Dead Nurse's guide to backyard renovations or How to make your backyard beautiful in 20 easy steps

1. Get price quote from straight male friend for constructing new brick patio in backyard.
2. Determine that price is too high and decide to construct patio yourself.
3. Research patio building options online.
4. Decide that building a patio is too hard and instead opt for installing new sod in backyard.
5. Choose day to begin project.
6. Push back start date a week in order to accommodate activities that are more fun.
7. Begin tearing up backyard with shovel and rake.
8. Have realization that a wheelbarrow would make completion of project much easier.
9. Travel to Home Depot and purchase cheapest wheelbarrow available.
   
10. Spend an hour and a half assembling wheelbarrow.
11. Bandage cuts on hands.
    
12. Break for lunch.
13. Watch two back-to-back episodes of The Amazing Spider-Man
    
14. Begrudgingly return to your project.
15. Use wheelbarrow to remove 20 loads of gravel that were placed in backyard by previous homeowner.
    
16. Curse previous homeowner.
17. Injure back while attempting to remove enormous rosemary bush planted by previous homeowner.
18. Curse previous homeowner.
19. Call straight male friend to see when he is available to complete project for you.
20. Sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor.
    

The skinny guy

I've always been skinny. It has been my curse since childhood. For the last nine months or so I have been trying to gain weight. I've been going to the gym regularly and eating more than I did before. This has allowed me to gain a solid 20 pounds of which I'm very proud of.

So imagine how I felt when someone today referred to me as "an Auschwitz victim." This particular comment was said with a laugh and was after they stated that I was looking "rather waifish lately."

Waifish?

People always think it their business to comment on my weight. It just seems that most people think it's alright to comment on a thin person's weight. However if I were to say something like "gee, you're looking rather tubby these days" I would probably get my face slapped.

Most of these comments are normally followed by "I used to be like you..." Really, you used to be like me? How nice that you feel that I will one day become an enormous fat ass. According to most folks the only thing saving me from the inevitable obesity in my future is my age. Given enough time, my waist will expand and I'll grow man-boobs.

I'd like to think that the amount and type of food one eats also plays a big part. Throw a little exercise in there and you've got yourself a recipe for staving off a beer gut. You see, those Little Debbie snack cakes you insist on eating every day with lunch may be delicious, but they're also the cause of your increasing weight. Please don't just blame it on your "slow metabolism" or "bad genetics". You are fat because you eat too much. I am thin because I eat less and exercise.

I am no "Auschwitz victim". I am a man of a healthy weight. I've worked very hard to get to the weight I'm at and anyone who insists on calling me names and making rude jokes is basically just an asshole in my book.

So why the hell does it still bug me so much?

All by myself

Today for the second time ever I went to the movies by myself.

I had the day off and didn't have anything else to do, so I went to a matinée of Sex and the City. The boyfriend had already refused to see it as had the majority of my friends. I was going to see it with some gals from work, but those plans fell through. So I decided to go ahead and just see it alone.

I really enjoyed the movie and also enjoyed the experience of being by myself. I always enjoy my midweek days off. They allow me to spend time alone doing things for myself. Usually this involves a hair cut, some time at the tanning bed (I know, it's bad for me), and working out at the gym. After today, I might just need to add some private movie time.

In case you were curious, the first movie I ever saw by myself was The Crying Game. I guess none of my friends at the time were into films about transsexuals.

More filler

The last few days have been long and rather exhausting. I can barely form sentences at this point, so the ability to compose an even mildly amusing post is beyond me. Here are some pictures of some guy named Angel Bonanni. Apparently he's a model.

I think he's rather fetching...

Filler

Because I can't think of anything to write about today, I'm giving you a picture of a shirtless and jogging Mario Lopez.

No need to thank me.

Steps (part deux)

Disappointing results with the pedometer today. While I had expected to pass the 10,000 mark, I came quite short at only 7,734 steps. I attribute this to the fact that I left work early for a dinner with some family.

I know you find this stuff fascinating.

In other non-pedometer news...I'm seeing Madonna in concert in November! I'm flying back to Florida to see my family, but really it's just an excuse to the see Her Madgesty in concert. This will mark the third time I've see her live and this time around I sprung for some floor seats. Woo, hoo!

Steps

Today I wore a pedometer at work. I was curious to see how many steps I actually took in an average day. I set the pedometer to start when I exited my car and stopped it when I got back in my car at the end of the day.

The results?

After a 10 hour day I took 8,133 steps. I was actually expecting it to be much more. There's this movement of sort that says you should take 10,000 steps each day. I was really expecting to hit the 10,000 mark easily in 10 hours.

I researched a little how many miles 8,133 steps was. According to The Walking Site:

The average person's stride length is approximately 2.5 feet long. That means it takes just over 2,000 steps to walk one mile, and 10,000 steps is close to 5 miles.

So I walked about 4.1 miles. Since I was expecting more steps, I'm going to repeat this little experiment tomorrow. Today I was the charge nurse, which meant I hung around at the nurses station a bit more. Tomorrow I will have a full patient assignment. If my hunch is correct, I'll be hitting that 10,000 mark.

