My name is not Petey

"Are you with PT?" a nurse in the ICU asks me.
"Yep." I reply.

But the thing is, I know that she knows I'm a PT. How does she know? I've worked with dozens of her patients. And 99.9% of the time I talk with patients' nurses before I work with them. And nurses are not dumb. Her question is more or less an in to say "When are you gonna work with my patient?"

The other similar question and more to the fact that the person doesn't know my name is "Hey PT, are you gonna work with Mr. Patient?"

Seriously, I've been working at this hospital for almost a year now. In the same unit for most of that year. And I worked really hard to learn names of doctors, nurses, OT's, Speechies, RT's, CNA's, secretaries, etc. Not just in my unit, but in all the other units I occasionally work. So, that being said, one would think that this nurse who has worked in the ICU for years would try and learn the name of the "new" PT who's been working in her unit for the past how many months.

I mean, when someone new is in the tele unit, I notice, and if I'm seeing them pretty consistently I would try and learn their name. Especially if they are caring for one of my patients. Ya know?? I'm just saying.

Time for Blood Pressure

There aren't enough dynamaps (blood pressure cuff) in my hospital for me to have one all the time so I'm constantly checking blood pressure using wall cuffs. So I have to laugh at myself when I'm pumping up a cuff and I don't see the needle moving. What???

Oh... That's the clock I was looking at, not the pressure gauge. :)

The Dreaded "Not Yet"

Part of my job is to determine how patients respond to activity so when I'm walking patients around in the hospital I have to ask them things like "Are you feeling dizzy? Lightheaded? Nausea? Pain anywhere? Do you feel weak like your knees are gonna buckle underneath you?"

People often deny any of these symptoms or even give me weird looks like I'm crazy for asking them such silly questions. And then, of course, I get the occasional "Not yet." :-0

What does that mean? Are they gonna feel sick, painful, or faint on me in 30 seconds? A minute? Two hours from now? Should I be on complete alert ready to catch them as if they could faint at any second? Is this a contact guard assist or stand-by assist?

Thankfully most of the time I get these particular patients back to their rooms without having to do any fireman carries.









Still, I'm not a fan of "Not yet."

The Sitting Incident with Mr. Hypoglyemic

This is definitely one of the best stories I have starting out as a new PT. I'll never forget this guy. Ever.

A PT eval was ordered for Mr. Hypoglycemic. a 70-something year old man status post abdominal surgery/colostomy. I walk into his room and greet him as I do every other new patient, "Hi, I'm Catalina. I'm from physical therapy and your doctor wanted me to come by and see how you do getting up and around."

Mr. Hypoglycemic, in his very symptomatic hypoglycemic grumpiness, responds, "Listen sweetie. I've run seventeen marathons in my life. I run and work out every day. What can you possibly teach me about physical therapy?" This, coming from a man post-op day 1 and who's in the ICU. I go through the usual eval (strength, ROM, mobility, etc) all trying to keep a smile on my face and not punch this guy for all the lip and attitude he's giving throughout this entire ordeal.

Finally I get him OOB, and he manages to take a few steps to sit in a chair next to his bed. As soon as he sits down he's got this really weird, contorted look on his face and he's not saying anything. I ask him if anything is wrong. He says, "Yeah, I'm sitting on my balls."

"Uh, is there anything I can do?" I say, afraid of the answer.

"Yeah, I'm gonna stand up a little bit and you can just grab them and pull them forward." Yep, that's what I was afraid he was going to say. If it was any other of my nicer patients I wouldn't have minded so much. But this guy was just all mean and nasty to me, which made the whole experience that much more unpleasant.Needless to say, I help him out of his situation and he at least gives me a thank you. I leave hoping this is the last I'll ever have to deal with this guy. Later the nurse comes out and says his blood sugar was really low and she had to give him some just now and maybe that's why he was such a grump this morning.

See, I didn't realize beforehand that his blood sugar was running so low. I just chalked his nastiness up to being an old man completely set in his ways.

The next day he's on my schedule again. I dread it. But then I go up, and he apologizes profusedly about being such cantankerous old man. Smiling, I tell him it's water under the bridge and we've got work to do.

Mr. Hypoglycemic turned out to be one of the coolest guys on my schedule for a while. Yeah he was particular about a lot of things but he was always willing to compromise with me for the sake of his health. The second day I saw him he said, "You and I are going to be great friends, Catalina." I didn't believe him, but lo and behold, we did just that.

Good Bye "A Pacific Fish in the Atlantic Ocean."

I started blogging many moons ago. And then I stopped. And then I sorta started again, but really didn't.

These days I have these great stories (mostly from work as an acute care physical therapist) that I want to tell everyone. I thought, hell, here's as good a place as any to do it.

But before I take this blog in a new direction (from PT student on the East Coast to new PT in Seattle and other great stories) I just wanted to pay homage to how this whole shennanigan began.

Here is the original blog blurb. (hehehe blog blurb is funny sounding)

A Pacific Fish in the Atlantic Ocean
This is the true story of a West Coast girl picked to attend a top physical therapy program on the East Coast and have her life blogged so you can see what happens when she stops being polite and starts getting physical. PT Girl: Newark.

That said, I hope that readers (all 2 of you) enjoy what is to come. :)

My Secret Fear

Whenever I see anyone smoking and drinking alcohol at the same time I'm always secretly afraid they're going to catch themselves on fire.

Finned Migration

This Pacific fish finally bid the Atlantic ocean fucking adieu. It was good times but my moment has come to return, like the Pacific Salmon does yearly, to her home river. I guess that wouldn't be so much of a migration then, would it? This is much more permanent. A total transplantation. Yep.

In any case, with that in mind, it's only natural that I rename this blog. Goodbye "A Pacific Fish in the Atlantic Ocean." Haven't yet thought of a new title. Any suggestions? In the mean time...

David out. ;)

The Naturist and The Ghetto

Almost one complete day of living with Nature Boy and I'm still alive and fully clothed. It is way too strange... I've thought about whether or not I'd ever put myself in this situation again. Hmm... yeah, I just don't see it happening. EVER! Thank gawd he covers his twigs and berries with his hands whenever he faces me.

Another thing I realized. My apartment is in the ghetto. Okay, it's not extremely ghetto. But let's just say I'm a long way from Irvine. I'm in a big Portuguese neighborhood and I don't know if it's just the heat, or the weekend, but it seems like half the neighborhood is hanging out right outside my window until the wee hours of the morning.


Again... this has the makings of a very interesting summer.