Caffeine, stethoscopes, and cameras

Snakes? We know nothing. No, no snakes here.

Mon, 20 May 2013 19:15:20 -0500

Snakes? We know nothing. No, no snakes here.

thatqueerchick: mosshut: just a friendly reminder that for...

Sat, 18 May 2013 16:03:47 -0500

mosshut:

just a friendly reminder that for over a hundred years, pit bulls used to be referred to as “the nanny dog” and their main job was as babysitters.

in temperance tests (the equivalent of how many times your kid can poke your dog in the eye before it bites him) of all breeds the most tolerant was the golden retriever. the second most tolerant was the pit bull. temperament evaluations by the american temperament test society give american pit bull terriers a very high passing rate of 82.6%, while the average passing rate for the other 121 dog breeds tested was only 77%.

pit bulls are not naturally human aggressive. in fact pit bull puppies prefer human company to their mother’s two weeks before all other dogs.

no spayed/neutered, indoor pit bull has ever killed a person.

contrary to the popular myth, pit bulls DO NOT have locking jaws.

approximately 6000 pit bulls are put to death every day, by far the highest number of any breed euthanized.

Also that kid is in a cart being pulled by GOATS.

ENORMOUS GOATS.

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Fri, 17 May 2013 17:53:24 -0500

“I was walking with a ghost” /...

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:25:15 -0500

“I was walking with a ghost” / http://flic.kr/p/ejRF3f

New conch? Sure!

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:36:00 -0500

New conch? Sure!

laughingsquid: The Power of Books, Photo Series Takes the Power...

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:05:48 -0500

laughingsquid:

The Power of Books, Photo Series Takes the Power of Reading Literally

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Thu, 16 May 2013 09:44:06 -0500

deafmuslimpunx: An Indian woman, a Japanese woman, and a Syrian...

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:36:56 -0500

deafmuslimpunx:

An Indian woman, a Japanese woman, and a Syrian woman, all training to be doctors at Women’s Medical College of Philadelphia, 1880s. (Image courtesy Legacy Center, Drexel University College of Medicine Archives, Philadelphia, PA. Image #p0103) (x)

I've had better times in my life

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:10:17 -0500

I’ve had WORSE times as well. In fact, my outside life is just fine, with some little relatively unimportant exceptions that, of course, I blow up in to hideous disasters in my head. Inside, it is challenging to be me lately.

I’m basically able to do nothing but the absolute bare minimum to keep things going, and even that is getting debatable (how bad SHOULD my yard get before I drag out to mow it?). I prefer to sleep. All the time. I have done ridiculous things like spend all morning just trying to get out of bed; it’s as if being anxious for so long has finally sucked every morsel of energy from me. I seriously spent 4 hours just trying to get up and take a shower. I finally got it done, but that was about it for the day.

It can’t be totally the case that I am inept, however. I am able to go to work and take care of the animals, wash the dishes, do laundry, and so on. In fact I’m DELIGHTED to go to work most of the time because I don’t have to decide what to do with myself. Someone will tell me. “Go triage” or “assume care of those three patients” or whatever. And I’m good at my job, and it normally prevents me from being afraid of anything because I’m in an EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT. Emergencies are expected there, and we can fix most of them, and emergencies that actually occur are far easier to handle that the ones between my ears than never materialize (the two times I’ve had anxiety/cardiac issues at work, I was taking a break!).

The bad times are when I am home with unfilled time. I have plenty I COULD DO. I could plant flowers or work out or finish an article or work on a book or find another freelance job (typical example of my head’s machinery: I am pissed off at losing a gig I didn’t want to begin with). I could read a book. I took go take pictures. But usually I don’t do any of that because it’s too exhausting. I have given myself mental gold stars for stuff like “I took a shower!” So I’m probably not going to coordinate a photo walk.

“What,” some have asked, “are you depressed about?” I don’t know. I don’t even know that I am depressed. I know it looks like depression. I also know that anxiety looks an awful lot like depression if it goes on long enough, which mine has. Decades of nearly daily terror apparently catch up with a person. If you ask me what I’m SCARED of, I can readily name 50 things that I am worried about all at the same time. But now that I have actually put enough stress on my heart that it’s cracking under the pressure, I am frozen to the bed or couch with panic that if I move at all the racing pulse will begin, and that, I hate above all.