Observations

Just a few observations I made today...

-Why is that the man you least want to see naked at the gym is always the one who seems most comfortable with his own nudity?

-I saw a commercial for a company that promises to give you "beautiful garage floors." I wonder if it's every really necessary to have beautiful garage floors. Do the oil stains just look better if you paid thousands of dollars to have the floor finished?

-In fact my new shiny running shoes do NOT make me run faster. They do look cool though.

-I love The Price is Right.

"Do you sing karaoke?"

This was the question posed to me by a patient whose bottom I was currently wiping. (Ah, the life of a nurse!) It was a strange question, but frequently patients will make conversation while your in the middle of doing something involving those areas of their body only spouses have seen in the last 20 years. I guess it helps to make them more comfortable.

I don't sing karaoke. In fact the last time I sang karaoke was in Florida about 10 years ago. I got on the stage of a crappy country bar with two female friends and did a version of Love Shack.

"I'm sure I've seen you doing karaoke before at..."

She pauses slightly.

"...at The Embers."

For the uninitiated, Embers is a gay club here in Portland. A gay club I have never even been to. I explain this. She is unconvinced.

She proceeds to tell me about people at the club. People I don't know. She tells me about their families, partners, karaoke selections. These are people I've never met, but I smile and nod at all the right places. It makes her feel good so I play along.

When I finish cleaning her up, I tidy the room a bit. She continues talking about her friends. Friends she is convinced we share. I break into her story.

"Is there anything else I can do for you?"

She needs nothing else. Just an ear to listen. I say goodbye and tell her to call if she needs anything.

"See you at karoke," she tells me as I leave.

I'm sure I won't, but I smile and nod.

"Maybe I will."

The long goodbye

So I got this new job.

My last day at my current position is next Friday. I've been at this job for three years. I love all the people I work with, I just decided it was time for a change. So I got a job working in the intensive care unit. It's a change I've wanted to make for awhile, so I'm pretty excited.

At any rate, I would really like to leave quietly and with little fuss. However my coworkers aren't going to make that easy. Today a sign up sheet was hung in our breakroom for the Mexican themed pot luck that's being planned on my final day. (There's something really strange about that last sentence but I can't figure out what it is...) Now I would prefer that no potluck be held, but if I protest than I know I'll just seem ungrateful. I'm not ungrateful, I just don't like the attention.

I hate being the center of attention. I was recently nominated for "Nurse of the Year" at my hospital (I didn't win). I had to go to this ceremony and was called up to accept a certificate and some flowers. I was terribly embarrassed and just wanted it to be over. I was honored by the nomination, but felt it completely unnecessary. I do my job because I love what I do. I don't need an award.

So I'm expecting that my last day will be filled with long, emotional goodbyes. I mean my manager actually cried when I handed her my resignation. I'll be grateful and have a smile on my face, but secretly I'll just really want it to be over.

Because I said so!

One of the greatest pleasures I get at work is telling a physician “no”. Most physicians are used to getting what they want. They order something and expect it to be done. Normally this is the case, but sometimes I get to exercise my big charge nurse muscles and tell them to keep dreaming when they’ve ordered something ridiculous.

One doc ordered us to transfer a patient to ICU because he didn’t want the patient to fall out of bed.

I literally laughed out loud and almost spit my coffee across the nurses station when I heard this request.

I calmly explained to this young doctor that we couldn’t occupy a critical care bed because he was afraid of the patient falling. We have lots of other tricks to prevent that sort of thing from happening.

Today, a physician ordered 1 to 1 care for a patient. This means that the physician wanted someone to be at the bedside with this patient 24 hours a day. Now normally this sort of thing is reserved for our suicidal patients; you know, the ones who swallowed a whole bottle of Excedrin in a lame attempt to off themselves.

“Why does this patient require one to one care,” I asked.

“I’m afraid the patient will fall.”

Sigh.

The full monty

Aaron and I saw Portland Center Stage's production of The Little Dog Laughed today. I just loved it. It was absolutely hysterical and and all the actors were great. As an added bonus there was some well placed full frontal male nudity.

As good gay men, we discussed all the merits of the show on our way home. The story. The sets. The lighting.

And yes...The male actor's genitalia.

I should mention that there was an audible gasp from the audience when the actors emerged in the buff.

I guess Aaron and I weren't the only ones impressed.

A new habit

I'm such a shitty blog owner.

I leave for months without updating and here it just sits feeling unloved and neglected. I'm often envious of those bloggers who find something to post every day. I find it amazing that people keep their enthusiasm for their blog over an extended period. I also find it amazing that Marc continues to find something new to do each day and then proceeds to write a witty post about it.

Maybe I should come to terms with the fact that I'm just not that funny or interesting.

An old roommate of mine once told me that if you could do something consistently for a month that it would become a habit. I don't know if that's just a load of crap or not, but I'm going to give it a try. I'm going to post something every day for the next month and see if it becomes habit. I'm not making promises about the level or quality of the posts, but at least the two people who visit here will have something new to look at.

