My Strong Medicine

The adventures of a male nurse navigating through life, staying fit, surviving the journey.

Archive for October, 2008

The Power of One

Posted by Sean on October 31, 2008

Where will you be Tuesday November 4th, 2008?

It’s a date everyone will soon remember, and never forget. History is in the making.

As you may have figured out, I’m not what you would call an avid follower of ‘politics’. In fact I’d say it’s one of my biggest handicaps as an American citizen.

I don’t belong to a specific political party. In fact I could only tell you that they exist. I have no idea which is which, and who stand for what. I’m told that one represents the blue-collared worker, while the other represents the ‘rich’. (As you can see my definitions show just how much I really don’t know).

I’ve never voted. In fact I don’t believe I was even registered to vote, until my most recent State Driver’s License renewal. I think it was either by accident, or once again everything happens for a reason. On a whim, when I was asked if I wanted to register to vote while renewing my driver’s license I said, “Sure, why not.” I can’t say I had any intentions on actually voting.

It’s sad to admit. I’ve served my county. I served my time in our country’s awesome military, and yet I still have not participated in the very rights I fought to defend.

I’d like to plead ignorance, but that would just be a smokescreen for my embarrassing political laziness.

I am not ignorant of the issues we as a society face everyday. Everything from the War (which so many have brushed off), healthcare reform, Social Security, the ever elusive taxing plan and of course our failing economy that doesn’t seem to have a good leg to stand on.

My political laziness stems from my idea of what our president should stand for, what politics has turned into, and how our nation has failed to hold ‘the man’ in the oval office accountable for not only their proposals, but their actions and their non-actions.

It down right pisses me off that we as a nation still cannot agree on what is just and unjust. Their is a right and wrong, but somehow we’ve masked every issue at hand into some sort of bland greyness that rationalizes incompetency and neglect.

We reap what we sow these days, and most of our mistakes are now biting us in the proverbial ‘ASS’.

I’m nobody special. I don’t have the foresight, nor do I have the working knowledge to defend or abolish any of the candidates. I simply haven’t paid enough attention.

The political race turned into a circus parade of finger-pointing antics and sly negative advertising actions that simply made me disgusted. My attention span for the political race was non-existent due to its commercialization and business-like atmosphere. It was quite the over-kill.

I have no idea who I am going to vote for. Everyday is different. I hate that all my choices are split. Each candidate has a ‘piece’ of my vote. They both possess and equal amount of positive and negative attributes and beliefs that sway my decision. It sucks and once again infuriates me that I can’t hone in on one candidate. Each time I lean towards one, there is more information out there that has me question the validity of my decision.

Which is why I will never become affiliated with a specific political party. Neither party supports all that I believe in.

I’m nobody special, but I am one voice. I am one voice that realizes how special and how important this year’s political race really is. We are making history this year because we are either going to have our first African-American President, or our first Female Vice President.

I truly was going to continue my habit of not participating until I visited this article over at Mashable.

The videos made me think twice about my stance and my actions(or my lack-there-of) on politics.

Here are just a few, including the last one, which is more comical then anything. And just to be clear, I am in no way professing or publicizing the value of one candidate over another.

I was particularly moved and motivated by something that Will Smith said in one of the videos.

“If you don’t vote… then you have to shut up”

Nuff’ said.

Where will you be on November 4th, 2008? Will you be a part of history?

Carpe Diem

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If I Could Turn Back Time

Posted by Sean on October 31, 2008

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Well guess what you’ll get your chance this weekend!

Don’t forget! Daylight Saving Time Ends Sunday(November 2nd) morning at 0200!

This is the time of the year where it’s OK, in fact, you’re required to ‘Fall Behind’.

Winking

This is the first time I can recall, that I’m NOT working the DST weekend.

So do you get compensated at work for working the extra hour? And do you lose an hour of work in the spring?

Food for thought.

Carpe Diem

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Change of Shift | CoS

Posted by Sean on October 30, 2008

The latest installment of Change of Shift is up over at This Crazy Miracle Called Life. This weeks theme is A Sort of Spooky Halloween Change of Shift. Stop on over and visit Amanda’s  scerry creation!

