A couple of days late; a couple of dollars short.

First of all, the new Change of Shift has been up since Thursday at NeoNurseChic. Go there and read.

Second, it's time for a year-end round-up or two. Of sorts.

Round-up the First: The Most Memorable Moments and Patients of 2006

1. Biggest Eeewww Moment: A patient with an infection in the ventricles of her brain has to have a ventriculostomy (that's a tube that drains fluid directly from the brain, and that can be used to instill antibiotics and other drugs). The doc drills a hole in her skull, inserts the small plastic straw into her ventricle, and pus shoots out and hits the opposite wall of the room.


2. Heaviest-Person Moment: The heaviest person I've ever seen came in this year for bariatric surgery. He weighed something in excess of 800 pounds.

He survived the surgery but died later of complications.


3. Funniest Non-Medical Moment: I walked around a corner earlier this year and found a bunch of residents all doing the Electric Slide in a back hallway.


4. Most Embarrassing Non-Medical Moment: My own hip-shakin' Happy Dance in the hallway, witnessed by the chief of neurosurgery, the chief resident, and the medical director. They were nice enough to applaud.


5. Best Moment: when a patient who had been told he'd never walk again unaided walked unaided up to the floor to thank us for caring for him.


6. Funniest Moment: watching a colleague leap over a counter to try to save a bottle of incredibly expensive and hard-to-find medicine that had fallen off of said counter. She made it.


7. Most Memorable Patient: the one who was allergic to water. *sigh*


8. Most Memorable Injury Sustained In The Course of The Day: A bite wound and bruise from a detoxing methamphetamine addict. (She didn't bite me.)


9. Best Wacko Statement: From a woman suffering from a subarachnoid hemorrhage, which makes people a bit weird: "Yer goin' to the pen-i-ten-shurry. And Ah'm gonna *laugh*."


10. Best Awwwww Moment: All the therapy animals coming to the hospital just before Christmas, dressed in wreaths and antlers and cute Christmas hats, and handing out dog-biscuit-shaped brownies to the staff.


Round-Up The Second: Some of The Best Stuff of The Year

1. Dermabond surgical adhesive in the little plastic crush applicator. Steal some from the OR for the next split knuckle or glass cut you get. It can't be beat. Dermabond forms a flexible, nearly-permanent, impenetrable barrier that doesn't sting.


2. Christian Dior Diorshow Mascara. Yes, it costs twenty-three bucks. No, it doesn't seem all that different from drugstore mascara until you realize that it doesn't smudge, doesn't run, doesn't clump, lasts forever, and comes off easily with soap and water.


3. Sid Schwab's Surgeonsblog. The best writing around.


4. Pharyngula, for the Best Friday Cephalopod.


5. VitaliaDerma skin-care products. I've thrown out everything else that I used to use. Non-drying cleansers and glycolic acid treatments, non-greasy moisturizers, and it clears up your zits. Pricey, but worth every penny.

Happy End of the Year!