Thursday, September 23, 2010

So I walk into work, and everybody looks at me like they expect a beard and a robe.

It's like I've risen from the dead, or something. "You're back!"

Yeah, I'm back. I'm not sick; I just have cancer, okay? Seriously.

It reminds me of when my old, old (in duration and age) friend Cenobio got lymphoma and was still mackin' on the ladies in the middle of treatment. "It's just cancer," he'd tell them. "It's not like it's catching."

God, it was nice to get back to work. I've never been so glad to have to start difficult IVs or draw skrinch-knuckle Z48 whammalamma labs before. I've never been so glad to assess patients with various neurological infirmities. I even enjoyed doing chart audits.

Nobody had any crises. Only one thing got set on fire in the hospital yesterday, and nobody got hurt from it. No codes, only a couple of response-team calls, an interesting approach to decompressing a Chiari malformation, only one frontal-injury patient who kept getting out of bed, and he was sweet and charming. So a good day.

My throat was sore from explaining, over and over, how I was *not* going to have to will my shoe collection to anybody, and why I wasn't particularly worried about who would take care of the dog.

And today, a shout-out to my pal Cap'n Obvious, who's taking his boards THIS VERY MINUTE. Go get 'em, Cap'n! Show 'em what you know in whatever field it is you're expert in! Rah! Rah!

10 comments:

bobbie said...

YAY for work!!!

Lynda Halliger Otvos (Lynda M O) said...

Moving forward, that's the spirit, Jo. Keeping a good thought for you as this sitch unfolds,

Anonymous said...

Now I'm worried about you. You enjoyed doing chart audits????

Anonymous said...

'normalcy' has gotta feel great about now

REH said...

Where would we be without work to keep us sane? Or to drive us insane, but at least in a different way than our home insanity. I'm so glad you had a different set of scenery today.

Just out of curiosity, what was the interesting approach to the Chiari decompression? Having seen several different ones (4) on my own kid, I'm just curious.

Crazed Nitwit said...

You go. You're still a nurse. You're still you, albeit with a space invader. You still make a difference.

Jo said...

@CN: "Space Invader". I like that. Pew! Pew! Pew!

I shot a hypermitotic cell in Reno, just to watch it die.

Crazed Nitwit said...

You are twisted and funny. I love it!

anoosh said...

I'm seconding REH's comment and would like to hear more about the Chiari case, if you don't mind?

I started reading your blog when I was researching Chiari (diagnosed and decompressed almost a year ago) and found your "What to Expect When You're Expecting a Craniotomy!" post. So I'm also going to smoosh a thank you in here, as I think reading you helped to reassure me that there would be plenty of lovely nurses to take real good care of me and my brainbox during my hospital stay and no need to worry.

Thanks! You da man!

Jo said...

The "interesting approach" wasn't anything all that unusual, actually. We normally do Chiari decompressions on adults (since we don't have a pediatric department), and so we...well, uh...do whatever it is that has to be done to the foramen magnum and the first cervical vertebra. This one included a laminectomy and decompression of C1 to C3, which I had only seen once before.

Basically, it was the same ol' same ol' as far as the decompression goes, but with the extra added benefit of a stiff neck.