Odd things happen at home too apparently

No lie, I swear.
At 10pm tonight our doorbell rang. Now, perhaps M & were fools to answer the door at that time of night. But call us curious - because hardly anyone EVER rings the doorbell, and if it was some kid or prank I'd chew 'em out, but what if it was a neighbor in trouble? We live in a very small development, a cul-de-sac, so it's possible somebody needed help or something. Not that we'd likely be anyone's first, second or even third choice around here -- we just don't know anyone well.

But nope -- it was some guy dressed up in a full on 6 foot tall Gumby costume.  Really.

And get this  ..... 

He claims to have been selling pillows.

The deaf chick asked M "what? huh?" because that just can't be right -- but no, he says that's what the guy said, and he went off politely and quietly when we declined to buy pillows from Gumby dude at 10 o'clock in the friggin' evening.

Huh ...

Odd sights

Been meaning for a while to recount some of the odder things we (ok, mostly me since you-know-who wasn't exactly wandering the hospital much) saw while we were out in Cleveland. Some are just "huh, interesting" moments but the capper was a doozy of head-scratching.

• Late one evening, maybe after I was leaving  him in first night of ICU and waiting down in lobby for my parents to be my 'taxi' I thought I saw their honkin' huge white SUV pull up but then realized it had black on it too. Was one of the Clinic's own Police 'cruisers' (or maybe a regular Cleveland one, they looked similar). And next in the door was a bunch of doctors in winter coats and scrubs -- and one pulling a blue Igloo cooler.  Now, at a heart hospital you just know that guys in scrubs carrying a cooler aren't hauling six-packs of Bud Lite! It was the transplant team back from a 'harvest'. Even heard another doctor just getting off the elevators ask in doc shorthand, "Viable?" -- wondering whether it was a good heart. I didn't get to hear the response as they headed up. I do know that there was at least one other patient on M's step-down floor who was a transplant patient.  

• Another night, again waiting in the lobby, probably again for my parents to be my ride ... I saw this well-dressed, very well-coiffed, distinguished looking guy in a black topcoat come striding in towards the elevators up to step-down.... carrying no less than 8 identical , brand new, Elmo dolls. Huh. [Not sure which Elmo either -- just large Elmo boxes -- lots of 'em]  There's no maternity ward in this section. This wasn't even the entrance to the Children's hospital. So no idea who was getting all those Elmos at 11pm. 

• Every one of those late nights waiting for either the Clinic's free shuttle or the Burke free shuttle, I saw the same large guys in black topcoats, most were bald (of the I-shave-because-I-look-tough-kind), kinda big and buff looking. And all sported either discreet, or not so much so, walkie talkies, as well as other electronics and small computers. Thinking they were private security for some patient, possibly the ones who get to stay on the special suite floor [apparently for big wigs or "executive patients"] up near the roof. Of course if the Suits were downstairs, who was with the patient and how many Suits did this person need? Was interesting to play guessing games. Oh, also saw a parade of identical limos outside the nicer of the hotel restaurants one night -- all with the same vanity tags "Shima __" and a number, saw #s 10, 12, 9, 21, 22, 13.  Guess that's where the Suits' other people were staying? or the guy with the Elmo dolls?
  

• I'm not even really counting the 437 people I saw, including way too many Clinic docs, nurses and staff, doing the look that is oh-so-not-as-cool-as-you-think-it-is of stuffing their pants down their boots. Every variety of Ugg or just Ugly boot there is, and the biggest offenders gotta be the nurses in their scrubs and whites with the pants stuck down in the black or other dark giant fluffy, scruffy, puffy, furry boots. Looked like marmots attacking the feet of many many women. 

But the piece de resistance of odd things seen ... 

• M was out of the hospital, we were trying to head out of the hotel to escape the campus boundaries for dinner on our 2nd to last night, and thought we had caught the down elevator from our hotel. But nope, we wound up making unscheduled stops. Good thing too, or we would've missed the best sight of all. Doors open and in step two huge guys, again of the I'm-bald-because-I-want-to-be-and-I-can-bench-your-car-look.  Except they weren't just kinda tough looking. They were sporting armor. Not police type body armor, I mean King Arthur, Lancelot, Black Knight, let's-go-storm-the-castle-boys, ARMOR!!  They had on chain mail down their legs, hauberks, boots, breast plates, carrying swords and more armor kind of armor. Now where on earth were two would-be knights going at 7pm in the middle of January, in Cleveland, and at a hotel that is specifically connected to the Cleveland Clinic??  I know I was told this was a crappy neighborhood, but c'mon, really??!! 

It was such a sight that M and I were still giggling over it later at the restaurant and hours later.


Peace
J

I'm so getting fired...

