Sunrise, Sundown! The Hospital Musical Numberl!

I've been thinking lately that if Wurk was a musical number, it would be modeled in the fashion of Fiddler on the Roof's "Sunrise, Sunset," except Tevye et al would be wearing hospital johnnycoats and singing numbers like, "Sunrise, Sundown" (for that wonderful and magical phenomenon whereby calm and manageable by day elderly folks turn into combative, confused shadows of themselves, as the name suggests, "When The Sun Goes Down" (and not like the Kenny Chesney/Cracker song of the same name, either. And shut up already, because I like Kenny's Chesney's music.)

Or, as one nurse suggested last night, what about a number entitled, "Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow?" ("Snow" = hospitalspeak for giving doses of powerful anti-psychotics and benzos like Haldol (beloved Vitamin H) and Ativan in hopes of achieving some semblance of "behavioral modification" in confused/psychotic/delirious/demented patients who are using nurses and housestaff as punching bags, etc.

Ah yes, 'Tis the Season, my friends. It never fails. The weather turns colder, and people get sicker, especially the elderly. The floor continues to "be heavy" which is Nursespeak for "Run and hide!" All we have left in our arsenal is bitching, and god knows we do. Because we are Nurses, and it's our God given right to bitch and moan endlessly, because so little else actually is within our power.

Personally, my favorite last night was emptying a liver abscess drainage bag. Let me tell you, nurses have it all over Fear Factor contestants, those pansy-assed twerps. Ah. Drainage. Mmmm. Goop. Almost the consistency of a milkshake, I thought, as hovered dangerously above the foul-looking and biohazardous stuff, trying deseperately to a) get to my happy place, which definetely doesn't have anything to do with liver abscess drainage but does have a lot of alcohol b) figure out how to accurately document the color, consistency and amount of the noxious drainage oozing from the spout in sickening gloppy splat splats. "Goopy, shit-colored and nasty" was actually all I could come up with the time, along with a mental note to start beefing up my CV in case Nursing Dream Job 3000 ever comes up and takes me away all Calgon stylet... adios, abscess drainage! Oh yeah. We all have to have dreams.

Speakin fo which, in non-Wurk news, I had a confusing dream last night about writing a longhand essay about Daedalus (I know, I know, I have geeky dreams. Once I dreamt I was given a book on Cicero, and it made me feel all comfy and warm inside. Scary.) The confusing part of the dream (other than why I should be dreaming about Greek mythological characters in the first place) is that when I looked up primary and secondary sources (can you tell I find footnotes sexy?) I was really looking at stuff about Atlas. Quel nightmare!

I really am a Humanities Dork wearing a nurse's uniform, I swear.