Blah vs. Butter

2003-06-03 - 5:15 p.m.

Welcome to Day #3 of Random Guestbook Signing Week. I've signed quite a few guestbooks in the past few days and I've gotten a mixed response. From Kelly who I apparently provided a much needed lift for on a bad day to Asrael who's derision of the idea you can read for yourself, yet went around signing lots of people's guestbooks anyway. And of course the many who had no response at all. And all of those responses are fine. I think it's a fun idea because it inspired me to read many more diaries than I would normally read and I've found several I will probably continue reading. And maybe, just maybe, a few of the people who come here to check out who randomly signed their guestbook just might come back. Who knows? It could happen.

Rounds today lasted forever. Remember the little old lady I talked about yesterday? Well, yesterday we electrically cardioverted her and got her out of her arrhythmia. At the end of the day shift, all was well. Unfortunately, though, she had a rough night. First her IV extravasated. That's painful. I don't know which IV it was, but her arm looked bad. Then the nurse was trying to draw some blood but was having trouble so decided to do an arterial stick. Again, ouch! For some reason clots from the stick went downstream and lodged in her fingers causing them to turn purple and black. By morning when we rounded both conditions were significantly improved, but needless to say, we got an earful. I don't blame her. Since her heart was working well enough to survive outside the hospital, we decided to send her home as soon as possible before anything else could go wrong. Poor lady.

Well, today was Sacramento's first "spare the air" day of the season. On these days citizens are requested to drive less. Too bad I can't use that as an excuse to not go to work. I read an article in the paper yesterday about a dermatologist who says she can tell whether people tend to be drivers or passengers by what side of their face had worse sun damage. She warned her readers to wear sunblock while driving. So I threw some sunblock in my car's glove compartment, determined to be a good sunblock wearer. That was a mistake. The sunblock was so hot after work that it burned my finger. So today I threw it in my backpack instead and was able to wear it. Someday my skin will thank me.

Today I talked to the head of the poison control center. She said it would be ok for me to spend a couple of weeks there at the end of June. So that will be my last rotation. Those of you in Northern California, please stay away from the poisons because it'll be inexperienced me manning the phone.

And sad news for the city of Sacramento. The Volleyball Festival, an annual volleyball tournament for girls that has been in Sacramento for eight years, will no longer be held in Sacramento. This tournament involves over 10,000 teenaged girls from every state in the country and several international teams as well. It's a week-long tournament and you can imagine it is quite a boon for Sacramento's economy. Prior to being held in Sacramento it was held in Davis. I played in it for five years in Davis and two years in Sacramento. Reno has stolen it from Sacramento. I remember the first year I played in the tournament we played a team from Italy. We were all shocked, none of those girls shaved their pits! Another year my team won the best sportsmanship award. Also known as the you-really-sucked-but-you-sure-were-nice award. Another year my team got to sing the national anthem at the opening of one of the days. One year one of my teammates broke her two front teeth by knocking them on the floor. We had to stop the game and search for her teeth so her dentist could glue them back together. Bye bye, Volleyball Festival, we will miss you.