G's-Spot

Naughty but Oh So Hilarious!

There's a Funky Virus Floating Around--Has Anybody Else Noticed?

I have now taken care of a child and an adult, both asthmatics but on different med regimins who both came in for resp distress and lung field wheezing who improved the first day and night but by the next evening were barely wheezing in the lung fields but significantly stridorous.  As in: could hear them from the doorway stridorous.

Both pts tested negative for influenza and both complained of feeling like there was something in their throat, but both pts were also negative for any kind of aspiration. 

Both pts also responded well to the racemic, but although their stridor lessened, it never went completely away.  The child was treated the next morning with an increase in solumedrol which finally eliminated the stridor and eased her throat discomfort.  I passed that information on to the adult's doctor who jumped on it and 12 hours (end of shift) following racemic tx and the solumedrol dosing, the adult's stridor had begun to ease and he slept comfortably (and quietly). 

After reading the H&P's of the rest of my patients from the night, I found one other pt who was admitted for exacerbation of chronic lung disease who, after treating himself at home for a couple of days, finally presented to the ER with respiratory distress and--you guessed it--unexplained stridor.

Methinks there are more new bugs than H1N1 floating around this year.  It will be interesting to see how many times this same scenario plays out this winter.

Knitting for the NICU: Thanksgiving '09

Knitting for the NICU: Thanksgiving '09

Ta-Daaaaaa! The 2009 Official NICU Thanksgiving mascot Turkey Hat!

It makes me smile to look at it.  Well worth the FOUR hours it took to knit it.

We have: Pilgrims and Indians,  Turkeys and Pumpkins, and Camo for deer season.  Viva La Thanksgiving!

I saw an interview with Stephen King one time where a reporter asked him why he chooses to write horror stories and King replied something like "What makes you think I have any choice? It's what's in there."  

That's how I feel about this NICU knitting project. It's like the whole thing has planted roots in my brain and taken over one corner for its own. I have no control, it's just there.  Not that I'm complaining.  Those babies and these hats make me joyous.  It's that simple.  Every time I hold a three pound baby and every time I plop one of my silly little hats onto one of those tiny little heads I see God in their eyes and for those moments I am a mountain of faith that the world is a wondrous place and we are blessed to be here, all connected as one big family on Earth.  On this Thanksgiving I am thankful for all of our little miracles and that I am so lucky to play a part, through respiratory therapy and by knitting hats, in their first days in this life.

Happy Thanksgiving to all the little Littles and to us all!

Ta-Daaaaaa! The 2009 Official NICU Thanksgiving mascot Turkey Hat!

It makes me smile to look at it.  Well worth the FOUR hours it took to knit it.

We have: Pilgrims and Indians,  Turkeys and Pumpkins, and Camo for deer season.  Viva La Thanksgiving!

I saw an interview with Stephen King one time where a reporter asked him why he chooses to write horror stories and King replied something like "What makes you think I have any choice? It's what's in there."  

That's how I feel about this NICU knitting project. It's like the whole thing has planted roots in my brain and taken over one corner for its own. I have no control, it's just there.  Not that I'm complaining.  Those babies and these hats make me joyous.  It's that simple.  Every time I hold a three pound baby and every time I plop one of my silly little hats onto one of those tiny little heads I see God in their eyes and for those moments I am a mountain of faith that the world is a wondrous place and we are blessed to be here, all connected as one big family on Earth.  On this Thanksgiving I am thankful for all of our little miracles and that I am so lucky to play a part, through respiratory therapy and by knitting hats, in their first days in this life.

Happy Thanksgiving to all the little Littles and to us all!

Perspective from a 17 year old aka Jordan is Officially Disowned

While we were baking pies for the family Thanksgiving dinner this Saturday,  my 17-year-old niece, Jordan, told me that they had watched a bad old movie at the end of school today while the teachers had a time out individual tutoring times. I only half listened as I asked her what movie she saw but she soon had me curious when she told me it was a "really really old boring western". 

Hmmm...I thought...Gary Cooper? Nah, they wouldn't have gone that far back...? John Wayne maybe?  I quizzed her some more about what movie she'd seen and she replied "I don't know. Butch something, you know, that old guy on the salad dressing."

OMG, I disowned her on the spot!  I screamed "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?"  "Yeah."  "Didn't you think they were handsome?"  "Those old men? Duh, no!"

You know, when I was her age, I remember sitting in a classroom my senior year watching Three Days of the Condor and thinking Robert Redford was really "foxy" for an olderish man, after all he was no spring chicken by then but still had that perfect hair.  Hey, just because both of those movies were made 40+ years ago and both men have grandchildren older than Jordan is no reason to disrespect the TRUE Hollywood hotties. Seriously.  Disowned.  Edward Cullen as a heartthrob, my ass. :-)

Our Respiratory Therapy Program in the Top 10 out of 400 in the Nation!

Congratulations Doug, Aaron, and Angie!  Thank you so much for all the hard work you put in to make our program so outstanding.  I am thankful every day for the skills foundation you taught us and for sharing your passion for respiratory care with us.

 

For the first time, the college's (Ozarks Technical Community) Respiratory Therapy Program was named one of the 10 best programs out of about 400 in the country and won the 2009 Excellence in Respiratory Care Education Award from the Committee on Accreditation for Respiratory Care.

(Click on "respiratory therapry program" for link to the newspaper article)

Steeple Signs Aren't Just on Churches

Had a wonderful, but tense, night in Peds.  One of the things I love about Peds is the diversity:  ages, diseases, temperaments, even parental attitudes.  Any night we may have flus and pneumonis alongside CFers and asthmatics along side genetic anomalies....I always learn something and have really varied experiences.  Last night alone I got to IPV, Cough Assist, Vest, G-5, along with tagging along for a stat throat x-ray that showed a steeple sign.  No surprise to us. We'd been giving her racemic all night for stridor.  Crazy, though.  That kid really had us worried. It didn't make any sense with the rest of her symptoms. So odd.  The RN and I were both so tense we were practically camped out in the room.

After the x-ray came back the doc asked us to do one thing and see what happened: to put her to bed, and try to let her fall into a deep sleep. Hmmm...okay. I admit I was surprised as hell that when she did fall into a deep slumber she relaxed enough to stop wheezing in her lung fields and the stridor stopped too. The x-ray did show inflamed tissues but still.  When she fell asleep, she relaxed enough to breathe very well.

I didn't realize how tense I'd been until that first check after she stopped wheezing.  It was glorious!  Both at the same time I wanted to have a party and lay down and go to sleep. I feel like I ran a marathon.  I did not realize just how worried I was about the kiddo until I unclenched. 

Right before I left she woke up.  Guess who immediately started wheezing and having stridor again?