The Purple Biscornu

Dö-dudl-dö ist zweites Futur beim Sonnenaufgang!

Click!

Ein Klavier, ein Klavier!

Popularity: 23% [?]

You won’t think this is too much fun unless you know German and probably Loriot too, but it made me all happy to find this

Popularity: 26% [?]

Tags: Memories

He’s about 75 years old and comes to his appointment with his son. His clothes are impeccable and he’s carrying one of these bags that try not to look like a handbag by having a handle on the side.

He shakes my hand and makes a little bow. Both he and his son have this adorable accent that makes me smile and tells me they’re from Finland originally.

He walks into the room and stops in front of the two visitor chairs.

“Please, sit down.” I tell them.

He looks from one chair to the other. “Which one?” He looks up nervously, then looks down again, touching first the one chair, then the other. “Which one? Which one should I sit on? Which one?” he murmurs. He seems lost and tortured.

“Take this one, dad,” his son helps, and he sits down on the right one.

This won’t be fixed with just pills, goes through my head.

We talk about how he normally has no problems taking care of himself. He lives in a house by himself, but lately his son has been staying overnight more often or he has been staying with the son’s family.

“A beautiful house, yesyes, I have to springclean, there’s so much to do!”

He’s wringing his hands and the torture is back in his eyes again, this hunted look that always shows up sooner or later when you have to live with a constant nagging anxiety.

He is like this almost all the time now, worrying, thinking in circles, never a calm minute. He gets scared at night and won’t calm down until everyone there is awake so he knows all are accounted for. 

He has had these problems before, they tell me, and he was treated with ECT and had done well for years afterwards.

“Oh, that was a great treatment,” he says. “Please, I just want this to go away. I just want to get better.”

I tell him he will be fine.  I call psychiatry and get him an appointment at two p.m.

When I tell him, the haunted look is back. “Oh, at two. Downstairs? Downstairs. At two? It’s eleven. What are we going to do?”

“It’s okay, Dad, we’ll go have lunch”, the son says.

“Oh, all right,” he says and stops wringing his hands.

“I hope all goes well later,” I say, and hold out my hand. He shakes it and gives another correct little bow. “Thank you very much,” he says. “And good luck with my case!”

Popularity: 39% [?]

Tags: Doctor Stuff, Pesky Real Life

I’ve been on the lookout lately for other blogs to read regularly. Right now I mostly read stitching blogs, and while that’s always great fun, a little diversity can only be good!

So I surfed around and found a blog that really made me giggle. It’s called Yummy Baby . Normally I’m not all that fond of mommy-blogs – I like children, actually, but I don’t want to read about them all day. This blog is different though, and I stayed there and read a bunch of posts.

The little one is adorable of course, but not only that – the blog is written entirely from her perspective. She’s almost a year old, and it’s fun to read about how she likes her mom’s computer better than her own, and what’s going on with her and her friends. Her mother started the blog when Amayra Muneez was just five months old, so you can follow her almost from birth and see how she changes. I hope this blog will be continued for some time, I’ll certainly be back to read!

Popularity: 39% [?]

Tags: review

What have I been doing today, you ask? (Or not, but it’s too late now!)

• I updated my Wishlist. Now when you click on the tab up there that says Wishlist, it will take you to my personal save-up-list. Of course, every time I think I’m finished I think of five other thing to put on it, so right now there are only the absolute essentials.
• The pictures in the WiP section of the sidebar are now linked to their respective pages - so when you click e.g. on the Dragon pic, it will take you to the Dragon Luck WiP page.
• Trolly didn’t put the contents of his newest box on his blog. NOOOOOOOOOO! *giggle*
• I have coffee, and tonight there’ll be Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves on the tv. That’s doubtlessly a ploy along the lines of “Harrharr, we’ll just be showing crappy old movies so everyone will watch the hockey!” Not working, guys. Especially if you’re giving me Alan Rickman, who will be talking, which is better than coffee. And chocolate. And a lot of other things. A LOT. Rawr.
• I’m half done with the Quaker Sampler. It’s such fun to work with overdyed threads. Click the thumbnail to get to the WiP page with more pictures.