If I never have to have a panic attack so horrible that I wake up on the floor in a slick sweat, nauseated, with a pounding heart? I will feel like the richest person on earth. Until then I’m apparently fashioning a lonely agoraphobic life for myself, unintentionally.

I have a feeling this is the kind of mental habit that gets quickly difficult to reverse, so I’m making myself do one thing a day. Overachiever, huh. But that’s more than NOTHING each day. Today, I’m going to have my hair done AND see my therapist. Two things! For some reason, he seems to feel that we need to talk.

I started to write a “sorry I’m not posting” post until I remembered those annoy me. Don’t clutter my feeds with that shit. Post if you want or don’t if you don’t, I mean, there’s plenty of other stuff out there to read. But I wrote it anyway because when I read stuff like this, I think, “Thank GOD other people feel this way.”

No, really, I don't need any credit!

Mon, 13 May 2013 16:56:06 -0500

I don’t mind. REALLY.

I’m the lowly nurse in there sweating in a totally untenable position to hold down the patient fighting against a procedure. I’m the one filling up linen bags with sheets wet with diarrhea and vomit and swilling patients down so they feel clean and nice, and all that after starting an IV in a finger because that’s all they had and “my God, I didn’t even feel that, you’re a genius!”

I’m the one holding a child’s hand while she screams with fear and pain and somehow managing to convince her that this next pain is necessary…an IV, moving a broken bone for an x-ray, grating bone against bone for a splint.

I’m the one endlessly reassuring patients and parents and sons and daughters, explaining again what that was the doctor just said. Explaining I’m sorry, he is going to die soon, is what the doctor said. It’s me, at the bedside, holding wrinkled old hands and smooth bloody young ones while the pulse flickers and fades.

And I’m the one who thought ahead and got those blood cultures and a chest x-ray on the hypoxic febrile patient who was really here for hip pain after a fall, because gee, that fall was a result of that bad pneumonia.

I really don’t mind when, after all that, everyone in the room says, “Thank you so much, doctor!”

I don’t mind at all.

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Sun, 12 May 2013 17:55:00 -0500

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Sun, 12 May 2013 16:38:35 -0500

brennabenevolence: I wish I could do this to most people all...

Fri, 10 May 2013 08:22:05 -0500

brennabenevolence:

I wish I could do this to most people all the time.

Gawd I luff her. Total girl crush.

Thu, 09 May 2013 21:59:04 -0500

Gawd I luff her. Total girl crush.

nevver: The living are only a species of the dead

Wed, 08 May 2013 19:27:32 -0500

nevver:

The living are only a species of the dead

More rules for life

Wed, 08 May 2013 17:14:50 -0500

I was bowled over by the awesomeness of the Bloggess’s rules for life (here). So I posted them on Facebook. My BFF the FOD (Fairy of Doom) reminded me that we ALREADY have rules for life, so I felt I should add to the “rules for life” circulating today. Here are ours:

Keep your head on the right side of the oven door [meaning “correct”].
Interpersonal violence of any kind is unacceptable.
Anyone with 10 or more televisions is, by definition, unfuckable (NB: the count is understood to include little mobile TVs that some people have in their mini-vans).
If you don’t know what it is, don’t put it in your mouth.
Never piss off a rhinoceros.
Unstaple your underwear from your pants, and move on.

In the interest of full disclosure, rule 6 came long after the other 5 and was inspired by an incident at work (mine, not hers)—-but I probably didn’t have to tell you that. Each rule is based on a real-life experience.

Think of all the trouble you could save yourself if only you followed these rules!

(by xxfromneptune)

Sat, 04 May 2013 17:54:52 -0500

(by xxfromneptune)

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Sat, 04 May 2013 16:33:04 -0500

I like this a lot.

Sat, 04 May 2013 16:03:34 -0500

I like this a lot.

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Sat, 04 May 2013 16:02:15 -0500