Chocaholic

Easter falls too early this year. The department kitchen is already stuffed with chocolate eggs and chickens. I discovered last night I 'm a secretive eater of chocolate in the night.Bye bye dieting, hello pimples ! Stupid Easter Bunny ! That 'll show him !

We are ABsolutely FABulous !

The only rotten thing about night work, is the death of your social life. It happens when you sleep when other people are awake and vice verse. In this period of nights, I'm missing no less than three quizzes and a concert by The Waterboys. (Already seen them twice, they're great!).

Last night, the annual inter-hospital quiz took place, a big event with our three fusion hospitals. I was a bit sad, because I had to miss it, it was big time fun last year. Our department quiz delegation named 'The Subdurals' (guess who invented that name ...) was also disappointed because of me, thinking of me as 'The Brain', and them not being able to win without me.
Now guys, don't be so modest. You won ! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, they actually won the big hospital quiz !
Kat rang me with a blurry voice at 00.30h :'We won sis quiz thing, sweetie, oops, sorry, I think I drank too much booze already !'.
They all won eight film tickets each and are going to take me along to the cinema with them.

HURRAY FOR THE SUBDURALS ! ! !

This is what I did last night :

• Tiptoed from room to room all night
• Scolded & swore because the intranet computer system was down for too long, so I had to hurry with administration
• Cleaned up the department a bit, because it looked like a bomb exploded at the late shifters
• Got myself all wet and sticky while messing with a glucose solution and piercing the bloody thing in the dark.
• Sent a couple of text messages, but didn't get anything back
• Ate home made fruit salad

'Sigh ... ' only four to go ...

Brain Damage

I was entertaining myself in the corridor of our department on a quiet moment, when a gynaecology patient came strolling in. The gynaecology department is on the same floor, so when their patients are almost fully recovered, they sometimes hop over to our corridor to have a walk.

Our walls are covered with drawings, photographs and sketches of brain surgery, back surgery and stuff like that. We always have to do some explaining, and it 's easy to have a drawing of certain matters hanging around then.

The gynae patient looked very interested at the drawings. 'So this is a drawing of your bowels then ?', she smiled at me, being very sure that her question was a sign of her exquisite knowledge of anatomy.

Do a mantra Heidi : I will not laugh with the patients, I will not laugh with the patients ...

'No madam, that is a fine drawing of your brain,' I explained

'Am I not on the gynaecology department any more ?' she asked surprised

Mantra, Heidi, mantra very hard !

'No ma'am, this is the neurosurgery department, we're on the same floor', I patiently replied

'So they are doing brain surgery down here !' she said, her face giving me a scared expression

'Yes, neurosurgery and brain surgery, madam'

silently mantra-ing ...

'So, then, ..., they do operations on your BRAINS down here !!! ???', She now looked terrified

mantra,mantra,mantra,mantra, pppfffffrrrrtt

'Yes', I finally sighed, just being able to keep from laughing. Which was already too late for Kat and an assistant doctor behind our desk, they were hiding themselves and sneezing with laughter, only visible for me.

The gynaecology patient gave me a scared look, like I was a devil from hell, treating those poor brain surgery patients. Then she wobbled back to her room very fast.

Nursing Night 2007

Not much to say about the annual Nursing Night party on Friday. Maybe I'm getting too old for things like this.
The Nursing Night is a big party organised by the student organizations of Antwerpen. So it's a gathering of all Antwerp nurses and friends, which is quite nice.
The party was really crowded, the music was too much hip-hop/house - like for me, and I didn't feel like much dancing. And, oh bloody, at 12 'o clock, it was my birthday. I gave everybody that I knew a drink, got a lot of kisses and hugs to comfort me, but that didn't help me in not feeling very old. And on top of that, a stupid sponsored photographer came towards us, wanting to take a picture of Tammy and me. At first I said 'no', but he insisted on taking it, said I shouldn't be such a shy girl.
As the party went on, I saw photographs appearing on a lighted wall on the side of the room.
'Tammy, oh no', I shouted, 'Maybe we're hanging there together on the wall!'
Very excited, she dragged me over there, to have a look. And yes, aargh, we were hanging there, firmly secured with tape, so you couldn't tear us off.
But hey, a lot of people do not know me yet, I suppose! I spied around and in a momentary impulse, I tore the photo down and quickly ran away to my friends...
Of course I showed it to everybody, you can see it on top of this post. Rather nice, isn't it ?