• I made a Finish a month or so ago that I forgot to announce. It’s an adorable PINN pattern. I just found a companion piece called Mermaid Heaven, and I think I will remake them both on Polstitches fabric. Click the pic to go to the page.

Popularity: 75% [?]

Tags: Blogosphere, Finish, Little Mermaid, Pesky Real L, Quaker Sampler, Stitching, WiP

My new blog design got finished today, and I love it!

I’m impressed with Joni from Elegant Webscapes, not only for the beautiful design, but for not going insane with my ever-unprecise explanation of “something purple that flows, and flowers, fairies and cross stitch”.

I also got the newest Wordpress and a few nifty plug ins installed. For example, the nifty thing you see when you mouse over ”Joni” or “Elegant Webscapes”.

Now, when you comment and I reply, my answer will appear here under comments, and will at the same time be emailed to you. I really like that feature, because I for one always forget to come and check back to see if any of my comments have received an answer.

Today I have been tagging all the posts - phew! The old version of Wordpress didn’t have any tags. I’ve upload all the WiP’s to the sidebar. The pics are not linked yet, that will be fixed tomorrow.

I’ve also updated the WiP and Finishes pages. The rest of the pages will come over the next weeks.

I hope you like it as much as I do :) 

Popularity: 69% [?]

Tags: Blogosphere

Joni said to write a test post so here it is!

Let’s try inserting a random image. Hmmm…

Popularity: 86% [?]

Tags: Pesky Real Life, test

I’m high on painkillers, which is indefintely better than migraine and PMS. Anyway, the tornado ep of Desperate Housewives was on (don’t you dare spoil me, I have no clue who’s alive and dead yet!). I love Desperate Housewives, this season is great - I’m looking forward to watching it every week.

Today’s source of amusement:

Carlos, seeing Gaby is packing two giant suitcases, “I told you to pack only the neccessities!”

Gaby: ” These are neccesseties!”

Carlos *points*: “Is that a boa?” 

Yes, I’m easily amused.

Popularity: 73% [?]

Tags: Pesky Real Life

Work today went like this.

Got an adorable older couple. Guy has heart problems. He’s also had pain in his calf and foot for a few days, so I can’t rule out thrombosis.

Normally, I would send him to radiology. If all’s good, they send him back to me. If something’s wrong, they send him to surgery.

Today, surgery’s on strike. They only take prio 1 patients (equalling Take care of me NOW or I die!) which adorable older guy clearly wasn’t.  

That just meant they could have sent him back to me though even if there was anything on the x-rays. Problem was, it was past four and we close at five, so he wouldn’t have made it back. Normally in that case he would have been seen by the surgery doc on call, but alas, strike.

So I tell him I’d be right back after clearling the logistics and go to Boss Nurse, who knows just about everything.

Me: Blahblah guy leg radiology blahblah surgery blah what now?

She: Hmmmm. That’s a very good question.

Oh God. 

She: I don’t have a clue. You should call radiology.

Okay.

Me: Hi, radiology nurse! Blahblah guy leg radiology blahblah surgery blah what now?

Radiology Nurse: Hmmmm. That’s a very good question.

…

Radiology Nurse: Wait a sec, I will go and ask someone.

*cue waiting on the phone for ten minutes, wondering if poor patient has fallen asleep in my office yet*

Radiology Nurse: Um, I really don’t have a clue. How about we do the exam first thing tomorrow morning, and surgery will be open then too!

I’m really glad I didn’t get any real emergencies today.

Popularity: 77% [?]

Tags: Doctor Stuff

So here’s that update I’ve been promising. Things at work have been somewhat more tense the last week. I think the reason is that all over the country, nurses are going on strike. Here in Tinytown things will start to get funny on Monday.

Nurses here study for four years. They’re generally very well educated and do an amazing job. They’re also mainly female, and have two employers to choose from - in other words, they’re screwed. I’m all for them getting more money.

The only “but” there is that I wish they wouldn’t have to strike for it. It should just be bloody obvious to people that you should pay them according to the quality of their work, which they’re not right now. So they’re striking.

