Month: April 2009

Categories Everyday Life

Finding my feet

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I don’t know what a “typical” dietetics internship looks like, but I’m willing to bet that this isn’t it.

I arrived at work on the first day of my fourth week of clinical rotations to discover that my preceptor’s mother had died–which meant my preceptor would be gone for a week. Which meant the medical-oncology floor would be missing a dietitian.

I have to say the experience has knocked me off balance a bit–but I think I’m finally finding my feet. And I’m sure I’ll be a stronger dietitian because of it. Allow me to elaborate:

Monday

Site visitors from ADA came to inspect the internship. The interns ate breakfast with them and answered questions.

I arrived at work an hour and a half later than normal. I discovered that Mary’s mother had died. I realized that two other dietitians were already off. I realized that left me and two dietitians to handle the whole hospital. I freaked out. (Okay, not exactly–only in my mind.)

I’m not sure what I did on Monday, except that I saw a lot of patients and looked over a lot of charts. And stayed an hour and a half later than normal.

Tuesday

I arrived at work ten minutes earlier than usual. I knew I needed to be at the top of my game. I gathered up the new referrals for my floor. Dear heavens, there were about a hundred. And all my old patients were still around. I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off. But I did manage to see all the patients.

I realized there was no way that I could continue seeing every single patient every single day. There are just too many of them. I noticed the system the other dietitians were using to determine when they needed to see a patient again. It’s brilliant. Crazy I hadn’t figured that out already. And kind of funny that no one showed me. Oh well!

I had a collection of patients that I wasn’t sure what to do with at the end of the day. One of the other dietitians walked me through the process. I felt like I was learning in hyperdrive. Just watching her flick back and forth, hearing her questions went loads towards helping me develop the all-important clinical judgment.

What about their BM’s? I’d never even thought to check on those before. Considering IV fluids to account for sharp drops in blood values. Balancing one diagnosis with another. It was fascinating. I worked an hour and a half longer than usual.

By the time I got home, I’d determined that I needed a new assessment worksheet. I needed a worksheet that would enable me to arrange my information in a way that will allow me to RAPIDLY reassess a patient–instead of wasting so much time trying to figure out where I’d written that particular bit of information. I drafted a new worksheet while watching “That Thing You Do” with my sisters.

Today

I arrived at work to find a whole new slew of patients. But I already had at least 8 patients that I needed to follow up with and chart on. That means I wouldn’t have time to handle all 7 or 8 new patients. So I picked out three and got started.

I only used my personal assessment sheets on the new patients–I didn’t want to waste time copying information that’s already there. But I’m noticing that it takes half as much time to do a chart review with my assessment. Yay for efficiency!

The only thing I can’t speed up is the other clinicians–and the patients and their families. I still wait outside of doors for the doctor to finish his consult. Or, even worse, for the entire family (of a dozen or so) to leave the room so I can speak to the patient in relative peace. I still spent plenty of time criss-crossing the floor waiting for charts and patients to become available.

But I got nine patients seen and charted–and I didn’t even need to ask for help (except for one patient, for whom I couldn’t discover a nutrition problem warranting charting). And I left at the time I normally do (did). I had to defer one new admit and one follow up visit due to the patients not being available. But all in all, I felt good about how things went. Especially because there are only three follow-ups due tomorrow.

But then…

On the way home, I realized that I’m going to be gone all Friday at a conference. Which means I need to follow up with everybody who’s “due” on Friday tomorrow. Except that on Fridays I have to follow up with everybody who’s “due” over the weekend. Meaning that tomorrow, I have: 1 new admit left over from today, 1 follow up left over from today, 3 Thursday follow ups, 6 Saturday follow ups, and 7 Sunday follow ups That’s a grand total of 18 patients–all of whom I have to document. And that’s not including new admits.

Yikes!

So if you have a few prayers to spare, you can drop a line for me and my patients. Pray that I’ll have clarity of mind and efficiency–but that I’ll provide top line care. Pray that I’ll know who to cover myself and who I need to hand off to another dietitian. And above all, pray that my patients show dramatic improvement and can be discharged before I have to see them tomorrow! (Not all of them–I’d settle for half maybe ;-P)

Mm-hm. This is what you could call a steep learning curve. I’m just praying that tomorrow doesn’t knock me off the balance I’ve so recently started to attain.

Categories Simple Sunday

Simple Sunday: A God who Heals

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Thankful for friends who pray and a God who heals.

“If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.” (Exodus 15:26)

In Christ, I have heeded the voice of God and done what is right in His sight. While in my flesh, I have not kept the commandments of God–in Christ, I have fulfilled all the commandments and statutes of God. And in Christ, I am healed.

Thankful for those willing to stand with me in believing that God can heal and is healing me.

Find more Simple Sunday posts at Life on Sylvan Drive.