I was a lazy-bones (yes, pun intended) and did not submit an article this time around.

As always a BIG THANK YOU to Kim over at Emergiblog for getting the CoS party started!

Carpe Diem

Posted in health | Tagged: | 2 Comments »

The Difficulties of the Recovery Room

Posted by Sean on October 30, 2008

I’m lovin’ the job. Really I am.

I’m hatin’ the unpredictability.

I work in a small hospital now. I work in an even smaller PACU. It’s mostly outpatient type surgery’s with intermittent inpatient procedures spliced in.

Surgery is, and always will be unpredictable. It’s like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates : You’ll never know what yer gonna git.

It’s not a recipe. Each case is unique. Everything from the actual surgical procedure, the anesthesia used and the diversity of the patient population.

Here’s where I’m hatin’ it.

Some days are rockin’ and rollin’. Patients roll in and out of our doors all day. In fact we stay pretty darn busy through the morning. It’s the afternoon that slows down. Either from a lengthy surgery or simply due to the nature of the schedule.

Either way… the days can get long sometimes. A whole lot of ‘hurry-up-and-wait’.

Hurry up… get the patient checked in.

Hurry up.. get the patient’s pre-op check list complete.

Hurry up .. get the patient prepped and roll them down to the OR.

Hurry up.. get them on the table.

Hurry up.. don’t make the surgeon wait.

*Do-Do-Do-Do.. Do-Do Do* (humming the theme from Jeopardy)

Wait.. Did they start yet?

Wait… are they done yet?

Wait.. how much longer before the case is complete?

Wait… the team is starting to close.

Wait.. the team is still closing

Wait….

 

Did I mention I still haven’t even done my job of recovering yet?

I really do love my job. Just sometimes the waiting game really gets to me.

Gets to me.. on those 15hr days.

Zzzzzz..

Waiting

Have a great night.

Carpe Diem

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MY Definition of what a Nurse Does

Posted by Sean on October 30, 2008

nurse

Nuff’said.

Carpe Diem

Posted in health | Tagged: | 6 Comments »

My Weekly Weak Sense of Humor

Posted by Sean on October 28, 2008

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Ya Gotta Love HIPAA.

Heh heh.

Carpe Diem

Posted in humor | Tagged: , | 4 Comments »

Antibiotics Continue to Resist the Resistance

Posted by Sean on October 27, 2008

It seems we have a new player in the battle of the ‘super-bug’. MRSA has, for the most part, been combated with the anti-biotic Zyvox (Linezolid). A recent study of new trial drug seemed to perform as good if not better than Zyvox when treating MRSA.

The most interesting portion of this article states that this new trial antibiotic will have the option/ availability to be taken orally, which is not possible with Zyvox.

Interesting…

 

Trial drugs appear to work against ‘superbug’

 

Carpe Diem

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Halp a Blogger’ Out

Posted by Sean on October 26, 2008

As part of the Blogosphere Domino effect, I stumbled across Ken’s post, over at Change Forge, about ‘How to Find Great Blogs’. Darren, at ProBlogger, sent out a link regarding finding undervalued blogs and finding good content to read. It seems that Chuck has started a personal blog finding mission.

As a new blogger to the Blogosphere, I see this as an opportunity to help out your fellow blogger, as well as discover a blog or two outside your normal realm or internet reading.

Can you spare time to read one extra blog a week?

What could it hurt?

Click the link below and halp a blogger’ out. Smile

How You Can Help End the Problem of Blogs With Great Content and No Readers

Carpe Diem

Posted in random | Tagged: | 5 Comments »

Nurses are Doomed

Posted by Sean on October 25, 2008

It seems that nurses are doomed. We are all doomed to have triple the risk for becoming overweight according to this article. Baring teeth

It seems that if you either eat too fast, or eat until your full, you’ve increased your risk for being overweight.

The last time I checked we nurses have a tendency to do BOTH. In fact we may do both numerous times during a single day.

When was the last time you actually stepped off your unit and had a full-fledged lunch? Had the time to walk down to the cafeteria or to a break room-type area. Eat your meal at your leisure (without being interrupted).

