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Congratulations. Yes, Pete has officially won the CBB most obnoxious contestant EVER award. He is extremely clever and quick witted with his comments, but he uses this as a weapon, and a tortuous weapon at that. I assume he has developed his verbal parries to such a high level due to the many comments he must have endured about his own appearance, I would have hoped that he learned from the verbal assaults afflicted upon him not to use these tools against others, but no, his linguistic prowess is used like a whip.
Barrymore is totally deranged, or BB has been so subtly editing conversations that I don't notice the other person has hurled abuse at this evader of the legal system, because one minute a fellow contestant is talking quite normally to Barrymore, or even sitting in a totally different area of the house, and the lanky loon suddenly behaves as though insults have been hurled at him, his eyes become wide and he goes off on one. I hope the others have been paid danger money.
After daughter having another scare on Thursday everything has calmed down on that front. Amy is bum-jumper supreme, she looks like one of those followers of that political party, back in the early nineties, who thought they could levitate but were really just bouncing on their backsides. It gets her where she wants to go though, and amuses everyone else, how to make friends and influence people!
I'm just having a coffee break at the moment, the weather here is sunny, perfect gardening weather, so I'm busy trying to get the garden back under my limited control. The bird feeder that I got for a snip, due to the fears of bird flu, is proving very popular with all the local birds, and squirrels. There's a pair of doves who visit a couple of times everyday, I think they must have a reputation because they seem to scare off the other visitors.
My 'needy' lady phoned me yesterday, and postponed my visit until Monday. I am still reeling from the shock, although it did emerge, during our conversation, that she had already seen the paed yesterday morning, perhaps one health professional a day is enough.
This morning I 'won' a Little Tikes climbing frame and slide on E-Bay. I phoned the seller to arrange collection, mentioned that my daughter just lived a couple of miles from her, and she is delivering it this afternoon as she 'would be passing her road'. What a service, very different from my sister's experience. The Grandchildren both love my last purchase, the mini-quad bike, lights, sounds and motor, Jack performs daring stunts, too much watching motorbikes on telly, whilst Amy sits there looking like the elderly folk you see on their motorised trolley things, bolt upright and very sedate.
Why I love my job
You are off-sick and they phone you at 7.30 in the morning to send you, as second midwife, to a homebirth. When you explain you are off sick they tell you to phone someone else to go. When you ask who the labouring woman is they don't know, when you ask where, they give the name of the road but havn't got the number. So blundering around, lemsip cold and flu managing to cloud your thought processes remarkably well, and eventually find all the relevant phone numbers, you contact the person who they should have phoned, who refuses to go as it's 7.30 and they don't start until 9am. You then contact the person who the unit should have phoned in the first place, my brain being so slushy that I hadn't even realised that even if I was working they shouldn't have phoned me until 9am, and she refuses to go because it's her day off. Wow, this team thing really works.
Mission accomplished
Today I took the kittens to the vets for their first jabs. I had hoped that they would be rather happier about being handled, but I felt I couldn't leave it any longer. I warned the vet about their feral history, put on my leather gloves, bundled them into the carriers and off we went. Really silly, but I was shaking after I got them into the carriers, I had anticipated being mauled, but all Flo did was hiss. The vet confirmed that they are both boys, admired Billy's one grey leg, jabbed them both, and said they were well-behaved, which they were. I had hauled them out of their carriers sure that I would sustain some injury, but nothing. They both cowered on the table, with their heads tucked against me, and let the vet poke, prod and needle them. I am so proud, and relieved. The next hurdle is a week tomorrow, a repeat performance, only this time they will return knackerless. Will they ever forgive me? Particularly as I have to starve them from 9pm the night before.
Inspiration needed - What should I buy my 29 year old daughter for her birthday? Clothes are out as she is still losing weight after having Amy, she doesn't really wear jewellery and she has sensitive skin.
Her birthday is in a week, HELP.