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Categories Everyday Life

If this is what working the weekends is like…

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I’d be glad to work every Saturday!

Just imagine it with me.

It’s a busy day. I have half a dozen follow-ups, half a dozen new admits. Nonetheless, I don’t have to jockey for charts; I don’t have to fight for a computer. I just grab the chart and jot down a few notes, see my patients and write down a few more notes, sit down at a computer and write my official “note”.

I’ve got a lot of patients–enough to keep me busy all day–but without all the people that are around on weekdays, I’m twice as efficient. I eat lunch when I’m hungry, and enjoy a book while I eat–I can actually spend time alone at work. It’s amazing.

Then there’s the interaction with patients and staff. Weekends are a whole different game. Instead of a hundred assortedly garbed health care workers busily running about, anxiously buzzing, a skeleton staff does their work with quiet efficiency–but not so much efficiency that they can’t be decent to each other.

They say, “Did I hear you say you’re with dietary? Do you mind stopping in to see so-and-so? She was asking to talk with a dietitian.” A doctor, a nurse, and I confer briefly about a troublesome patient. Another nurse reassures me that she’s taking a tray in right now for the fellow I just saw, who was anxious because he hadn’t eaten yet. I chat comfortably with one of the environmental services workers as we walk the same hallway together.

It’s a nice change of pace. Comfortable, efficient, friendly. I really would love to work every weekend, if this is what weekends are like.

Categories Thankfulness

For this and so much more, O Lord, I give You thanks

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Busy, caught up in her own life, rushed about her business. The only time she comes to Him is when she has a problem. He solves her problem and she skips away, busy about the business of doing whatever she was at first–before He touched her.

I have been that girl too many times to count. But yesterday, I was reminded to be thankful through the story of the ten lepers healed by Christ. He healed ten, but only one, only ONE, returned to thank Him. And what a shame, that ONE was a samaritan. How shameful that the nine others, presumably of the chosen people, failed to thank the Chosen One, their long-awaited Messiah.

So, for once, I’m going to not complain about the weather or my back or whatever I might complain about. I’m going to take a while to return thanks.

Thank You, Lord…
…that I never lost my voice
…that my voice is almost back to normal
…that I was able to work consistently throughout this little cold
…for sunshine and wind and a ceiling fan for my room
…for roommates who cook and a friend who comes to quilt
…for dozens of pairs of shoes and opportunity to wear them
…for thirteen flights of stairs and the comfortable joy of feeling my body grow stronger
…for a mind to read charts, an ear to hear my patient’s needs, and a gentle reminder to offer more than just physical food
For these things and so much more, O Lord, I give You thanks.

Categories Family & Friends

A History of Hair: The Long and the Short

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Many who have known me in my past ten or so years would have a hard time believing that my hair has ever truly been short. But it has. I offer you compelling photographic proof:

Exhibit A: I am born bald

Rebekah a few days old--and completely bald

Exhibit B: I am one–and still bald

Rebekah as a one year old--and still bald

Exhibits C and D: I begin to grow hair in my second and third years of life.

Rebekah at 2--with the beginnings of hair

Rebekah at 3--she almost has a whole head of hair

Exhibit E: I am bald

Rebekah at 3 1/2--and completely bald

My older sister, then almost five, began her haircutting career with a bang. She cut my hair and her own. No doubt she was excited to debut our ‘do’s at my uncle’s upcoming wedding (2 weeks away).

We were driven off to the barber’s to get our first non-Mom cuts. When we were done, we looked a little better, but still like little boys. I suppose I was lucky–at least they could get mine all even. Anna’s hair was clipped to about half an inch–but still had gashes all about. The only way they could have completely fixed her hair was to shave it all off and start over.

My cousin tells us of looking in her birthday party photos from about 6 months later and asking her mom why there were two little boys at her party with the rest of the girls. Anna remembers being mortified at having to wear a big floppy bow over her head at my uncle’s wedding. I don’t really remember the event that much. I guess it wasn’t that big of a deal to me (or something).

At any rate, I did get over it eventually–and my hair did grow back. It took a year and a half–but I would look like a girl yet again.

Exhibit F: My hair grows back

Rebekah's 5th birthday--she has hair again

Lest you get the wrong impression about my sister’s hair-cutting skills, I will clarify. She and Mom now tie as the most adept hair-cutter’s in our family. Both are highly in demand. I, on the other hand, rank a distant third after almost cutting off my brother John’s ear (never try to cut the hair of a squirrelly eight year old, no matter how hard he begs). Now, I can cut a half-way decent crew, and can operate the clippers with no problem–but it’s probably just as quick to do it yourself.

