Gentle Readers,
When I worked at the nursing home, long ago, I chose to work the night shift. I'm not sure why. It paid a little more. That didn't hurt. And I had done my clinicals during the day shift. I didn't care for the way the staff behaved during the day. The nurses were rude and lazy and the assistants were rude and lazy. To me they seemed far more concerned with getting their breaks than with getting their work done.
So I took the 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift. At first it was hell. But then this bond began to form between most of us. It wasn't something we really talked about. We just knew we wanted to provide better care and have better working relationships. So a group of us made it happen.
Staff members who couldn't get with the program soon left or were fired.
The night shift got better. The patients were cleaner and more comfortable. We cleaned out bedside table drawers and bathroom drawers that were filled with useless crap. Speaking of crap, I even found used toilet paper, and I'm talking used poopy toilet paper, in the drawer of a bedside table. A candy cane was in the drawer too. The patient was in a vegetative state. I don't know why in the hell anybody would give her a candy cane, and she certainly did not reach over after wiping her butt and put that toilet paper in her drawer.
Yes, night shift did better and better work because of our unspoken commitment and the bond we shared.
Yet, when we "got the report" from the charge nurse, she quite often told us about complaints from the day shift about how poor our work was. Supposedly, we spent the entire night sitting around reading the newspaper. A few people did act that way, but not many. We all took our meal breaks, but most of us did not take other breaks. There wasn't time. Our people needed us.
A few times when the day shift was very poorly staffed, like hardly anybody showed up for work, I went in to help and always regretted it. There I was, giving up my day off, and people treated me like shit -- treated me like I didn't do anything.
Haven't you fed so and so? Miss Snotty Ass asked me.
No, I replied. The charge nurse told me to do this so I'm doing it.
Miss Snotty Ass applauded sarcastically and walked away.
One time a day nurse noticed some bruises on my arms and asked how I had gotten them. Oh, I'm sure I just bumped into something. I bruise easily, I replied cavalierly.
Well, it looks, you know, like handcuffs, she said.
And I don't think she meant the pink furry kind.
I was appalled. I was Mrs. Lola Tweedledee. My husband was Dr. Iam Tweedledum. I was somebody around town. No one had ever spoken to me that way before. And it didn't really matter who I was. She had no business speaking that way to the lowliest among us. A friend of mine said to her, Lola is not that kind of a person.
That nurse got fired before long.
Then there was the day nurse who wouldn't get up off her ass and come to help me when I fell with a patient. The patient didn't seem to be hurt, Thank God, but I had hit my face on a table and had a black eye. More important, we needed to assess the patient and if she was o.k., we needed to get her in bed. She was very large and it would require several of us to get her in the Hoyer lift and in bed.
I went out and called to the nurse that I had fallen with a patient and needed help immediately. Then I started rounding up assistants to help us get the patient back into bed as long as she was not injured. The nurse said lackadaisically, Was it a fall or a lower? Meaning did I lower her to the floor or did we actually fall.
It was a fall.
She asked me again, Was it a fall or a lower?
A FALL.
The third time she asked me I lost it and shouted at her to get up and help. She finally unglued her ass from her chair and came down the hall. We checked out the patient with another nurse helping and determined she was not injured. She had no complaints of pain. When they were ready to put her in the Hoyer (mechanical) lift, I left the room and went to another floor where I knew one of my best colleagues was the charge nurse. I hid behind some file cabinets and burst into tears. She heard me and came to find out what was wrong. She called the HR person, who arranged for me to go home with the agreement that I would go to an occupational medicine clinic the next day to have my bruises looked at by a doctor.
I was so upset I could barely drive home.
The next time I worked my beloved 7 p. to 7 a., I told the night supervisor what had happened with the day shift nurse. She said, You're used to working with us at night.
There was something about being with a group of people at 3 a.m. and knowing we were all of one mind that brought out the best in us. That was my all-time favorite job.
Love,
Lola
My motto as an editor: Authors are the authority on their work. I'm a full-service editor. For a reasonable fee, I'm your writing coach from the first suggested revision to the correction of the final typo.
Showing posts with label Typhoid Mary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Typhoid Mary. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
Gentle Readers,
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
I'm not so sure that's true. What if a rose were called a skrunklebutt?
I had a high school teacher who said, You are your name.
I had a college professor who said, Words are power.
I agree with both of them.
Scrunklebutt does not sound sweet and pretty and I think if a rose were called a skrunklebutt that it would take on the ugly associations of the icky-sounding word.