Annual Nursing Christmas Celebration

Last Thursday we had our annual Christmas party of the neurosurgical nursing department. We thought about doing something different this year, so we went for a culinary walk in Lier with matching diner in a restaurant afterwards.
Now what's so funny about celebrating Christmas in February, huh ? Don't laugh! It's cool to do that, away from the mumbo jumbo at the end of the year.

Tammy picked me up at work and we drove to Lier. Getting there wasn't so hard, but finding a parking space was the tricky part of the deal. So we did some nice sightseeing in Lier, drove by the local hospital three times (nursing is a calling, not a profession...), and pwieuw, finally found our boss standing in the middle of the city square and giving us directions.

The culinary walk was a guided tour. The guide was talking about food and food habits in the Middle Ages all the time throughout the walk. Argh, we hadn't seen any since lunch and it was already eight pm ! Why was this woman torturing us with her talks about sausages, baked herring, roasted pigs and cherries with meatloaf. I think you could trace our footsteps by the dripping saliva from our mouths.
'And nowadays', the guide said,'you also can have a culinary good time in Lier. You can go in one of the restaurants for a meal. And we even have a genuine cocktail bar, where you can drink very nice cocktails like Mosquitoes and so' ...

I trotted to my friend.
'Tammy', I whispered, 'what kind of a cocktail is a Mosquito? Am I being blond again or what?'.
'Dunno', Tammy said, 'I think it's a local specialty from Lier, never heard of it'

After an hour and a half of walk, we finally arrived at the restaurant where we were going to eat our dinner. It was a three course menu:
- Loze Gommersoep: some kind of winter vegetable soup
- Konijn van het Begijn : Rabbit stewed in local brewed beer with mushrooms and onions
- Lierse Mette : dessert with pudding and cherry sauce

After a few glasses of wine, our table party started reflecting on the guided tour. We learned a lot about 'Begijntjes' : They were devoted women, who were not necessarily poor and lived in little houses together in the 'Begijnhof'. These women were not married and a lot of them were nurses. We thought they were very cool ! So on the first picture, you can see Tinny, Tammy and me, imitating the Begijntjes.
On the next picture you can see what happens when you give me a large glass of white wine. I start imitating the food on my plate. This is me, doing the 'Konijn van het Begijn' - look.

Things really started to get fun, when Kat told the penis joke again, in front of our whole table. I started laughing again with it, couldn't stop like before.
'It's funny down there', I heard a mumbling from the other table, 'I can hear Heidi's laughter'.
Uh oh, am I getting a reputation at work or what ?

I drove home again, with Tammy and Kat, the three of us thinking that getting out of Lier wouldn't be so hard than getting into the bloody town. Were we wrong ...
We saw the local hospital again, honked at two men peeing at a sign post and finally asked for directions from a nice handsome bloke.

It was a non-forgettable night, having a lot of fun with the colleagues. We didn't taste the mosquito cocktail though, we should return to Lier for that...
But the rabbit stew would also be remembered : Kat told me she puked during the night and I had a stomach ache and rumbling bowels all night long.
I told everybody a dozen times but nobody listens:
Fluffy furry animals are not edible !

Gyneacologist in disguise

Friday noon, rushing to the hospital cafeteria, to enjoy our half hour break for lunch. The hospital gives us the opportunity to eat very cheap warm meals, healthy and quite edible too. So I joined the long waiting line, as my other colleagues badged already, waving me goodbye with their lunchboxes in their hands. Dammit, why do I have to spend five minutes of my half hour, standing in a line waiting for food.
'Do hurry up and move forward', I said in my hoarse sexy voice and playfully pricked my finger into the waist of the man in front of me. He was wearing a sloppy jogging and was standing there, dreaming and leaving a gap in the waiting line.
'Oh, what's the rush', he said, 'Nothing you can do about it anyway'
So we started talking a bit, as to pass the time. He asked for which department I was working, and he told me he found neurosurgery also an interesting matter. Then he fumbled a little piece of paper out of his pocket, wrote something on it in illegible handwriting and stowed it away again. He was kind of strange looking, this fellow, I had never seen him before in the hospital. Maybe some guy that came to aid the technical department, or maybe some delivery boy or something. 'So what are you doing in the hospital ?', I asked him
'I'm a gynaecologist on training in the operating theatre', he told me.
I couldn't say a word at first, gave him another look, and said sarcastically : ' In a jogging suit ? '
He gave me a stealthy smile and unzipped the jacket of his jogging, making sure only I could see the green sexy operating suit underneath. 'I'm in disguise', he sneakily whispered in my ear...