Categories None

Hair Days

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I’ll bet you (Becky) thought I’d forgotten about answering those blog-o-versary questions. If so, you’re only partially correct. I’ve been preoccupied with my new clinical rotation and with redesigning bekahcubed and with fixing my hair each and every morning.

At the beginning of March, I wrote in my journal (yes, I keep a paper one as well):

Sometimes hair’s more trouble than it’s worth.

Every couple of uses or so, my vacuum stops working–and I have to perform an emergency operation to remove the hair that’s wound around the beater.

If I don’t catch it quickly enough, I’ll end up with the problem I had yesterday–arriving at work to discover that my hem had electrostatically attracted the excess hair from my floors at home–and that said hairs were refusing to let go.

It’s bad enough that I have to clean my bathtub drain after every use–but today I stuck my hand in the slow-draining kitchen disposal–and discovered a wad of hair.

I’ve got hair so long that when my stomach lurches at the entrance of a lost hair into its caverns, I still have enough left hanging out of my mouth to pull the whole strand out.

I’ve got hair long enough I can wind it around my knuckles to use as dental floss–24″ regulation–and still have more to spare.

I envy the olden days ladies who figured out how to straighten their fallen hairs and use them to make something useful. I’m thinking I could braid a few clumps to use as a belt–or maybe I could make my own line of wigs. Even better, I could unwind the vacuum-spun hanks and market them as an indestructible yarn. Likewise, the mats of drain stoppers could be billed as naturally-felted coasters.

The possibilities are limitless–really–the list longer than my hair. But until I’ve started up my single-woman hair business, I think it’s almost more trouble than it’s worth.

Which begs Becky’s question: “Why is your hair long?” (Or the less kindly put, “If it causes you so much trouble, why on earth do you keep it long?)

Good question.

One, I don’t really mind it that much. I like it as long as it stays on my head–it’s just the limitless strands that shed everywhere that bother me.

Second, I sort of made a vow.

Okay, there’s no “sorta” about it.

As a incredibly romantically minded fourteen year old, I decided that my hair would belong to my husband. I haven’t cut it since.

I’ve made some discoveries throughout my long-haired journey. 1) I’ve discovered that this is as long as my hair gets. 2) I’ve discovered that long hair often evokes the question “What religion are you?” 3) I’ve discovered that long-haired individuals CANNOT take chances when it comes to cooking with an uncovered head. (Face it, it’s pretty easy to figure out whose hair is in the food if said hair is two feet long.) 4) I’ve discovered that I go through shampoo quite a bit faster than my short-haired peers.

But I still look at my hair in the shadows I cast on the pavement walking and think “Man, if only I had that gorgeous of hair in real life.” And I still look behind me to see who someone’s talking to when they comment about long hair. And I still gasp a bit when I pull out a hair, just for curiosity sake and hold it up to a yardstick. Twenty-six inches. It sure doesn’t feel that long. But I like it. So I keep it.

A little schoolgirl romance, a little longing for the eighteen-hundreds, a little (penny-wise, pound foolish) laziness thrown in, and I’ve got long hair.

Categories Technology

The new and improved bekahcubed

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Despite spending almost every non-working waking hour on my computer, I have not posted since Monday.

That’s because I’ve been working on the newest version of bekahcubed: version 7. New features include a fresh new site design, more easily updatable links, and better compatibility with Internet Explorer (hopefully).

I began to see the need for a change when I viewed my site on someone else’s Internet Explorer. The main page worked fine, but higher up files were all out of whack.

I’m something of a nerd–and I do all my own html (hypertext markup language), css (cascading style sheets), and rss (rich site summary or really simple syndication). But I don’t have endless time to design and my knowledge is fairly limited (although expanding all the time.)

I worked up version 6 after I’d switched to Mozilla Firefox as my web browser. While I checked the main page once or twice on IE, I didn’t pay too much attention to trying to solve the IE bugs.

But, having seen the results in IE, I see the need for a change. So Internet Explorer is a buggy, decrepit browser that doesn’t even attempt to follow the W3C standards for web browsers–but just because someone has not taken advantage of the amazing, free Mozilla Firefox doesn’t mean I should exclude them from my site.

The new version has some additional properties that will make it easier for me to make changes quickly without having to open up half a dozen hundred files and meticulously add, delete, or rewrite code. That should decrease my stress quite a bit–and hopefully enable you to enjoy an even higher quality site.

Categories Faith

Rated “R” for…

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The family watched The Passion of the Christ last night and whiled away our intermission by speculating on why exactly it was rated “R”.

Our conclusion was that it must have been rated “R” because it is a:

Realistic* Retelling of the death of the Righteous Christ, through whom we are saved from wRath, are Redeemed, Reborn, Ransomed, Reconciled, and brought into Relationship with God.

* Additionally, some segments contain visuals of the Raw, Reddened Christ wRithing as Romans Repetitively Rip open His body to the Rabid Roar of the Raging crowd.

