Atropa Belladonna

~ Raven (a.k.a. Nightshade)'s Weblog ~


These are the ARCHIVES of March 2003. For more archives, visit the Archives page. For the current Weblog entries, check the Main page.


Sat, Mar 1, 2003 (11:55am)

Had an interesting day at work this eve.

I got to call 911 for a guy who looked like he was having a heart attack in our lobby.

Now, I work in a medical clinic, so these things do happen occasionally. Lots of people walk in thinking they're having a heart attack, and we get to assess them, and the doctor checks them out, and sometimes we send them for an ECG or maybe call an ambulance if the doctor thinks it's particularly suspicious. But most of the time, it turns out to be a panic attack or something. But this guy seriously looked like he was having a heart attack - overweight, very red faced, having a hard time catching his breath, chest pain, high blood pressure, etc. We didn't bother doing an ECG, just gave him oxygen and nitro and sent for the ambulance.

Little things like this tend to slow down the usual flow of a walk-in clinic. We'd had a 45 minute wait to see the doctor prior to that. It became over an hour while the doctor consulted with the paramedics and saw the patient off. And the people in the waiting room were getting antsy. And irritable. And impatient.

"When is it my turn?"
"Can't you make the doctor go faster?"
"You told me 15 minutes ago that it'd be my turn in 10 minutes. Why haven't you called me yet?"
"I've been waiting for half an hour... why did the fat guy get to go in ahead of me? Is he really having a heart attack, 'cuz if he's not, you should make him wait in line."
"When is it my turn? I asked, when is it my turn?!"
"I have a really bad cold, can you put me in right away?"
"If you don't see my daughter immediately, I'll call the College of Physicians and file a complaint!"
"My brother is in pain - he deserves to be seen before all those other people. He's been in pain since Tuesday and we can't stand another minute of it. Your doctors can prescribe narcotics, right?"
"Isn't it my turn YET?"

And in the middle of this, we get a kid puking in the waiting room. So we got him and his Mom into an examining room (where there was at least a sink so they could wash the vomit off his coat) and I had to clean up the mess in the waiting room (which is so crowded at this point that people can't find enough chairs to sit on, especially when the only free chair has vomit on it). And more people are getting irritated. Go figure.

And then someone comes in with a foreign object in her eye, so I got to assess her, and decided that yes, she should be seen sooner than some of the other people. More annoyance follows. Our poor receptionist was barely getting any work done, between all the people asking when their turn was, and the piles of new people signing in despite the long wait.

Then the patient with the eye problem had a seizure.

I was a little lucky with this one, actually... she called me just before it happened, saying she felt faint. I helped her to lie down, and then she had a grand mal on the table. I shouted for the receptionist to get the doctor NOW and I held onto the lady for dear life so she wouldn't throw herself off the table and crack her head open. I managed to keep a hold of her 'til the doctor arrived, and she came out of it a moment later. That was a bit of an adrenaline rush.

Our receptionist apparently managed to spill coffee all over the front desk in the excitement, so I spent a few minutes helping her wipe down medical files, and soak up the mess.

Then I got to clean up a puddle urine which was left in our treatment room by an unfortunate patient.

But somehow, we managed to hold it all together, despite patients bitching over their One and 3/4 hour wait... and by 10 pm, we'd almost caught up with things. We managed to close by 10:15, and go home.

So I stopped by my Dad's to pay him for the work he did on my car, and I discovered that my brother had been evicted from his place (that'll happen if ya don't pay your rent, ya know). Well, it's hardly the first time. I chatted with my Dad briefly, and then let him go visit my brother, and I came home.

Now, I think I will watch some anime.

Accomplishment of the Day: Helping save a life. Maybe two.

Wed, Mar 5, 2003 (11:55am)

Okay, Shades and I have booked a hotel room for Gen Con and purchased our Con passes. He's signed up to help run a bunch of games games. So, I guess we can't back out now.

Looking forward to gaming tonight. We're gonna go to New Asian Village and RP a wedding for one of the players. I hope it turns out well, but either way, I'm gonna enjoy the food, and company. Anything to get away from the kids for an evening.
Wed, Mar 5, 2003 (2:30pm)

I HATE potty training.

Now that Kalen understands that she's supposed to go on the potty, she despises being put in a diaper for naps. She keeps taking it off, and then she either wants to spend her entire "nap"-time playing in the bathroom close to the potty, or she plays in her room and has an "accident". So after yesterday's nap-time experience (during which I had to get up from my nap seventeen times to put her diaper back on and put her back to bed) I took a different approach. I duct-taped her diaper on. Then I put a child-proof thingie on the door handle. And then, I went outside to shovel snow so I wouldn't be able to hear her screaming.

Oh, I'm such a cruel parent. But it was that, or crush her bunny head.

Accomplishment of the Day: Shovelled a path through our ice-encrusted driveway, so you can actually walk from the city sidewalk to our front door.
Wed, Mar 5, 2003 (11:55pm)

Oh, my. 3 entries in one day. What is the world coming to?

Had a great time Gaming tonight. The wedding went awry, as planned, but not in the manner planned. The bride's chariot ended up in a ditch, and she was 2 1/2 hours late to her own wedding. There was an assassination attempt on the Emperor (who was hosting the wedding). One of the players was made a Marquise for catching the assassin. The bride was made into a Princess (or rather, her father was elevated to the rank of Prince) by the Emperor's whim. The groom was given title and lands. A visiting warlord was given a planetary passport. And a young local was screwed over by a visiting Wizard, in exchange for valuable information. (Couldn't have everyone come out ahead, or it wouldn't be one of my games, would it?)

Time to sleep, now.

Thurs, Mar 6, 2003 (11:05am)

A bright and cheery morning to you!

I'm in a good mood, having managed to get more than 7 solid hours of sleep last night - almost 8, in fact! This is a rarity these days, with the kids being sick and waking in the night. Not to mention that my body is seldom inclined to go to bed before 2am naturally.

My sleep wasn't completely "natural", though. It was NyQuil enhanced. I'm coming down with a sore throat and a cough (again), so I figured I might as well medicate myself and hope for the best.

Ya know.. I don't like how often I've been sick recently. I think my body is trying to tell me something. Maybe I haven't been treating it well... although I've been taking my meds on a regular basis, and eating right (I've even gained 5 pounds), and not going into too many dog- and cat-infested places (at least, not for long if I can help it. 'xcept maybe my Mom's, from time to time), and I've been keeping moderately fit.

Actually, I could be doing a lot more in the fitness department.

Haven't been going for walks recently, 'cuz of the weather. I gave up doing chin-ups and push-ups when I ripped my shoulder (again). Archery is out 'cuz I can't take the kids to the lanes with me.

Maybe I should try working some specific physical activity into my life again. But I'm kinda lazy. I envy people who have the get-up-and-go to actually go to the gym, or play squash, or hike, or go swimming. I have neither the time nor the self-discipline for that.

And yet... I suppose I could try.

Fri, Mar 7, 2003 (12:25pm)

I was up too late last night, but I got a couple things done. Thanks to Boris I acquired a splitter for my phone cord, and was able to run a phone connection over to my computer desk, where the answering machine and telephone now sit. Hopefully this will cut down on the number of times the answering machine picks up before I can grab the phone. Plus, it means I won't have to get off my ass to answer it when I'm typing. I'm such a lazy git.

Anyway, I've got to work today, so my time is short. Maybe I'll write more later this eve, but I doubt it.

Accomplishment of the Day: Jamming several feet of phone cord under the baseboards so Connor would quit chewing on it. Yay - the livingroom is baby-proof again!
Fri, Mar 7, 2003 (11:50pm)

Had another interesting night at work. Wasn't quite so spectacular as Saturday, but plenty busy. I was run off my feet and looking forward to my break 'cuz I was starving. Then my break got interupted 5 times. By injections and stitches and by a urinalysis. And I'd meant to go start my car, too, 'cuz it was supposed to get bloody cold out tonight. But somehow between injections and body fluids and a cold plate of noodles, I just didn't get the chance.

Sucks to be me, apparently, 'cuz when i went to start my car at 10pm the engine wouldn't turn over.

It made a couple of heroic attempts, but the cold was just too much for it. And of course, I'd parked too far away from the plug-ins to be able to get the block heater running. Not like I'd remembered to bring my extension cord with me, anyway. Bah. Stupid me.

Luckily, my favoritest mechanic in the whole world was a mere 5 minutes away, and was willing to come and give me a boost. In fact, he had my car running before we got the last of the paperwork done, and were ready to lock the doors at 10:30. My Dad rocks. (Hey, Mom - if you're reading this, give him a hug for me, kay?)

Sun, Mar 9, 2003 (1:35am)

Accomplishment of the Day: Finished reading Catch me if you Can by Frank Abagnale. Gah! What a read! It was an almost drug-like rush. The writing was amusing, the story very fast-paced, and... and... I don't know. I think I liked it in part 'cuz itt struck a resonnant chord with the roleplayer in me, and reminded me of the reason I enjoy playing a thief in LARPs. Many thanks to James for lending it to me.