Slippers on fire

The last two days I have been working with my oldest colleague. I really love working with her. She's always calm and skillful and she has the most lovely stories about her years of experience as a nurse. The next story just needs to be shared, it's too funny not to and it's not an urban legend, it's sadly true.

.

About six years ago, a old nun with a hernia came to be operated at our department. Like most hernia operations, she recovered very quick and after a few days, she wanted to take a nice refreshing shower.

We allow patients to take a shower when we think they are capable to do it on their own. So that includes some physical and mental requirements. The nun was an old granny, but hey, she had spirit. So they taped up her wound with second skin bandage and off she went on her pink slippers and gown to our bath-room.

But granny-nun was becoming a bit forgetful, so she had a nice warm shower, without removing her lovely pink slippers. The slippers were made out of this sort of tissue, that just soaks up water, they were dripping all over the corridor.

My boss, always eager to help a patient in need, got an great idea. He took the pink dripping slippers, wringed a bit of the water out of them, and put them into the microwave oven on full heat ...

Kawoush, the slippers caught fire in no time ! Panic all the way, putting out the fire.

So there stood the poor pink slippers, scorched and still smouldering. And the smoke kept coming out of them ! Nothing kept them from smoking, so the boss had another great idea ...

He put the slippers into the deep freezer next to our ice-cream to stop them from smouldering ...

Of course the story wasn't a department secret for long. The neighbour departments started talking about it, the gossip got all around the hospital, up to the editor of the hospital magazine ...

That's how our department became famous in the three fusion hospitals in Antwerpen. The old nun never got her slippers back, they were far too much scorched and destroyed. But she got brand new ones, payed by the hospital direction.

Friday Night Fever

Friday evening, working late shift, trying to get everything done on time. Because ... It 's party time !
Took a quick shower at work, got on my bike and drove to the Antwerpen Bouwcentrum, where the annual new year's reception of the hospital was. Afterwards, there's always a big party, organised by the technical staff of our hospital.
By the time I got to the reception, it was nearly finished. Damn, not a drink to be found, not a nibble left except for some drooly looking olives. My colleague, Kat, stood in a corner, waiting for her boyfriend to show up, with a bottle of cider in one hand and a glass in the other. Tried to steal it from her (the bottle, not the boyfriend), but she just wanted to pour the bubbles into an olive-glass, yuk, so I passed on that one.
Time to go downstairs, where the afterparty was starting. Off we went, turned around the corner to the stairs, and bumped into ... Oh No, my animus and god, the delicious looking new psychiatrist ! ! !
'That's me who did that', Kat whispered, 'I invited him for you, because he wasn't planning on coming to the reception at all. You can thank me for it later. Now let's get him partying!' and she dragged the psychiatrist and another doctor of ours along to the party.
It was the 10Th anniversary of the party going on, so the technical department did an extra effort to make it a special one. They had hired DJ's from the national radio station 'Studio Brussel' and, yeahow, a dance floor with flickering squares, just like the one in the movie with John Travolta.
All right !!! Time to shake some ass !
A nice doctor of our department got us some drinks, and we waited for just a little more, to get in the mood for dancing. The psychiatrist, who is a newbie in the hospital from this year on, just stood there, looking so cute and alone, sipping his drink.
'Go and talk to him', Kat commanded to me, but I told her I couldn't. He's an animus after all, I like them to stay a bit platonic. And, by the way, he has a girlfriend, so cannot get after him anyway.
'Rubbish', she said, 'just go and talk with him. You two 'll get along very nice'. She firmly stepped over to him, dragging me along, and said to him: 'This is Heidi, my colleague, she's a psychologist, did ya know that ?' And then she walked away, leaving me alone with the man. I felt like I could die.
'Are you really ?', he asked, 'I thought you were a nurse?'
'Err, well, actually I am both, but not a therapist though, ehm, experimental and theoretical, ya know, ... ' I muttered. (It's a good thing those parties have dimmed light, because I started to blush very hard by then)
'So you've got two diploma's then, very nice. I dated an experimental psychologist at Uni once, do you perhaps happen to know V ? It's a small world after all, no ?', he shouted in my ear.
Dear lord, yes, I remembered V from university, she's a really special girl, with a weird taste of clothes and a big mouth.
'I know her', I shouted back, happy because I could talk along, 'Isn't she a skinny girl, with a nose piercing? So she's your girlfriend, eh ?'
The man frowned and looked me deep in the eyes: 'She didn't have that when I dated her. But maybe a good thing she isn't my girlfriend anymore then', and gave me a devastating smile that went all the way down to stirr the butterflies in my stomach. Dear Lord, wasn't he gorgeous... what was I doing, huh?
I looked away, searching for an escape route, and saw Kat and Tam, giggling in a corner, watching every move I made with the doc. Grrr, had to get back on those two, little devils, especially on Kat, that is.
I talked a bit more to the psychiatrist, because he told me he didn't knew that much people already in the hospital. He felt a little bit left alone, so I asked him to join our neurosurgery-party-group, telling him we were almost as crazy as the psychiatrists.
We started dancing on the square dance floor, shaking and waggling. (man, did that psy know how to shake ...). The music was great and just when I wanted to go home, they started to play my favorite Golden Earring song. Why does the music always is getting better when I want to go home ?
But this time there was no plane I had to catch, no boyfriend nagging my ears, nobody to take count of. So I started shaking again, going real wild, and stayed for another hour, and another hour and another ... Almost everybody from our department had gone home, only the physiotherapists and me remaining.
Cheers to the technical department, may they happily ever after organise such wonderful parties !
Oh, I 'm obliged to talk about Pete, my friend. He wanted me to promise to not blog about all the silly things he does on our nursing parties. But Petey, hey, I can not promise such a thing, freedom of speech, ya know, sweetheart ? (Don't worry, this blog is about the stupid things that happen to me, not about you)
Erhm, but Pete, have to tell this though : I like partying with you because you get really funny when you're a bit drunk. Don't worry, I 'm not crushing on you or anything (you're me mate, buddy), but I like it when you're tipsy and you don't seem to mind that people get a little bit more 'touchy' with you. Hihi, I do take abuse of that to rub your delicious buttocks a few times, do keep working out, your bum looks great ! But do take me along another time to L'Ilé Afrique to dance, pleaaase ? (Imagine cute looking eyes and begging voice from me along with phrase). I promise I'll help you in your search for a cute, brown, long curly haired girl. (keep searching, you'll find her!).

While I was biking home, early in the morning, birds were already starting to sing in the trees. Suddenly the light came to me : There were 2 V's at university, a tall skinny weird one and a small fat plain one ... The psychiatrist was talking about the small plain one, aarrrrghh, what a mistake to make ... Now I know why he was looking so surprised about the nose piercing. Oh well, duh, I'll have something to talk about when I see him next time then, won't I ?

Industrial Hospital Espionage

Wednesday, as I told before, my boss, our department doctor, two fellow operating theatre nurses and me, went to a presentation at Medtronic in Brussel. Our doctor (at the left in the pic) stole his wife's mono volume car and stuffed the five of us in it. Really cool car, with a GPS build in the dashboard and lots of space. I warned my boss (on the right in pic) that I would take my digi camera with me, so he had to be good or I would show the other nurses at home afterwards.
We arrived on time in Brussel to start at the reception with bubbly and nibbles. Fortunately they did have some raw vegetables on a plate, so my dieting wasn't interrupted.
In a corner of the reception room there was a glass display cupboard, showing all the medical products that the firm was selling. It was a really nice and neat display, with little halogen lamps, the glass not showing any fingerprints, all very posh.
'I want such a display on the department floor, take a picture of it, Heidi', my boss hissed at me. I hesitated for a moment, because it seemed very odd, taking out my camera in the middle of a reception, with all those serious looking people around me. But Hey, they had to start knowing me at that firm, so what the heck : Pulled out the camera from my purse and took a photograph of the display. A few people started looking very odd at me and I felt myself starting to blush a bit ...
'Hihi, industrial espionage', I laughed at them and smiled sheepishly at the men.
Now take a look at that display, ladies and gentlemen, doesn't it look nice ! We are seriously thinking of renting the shelves to the firms, so they can display their material we use, and so we can finance our cupboard.