When I was in elementary school, there was a boy named ****** Dick. He was a year younger than me and was a perfectly nice kid. He got picked on mercilessly. There was nothing wrong with him except that his last name was Dick. Thus, he was not Mr. Popularity. My buds and I yelled at the dumb kids who picked on him and invited him to play tether ball with us.
I also had to deal with a business associate one time who had a difficult to pronounce and spell last name. She helped me out with it and then said, At least it's better than my maiden name, which was Buttkiss.
It took all my strength and will power, but I did not laugh. I simply said, I bet you would have married just about anyone to get rid of that. She smiled and was cheerful about it, but I bet she wasn't smiling and cheerful growing up. I bet she was tortured. And she was a very pretty, nice woman. You can't get anywhere in the world with the name Buttkiss any more than a flower called a skrunklebutt can be beautiful and smell sweet. Some people would defend the skrunklebutt and say its name doesn't matter, but most people would despise the skrunklebutt.
If names didn't have important associations, then lots of German kids named Adolf would still be running around. I don't think Coors beer mentions too often anymore that Adolf Coors was their founder. The name Adolf in and of itself isn't ugly, but it has ugly associations.
How about Adolf Buttkiss Dick? Now there's a name for you. And the altar flowers when he's baptized could be skrunklebutts.
I know I'm dumping lots of ideas on you today, but I want you to start thinking about the importance of names because I have more to say about them,
In fact, I have quite a bit to say about names, but I think this is enough for now.
And the next times somebody gives you roses, I bet you'll think, Ahhhh shit, it's skrunklebutts.
Infinities of love,
Lola
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
I'm not so sure that's true. What if a rose were called a skrunklebutt?
I had a high school teacher who said, You are your name.
I had a college professor who said, Words are power.
I agree with both of them.
Scrunklebutt does not sound sweet and pretty and I think if a rose were called a skrunklebutt that it would take on the ugly associations of the icky-sounding word.
When I was in elementary school, there was a boy named ****** Dick. He was a year younger than me and was a perfectly nice kid. He got picked on mercilessly. There was nothing wrong with him except that his last name was Dick. Thus, he was not Mr. Popularity. My buds and I yelled at the dumb kids who picked on him and invited him to play tether ball with us.
I also had to deal with a business associate one time who had a difficult to pronounce and spell last name. She helped me out with it and then said, At least it's better than my maiden name, which was Buttkiss.
It took all my strength and will power, but I did not laugh. I simply said, I bet you would have married just about anyone to get rid of that. She smiled and was cheerful about it, but I bet she wasn't smiling and cheerful growing up. I bet she was tortured. And she was a very pretty, nice woman. You can't get anywhere in the world with the name Buttkiss any more than a flower called a skrunklebutt can be beautiful and smell sweet. Some people would defend the skrunklebutt and say its name doesn't matter, but most people would despise the skrunklebutt.
If names didn't have important associations, then lots of German kids named Adolf would still be running around. I don't think Coors beer mentions too often anymore that Adolf Coors was their founder. The name Adolf in and of itself isn't ugly, but it has ugly associations.
How about Adolf Buttkiss Dick? Now there's a name for you. And the altar flowers when he's baptized could be skrunklebutts.
I know I'm dumping lots of ideas on you today, but I want you to start thinking about the importance of names because I have more to say about them,
In fact, I have quite a bit to say about names, but I think this is enough for now.
And the next times somebody gives you roses, I bet you'll think, Ahhhh shit, it's skrunklebutts.
Infinities of love,
Lola
Monday, March 1, 2010
WOULD YOU CARE FOR SOME TYPHOID WITH YOUR SALAD?
Yes, Gentle Readers, there really was a Typhoid Mary
.
Her name was Mary Mallon, and she was an Irish immigrant.
She worked her way up in the U.S. household staff hierarchy to become a cook. Unfortunately, she carried typhoid bacteria, even though she was healthy, and caused more than 50 cases of typhoid and three deaths.
Mary Mallon came to the attention of the New York Health Dept. when a typhoid researcher traced cases of typhoid among some well-to-do families and discovered something each family had in common.
They had employed Mary Mallon as a cook.
Mallon denied ever having had typhoid, but she may have had a mild case that left her with the bacteria in her body, or perhaps she was infected when her mother had typhoid while pregnant with her. At any rate, the New York Health Dept. hauled Mary off kicking and screaming to test her for the bacteria and there it be! Then they quarantined her on an island with other people who had highly infectious diseases, and she lived in a little cottage by herself.
Typhoid is spread through feces and ingested with food or liquid and causes a high fever, quite often a rash, a host of other symptoms, and sometimes death. Typhoid spreads best where sanitary conditions are poor and it still exists in third world countries where access to antibiotics can be difficult. It kills one out of one hundred people who come down with it. Prior to the advent of antibiotics, typhoid killed one out of ten infected people.
The bacteria can be eradicated by high temperatures, i.e. food that is cooked, but can remain present in uncooked foods, including Mary Mallon's popular peach ice cream. Working as a cook, Mary would have handled food constantly and even if she washed her hands after using the bathroom, she probably could not have washed them thoroughly enough to get rid of the bacteria.
After three years in quarantine, Mary Mallon was released on the condition that she not work as a cook. Unfortunately, the Health Dept. got her a job as a laundress, one of the suckiest and worst-paying jobs in America. Eventually, Mary called herself Mary Brown and went back to cooking.
When a typhoid outbreak occurred at a hospital where she was cooking, Mary was once again quarantined, and this time, for the rest of her life. Active typhoid bacteria could still be found in her body after her death from pneumonia in 1938. She spent a total of 29 years in quarantine.
Some people still believe Mary killed thousands of people. Her name certainly became synonymous with the spreading of disease. In reality, she became an example of a healthy, albeit stubborn person who could be a carrier of a disease. She never believed that she spread typhoid and she couldn't be trusted to give up cooking. Some other typhoid carriers were also identified, but nobody was quarantined unto death the way Mary was.
And it was all because she worked her way up to being a cook.
Love,
Dumped First Wife
Typhoid Mary is now used to describe someone who opens computer attachments without knowing the source and then passes the virus in the attachment on to other people. A Typhoid Mary also refuses to uses anti-virus software.
.Her name was Mary Mallon, and she was an Irish immigrant.
She worked her way up in the U.S. household staff hierarchy to become a cook. Unfortunately, she carried typhoid bacteria, even though she was healthy, and caused more than 50 cases of typhoid and three deaths.
Mary Mallon came to the attention of the New York Health Dept. when a typhoid researcher traced cases of typhoid among some well-to-do families and discovered something each family had in common.
They had employed Mary Mallon as a cook.
Mallon denied ever having had typhoid, but she may have had a mild case that left her with the bacteria in her body, or perhaps she was infected when her mother had typhoid while pregnant with her. At any rate, the New York Health Dept. hauled Mary off kicking and screaming to test her for the bacteria and there it be! Then they quarantined her on an island with other people who had highly infectious diseases, and she lived in a little cottage by herself.
Typhoid is spread through feces and ingested with food or liquid and causes a high fever, quite often a rash, a host of other symptoms, and sometimes death. Typhoid spreads best where sanitary conditions are poor and it still exists in third world countries where access to antibiotics can be difficult. It kills one out of one hundred people who come down with it. Prior to the advent of antibiotics, typhoid killed one out of ten infected people.
The bacteria can be eradicated by high temperatures, i.e. food that is cooked, but can remain present in uncooked foods, including Mary Mallon's popular peach ice cream. Working as a cook, Mary would have handled food constantly and even if she washed her hands after using the bathroom, she probably could not have washed them thoroughly enough to get rid of the bacteria.
After three years in quarantine, Mary Mallon was released on the condition that she not work as a cook. Unfortunately, the Health Dept. got her a job as a laundress, one of the suckiest and worst-paying jobs in America. Eventually, Mary called herself Mary Brown and went back to cooking.
When a typhoid outbreak occurred at a hospital where she was cooking, Mary was once again quarantined, and this time, for the rest of her life. Active typhoid bacteria could still be found in her body after her death from pneumonia in 1938. She spent a total of 29 years in quarantine.
Some people still believe Mary killed thousands of people. Her name certainly became synonymous with the spreading of disease. In reality, she became an example of a healthy, albeit stubborn person who could be a carrier of a disease. She never believed that she spread typhoid and she couldn't be trusted to give up cooking. Some other typhoid carriers were also identified, but nobody was quarantined unto death the way Mary was.
And it was all because she worked her way up to being a cook.
Love,
Dumped First Wife
Typhoid Mary is now used to describe someone who opens computer attachments without knowing the source and then passes the virus in the attachment on to other people. A Typhoid Mary also refuses to uses anti-virus software.
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