborative manner these days. I just wish others would get the message. There are still people who think it's OK to treat the nurse poorly. When it happens in someone's home, I get the hell out. You don't have to talk to me more than once like that. Luckily, we have management that takes those problems seriously. When it happens in a hospital, it's a little more dicey.

I admitted a patient the other day who passed away during the admission. There was a delay in getting the new admitting paperwork from hospital registration. The chaplain was not very pleasant to deal with regarding this delay but without the new digits, there couldn't be a proper chain of custody to transfer this patient to the morgue and then the funeral home. If I had to choose a word to describe this woman, it would be harridan. I'll wait while you click on that word to see the definition. There. Great word, isn't it? I'd have said bitch, but she's a chaplain, and I'm working hard these days to stay out of hell.

At this particular hospital, the 24/7 chaplain handles all the releases and interacts with the family. The chaplain took it upon herself to denigrate the hospice staff me to the family for this delay. Which pissed off the family. Jeeze Louise, if I could have done the registration myself, I would have. What should have been a 2 hour admission turned into a two hour admit with a 2 hour death visit. The family had a laundry list of requests and kept me hopping. After 4 hours, one of them said to me, "so let me get this right, my loved one was a hospice patient for 2 hours and you're going to bill us for this." "Right?" "Well, not exactly" I answered. "We're going to bill her insurance- NOT YOU. In return, you and your family will get 13 months of bereavement services." Sheesh. I'm plum out of good will. If I bump into this chaplain again, I'm gonna let her know how I feel. I don't care how many crosses she has around her neck, she's going to need them all to fend me off. If she is going to behave in this manner, she needs to take her costume off. I'd have let her have it if I hadn't been working so hard to keep a lid on this family's emotions.

I've been lax in doing too much of anything except work this week. I've had so many problems to solve in the off shift that really need addressing during the day. This is my biggest gripe- the lack of a time out. I'm whipped and officially, work is over. The paper work is up to snuff and I don't go back until 4 PM Monday. I've got better things to do this weekend.

Speaking of better things, I need to thank Sue B for the GIANT bag of black fleece for knitting warm and fuzzy things for a special soldier in our lives. Wow Sue. Thank you so much! There will be thrummed items for Pat really soon and I'm certain, he'll be glad to have it. He deployed last week but we're still not sure exactly where. When he gets this stuff, I'll be sure to tell him of your generosity.

I've purchased the beads, the proper sized needles and wound the precious skein of cashmere for Odessa. I said screw working on my off time today and even knit the swatch. I unwound my swatch because I may need all of that yarn and don't feel like wasting cashmere. I'm close enough on the gauge and plan to cast on tomorrow, right after I thread a couple hundred beads onto my yarn. I've always added beads one at a time with a small crochet hook, but this time, I'm going to do it as the pattern is written.

I cheated on my local yarn store and went somewhere new today. Damn, they had everything including Malibrigo, Prism, Rowan, Koigu and hell, I forget. The choices were so astounding, I practically swooned in that place. I went in to buy beads and left with 3 different colors of beads (when I only need one) and 3 skeins of yarn. What the hell? Maybe I'm crazy.