Tomorrow is one of my Mandatory Study Days, attend every year or you will be.....? I don't know but I expect there is some awful penalty. Notice I say one, not the, but one, because yes, there are several. There are the old favourites Moving & Handling, facilitated by someone who last came in contact with a patient 20 years ago, and has never tried to move a woman with an epidural or get a labouring woman out of a birthing pool, remember no lifting, and Fire, this is what you do if there is a fire, get everyone out. Then there's Blood transfusion, Child Protection, Domestic Violence, Perinatal Health ( Postnatal depression ), Risk Management and Record Keeping/Data Protection. Not sure why we need any of these every year, but I suppose it keeps us vigilant. Mentor nd Assessor is a must, we need this every year to keep up with the different assessment forms that the University keeps issuing the students with, if you havn't got a degree already I feel you earn one purely from understanding the gobbledegook that the 'academics' couch everyday phrases in, plain English is not a concept understood by these guardians of the students learning. Then we have study days I feel are essential, adult and neonatal resuscitation, CTG, and obstetric emergency drills. It's the Obstetric Emergencies tomorrow, all the old favourites but plus Mega Delivery. What is Mega Delivery? Is it a huge baby, huge Mother, lots of babies, one with a film crew present? I'm so excited, but I'll have to wait all day as it's last on the list. Then, as a final insult I am expected to spend a whole day on a Breastfeeding update. I get very cross and anti during this 6 hours of ridiculous pomposity from someone who watches lots of videos on the subject, attends loads of conferences, but does not spend 75% of her working life helping women, at home, to breastfeed. I do., and I know I am lucky that I have a 'client base' that is largely middle-class, affluent, and wanting to breastfeed, but as 90% of my Mums are still breastfeeding at 6 weeks I feel that I'm not doing too badly.
I made a boob last week, or so I thought. One of my ladies, baby due, antenatal at home, nothing untoward, head so deeply engaged I couldn't feel it. Arranged for a Stretch and Sweep, but she beat us to it. Off she goes, normal labour, wants to push, waters go, and a baby's bottom appears, Breech. Apparently, chaos ensued. Shouts of don't push, get theatre ready, emergency bell ringing, personel flooding the room, and in the midst of all this out comes a baby girl, absolutely fine, and Mum didn't need any stitches, they hadn't managed to do an episiotomy. I was so apologetic to Mum. I had missed a breech. Mum was delighted though. As she pointed out, if I had found it Doctors would have talked her into a CS, as it was she came home after 12 hours and was able to host her toddlers birthday party. For any student midwives - Beware the deeply engaged head, it might be a bottom.
Who's been watching ER?
Our practice educators have been watching too many medical dramas. I sat, expectantly, through my updates, waiting with bated breath for Mega Delivery. We were all sent out for a 'toilet' break and asked to put coats, bags etc. on chairs. When we returned they had set up a scenario. Woman (dummy, or phantom as they call it) lying on bed. Tables with medical paraphenalia, drips, drugs, syringes, charts, etc. and we were split into groups. Basically we were given an initial scenario,e.g woman comes in, term pregnancy, slight bleeding. No medical staff, managers available, take it from here. Suddenly the bleeding gets worse, the head is delivered, shoulders are stuck, eventually out comes baby, bleeding carries on, woman collapses. We are all play-acting what we should do, you get the picture, lots of 'FH, FBC, Clotting, Cross-match 6 units, code red bleep the Haematologist'. I had, in an ambulance transferring a woman from a low-risk unit to consultant unit, baby starts coming, shoulders get stuck, what instructions do I give the paramedics, what manoevers do I do? It appealed to my latent desire to be an actress so off I went, simulating the bouncing of the ambulance, leaning violently as we went round multiple mini-roundabouts, the instructor holding the baby back (so I couldn't deliver the shoulders) lost her grip as the phantom rolled with me and the posterior arm appeared. Voila, out came baby, I gave it a quick thankyou and proudly passed it to the 'paramedic'.
So, a Mega-delivery is not a huge baby, but a delivery where everything possible goes wrong, worse-case scenario really. Now I'm just waiting for my equity card to drop through the letterbox.