Time to sleep, now, so I can pull another shift at the clinic tomorrow.

Mon, Mar 10, 2003 (1:40pm)

Gonna be very busy this week, with prep for Winter War feast occupying most of my time. Luckily, I'll have some slave labor to help me.

Tonight's busy too. I'm guest-Storytelling in our 7th Sea game, and am actually kinda nervous about it. I do know how to GM, but I've been running in my own diceless universe for so long, that I'm a bit unfamiliar with little details like rules, and stats, and such. Plus, I don't wanna accidentally step on any important storyline that the regular Gamemaster has planned out. I do have a good plotline worked out, though, and as long as the players don't do anything really bizarre and tangential, I should be alright.

Right?

Yeah, right. Rule #1 of successful StoryTelling: Don't ever expect your players to do the obvious thing.

So it's the contingency plans which worry me. I don't have a good enough feel for the 7th Sea universe to wing it the way I am constantly forced to in my own game. I can't make up stuff on the fly without worrying that it'll conflict with the rulebooks, or the main storyline, or what-have-you.

Well, I guess I'll have to play it by ear, somehow or another.

Tues, Mar 11, 2003 (8:55pm)

So, the game last night went pretty well. Not exactly according to script, but better than I might have hoped for. There were some rough bits, but I now have a good idea of what I ought to polish up on: I need to remember to do descriptions for NPCs, and draw or describe the insides of buildings where large fights are likely to break out... plus I have a nasty tendancy to let my group run rampant when I've only got 4 or 5 players... I have to hold the reigns tighter when there's 6 or 7 people so the story doesn't drag on. There were some unexpectedly fun bits, too: The party's reaction to a melodramatic twit of a girl (thom they had to rescue) was very rewarding.

Enough of that, though. I gotta go do more feast prep.

Accomplishment of the Day: Bought the majority of the food supplies I need for the feast.

Wed, Mar 12, 2003 (2:45pm)

First off, I want to apologise to everyone for making it snow.

I'd been planning to shovel last week's fluffy white stuff off our walks for the last few days, and finally got the chance to do it early this afternoon. I put the kids down for naps, bundled up against the cold, grabbed the shovel, and went out to do battle with the elements. About 4/5ths of the way done, just as I was feeling a sense of accomplishment, it began to snow again. Grrr. Applying the car wash principle to the phenomenon, it is obvious that the act of shovelling my walk has brought this horrible suffering on the rest of you.

Yeah, well. Suck up and deal.

Now that that's out of the way, I think I'll babble about the state of feast prep since it's what's on my mind.

The food preparation is coming along slowly, but I'm getting a bit done every day. That'll make Fri and Sat a bit less hectic (I hope). We did Pie shells last night, and I'm gonna make a couple test pies today. Tomorrow is slated for either chopping up meat for the stew, or for making a dozen+ pies. Friday will be whatever I didn't do Thursday. Sat is gonna be hectic all around, but I think it'll start with me lugging the chopped meat out of our walk-in fridge and getting the stew started. Hopefully it'll be most-of-the-way done when I bring it to the hall around noon. I'll have to find a way to keep it warm, and then bring it back to a boil just before serving (and adding the eggs to thicken it, at that time). After that, I'm gonna play it by ear.

Mom's gonna be doing a lot of her cooking off-site, since there's only 2 small ovens at the hall. That'll probably leave me in charge of getting things assembled for the first remove, and making sure nothing goes horribly wrong at the hall (like the bar crew taking over the entire kitchen for alcohol storage, or some Laurel co-opting our ovens). I'll also be helping with baking buns if needed, and co-ordinating the servers and kitchen help as they arrive.

All in all, I think it's gonna be a lot of fun.

Oh, and I have to put one last comment in here for Bregon:

I'd like to thank my boyfriend for coming over to help with the pie shells, and for deflowering me last night.

Accomplishment of the Day: 20 pie shells, for cheese pies (finished at 12:50am).

Thurs, Mar 13, 2003 (2:30pm)

Just got back inside from more snow-shovelling. More like ice-chipping really, since over half our driveway is still covered by more than an inch thick layer of hard-pack, with ice underneath. I'm slowly working away at it, though. Ug. My arms are sore.

Don came over to do some Cheese Pies with me yestereve. That was a learning experience. Here's some of the things we discovered:

  • You need to have the right equipment on hand for the job. A food processor with only a "slice" function and not a "reduce to goo" function is simply not sufficient to the task. We'd have done better to use the coffee grinder. Luckily, this was not our only option. Shades drove into Edmonton for us to fetch his mother's food processor, which came complete with all the necessary rotating blades. Of course, that did cut into an hour of our pie-making time... but we put the time to good use by gaming 'til he got back.

