Been to see Keating the musical so good. Brought the CD liked it so much.
Last week we saw The year of magical thinking a play by Joan Didion with Robyn Nevin it was very moving. It was a stunning bit of writing wonderfully acted. Truthful and honest, without an easy answer to grief.A lady next to me turned to me and said that was self indulgent whinging, her friend said well you've never had someone close to you die. I said I thought it was very real about how people respond to the death of loved ones. Still you know you done some moving theatre when strangers talk to each other after it!
We dont see much theatre then we see it all at once, Tell Me On A Sunday next

We can google at work how exciting is that, it made the nights so much better and more interesting. We thought they had blocked it but it worked last week. They blocked games and most fun things on the computer because I guess they think you will play games instead of looking after patients. Nursing admin have always assumed that nurses are slack and do not work unless they are on our backs all the time. I've found the people who treat you like this are themselves the most slack ones. If some people put half the energy they use getting out of work into doing it would be fairer and easier for everyone. Getting things sorted with patients before they become disasters is so much better. Lots of nurses love disasters thru. sad.
When I was training a sister said to me that lady is going to arrest, I said move her to coronary care then, oh she said so she did it and the arrest happened there where they were all prepared for it instead of a big mess on the ward with only 2 of us. It pisses me off the way people like drama. I once said to a doctor that i didnt know how a sister we knew could work in kids cancer for years he said she likes it all that grief. I call them the bottom feeders.
Anyway back to my googling at night. We had a girl breastfeeding who had very sore nipples from the first feed. Same history with the first baby. She feed the first baby till they bleed and finally gave up when she couldnt take the pain anymore. Now this is a different picture than mums who have very sensitive nipples, when you ask them can they stand anyone touching their nipples they say they cant. That is not about damage to the nipple and these girls often feed well with a nipple shield.
The usual sore nipples you see are around the 2-3 day mark and are a gradual onset.
My girl had almost instantly sore nipples from the first feed which is quite different. Nursing mothers theorizes that thrush in the ducts may cause this problem and that treating the nipples and the babies mouth may get rid of it so thats what I was investigating on google. I didnt look up the scientific papers on it but the mothers stories on different web sites. I suspect that no one has done any studies thru you could try to culture the breast milk of these mums and see if you came up with thrush, good research project someone.
Anyway she is going to try some thrush treatment, I told her my google search and she was going to tell me how it went. Nobody stays in hospital long enough for there to be any outcomes so unless she writes us a card I"ll never know. I"ll do my breatfeeding, lack of support rant another time back to the garden.

Ahh 17th of june already and i haven't posted for ages, there are too many things to do. I am madly knitting as its so cold this year and everyone wants beanies to wear. I made my friends kid one but my daughter grabbed it and wont give it back, so I have to make it again, a white beret.
Interesting patient of the week was a girl with hyperemesis, thats vomiting a lot in pregnancy. It starts earlier in pregnancy than morning sickness, is more common in a twin pregnancy and occurs in under 4% of pregnancies. The interesting thing for me was that we were always taught that there were underlying psychological problems which caused hyperemesis. It was really morning sickness which had gone out of control due to issues such as an ambivalent attitude to the pregnancy, wanting to abort the pregnancy, depression etc. Of course its the chicken and the egg thing is the vomiting a cause or a result of the mental issues.
Gotta a go do aqua walking at the gym finish later.
Later, I was the youngest of the aqua walkers always good a retirement crew, but I love to be in water.
Back to vomiting I was thinking they should make one of those dealing with issues shows about hyperemesis but you can see problems with it, a lot of people cant watch vomiting people. I looked it up on the net all these stories poor girls and how dangerous it can be. Charlotte Bronte is supposed to have died of it. The emo theory is discredited now but I still think there is that side of every disease. Vomiting is awful but vomiting plus depression and lack of support is that much worse. Rehydration and getting any food in seems to be the important thing. Anti vomiting drugs work variably, from not at all to moderating the vomiting to working for some people.
Anyway yah for the net which is so good for hearing patients voices in a system that barely gives you time to say hello and lets you update yr ideas quicker.
Thank you to the patient of the week who said to me I am not really like this you wouldnt recognise me if I was my usual self, which made me go look up this condition and revise my thinking.

Well interesting nights at work. Not so busy but lots of politics some strange subinvestigation going on into bullying in our workplace sort of focused on one particular person or maybe not. She is mates with the hierarchy so we dont think anything will happen. There are people on stress leave because of her and one court case over bullying that was won against her. She used to work on our ward but she is in another area now thank god. I was one of her targets for some reason she moved me off my usual shifts and onto weekdays, no penalty rates then had me rotated around everywhere told me that it wasnt her who was responsible. Someone printed off an article on psychopaths in the workplace, this person fitted all the criteria. The interesting thing is it says if you are targeted by them you may as well find another job which i will be doing if she ever crosses my path again. It also says you are left "cold cynical bitter and almost unable to function." Lucky I couldnt give a shit about nursing by then anyway and she oddly protected me from herself by getting me moved. Anyway nursing is full of those nutters and they are usually in charge but they put the knife in each other more than anyone. They dont like night duty no glory in that so I just stay in the dark. Don Juan calls these people the petty dictators he says they are gifts to a warrior because a warrior can temper themselves in the battles with them. So there you go.
It was a bit of a mad night with patients as well. They were really kind of sweet one had the family wheelchair with her but the tyres were flat.
Got to do some aquarobics in the am and wash away all these crazies thank goodness they work full time thru there are some golfers.......

