Odds and Ends!

Odds and Ends of my recent life! 

G-Man turned 9!  Its hard to believe that not too long ago I was sitting in a hospital bed, holding a screaming bundle of boy, unsure of what lay ahead of me, yet thinking I knew all that was to come.  Life is funny though it likes to throw things at you unexpectantly!  But I wouldn't change much, not most of it anyway. 

G-Man is our little talker, caregiver, gaurdian, (his real name means man of the watchtower--or something like that..) and he is really always watching out for others especially his siblings...and sometimes others at school, monitoring what they are doing and not always what he is doing...but he is none the less always concerned about others.

Well the other day, Bee took a head dive off of her scooter, and her forhead hit the uncovered handlebar, leaving a hole requiring seven stitches...OUCH!  Major ouch when the doctor mentioned he should of done more....Anyway we were on our way to get the stitches out and G-Man, doing what he does best, tried to comfort Bee, he said "Bee dont' worry about getting your stitches.  It doesn't hurt.  It feels like picking a booger, that is kind of stuck and as you pull it is a little stringy." 

After being a little grossed out, I realized he was so right and new exactly what he was talking about...yes admitting I've picked my nose.

But I am grateful for him and all his wisdom, and the joy he truly has brought to our home!!! Happy Birthday buddy!

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Work!  I probably post a lot about work, well the fact that I am working now in houskeeping and the fact that it has been more than humbling for me.  In all actuality I like it, most days!  Okay maybe I don't like the work, the clean up people's toilets, crumb spills, but I enjoy the people. 

I was in the nursery, grabbing their trash, and had to stop and gock (sp???? totally not the right spelling..or is it??) at a new baby and talk to one of my CNA friends.  I mentioned something about the baby, and his name and how his older sister (all of 5 years as of January) who had talked to me the whole time I was cleaning, then when she saw me in the hall all surprised and excited and said "You were just in there?!"  

And I was, I feel like I pop in and out of rooms all day, I guess that is what I do :)...But anyway the CNA said "you sure remember a lot!"  To which I replied "I could tell you something about every single one of the patients on this side."

"You talk to the patients while you clean?"

"I do!"  

I even had a patient tell me I should write a book, today.  But the thought came to me, I really do like talking to people, and should be working somewhere where I can talk to people....but then it occured to me, that I get to meet new people almost every day!  And I do get to talk to them....for a few minutes, if they are awake.  Some are more talkative than others, but really what kind of job could I do talking to others?? 

Councilor...no don't want to get advice...
Social worker....no don't want to deal with problems....
Biographer....yeah that would be cool, talk to people about their stories and write it down for them....Any takers????


Anyway after that thought provoking conversation in the nursery it just made me realize how much I do like my job and the gals (I say gals because about 90% of them are) I work with. 

I have made some great friends and really have laughed a lot. 

Like today.   A normal patient room cleaning, typically starts with me knocking on the door, coming in, pulling trash, asking how they are doing, cleaning the bathroom, sweeping the floor, mopping the floor then asking if there is anything else I can do for them.  Well I follow my normal protocol and enter a patients room. Pull the trash, wipe the front sink, ask how they are doing, enter the bathroom, and notice some toilet paper in the toilet, so I flush it so I can clean it.   Well it doesn't go down....thinking to myself, don't want to keep flushing to maybe embarrass them, I pull the trash, I don't know hoping the TP will go down itself or something...but it doesn't.  So I flush again, the tp looks like it is going to make an exit, but then pops itself back up.  Blasted TP.  So I hold the flusher down longer, tp gone, yeah.....no....pops back up.   I look out the bathroom door at the patient on the phone and mouth "sorry.."  as I begin to giggle.

Those who know me, know that once I start giggling, I kind of can't stop.  So then I try again, and sure enough it pops its head back out. I apologize to the family, and mention how stubborn it is being, all the while trying to keep my laughter to a professional level.  The dad says "no I should be the one excusing myself." 

After that and what the sixth? flush, down it went.  Man it took me a long time to get that bathroom clean! 

But that isn't the only time I have laughed....at this time it was at someone else's expense...and to this day, all I have to say is "It was me!!!" cheerfully and proudly and I start to laugh.

Curoius now!? 

Sometimes bathrooms get what is called "dry pipes", yes the system dries out and the solution to this is pouring water down the pipes, the symptom of this is the smell of  rotten eggs mixed with other potty smells.  Anyway on the 4th floor as you walk through the double locked doors, there are public bathrooms to the right. 

After lunch my coworker and I walked through these doors, to bit hit by the dry pipe smell! One of the nurses happened to be there, and we started talking about how bad it smelled.  We were going on about horrible it was, when my friend says "I can only smell the Scentsy candles."  (the other direction from the bathrooms is a little store and the gal there always has sweet smelling Scentsys going, however this day it wasn't fixing the scents in the hallway..." 

So as we went on about the smell, and how we couldn't smell the candle....when out of the store door pops the gal, and she waves her hand in the air, smiles big and says "it is me! It is me!" 

Are you really claiming this smell causing us to be sick to our stomaches??  We looked at her surprisingly and asked "Are you sure you want to claim this stink??" 

She quickly turned red and said "I thought you meant my candle!" 

We laughed!  And when she walks by we do our best Parade Princess wave and say "it was me!"

Who says it can't be fun to work...me a few weeks ago.  But I do enjoy it, wish it weren't that we were depending on my hourly pay.  Because it isn't much pay, and sometimes hard to be humble enough to do this job but at least I get to laugh! 

One more story while I am writing.  As housekeepers we are responsible to clean rooms, almost immediately after a patient leaves, and the only way we know they are gone, other than looking in the rooms and watching them leave, is receiving a page, with the room number telling us to go to that room.  Each morning, we log into our pager so we can receive those pages, we log out for breaks, and log in and out of rooms, and so on.  We also have 30 minutes from the time we log into a room to clean it and log back out. 

The other day I had a meeting to attend, which I was suppose to logout of my pager, 15 minutes before so I could unload my cart and head to the meeting.  Well I received a page five minutes before I was suppose to log out, not enough time to clean a room.  So I call my supervisor, to whom I will refer to as "Micro", has nothing to do with the way he supervises (said sarcastically.)

I grab my Vocera (our walkie talkies basically) and tell it to call Micro.

"This is Micro."

"Yes, this is Corrine.  I just got a page to clean room 4444 and I have a meeting at 3 that I am suppose to log out for." 

As if the world depended on my logging out, he said "log out, LOG OUT!  Log OUTTTTT!"

"Ok!"

I was in the chute room, throwing trash down, with one of my coworker friend, and she heard it all, because the vocera is around our necks and basically on speaker.  She starts laughing, as I frantically fumble through my scrubs to find my phone to log out.  Not sure what the panic was but I felt a sudden urgency to LOG OUT!!!!

Thanks for the laughs housekeeping!