I'm frustrated with having to MacGyver everything from monitors which I've been assured are fixed, to the wheels on the laundry cart (which we finally got and which keeps getting stolen, and let me tell you, if I find it down the hall one more time I am going to start removing people's digits, I swear), to the plumbing. The fucking PLUMBING. Because, the other day, one of the toilets just....blew up. As in fountained water up to the ceiling.
I'm just glad there wasn't a patient sitting on it.
Add to that that there's some sort of budget bitching going on between departments over who pays for what in the NCCU. The CCU claims part of the budget ought to be taken care of by the float department, who claims that some of it's the responsibility of the ninth floor, who complains because they're not allowed to have any say in how the rooms and monitors are used, and I'm sitting there, listening to all this, and thinking, "What the hell does this have to do with *me*? I have no control over anything."
Except, apparently, though I'm not allowed control over things like staffing, I'm supposed to take responsibility for things like staffing. As in, it's now my problem if somebody calls in sick or doesn't show up or leaves early. Yet I'm not allowed any input into the staffing grid, and we have nobody on-call for our unit. In fact, if the CCU needs nurses, they'll pull the other nurse from the NCCU, leaving me on my lonesome with three patients who range from okay to actually critical.
So, yeah. That's why I've been posting things about Max, and the cats, and the really fun time I had the other night when I threw a totally spur-of-the-moment party with the express purpose of getting rid of five pounds of strawberries. We had strawberry shortcake, and somebody I hadn't seen a quarter of a century brought two bottles of very good wine, and a bubble machine, and a night-vision video recorder.
Except that I can't post too much about stuff other than nursing, because that's fucking frustrating as well. Like, my shoulder/neck/whatever seems to have gotten about as good as it's going to get without major intervention.
Most of the time, I don't hurt. Sometimes I hurt a lot. That's not the bad part; the bad part is not being able to lift stuff with my left arm. Everything in my house, from sheets to dishes to animal chow, is migrating from higher shelves to lower shelves. I can move against gravity, but any amount of weight makes my shoulder just....well, it just quits working. Which is why I have interesting bruises on my forehead, as I haven't (it seems) learned not to try to make it work. It stops unexpectedly, and whatever I'm boosting up goes ka-thunk into my face.
And the cats, as cute as they are, are beasts. And Max is a love and a half and has done absolutely nothing wrong or frustrating lately, but he's got this lump on his neck. It looks like the tail-end of a blood blister, but of course I'm imagining hemangiosarcoma (what got the greyhound) or mast cell carcinoma (what got the hybrid) or alien abduction (what got my optomism, by the sound of it).
Yeah, so. Not a lot of posting about nursing lately, and nothing about recipes, because dammit, it's still like a zillion degrees here and even heating shit up in the microwave seems insane. And no fashion or beauty tips, because I don't really care at the moment how anybody looks; getting to work clean and on time is enough for me. And no product reviews, because I simply don't have the energy. Though I can tell you not to buy the sort of monitor we have in the NCCU, or at least don't unplug it without waving a chicken over it first.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go find a pair of big-girl panties and yank 'em up as high as necessary.