I don’t know about you. But most of us, heck the majority of us eat our lunch first and taste it later. If we get a 5 min ‘pause’, we inhale our food. And sometimes it’s not even what you would call a lunch. It could be a snack. Heck, it could be what came out of the vending machine.

So according to this study, we should not eat fast, nor should we eat till we are full. Otherwise we are looking at an overweight future.

Who the heck pays these people.Not listening

Grr.


On another note.

WE!  ARE!  —— PENN STATE!

It’s PSU vs. their Big Ten neighboring nemesis Ohio State. Penn State is favored to win, which could be good and bad at this point in the season.

Nailbiting

I’ll be glued in front of the TV later tonight.

Best of luck to JoePa and the boys.


Carpe Diem

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Blog Posting Options?

Posted by Sean on October 24, 2008

How do you blog?

Do you simply go to your blogging web site, create a new blog post, and start typing away? And during your typing you add this and ling that, blah, blah, blah.

Well, have you ever fallen victim to the page reloading, or the page timing out, or a host of other problems that exist while you enter your blog? If you weren’t careful and the page was lost while you were typing, you more than likely lost your blog entry.

In fact this will/can happen with any blog hosting web site you use. If you’re not careful when inputting/posting your blog, the page you are using can be lost, can disappear, connection problems, etc.

So I ask you how you go about ensuring the safety of your current blog? Do you save them to your hard drive? If you save them do you save the blog post ‘as-is’ with just text, or do you edit the HTML and save the HTML code to your computer? Or do you save your blogs on the internet?

For the longest time I was saving my blog entries, meaning the text, to my Microsoft One Note Program.

After I type up my text for my blog, I copy and paste the text to my chosen blogging platform on the internet. I then go through the process of picking pictures that I have uploaded to my Flickr account. You either have to insert a hyperlink with the picture’s URL, or you have to have some working knowledge of HTML. The other nice thing about Flickr was that they provided HTML for every pic you have if you so chose to insert pics into a blog or website.

As you can see that my blogging always took multi-steps, from multiple websites, and multiple programs.

Then, some time ago, I stumbled upon an article on Mashable.com. It talked about 10 new desktop blog editors. Well you know what curiosity does to a cat… so I had to check them out.

Well Microsoft lured me in yet again.

Microsoft had a desktop blog editor called Windows Live Writer, as a free download. (FYI, it used to be an individual download, it’s now part of a package that you can customize)

Untitled picture

I’ve used this program since it’s inception. I must say it’s pretty darn slick, and very user friendly. The user interface is workable even for us individuals who know nothing or know very little about HTML & CSS, scripts, etc. It has easy an easy to use sidebar for adding in hyperlinks, or pictures (from your computer if you host your own website, or from any online storage website). You can enter in maps, videos and tags. It’s been updated numerous times, and now you can view and/or edit by typing good ole’ fashion HTML code if you so desire without ever leaving the same screen. It now has a tabbed interface.

TAGS

That was one aspect of my old method that I still had to enter every time I copy/pasted my blogging text. Now there is a place to add my tags, and when I upload my blog it automatically adds the tags.

PLUG-INS

Windows Live Writer also is open source and has a number of plug-ins that help with convenience when posting a blog. Everything from adding images, formatting text, to including social media web 2.0 bookmarks per post.

And it’s adapted over the past year or so. Just like all other Windows based programs, it originally could only upload and/or post your blogs to a handful of blogging platforms. Namely Windows Live Spaces, SharePoint, WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, Moveable Type, & Community Server. Now, the last time I checked, it’s pretty much compatible with ANY blogging platform out there. It automatically integrates/updates with your chosen blogging platform. (I’m no expert on this, so don’t take my word for it, check it out yourself.)

I also guest post over at Change Forge. (Sorry Ken, I’ve kinda shirked my duties there) Ken discovered how user friendly it can be when inserting and formatting pictures on a blog post and now uses it for his blog posting.

It’s food for thought, especially for those individuals who have a weak knowledge base for HTML & CSS code. Oh yeah, I forgot. It also saves your blog posts to your computer as well as auto-saving your blog post entry as your creating it. You have the ability to leave it and come back to it, right where you left off!

Best of luck

Carpe Diem

Posted in random | 12 Comments »

 
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