Havent written for ages too silent. Back at work now with the mums and babies the babies are really cute but I am over work. We went to a retirement seminar the news is not good, have to do a few more years. Lucky I only do 2 nights a week and it is nice to help the new mums becoz the nights are the hardest and they often get quite upset. It is very exciting during the day with a new baby but different when you have no sleep. We have rooming in that is the babies stay with the mothers all the time which the brought in years ago so they could reduce staff but of course girls with caesarian sections, difficult deliveries and just really tired mums need some sleep and help with caring for their babies. Also leaving babies in the dark with an exhausted mother when the babies are a bit vomity after birth. I am always amazed that we dont loose more babies at night, probably only becoz we ignore the rooming in thing and take any babies we are worried about out to the desk. havta go

Its been raining for days and everything is so damp. Its weird after such a long drought to have such a lot of water around but typical of Australia, droughts and flooding rain. Its kind of strange for the kids as they havent seen this much rain since they were little. We have had exciting times on our corner. One time a big gum tree (about 30ft) got undermined by flood water and had to be cut down. The family in the units underneath it had to shelter in our place. There is a death every couple of years of someone camping under a gum tree, they blow down in storms, especially after a long drought. Gumtrees deal with droughts by killing off limbs and the limbs fall in storms. Another storm brought heaps of coalwash from the mine down and thru some peoples houses, there were lots of streets unpassable the next day. If you go and look at the council maps you can see where the water courses were and the water goes back to them. In that storm the retirement village got flooded and one of the residents who had lost his legs was floating around in the water before they remembered to rescue him. He was quite funny about it I suppose when you've been thru what he had a bit of a flood doesn't bother you.
They thought we'd have big fires this year coz of the bush being so dry not a worry now I guess. Been just on the computer watching the stock market not too nice but interesting times.
Gardening quite a lot a lot of trimming and weeding finally the nice bit planting: ferns, a sesanqua camilla, some lettuce, prob all drowned!. I am trying to be kind of japanese in that i am trying to trim things and give each plant its room, which is hard coz things are packed in. Garden design really interests me but then I get carried away with the plants that are in flower and want them instead of thinking of an overall plan. My first mistake was reading too many english garden books and wanting a garden like theirs. Cant tell you how many silver birches I killed off well me and the climate. I have one left multiple trunks and a cold spot in a corner. I was looking at a blog Laura's garden full of pictures of plants I mostly lost. Then I had my native phase but that got destroyed by the roses which I like esp David Austens.
We have been exercising a lot in the pool but the motor is broken so have to get a new one and the pool is green from all the rain its a hard life not.

uck last post so boring I didnt publish it for few days but too lazy to delete so published anyway, Such a wacko few days. The dog got out of the yard into next doors garage and wouldnt come home, I went over to get her and she had a fish hook through her mouth. We tried to take it out but couldnt, so took her down to the vets, it was a public holiday so there was an extra charge. She had to have an anaesthetic and antibiotics $570 !!! We wont be going on any holiday. same day we'd ordered the ipods for the kids [so cool new pink one on the apple site]. Then the cars need servicing, so no dinners out either. Maybe we can still have lunch and our beaches are as good as anywhere.
Want to have a litle rave about the health system in NSW cause there is so much crap talked in the paper and from politicians, point form easier:
The bloated management are self.serving and incompetent
There has been a failure to train enough doctors or nurses to run the medical system, because these people cost money, buying them in from Africa, Egypt Russia etc is so much cheaper thru it has some fundamental problems, language only the beginning.
There are not enough beds for the population.
NUMs or numb bums as they are now known nursing unit managers formerly charge sisters have so much administrative work, organising pays writing rubbishy safety stuff [how to use the toaster], endless meetings and of course searching for staff, wards are leaderless.
Experience is not valued at all, anyone can work anywhere. Teaching and supervision is minimal to non-existent and for many workers hospitals are the most fightening work places. Often one disaster will mean the end of someones career.
Blame when things go wrong is always shoved downward to the least powerful in the system. Investigations into deaths etc take too long and have no outcomes in terms of patient safety.
The only policies that get are up are cheap ones.
Ignorance and laziness are commonplace and often rewarded by promotion. Disillusionment is mandatory for survival.
There is too much to do and more things are added all the time such as IT with almost no training.
Thats a bit depressing dont get sick best advice.