The presentation started on time, it was very interesting. I'm not going to bore you people much with it, but it was about minimal invasive surgery, percutaneous surgery and dynamic disc systems. I payed very good attention! (Well, how could I do otherwise, sitting between our department doctor and a doctor from Turnhout, I just had to be a good girl) Managed to learn a few new things though, so I'm very happy I could go (Thanks boss, for asking me along !).
After the presentation, there was a 'walking dinner', so you could just scoop up whatever you wanted. First servings were cold dishes, like salmon and carpaggio and vegetables, took a modest plate of them.
After the cold ones, came the warm dishes: turkey, vegetables and those little jacked potatoes with Provencal herbs on them ... couldn't resist those either, but also took a modest serving.
But then, last but not least, Aj Caramba, dessert buffet ...
Sorry folks, just HAD to take one of those delicious petite chocolate mousse bowls, covered with white chocolate sprinkles ... They were just forcing me to take one !
Gonna loose those calories on Friday, while dancing my butt of on the hospital party, that's for sure !

Hospital Urban Legend

The past week has been quite peaceful, a bit too much, so the gynaecology department next to us closed and we fused together. Nice to have an other discipline around, new nurses = new stories. Gynaecology is definitely not my cup of tea, to my opinion it's very hard to work there, a lot of cancer, a lot of blood. But then the gyne-nurses think the same about us, they 're scared to death with neurosurgery. So for the past week, we sat down together, eating our lunch at the same table every day. We had a talk about reconstructing breasts after removal because of breast cancer. Doctors can do quite a nice job on boobies nowadays. They take a part of your bum or your belly and then make a boob out of it. It looks very natural, being a part of your own tissue material, and your body doesn't reject it. The nipple is made out of a bit of soft skin from your genitals and a tattoo makes the finishing touch. It's a good thing, this evolution, because breast cancer is moving forward, unfortunately a lot of woman are victims to it nowadays.
So we started talking about doctors (nurses are obliged to gossip about doctors, that's a hospital fact you cannot change). Now there was a gynaecologist that was very skillful in reconstruction breasts after cancer. A lot of women went to him for having their boobs fixed, he did a very good job on that. A few weeks after the operation, you have to come back to the hospital, to have a check-up and to have the stitches removed by the doctor. The legend goes, before removing the stitches, this doctor had the habit of kissing the woman's breasts, one kiss on each. He said: 'they 're my boobies as long as the stitches are still in them. Afterwards, they're yours, hon!'.
We just couldn't stop laughing about that, I really do not believe it. I said: ' So in fact, this doc is kissing a part of your bum and genitals!' (me making a logical deduction). Ooh, tears rolling down our faces from laughter, such a pity this doc is retired, we can't verify the story, we simply can't.
I said: ' well, if a doctor is ever going to kiss my boobies, he'll have a blue and broken nose to remember me by, the maniac !'
Shouldn't have said that, I really shouldn't. Clever colleague said:'My god Heidi, are your boobs that firm, so you can knock a doctor under the table with them!'
Well tah, just you have a look at the picture, dear, these babies are mine, all mine and natural...

Christmas Photo Shoot

Working on Christmas day, never dull ! We only had 7 patients and they were all good ones, almost recovered and ready to leave. So we finished our chores very early, what else to do than have a photo shoot ... We had one patient in a germ-isolation, poor fella, me and my colleague Kat tried to cheer him up. You can see us in the picture, all dressed up to enter the isolation. A man walking by asked us: 'What on earth are you two going to do, dressed like that?' Me and my big mouth said: 'Just you turn around and bend over, honey, I'll show ya!' Should have seen the look on his face...

Another patient took this picture of us two. I printed it out for him and we gave it to him on the day he left the hospital. We signed the picture like we were two movie stars, hihi.

Also have a look at my nice blue 'crocs', they're very hip around the hospital, almost everybody walks around in them.

Here you can see our beautiful hospital Christmas tree ... It looks like it does need some medical treatment itself ... What do you expect, the poor tree is occasionally hit by a driving through bed, or plucked at the branches by a frustrated nurse walking by.


We sure had some fun that day. Going to spare you the gorey pictures, dont want to see them, hahaha.
I did send these pictures to my boss by e-mail ... He didn't reply yet, uh oh, I think I can expect a reply on the first day he will be back from his holidays ...