  • Half a pound of cheese is NOT the same as half a kilo of cheese. We managed to catch this error before it became a major issue, thank goodness.

  • Small pie shells should not be filled with the same amount of filling as normal pie shells. They boil over in the oven.

  • Some cheese is saltier than others. DO NOT ADD SALT until determining the level of saltiness in the batter. The resulting pies (although made according to recipe) were borderline unpalatable due to sheer salt content (And no, I did not mistake 'half a teaspoon' for 'half a tablespoon'.)

  • When the recipe says, "sprinkle top with sugar and bake an additional 10 minutes or until sugar is browned" and your Mom says, "sprinkle with sugar and bake under the broiler until the sugar is brown" it does not mean, "Sprinkle with sugar and put under the broiler for 10 minutes". Doing so causes not gently browned sugar, but a blackened stenchful crustiness. We managed to discover this in time to remove the pies and scrape the worst of the burnt scudge off the top, though.
Due to our experimentation, we will happily NOT be serving unpalatably salty, burnt, lumpy, overfilled, drippy Cheese Pies at the feast. They will instead be carefully constructed mouth-watering delights. So there.

Thank you very much, Don, for your assistance.

Accomplishment of the Day: Late last night I did some work on the Silver Talons Web page in case anyone who reads this cares to look at the website for our SCA household.

Sun, Mar 16, 2003 (1:30am)

Gah.

All done feast.

Very tiring. Very energy consuming. Like an alien soul-sucker leaching the life out of you. I am now made of rubber.

Few comments before I fall unconscious:
  • Thankyou thankyou thankyou to Bregon and Callah and Wieka and Dina and Dan and Bregon. And Coryn. Most especially to Coryn.

  • Backrubs good.

  • There were enough whole roasted chickens left over to fill a Coleman cooler when the feast "scraps" were collected.

  • Bregon had the most amusing look on his face when I translated a comment which my Mom had made in Dutch. Actually, I think I might have had a startled look too, as my brain translated the phrase directly out my mouth, without pausing to process it first. But I have to agree that Dante's flask contained a heavenly liquid.

  • Baron Magnus and Baroness Sidonia have a very wery cute wittle baby. (Man - I want a cute wittle baby too now.) Nighty night, Torran.

  • I should wear my SCA boots more often to break them in better. Sore feet.

Kay. all done now. I sleep or I won't wake upop fro wrok tomorrow. Bah - cant' spell either.

Accomplishment of the Day: Three words: Winter War Feast.

Fri, Mar 21, 2003 (3:15pm)

Well, it's been a while since I posted. Been too busy recovering from the feast. Blah.

Life has been proceeding apace. I'm enjoying the seasonal shift to spring. My lungs are happier with the warmer air, and the rampant humidity. (My feet like splashing in puddles of condensed humidity, too.) The world is good. Mostly.

Accomplishment of the Day: Moved the computer desk downstairs with only minor damage to structural components.

Sun, Mar 23, 2003 (10:20pm)

What a weekend.

We had the nephews over while their parents were working a weekend-long retreat in St. Albert, and it was like a whirlwind here. The boys are really great kids... enthusiastic, energetic, creative, imaginative, energetic, happy, and did I mention energetic already? They built forts, drove Kale & Connor around the house in a wheeled toybox, staged Lego wars, threw balls for Kalen, played making-face games for Connor, checked out every video game on our computers, told stories, made up games, and did all those things which I used to enjoy when I was younger, but have since discovered I don't have the stamina for like I used to.

They also helped clear the table after meals, did their homework (mostly) quietly, cleaned up the toys when they were done, and behaved remarkably well. I'd have them over again in an instant... Provided that instant happens no sooner than 3 months from now so I have time to recover.

I really enjoyed helping them stage their Lego war on the castle we have in the basement. One of the boys made a 'Fellowship of the Ring' party out of minifigs which looked very cool (I might even include a link to a photo of it here someday). The other built a catapult which launched barrels of flame at the enemies below (and also hit our own men a couple of times). We used Lego Monster's "BrickBattles" rules as posted on the 'Net, and the kids had very little difficulty with the concept of the game. Tactics, on the other hand, were a bit of a mystery to them.

"They're swarming the walls! Let's send the archers to rush the invaders 'cuz they're closer, and the guys with axes can wait in the archery towers."

or

"Okay - we'll quietly sneak around the back and go in through the secret entrance. The main army can distract them with fighting up front. Except our mission might be dangerous, so maybe half of the main army should come with us around the side and help us sneak in the secret entrance."

and

"Hey! They're trying to break our castle door down with a battering ram! Let's open it so they can't smash the door!"