Categories Reflections

Girl Talk (by Which I mean “Boys”)

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At the DMV

Imagine the scene: A girl has just finished registering her car at the DMV. She turns aside to leave, “inadvertently” dropping her pen on the floor. She bends down to retrieve the pen. So does the guy at the booth next to her. They both look up, see one another, and walk off together to the lobby to talk for a while.

Sounds like a penny-dreadful, doesn’t it? And the girl seems ridiculously coy.

But it wasn’t like that at all. I mean, it looks like that–but that’s not how it really happened. I didn’t intend to drop the pen. And I never expected someone else to pick it up. And I didn’t expect the person who picked it up to be one of my former employees and a fellow grad student. What choice did I have but to briefly catch up with a former employee I haven’t seen or talked to since I resigned last December?

At the Hospital

Hospitals can be teaming with attractive men. That’s just the simple truth. Even my menopausal preceptor agrees–much to her daughter’s chagrin. The dietitian told me today that she responds to her daughter’s comments with “I can look, as long as I don’t taste.”

We were heading out onto the floor when a man walked out of the dining room. “That’s the one I told you about,” my dietitian whispered to me. And he was attractive, to say the least. He looked to be heading toward the elevators, so she directed us towards the elevators too. But he walked past the elevators and turned the corner (probably going to the stairs instead.) I couldn’t tell if she really was disappointed–but I could tell that I was relieved. It’s uncomfortable enough that she tells me she finds him attractive. It would be even more uncomfortable if I found myself stuck in the elevator (which makes me woozy anyway) with a rather good looking YOUNG man (I didn’t catch whether he was a doctor or a physical therapist) AND a slightly stalkerish older woman.

Unfortunately, they’re everywhere. Fortunately, we steer a WIDE berth around the doctors–meaning that I would consider myself VERY silly to go cuckoo over any of them. And I would NEVER be silly!

At the Grocery Store?

To answer Becky’s question, I have not seen the hot grocery guy since I first blogged about him. But having read her (Becky’s) insightful suggestions, I know just what to say should I run into him again. (I’m personally partial to “Boy, it sure is cold outside–and you are so HOT!” That one had me laughing for a week or so.)

Categories Everyday Life, Technology

Women aren’t supposed to forget…

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Forgetting anniversaries is popularly reckoned as man’s domain. Women aren’t supposed to forget. But, in my case, I’m not sure I remembered in the first place.

I’m talking about my “blog-o-versary”–the day that marks the beginning of my blog. Of course, discovering the exact day that I started blogging is somewhat difficult since “bekahcubed” has existed in some incarnation or another for five or more years.

However, while participating in Becky’s Birthday Carnival, I discovered that it was a year and a day ago that I began posting on a regular basis.

So, in honor of my forgotten “blog-o-versary”, I would like to share a few fun facts about myself–and invite you to ask me some questions that I shall attempt to answer over the next month.

Fact: Paul Menter is my father, not my husband.
We were talking just yesterday about how people look at us strangely when we go shopping together–undoubtedly assuming that I am the “trophy wife.” Then my new preceptor assumed today that the “Paul Menter” on my emergency contact information must be my husband–since it was just a male name instead of two names together. So, just to clear up any confusion: I am unmarried, and my dad is happily married to my mom.

Fact: I do not believe in any such thing as bad food.
The first thing people say when they hear that I’m becoming a dietitian is some variant on, “Oh, I know I eat all kinds of bad foods.” I disagree. Food is good–and that means all of it. That means carrots and celery and fresh baked muffins and white bread and bananas and swiss cake rolls and potato chips. That means juice and fruit drinks and soda pop made with (gasp) high fructose corn syrup. I despise the kind of “nutrition” that puts endless rules on what people can and cannot eat and completely zaps the fun out of food. I abhor the philosophy that “food is just fuel for my body.” Food is not a moral issue–food is food. It’s something that fuels our bodies, soothes our minds, brings us together, imparts meaning into our rituals. Food is integral to early socialization, to language development, to family togetherness. Jesus’ first miracle was at a feast–and he chose a feast to forever commemorate His crucifixion. Food is not bad–it’s good. The question isn’t whether a food is good or bad, but whether we use it in an appropriate way.

Fact: I like sardines…but only if they’re packed in mustard sauce.
My family calls them fish tails in mustard. They’re a great source of calcium and Omega 3 fatty acids–in addition to tasting fantastic. One time, I accidentally bought sardines packed in olive oil. I took one bite and gagged. They were disgusting! I couldn’t eat more. I did learn, however, that uneaten sardines in olive oil should be disposed of in an outdoor trashcan rather than left in the kitchen. EEEEWWW!

And now that I’ve shared a bit about myself, what else would you like to know?