Episode 32 – December 1 – Today was the first day
of a new month and I’m more than glad to put the entire month of November
behind. The one good thing about being here is I missed all the fabulous
November Rain (Sorry I couldn’t resist this link.) and the forecast is for more
of the same for the next week. If you remember, I did get to enjoy the lovely
rain on Halloween night. ;-)
Today was also World Aids Awareness Day and
hopefully there will be no need for such a day by the end of the decade.
I had another good night’s sleep and I was up at
5:30 to do my exercises and look forward to the weekend. Oh wait...weekends
haven’t been meant anything to me for about five years. Actually for retired or
semi-retired people weekends are a pain in the ass. Green fees are more
expensive and the grocery stores are crowded. In fact my part-time work
schedule usually involves weekends. Oh well, that’s the price I pay for being
in showbiz. ;-)
Just before shift change both Denise and Esther
who were working on the other end of the sixth floor both popped by to see how
I was doing. It was already starting out to be a good day. Rosita made it
better when she checked my glucose level and it was back down to 6.0.
My day nurse for the beginning of the shift was
Natasha, the serial killer freak. She seemed very efficient and quite n*** but
I’m not sure I was all that comfortable with her sticking a needle in my belly.
Hee hee!
Barb who I spoke of in earlier episodes took over
for Natasha at around 9:30. She seemed much more on the ball than the last time
she looked after me.
Shortly, after 9:30, my friend, Janice dropped by
with a coffee and a muffin. She was in awe of my new snakeskin boots until she
realized that they were actually my own feet. She immediately gloved up and
started applying lotion to my feet. They looked much better but could still use
that belt sander treatment.
While reading the Vancouver Sun this I discovered
two real cool stories and one vomit inducing piece of shite. We will start with
the excrement. The Sun did a story on the twenty most popular charities in BC.
They actually classified that conservative bullshit machine, the Fraser
Institute as a charity and wrote a glowing piece of trash about it. I damn near
tossed my breakfast reading it but then again that may have not been that big
of a disaster.
The first good story was in all places, the
business section. There was a story about the Equitable Real Estate and their
foundation set up to preserve several Vancouver Heritage buildings.
The coolest story though was about the BC Archives
who have in conjunction with the Mormon Church have made a number of vital
statistics certificates available online. I was able to find my paternal
grandparents’ marriage certificate on line. So effing sweet!
I’m getting pretty good at spotting certain
Midlands accents. I questioned one of the nurses about her place of origin. She
asked me to guess and I called the Liverpool/Manchester area and was on the
money. It was a small town in Leicester.
I’m really getting into “The Franchise” series
about the 2011 San Francisco Giants and each new episode convinces me more that
Brian Wilson ain’t quite right in the head but he makes baseball so much more
fun. Episode 5 was great because it was when they made the traditional visit to
the White House and leading the standing ovation were Nancy Pelosi and DianeFeinstein and President Obama was presenting with an autographed #44 jersey by
none other than the most famous Giant of all time, Willie Mays.
The ambulance service came and picked Anne, the
100 year old to take her back to Squamish General Hospital. Within the hour she
was replaced by an Iranian woman. Oddly, people nattering away in a foreign
tongue is actually less distracting than people speaking English. It becomes
strictly background noise because I’m not picking up parts of the conversation.
Either I’m getting use to the heat in this room or
it may be a bit cooler in here. I suspect it may be a combination of both due
to the cooler wet weather outside.
I received another visit from Sandi and she sat
and chatted for a bit. She was definitely in better spirits today.
The Crown Prince dropped by this afternoon to
bring me my mail which after going through I promptly gave it back to him to
take home with the exception of some insurance documents and such that I needed
to go over. We chatted for over an about his job and several other things
before left in search of some real dinner. Hey, I would have offered to share
mine.( It was ham so it was not too bad) The best thing about him today is he
shaved off that mediocre moustache today.
While Bryan was still there, Marguerite in the
next bed called for the nurse and asked to be taken out of her chair and put
back to bed. She requires the overhead lift as well. The nurse told her that it
was better if she waited until after dinner because dinner was almost here. I
called bullshit on that because it was
ten to five and dinner at the earliest wouldn’t be until 5:30. The last time
they used that bit, Marguerite didn’t get back into bed until after the shift
change at 7:30. I called as well go back to bed tand Nelson, another nurse came
and tried the same line on me but I stood firm citing all the above points. He
made me a deal that regardless he would promised he would have me back in bed
between 5:30 and 6 when all the nurses were back from break. He held true to
his word and I was back in bed at 5:30 and I made sure they got Marguerite back
in bed as well. It sometimes pays to be bitchy. I should point out that dinner
didn’t arrive until ten to six and we would have likely been there longer
because they brought Inez in the bed across from me and a few others down back
from surgery during this period so all the nursing resources were tied up with
that.
My day continued rolling along on a positive note
when I received an email from BC Hydro’s Powersmart program notifying me that I
had qualified for a $75.00 rebate for the second year a row by reducing my
electricity usage by 10%. Considering my monthly bill is only $39 that’s a
decent rebate. It may be tough to do it again next year without sitting in the
dark all year but I should get a headstart considering I won’t be home most of
December and I won’t have my Christmas lights up at all.
It’s been awhile but the toast burner at Evergreen struck again after dinner and
another annoying code red was called. It must really piss off the firefighters
having to gear up and run the trucks across the street every time this happens.
I drew another pool nurse, Ellen for the night
shift. It actually appears the entire shift of nurses appears to be from the
pool and there were no regular nurses working on 6 west.
But the cookies and roasted peanuts were so good!
Oh, crap! I’m out of both. ;-(
At least the damn tap wasn’t dripping.
To be continued...
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