After dutifully discharging my responsibilities as Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy (NJFW) ... or at least trying really hard not to kill the patient or the care-taker ... I think I'm slipping some and am gonna get canned from this position.

I'd love to blame it on being tired and loopy, but I did get a  short nap before I cooked dinner. Or perhaps it was because I had to use brain cells I haven't used in a while as I drove a car for the first time in 17 or 18 days. Can't blame jet lag .. there's no time difference between home and Cleveland (well, metaphysical time perhaps, and architectural time, or winning-sports-team time...). 

But it's probably grounds for firing from Nurse Jane duty when in the midst of trying to help the patient retire for the evening, getting him comfortable and adjusting the new wedge pillow, NJFW first makes the patient laugh ( a no-no often with patients with giant zipper-like scars and such down their sensitive chests -- was bad enough earlier in the day when M sneezed for the first time post-surgery and his eyes went all cartoon buggy and little tweety birds & stars appeared over his head)  -- and then in attempt at bad nurse-patient joke of some sort, NJFW pokes the patient. In the chest / tummy area.  Oh crap.  In the chest tube drain scar site. Oh double freaking, cheese-n-crackers, %^&*(#$ !!!!   He was laughing, but crying, but laughing and crying and I was so fall-over-myself apologetic.  Oh dear oh dear.

And then the one thing the patient asks for when I go back downstairs is to bring his best buddy, his heart-shaped chest pillow (he even named it ... "Chester" .. get it .. he hugs it to his chest to relieve chest pain & pressure ... awwww ).  So I go downstairs ....  and start checking email, scroll the TV guide, check other emails and generally forget what I went downstairs for in first place. Forcing the poor patient to get back outta bed and call for his NJFW to please throw up the pillow.  D'OH!!   

See!!  I'm SOOO fired.

J

Lighter notes

Still recapping events from the first part of step-down, from Friday 1/8.  

If I didn't have a watch with the date and a nifty computer and my crackberry I would never bloody know what day it is. Of course I'm still not sure whether that matters at the moment. I know for sure that Michael doesn't really know what day it is nor that it matters a whit for him.

As noted before, there was more movement and going from place to place, uping & downing, etc as M made the move to a chair in ICU, then wheelchair to step-down and getting settled, and going back-n-forth (me, not him) to get things from the hotel.  Like his telling me on the way from ICU to step-down that now that he was getting private digs he wanted his music. Right then, right now.  Quick doctor, get that patient on 50 ml of iPod STAT!!   So off to the hotel my Dad and I tramped. Ride on the bus TO the hotel = quick. Ride back = the local from Hartford and making all stops. This is funny because you can practically see the main entrance from our hotel, it's about 2 blocks away.  So why the hell was I riding the bus? Other than having bags of crap, it was cold and snowy and I didn't want to schlep my parka around the hospital so I wasn't wearing it. Hence, no walking the 2 blocks and the bus ride covering 12 blocks of the same real-life 2 blocks.  My poor father may still be complaining about the 35+ minutes of life he will never get back.

The single greatest moment of hijinks and hilarity of the trip occurred in early afternoon after M was in his new spiffy room.  Everywhere in the hospital and especially at entrance to patient rooms there are bottles of antibacterial foam mounted to sterilize or clean hands. My mom came in to see M briefly for first time, rub his arm. He asked if she used the foam. Oops. So she went over to it and based on knowledge of other similar ones at different hospitals she went at it, wiggling it different directions. I went over to help and at same time I tried to direct her to pull nozzle toward her, she whacked it upwards and alcohol based anti-bac foam went spraying everywhere all over my Mom. Unfortunately a good bit of it went in her eyes, she snapped 'em shut but started semi-yelling, "it burns it burns!!!" and waving her arms. The foam also wound up all in her hair, down her sweater, over her face, in the ears. I went to help her, grabbed towels to wipe off, then decided we better get to sink and wet towels and wash off. She still had eyes shut so couldn't see the bathroom, so waved for me to guide her there. I grabbed her hand and then proceeded to accidentally pull her directly into the door frame -- whack. Then finally into the bathroom and cleaned up. Then she could open up and look at me and point out all the places that I had foam too.  Meanwhile the poor heart patient was over in his bed laughing his butt off and trying very hard not to, sort of giggling and coughing. But at least he was smiling.


Care-taking Lesson of the Day:  Don't lean on the side rails of the electronic, auto-controlled, lifter-upper-downer bed for the patient

Because it can't be too good for your poor heart patient  husband (who is functionally blind with his glasses off and a fabric nightshade on over his head, and in the dark) when the bed crashes from its slightly elevated and slightly tilted position to dead-ass flat in mere seconds because his stupid-ass wife was leaning on the rails to talk and whisper loving words and news to him in the dark while wishing him goodnight.