Sigh....

We were like that too, once. I just keep reminding myself of that. And then I gently suggest some slightly more sound tactical options.

Mon, Mar 24, 2003 (2:45pm)

We interupt this Blog to bring you: A Rant.

I got a phone call this morning from someone who is a good friend, but called at an inconvenient time. I think I might have been a bit rude to him, which wasn't nice of me, but I wasn't in a good mood at the time. So, apologies to the individual whom I may have offended, and an explanation of my irritable mood....

When I'm at home taking care of the kids, it's a full-time job. And I happen to take pride in doing a job well. Even if, as in this case, it's not one of my favorite jobs. So I play with them, and I feed them, and I help them put away their toys or clean up their messes (and then have to do it all over again the right way once they're done 'cuz their version of 'cleaning' is not the same as mine), and I do the happy potty dance a dozen times a day, and I kiss owies and put bandaids on booboos, and I comfort the little guy when he's in tears with frustration, and I show my daughter how to put her doll's clothes back on seventeen times in a row, and I take them out for walks and I tuck them in for naps. And sometimes, I even plop them down in front of a video and hope it distracts them for more than 10 minutes, so I can have a cup of coffee and contemplate the plot for the tabletop game tonight.

For those of you who don't know me, I'd rather be working a paid job, with set breaks and a specific job-description. Especially if that job does not include get puked on more than once a month. I'll even empty bed-pans if I must... It's a lot more fun than than having a toddler pee on you while she's sitting in your lap. Grrr.

So here I am, at home, working a job I'm not terribly well suited to, trying to get ahead of the game and keep the place a little clean while balancing the needs of two very active and demanding kids, and I get a phonecall.

It's somebody I want to talk to, but one hand is holding a bowl of soggy cheerios and the other is pulling the toddler away from the garbage can, the phone is tucked in the crick of my neck, and my daughter wants to say "Hi" to Grandma, and my caller asks leisurely, "So, hey... how're ya doing? Whatchya been up to...?"

What have I been up to, eh? I'll tell ya something: People who do NOT have kids DO NOT want to hear about the details of your day when it includes puke and happy potty dances. They want you to stop what you're doing and chat with them about interesting things. They want to bond, or at least touch base. They don't want a conversation like this:

"So, what have you been up to?"

"Oh, man! Has my day ever been - STOP THAT RIGHT NOW! - annoying what with the - Give that back! I said, Give it back, it's not yours and you know better than to take from your brother - baby in a cranky mood and my - Didn't I just tell you to give it back? Well, do it already! - shoulder sore from carrying him.. uh.. just a sec..." (Here follows the sound of a toilet flushing just inches away from the phone) "Sorry 'bout that, my daughter just..."

"Nevermind. I don't wanna know. So, What did you think of the game last night?"

"Which game? Oh, the one with the - Did you just have ANOTHER accident? Didn't I just say go sit on the potty? Well how many times do I have to TELL you? Here, give me those wet pants..." (the sound of something wet and drippy hitting the floor can be heard, muffled, over the phone) "Okay, that's better. Now where were we?"

"You were telling me about the game..."

"Right! Pants go on with the tag at the top. ALL the way up now. Good girl. - No, I didn't mean you when I said 'where were we'... I was talking to her, reminding her what comes next - CONNOR! No eating Plants!! Get away from the -" (Insert screams of offended child having a mouthful of dirt removed) "Look, can I call you back?"

I mean, I hate it when I'm trying to talk to someone on the phone and they do that to me. I especially hate it when they raise their voice to yell at a kid mid-sentence and I get an earful myself. So I try not to do it to other people. Even if I'm not successful all the time, I do try. Most of the time.

Unfortunately, trying to take a break from being an active parent (while on the phone) does not mean the kids take a break from being kids. This means that while I'm trying to have a pleasant conversation, the kids are screaming unattended in the background, and plants are being knocked over, and bad manners aren't being repremanded, and pee-stains are setting into the carpet. This does not make for a relaxing call.

To add insult to injury, I had someone phone me last week who was annoyed when I told him he'd called at a bad time. "I thought I'd called at a good time," he said. "After all, when I asked yesterday what you'd be doing today, you said you'd be home with the kids all day. I figured if you weren't doing anything, this would be the best time for me to call!"

He figured I WASN'T DOING ANYTHING because I was gonna be home with the kids all day???

Man - when I'm home with the kids, I'm busier than when I'm at work. At least at work, if I get a personal call I want to take, I can go to the back desk and have a minute or two of privacy. No one will expect me to drop the phone unless its an emergency. And if there is something which comes up, they'll write it on a sticky note and put it in front of me while I talk. ("Vital signs in room 2" or "Take line #1 when you're done, please") And at work, I get a half-hour lunch break, without having to spend half an hour first putting everyone down for a nap.

Okay, I'm running out of steam. Plus, the kids are running out of nap. If I want look anything up in prep for gaming tonight, I'd better get it done quickly.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging.

Accomplishment of the Day: Did a gravel syphoning & water change on both fishtanks, while a cranky child was clinging to my leg.

Tues, Mar 25, 2003 (10:35am)

Mornin' everyone.

Bah - I'm sick today. I put myself to bed with Nyquil last night and slept like a rock for the first 4 hours. Then I had bizarre dreams for the remaining 3 hours before getting up.

I woke up to odd noises, and to the fact that it was 9:15am (a good 3/4 of an hour after Kalen usually wakes). This combination shook me out of sleep pretty quick, and I went to see what was going on.

Kalen was playing in the basement. She'd knocked down the baby-gate, descended the stairs, and was quite happily roaming the house by herself, unattended.

Oh, yay.

No bodily harm had come to her, however, and nothing around the house was broken or even seriously out of place. Whew.

I think I can prevent the problem in the future by setting the babygate on a tighter notch so its hadrer to knock down. Then again, she's knocked it down once so she's more likely to try it again. This could mean a whole new era in parenting.

Ug. I can't handle this while I'm sick.

Wed, Mar 26, 2003 (10:05am)

First thing this morning we present you with: A Public Service Announcement.

I just wanted to let everyone know that, despite my rant on Monday, I do not hate geting phonecalls at home while I'm watching the kids. The rant was not intended to scare people off. It was just so I could vent. I have ta do that sometimes, ya know? And the telephone solicitors that call always hang up after I vent at them for more than a couple minutes. I mean, that's barely enough time to get anything off your shoulders, eh? (But it is a good way of getting rid of telephone solicitors).

I guess why I'm going on about this is 'cuz Tuesday came and went without a single call from a certain individual, and well.... I found my day lacking without it.

So please don't feel that I hate people calling. Or that I hate you calling. I just wrote the rant by way of apology so people would understand that when I'm cranky on the phone, IT'S NOT THEM I'm pissed off at. I'm pissed at not being able to enjoy phone calls with friends. I'm annoyed at the rigors of parenthood. I'm mad when people think I'm sitting on my ass doing nothing at home. I'm ticked when I need to discipline a child mid-phone-conversation. I am generally not in a good mood before 1:30 pm. But I'm not upset that you called. Even if it sounds that way.

Kay - I'm gonna go have some caffeine now, and stuff breakfast into my kids' faces.

Thurs, Mar 27, 2003 (1:00pm)

Drat - I wish I hadn't given my digital camera to Star yesterday. Kalen was being so cute, and I wanted to record it on mpeg. What was she doing which I actually considered cute? I had tossed a Gatchaman Force DVD into the machine in hopes that it would keep the kids a little calm 'til my headache passed, and Kalen's eyes lit up during the theme music. She got up from the couch and was dancing to it in the middle of the livingroom. She even tried singing, "Go, go, Gatchaman! Gatchaman!" ...Ah, there are days I love being a parent.

Anyways, I'm feeling a bit better now. I've put the kids to bed for their naps, and managed to keep some food down. The headache is now only a major nuisance, versus being eye-wateringly painful. I hate migraines. I've no idea how people who get them more than once every couple of months manage to survive.

Time for me to go to sleep myself, and see if I can't double the amount of rest I got overnight.
Thurs, Mar 27, 2003 (10:50am)

Bah. went to bed at 1am, woke at 3am with a migraine. spent the next 4 hours awake and in pain. threw up from the pain. spent the next hour in even more pain and wishing my last meal hadn't been screaming hot wings with extra hot sauce.

Kids woke an hour early. kale climbed over the babygate, played around teh house, and then came upstairs to jump on me. she then informed me connor needed a diaper change. she was right. i got up, and the day hasn't gotten much better. 'xcept now my stomach has given up on emptying itself, and i can keep down some painkillers at least.

Oh, and kale hasn't had any "accidents" yet today. thank the Lord for small mercies.

Accomplishment of the Day: added a couple more blog links in the top bar. yay for cut & paste.

Fri, Mar 28, 2003 (9:35am)

Not feeling so hot today. I had more migraine last night. Luckily it wasn't as bad as yesterday - as long as things were quiet and dark, I wasn't in too much pain - but Connor decided to wake up screaming not once, but twice, in the middle of the night. A baby's high-pitched wails are normally pretty unpleasant on the ears. When you've got a migraine, it's unbearable. I barely managed to make it to the washroom to empty what very little remained in my stomach, and then had to leave the room and hide downstairs in the dark 'til Shades got the kid to shut up again. And Connor decided to repeat the performance. Ug. Poor Shades barely got any sleep either - he ended up oversleeping his alarm in the morning.

Just a quick note on Migraines, for those people who don't have them: They hurt. Yeah, you might think: it's a headache, they hurt a little, so what? Well, to put it in perspective, I'd rather have my wisdom teeth pulled out. That hurts less. (I actually had to have my wisdom teeth pulled out under local anaesthetic 'cuz I was a starving student without dental coverage at the time and couldn't afford the cost of getting it done under general anaesthetic). After dental surgery, typing on the keyboard was painful because every keystroke sent a jolt up the arm which rattled the jaw. With a full blown migraine, typing isn't even an option. Just looking at the brightness of the monitor feels like your eyes are being stabbed by a lightsaber.

Anyway, enough of that. I mangaged to get 5 or 6 hours of sleep last night, and am at least capable of independant thought and motion, so I won't complain.

Instead, I'll regale you with the tale of being stood up by my boyfriend last night.

No, that's unfair, really. He didn't stand me up. I was just worried that he had. I got to the theater almost half an hour early. I bought tickets. I waited. There was stuff to do, and I bumped into someone I hadn't seen since my goth-ing days so I spent a good bit of the time chatting. Anyway, I was still waiting when they started seating people for the movie. I was still waiting when the previews began to roll. By the time the movie started, I decided I'd go in to the theater and start watching, ducking out occasionally to see if he'd arrived yet. After 15 minutes of film, I gave up, and just settled in to watch the rest.

About 5 minutes later, he arrived.

So, I didn't get stood up after all. I managed to have a nice evening with my boyfriend, and I think he enjoyed it too, despite his traffic woes getting to the theater. A pity my headache was coming back already when we left the place, 'cuz I would have liked to stay and chat with im. Oh, well. It was a very nice evening out. Must do it again sometime, minus the headaches and sucky traffic.
Fri, Mar 28, 2003 (4:50pm)

Feeling good this afternoon. I even went out and bought more fish for my 33 gal. tank. If I had my digicam with me, I'd put up a pic of how pretty they look in their new home. I hope none of them go and die on me.

Accomplishment of the Day: Moved a twin bed mattress into Kalen's room and then turned her (convertable) toddler bed back into a crib, and moved that into the spare room. Now if Connor decides to scream in the night, we can send him to his room.

Sat, Mar 29, 2003 (9:25am)

Mornin'!

Aaaaaaaaaah. 8 solid hours of sleep! It does wonders for a body.

I'm terribly curious how the Purgatory game went last night. I was still feeling too sick to want to go anywhere, and my voice isn't quite up to par yet, so I opted for sanity over fun and stayed home. I guess knowing that I'd be the one to get up with the kids in the morning might have had something to do with it, too.

Nothing else interesting to blog this morning. Except maybe for the fact that my computer desk sprouted a printout of the "Carol of the Old Ones" between the time I went to bed and the time I woke up. I wonder if Cthulhu is trying to tell me something?
Sat, Mar 29, 2003 (11:55pm)

Ya know how some days at work are unimaginably calm and boring, and others are like a sitcom full of misery and misunderstanding? Well, I had one of the good kinds of work shifts today. Calm, with heart-stoppingly memorable highlights.

Hockey was on TV tonight, and, as usual in our end of town, that kept the less-seriously-ill people away from the clinic. "Oh - I don't have time for a cold. Game's on." Plus, it was raining out, so our usual 'walk-in' business was minimal. That means that although we had a lot of patients, the waiting room was rarely full, and thus our patients were in a pretty good mood.

So when we had a bunch of kids come in, shouting and crying for help, it livened things up a lot.
"Hey! Help! My friend hurt his leg! He hurt it real bad!"

"He's bleedin' all over the place!"

"Aw, man - you can see the bone! He's cut down to the bone!"

"Somebody help us!"
So the receptionist called me (I was on my way already, having heard the commotion from halfway down the clinic) and asked me to do an assessment while she got the kid's name and other info from one of his friends. I took the kid calmly over to the treatment room (where we keep bandages and gloves and suture sets and all that good stuff for taking care of nasty cuts), I gloved up, and got ready to do an assessment.

