Posts Tagged ‘E.R.’

“What Does The Spleen Do”?

Laughter may be the best medicine, but aren’t you s’posed to get through Med School first? Has sleep-deprivation pushed these hip-hopping Harvard Med Students over the edge or is this some kinda Ivy League Extra Credit to FIND THE FUNNY?

If only my ER would take a hint and produce a Medical Musical… At least I’d book a gig on the Spleen-Screen!

Hatee-Hatee-Hatee-Eeet
Hit-The-Books-Then-Hit-The-Beat!

How do we know if we need to work harder for something we really want or if it’s time to give up, time to let go? That’s a tough question, because when we’re in the middle of it – like a career we think we’re right for, but stuck halfway up a very high hill —  or a relationship that’s good in some ways, but maybe not good enough when it comes to forever and ever — we just don’t know.

It’s confusing because we might get a lot of positive feedback in our chosen CAREER (like I get from Casting Directors, or people I’ve worked with in the past) but not a lot of jobs.  Or maybe the POSSIBLE SOULMATE we adore opens up a little bit more (like a certain doctor in my ER), but then pulls back… Ugh!

“To Be or Not To Be…”

Life has a lot of sorta-right-sorta-wrong gray areas, where we’re sorta stuck… sucked in by emotional quicksand.

And it’s a case-by-case situation – there’s no crystal-ball-global-answer, which is beyond frustrating!  Sometimes it helps if we do an out-of-body and look in – like we’re advising a best friend who’s in the exact same situation.

What advice would I give myself if I’m being totally objective? Read the rest of this entry »

Phew!

Sometimes when I’m lucky I wake up in an unexplainably good mood and the whole day smiles with possibility. But other times (like last night) my brain storms overtime with thunderous worrywart issues that get bigger and BIGGER — I can’t budge from bed, but I can’t go back to sleep either. It’s a nightmarish, paralyzing, painful state where I’m stuck worrying about relationships (or the lack thereof), or escalating credit card bills, or an audition I blew, or something I said and now wish I hadn’t.

FAUX PAS and PROBLEMS Echo in My Ears —

And — even though I know my problems are small compared to the ones I see in the ER, or watch on the news or read in my email alerts, they’re on my mind, magnified and they belong to me —  not someone I don’t know. Emotional DRAMA zaps my common sense, causing me to act CRAZY — making things even worse than they were before. Ugh! Read the rest of this entry »

Lately I’ve had the Baking Bug, trying out recipes before the HOLIDAYS (and if I have to be honest, because I’ve been craving something sweet).

The FIRST & the LAST Bites are always the BEST!

Evie’s Apple Nut Coffee Cake

I always allow myself two bites of yummy batter and two bites of whatever I’ve made when it’s fresh-out-of-the-oven. I’m sure you know this —  because it’s a well-known fact —  if you stand in the kitchen and eat bites, it’s not really fattening : )

My Dad and his sweet tooth, are always on my “goodie basket drop-off list”, and our little neighbor Owen loves my chocolate cake with M&Ms.  But even when I share with them, there’s still too much TEMPTATION left over, and that last thing I need to do before an Audition is stuff my face. Read the rest of this entry »

“head up ass”

On my Volunteer Shift, when I take Patients to beds, I glance at the chart to see what the complaint is so I don’t ask them to remove more clothes than they have to. That’s not exactly a Volunteer Rule (Charlayne trained us to say: “Remove all of your clothes, gown open to the back”).  But in my opinion, it’s unnecessarily annoying to Patients if you add to their discomfort.  If they’re in the ER for a hurt finger or toe, I’m certainly not gonna make them take off all of their clothes (“do unto others…”). But if they have a gyno, abdominal or rectal issue, it’s protocol that they remove everything and pee in a cup, so I can’t always grant myself rule-exception privileges.

Over time I’ve learned all of the color codes and what abbreviations mean like A fib (heart irregularity) or AMS (altered mental state) or CP (chest pains), but today Anthony Chan was in a particularly pissy mood (which happens frequently) and he wrote down DBI for this tat-covered greaser with missing teeth. I’d never seen that abbreviation before, so I had to ask Tyrell what it meant.

DBI might not be something they teach in medical school (or maybe it is, which would be really scary!) But either way doctors know DBI means: “dirt bag index.” Oh. Read the rest of this entry »

Hollywood vs.The Hospital

Okay, so if BuzzFeed writer Jack Moore can get staffed on the Fox show US & THEM simply by pitching modern day Seinfeld stories via his @seinfeldtoday, maybe I can star in my own life story about the characters who surround me…

Evie Stewart Meets @ERtoday

What If…

• Abby Lockhart’s mom goes off her meds and lands in the ER, but escapes with Evie to Barneys to binge shop before Abby cancels the credit card? Read the rest of this entry »

help!

OMG! I’m the one who needs to be resuscitated!

I get to my late afternoon shift and things are already outta control! Sunday Night Special! Patients wall-to-wall. No available beds. Missing wheelchairs, codes blasting on the PA, screamie-meemies, chest pains.  Anthony Chan’s being a bigger-than-normal pain in the ass —

VOLUNTEER, what part of “limping” do you not understand? Get my patient a wheelchair, stat!

I check the hallways, L & D, parking lots – nada, nowhere, now what?

I’ve gotta return with wheels pronto, so I head into unfamiliar territory, open a daunting door with a “Staff Only” sign and step into a brightly lit waiting area, where I discover:

Two Empty Wheelchairs!  Voila! Yay! Perfect!

Uhm… WAIT!  What’s that abandoned patient doing lying on that gurney? Read the rest of this entry »