The thing is of course, that without them, nothing works. So even though the doctors, secretaries, assistant nurses and so on are working, the units in which the nurses are striking are still closing down.

In our hospitals it’s basically surgery, medicine and the ER. Of course they’re always taking real emergencies (meaning, if you have a heart attack, no one will send you home, but if you come in with a sore throat you’re out of luck) and the hospitals here and in Slightly-Bigger-Town are working together, so that the ER is open in one of the two.

Since I’m working in GP right now, for me this means that lots of the patients who would have gone to the ER during the night or weekend (the sore throat variety) will now be calling us in the morning instead.

The nurses’ union has asked for neutrality from the doctors’ union which has been granted. Meaning, we are not supposed to do any additional work that would normally done by nurses, so as not to dilute the effects of the strike.

Our nurses in GP won’t strike, and we have received a note that while we are to be neutral, our employer has the right to revoke free days and to prolong working hours. Which they promptly did, and I don’t especially like having ten minute appointments - mostly because I think my patients don’t really like having those, there’s not too much time to get any kind of talk, trust or relationship going. And of course they’re saying, this is neutrality because you’re not doing the nurses’ work, you’re doing the work the doctors in the ER would normally do! Which to me doesn’t really fly, and I feel like a strike breaker.

It makes me feel uneasy. There’s nothing I can do about it, really, and I can see on the other hand how it’s better the patient get a short appointment than not getting any, but - well, it’s making me uneasy. I remember when I was five, six years old and my grandfather was the president of Germany’s textile union, and how I would walk with him on the May 1st demonstrations, being proud of my red carnation broche. I have been thinking a lot about him these last days. He was an interesting man, managing to combine his work with being a conservative Christian (and voting as one). It has always fascinated me, even though I see myself neither as socialistic or conservative.

All that’s just to say, hey, work’s been a bit strange.

Friday our Diabetes nurse (who is awesome by the way, and one of the prime examples why they should really get 15% more pay - she knows more about diabetes than any doctor I know) took my bloodpressure. And, yikes. My mom has high bloodpressure, and I know that she found out when she was my age. I have been taking it just to see because of that in the past, but then I remembered I hadn’t checked in a long time.

Anyway, she was alarmed enough to give me the 24 hours - erm, thingo? You know, you fix the cuff on your arm and have a cable around your shoulder, and a little box on a belt that you’re carrying for 24 hours. It checks every 30 minutes, and every hour at night.

Yes, that does mean I didn’t sleep tonight, because every hour the damn thing made BZZZZZZZZZZZZ and blew up until I thought my arm would fall off. ARGH.

And just in case I will deny it later, if I’m lying over 140/90 average, I shall do the exercise thing till the end of the year to see if it makes a difference. Because I would so love to not have meds for the rest of my life. At least not yet

On the light side, I’ve been stitching and I’ve finished the Hinzeit Doctor block today, YAY! I’m so very proud of it. While I was working at it I had to keep thinking about how I’m so glad I made it through med school, and thankful that my parents put me through it. I’m happy that I have a job that lets me feel that I sometimes make a difference. It’s the best feeling I know. And while I know that there should be other things in my life that make me happier than my job - well, maybe sometime there will be, but right now I’m just glad I’ve got that. It’s a great thing to have. I feel like I’m doing a good thing, and like I’m doing something I’m good at.

Sentimental blah-blah aside, here you go:

This is it without all the charms attached, because they will be hiding a big part of the caducei:

And this is it with the charms:

And two close ups that show the charms better. They’re adorable, I will definitely do more Hinzeit designs in the future.

This design does mean a lot to me, and I definitely want to buy a frame for it. I don’t know if I should get the frame that’s meant for it and shown in the picture (see in the last post or on Webshots) because I used such different colours, and I would love to have something in another colour. Right now I don’t have the money anyway, but it’s definitely something I want to save for.

Popularity: 100% [?]

Tags: Doctor, Doctor Stuff, Finish, Hinzeit, Memories, Pesky Real Life, Stitching