Allow me to digress here for a moment. An 'assessment' is what we nurses do to determine the severity of a patient's condition and how badly they need to be seen by a doctor. In the ER, a triage nurse uses a chart to determine if someone needs instant attention (respiratory distress or choking, heart attacks, lopped-off limbs, etc); prompt-but-less-than-instant-attention (fractured limbs, car accidents, gaping wounds which aren't causing the person to bleed to death but shouldn't be left overnight, etc); things that they'll get around to when they've got a free moment (minor cuts, sprains, babies with fevers, people puking up their guts but otherwise healthy, etc.); and wastes of time ("excuse me nurse but I've got a sniffle", "Could the doctor take a look at my hair? I think I might have lice", "I need a prescription refill and didn't feel like waiting for my doctor's office to open in the morning", etc.)

We don't use fancy triage rating charts. We take people on a first-come, first-served basis. If they're having a heart attack or serious asthma trouble or are bleeding to death in our clinic, we will jump them straight to the head of the line. But most assessments are just to make sure the patient isn't dying, so we can tell them to get back in line and wait with everyone else. Yeah, we try to get people who need stitches in as soon as we can (they don't wanna sit in our waiting room bleeding, and we don't want them bleeding all over our waiting room either) and we'll often bump screaming babies ahead so we don't have to listen to the shrieking for hours and hours. But for the most part, injuries aren't nearly as serious as people think they are.

So, I took the kid to the treatment room, gloved up, and looked at the wound.

Uh.. yeah. The gash was deep. There was bone showing. Yup.

So the kid's friends were coming in and taking off their jackets, and stuff. And I turned around and told them, "Guys, don't get too comfortable."

"What? You're gonna make us wait in the waiting room?" asks one.

"No," I reply, "You're going to the Emergency."

That was just a little but presumptive on my part, I'll admit. I'm not allowed to make that sort of decision - it's up to the doctor. But I know what kind of cuts we stitch up at our clinic, and what we send to the hospital... and when a kid comes in with his leg looking like something out of the ER scene in "Catch me if you Can" we send it to the hospital.

So the Docotor came in almost immediately after. He took one look, and said, "We're sending this one to ER"

Can I call 'em, or what?

So I bandaged it all up to help stop the bleeding (pressure dressings, yay!) and we helped the kid hobble out front so he could wait for his Mom to come and take him to the hospital. (We did give him the option of going by ambulance, but he declined).

That was fun.

Accomplishment of the Day: Cleaned out the crumb tray on the freakin' toaster oven so everything which goes into it won't come out smelling smokey and burnt.

Mon, Mar 31, 2003 (1:30am)

Ya know it's gonna be 'one of those nights' at work when you arrive for your shift and your co-worker (the one you're coming in to replace) says, "Oh thank goodness you're here!"

Yeah. It was one of those nights.

We went through every single suture set in the clinic. I was barely autoclaving them quick enough to keep up with the demand.

And we had the most fascinating cases come into our clinic, too: A kid who's managed to get a Skittle shoved up his nose; a guy who'd been shot; and an elderly gentleman who'd managed to stab his key-ring right through his finger- thus giving himself a very unusual piercing.

Did you know that it is not mandatory to report gun-shot wounds in Canada? The physisian may choose to do so if he wishes, and he should do so if he suspects it is directly relevant to a crime being investigated by the police, or if he believes the individual to be a threat to himself or the public, but he's not actually under any obligation to do so as a matter of course. There's a big chunk of the Health Information Act devoted to what sorts of information may be divulged to who, and under what conditions, and gun shot wounds are mentioned in the "May be divulged without the patient's consent" section, but not under the "must be divulged" section (like certain cummunicable diseases must be reported to Public Health). I got to read all about that at work today. It ended up being a moot point, actually, 'cuz the guy was shot by a BB gun, not a handgun... but it's interesting information to know.

The gentleman with the key ring through his hand was more interesting, really. You know those 'clip' key rings? They're not a coiled circle, but a key-hole shaped bit of metal which twists back on itself, and if you squeeze the two sides together, you seperate the ring just enough to slip a key on or off it. Well, he managd to pierce the skin on his finger with that, ram the sharp bit of metal right through, and have it clamp back together afterwards. Of course, squeezing it to slip it off his finger again caused unbearable pain in that finger, so he couldn't remove it himself. Instead, he came into the clinic with his car key dangling from his hand, the way an earring dangles from your ear. It was quite amusing. We had to freeze it and cut the skin with a scalpel to get it loose... poor guy.

Well, that's enough about my interesting night. I'm gonna go get some sleep, in case tomorrow proves to be equally interesting.

Accomplishment of the Day: Went hot-tubbing at my Mom's after work. Haven't done that in ages, and it felt sooooo good.

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