To start off my new project, I'm giving you a picture of David Beckham. He may sound like Mickey Mouse when he speaks, but I still think he's a hottie.

Death of a loved one

This is Jasper:

Jasper was an Easter gift given to me by the boyfriend several years ago. For the last seven years or so, Jasper has lived on our bed and served as an extra pillow, cuddle friend and occasional cat bed. The boyfriend and I have had to endure several disparaging comments about "grown men sleeping with a stuffed animal", but Jasper has kept his spot on the bed.

Unfortunately, it seems that Jasper's time is coming to an end. He has developed a small tear by his leg. Each morning while making the bed, I find pieces of his stuffed rabbit guts scattered among the sheets. While part of me wants to try and save Jasper, another part feels like it's time to say good bye. The part of this tale that is particularly pathetic is that I simply can't bear to throw him away. I somehow feel like I will be throwing away a friend and that...well...Jasper will be sad.

Now what part of this whole scenario is more odd? The fact that a grown man still sleeps with a giant stuffed rabbit, or that he can't rid of the rabbit because he doesn't want to hurt the rabbit's feelings?

You should have seen these shoes

I was getting my hair cut today (something I absolutely hate having done) when the manager of the salon came in and started talking to my stylist.

This woman was wearing the HOTTEST shoes I have ever seen. Now, I know it's completely stereotypical for a gay man to go on about a woman's shoes, but really they were quite fetching. Tall, black, shiny, and they made her calves look amazing. I just couldn't stop staring at these damn shoes.

I looked up into the mirror and noticed my stylist giving me a look. It was a look that said "I totally just caught you checking my manager out."

I wanted to protest and exclaim, "No! I was just checking out her shoes! I mean look at them! They're incredible!"

Instead, I just remained quiet. I figured that this will be the only time that I, a guy who is routinely called "ma'am" by telemarketers, will ever be mistaken for a straight man.

The post where Dead Nurse reveals his body insecurities

Sometimes I start feeling really good about the progress I'm making at the gym. I start thinking I look really good and my self-esteem grows.

Then I run into some Abercrombie-looking model coming out of the shower in the gym locker room and I suddenly feel like the skinny boy again.

Bastards.

Civil unions

It's official!

As of yesterday, same-sex civil unions are now legal in the great state of Oregon.

All you poopie pants who tried to stop it will now have to find some other way to occupy your time. Perhaps you'll take up killing puppies or oppressing racial minorities?

Critical thinking and the student nurse

Nursing schools love to talk about “teaching critical thinking.” Entire books have been written about the subject. How do we teach our future nurse to think critically about their patients and what’s going on with them?

The problem is that most of these academics have no idea what they're talking about.

I work with nursing students practically every day and I see what they’re being taught by their classroom instructors. I also remember what I was taught in school. We teach students to complete head-to-toe physical assessments on all of their patients, yet we don’t teach them what to do with all that information they collect. I understand the need to learn the art of doing a head-to-toe; that’s important. However, where’s the piece where we teach nurses to first look at the patient and then think about what information they REALLY need to collect.

Example: You have a 22 year old male in following surgery on his knee. He has no medical history to speak of and is in perfect health, save the knee injury that put him in the hospital to begin with. Now why would it be important to listen to his bowel tones in all four quadrants? Couldn’t we illicit the needed information simply by asking the patient, “have you passed any gas since surgery?”

A few months ago, I was watching a nursing student completing an assessment. They palpated pedal pulses, listened to bowel tones, and auscultated heart sounds on a women in her 40’s with hand cellulitis. When we left the room I asked, “now what are you planning on doing with all that information you just collected?”

The student paused for a moment, deep in thought.

“Chart it, I guess.”

Sadly, that is what many nursing school graduates think is important about their assessments: collect the data and chart it.

If that student had first thought about what information really needed to be collected prior to going into the room, their assessment would have yielded much more useful information in a much easier fashion. Is the cellulitis improving? What does the hand look like? How’s their pain? Their receiving a bit of narcotics for that pain, so how is their bowel functioning? When was their last bowel movement? All of this information is gathered without ever having to palpate a pedal pulse or listen to a bowel tone.

In order to create successful nurses, schools need to begin teaching their students TRUE critical thinking skills. Don’t just talk about it, really teach it. Teach students to think about the information they gather and why it’s important. If data isn’t important in a particular situation, then don’t gather it. Believe it or not, you don’t have to listen to everyone’s heart and lung sounds!

Teaching students to be information gathering robots isn’t good for nursing and doesn’t create successful nurses. And after all, isn’t that what we want to do?

An open letter

Dear Reader(s),

I'm not really as much of a bitch as my recent posts make me seem.

Of course some of my friends might disagree.

Hug and kisses,
Dead Nurse

Separated at birth?

Sometime, I have a difficult time telling the difference between my cat:

And a certain obese character from Star Wars: