A knight's tale. . . no longer funny??

Oh no. It hit me. "A knight's tale" was on tv tonight and I switched to it and thought how much I loved that movie and how it made me smile and laugh. We even own on it on DVD. The first scene was a joust with Heath Ledger and I felt overwhelmed with sadness and I almost wanted to cry. No happy-good feelings. I realized it was the first Ledger movie I had seen since he had died. Ugh. I had to change the channel. I am sure this will pass, but I sure wish I had been able to enjoy the movie tonight.

In other news, I have read even more books. Yes, I finished "Outlander"by Gabaldon. Quite the page turner, even if at times I but unbelievable. I really found myself fancying the large Scottish redhead Jaime Fraser. I also finished my other book, "Critical Care: The making of an ICU Nurse." It was great to read a book at times where it felt like the author had read my mind. It was just so validating and made me feel less crazy. The ending was a bit abrupt and hurried, but I think I may re-read it someday. Oh, and yes the book worm frenzy is alive as I even finished "The Golden Compass." I had seen the movie first and found the movie ok with some occasional fantastic moments, but the book was sooooooo much better. I thought the scene in the movie where the polar bears have a huge fight was epic. In the book, it was even more epic. Also, I was constantly amazed at how the author was able to remember or to get inside the head of a 10 year old child. I actually want to see the movie again now and I can't wait for my daughter to be able to read the story.

The other day I browsed the sales piles at the book store and picked up 2 new books to read. "The Mermaid Chair" and "Cold Mountain." They look like two completely different styles of fiction, but they looked interesting.

So, I flipped back to a "A Knight's Tale" and it was a funny scene and I still couldn't laugh. Ugh. I miss Heath.

All grown up now

I am in a bit a of a dilemma. My 4 yr old daughter will be turning 5 soon and she thinks that makes her all grown up and that she doesn't need any toys anymore. Several times over the past couple weeks, she keeps telling me she wants to get rid of all her toys because when she is 5 she won't need toys anymore. She wants to give them to someone else to play with. She doesn't even want her dress-up clothes anymore.

We have asked her many times, "Are you sure?" "What about when your friends come over, what are you going to play if you have no toys?" "Do you want anything for your birthday?"

She says, "No, I don't want anything. I just don't want my toys anymore." She did say she wants to keep all her books because when she learns how to read in Kindergarten, she wants to read her books all by herself.

So, I am thinking if this continues one for another week, I will enter her room with bags and boxes and help her get rid of toys. Any thoughts on that? I am thinking I may store a couple of special toys for when she is older, but I can't believe she doesn't want any toys?!?

Roses and free coffee

I had one of those evenings at work where I realized it could have been the script for one of those medical drama tv shows. Mind you, the only medical tv shows I watch are "House" or "scrubs" and I never have watched "ER", but I hear those drama shows eat stuff like this up.



At about 6:00 pm, we hear an overhead call for the Rapid Response Team (aka, RRT call). This is like a call for help from a nurse on the floor, outside of ICU, who has a patient that is suddenly not doing well and needs immediate help before the patient becomes worse. Sometimes these RRT calls turn into "Code Blue" calls if the patient goes into cardiac or respiratory arrest. Other times, the problem is solved by the RRT team and the patient is stabilized. The charge nurse from ICU, a couple of assistant managers and at least 1 respiratory therapist respond to the RRT calls.



On this RRT call, the patient is still "ok" (by ok, i mean barely breathing, horrible skin color, drenched in sweat, eyes wide and bulging and barely able to say 'ok'), but if we don't do something soon he will be a code call. They attempted to stabilize him and transport him to ICU for immediate intubation (to be placed on a ventillator). It must have been a busy day for the anesthesiologists, because it turns out we only have one anesthesiologist left available who can really intubate a patient for us in this situation. The other doctors that could do this for us in ICU are in the OR or not in the hospital yet. It turns out the doctor that is in our ICU attempting to help with our patient is being paged back to labor and delivery for an emergency c-section (emergency surgical removal of the baby from the mom).



He is looking at us while on the phone and calmly asking the the nurse calling about the c-section if he has 5 minutes. She told him the baby wasn't doing well and maybe they would have 5 minutes. He never lost his cool, panicked, yelled or anything. Calm and cool all the way, but the look in the doctor's eyes said volumes. He was looking down into the face of a 60+ year old man that if we don't treat soon would die and just hung up on a nurse dealing with a young woman and her unborn child. A patient nearer the end of his life who can't breathe and a patient just trying out life for the first time and hasn't even taken its first breath. All the chaos in that ICU room stopped for a second to recognize this problem and the next second we moved lightning fast to get our patient on the ventillator as fast as possible so the doctor could go help with the delivery of the baby. I think we had our patient entubated in less than 1 minute and the doctor ran downstairs.


We found out later, the c-section was very complicated and 4 doctors were down there but they had a happy outcome. Baby boy and mom were doing ok. As for our patient on ICU, he ended up not making it and passed away about 3 hours later.



It had me thinking though. A new life comes into the world in the room directly below us, while one life leaves us. And meanwhile, all around us in the hospital these types of things are happening everyday.



So, when I was enjoying breakfast at Starbucks with my daughter this morning, I really savored everything. Every breath I took, even if it meant I was standing in line or waiting at a stop light, was special. The daughter's chattiness was enjoyed more as health and vitality. The morning was gorgeous!





Then I experienced a littly pity for a man who came in to Starbucks. He reminded me of the man that had died last night. In his 60s, big belly maybe 5' 8". He asked for a small decaf coffee and when he was told he would have to wait 3 whole minutes for a fresh cup, said, "Ok, I'll have small regular coffee." He was told that the regular coffee was also brewing and he could just have a cup of coffee on the house in less than 3 minutes. What did he do? He huffed and stormed out of the shop. He was just offered a free cup of coffee if he could manage to control himself and wait 3 whole minutes. That kind of anger and stress, plus the weight, his age . . . adds up to trip to an ICU near you soon. I wanted to touch his shoulder, as he was standing next to me and say, "3 minutes isn't long and it is a free coffee. Breath. Relax. Then enjoy your coffee."

So, please stop and smell the roses and try to enjoy a free coffee when one is offered to you.