Bitter Days

Suffered through a serious case of dysphoria mid-shift today.  After the 3rd evening holiday shift in a row, I have a short fuse.

Had a sketchy lady come in for back pain.  I looked her up in the database before I even went to see her, and found out that she was a drug shopper.  Percocet and Vicodin from all kinds of different sources.  But she was smart, I gave her an opportunity to tell the truth, and she caught on quick.  Fessed up, and didn't piss me off as much as I thought she would.
Had a young, upbeat, polite lady come in for back pain with her man friend.  She told me she hadn't taken anything for pain.  In fact, she ran out of ibuprofen.  The nurse had a hunch that something wasn't right about her, so I looked her up too.  Another narc shopper.  But this girl was stupid beyond just regular stupid.  I gave her multiple opportunities to to tell it to me straight, and she just kept on lying.  I finally laid it out for her after about 15 minutes of her changing her story and lying about whether she had narcs already.  I knew about her previous Perc prescriptions the whole time she was trying to sell me a used lemon.

My next patient was a Meth user who missed the vein and had a nasty bruise on her leg. The nurse told me she wanted help getting clean.  I went to go talk to her and she was mess.  Track marks and bruises everywhere.  Today wasn't the first time she missed the vein.  As it turned out, she had no interest in detox.  After I walked out of the room in disgust, the nurse told me that Child Protective Services had been called to check on the lady's three kids.  It turned out that they couldn't follow through because she had given a false address.  At the same time, the man friend of drug seeker #2 was asking for my full name, presumably to give to the lawyer they had hired to sue the doctor who took care of her mother who had a stroke.  I was pretty close to the end of my rope.  Funny how people think ER is stressful.  It is, in fact, stressful, but not for any of the reasons they think. Stress is this other crap that makes me want to go postal.

Well, at least I have pretty t-shirts.  Speaking of shirts, we are working with Steve Mabry of Mountain Flyer to do organic shirts and hats.  Mountain Flyer is the bike porn of bike magazines.  Not dirty, butthole porn, but really classy porn.  In trade, I am going to have some ad space in future editions of Mountain Flyer.   This is the ad for the next edition. Hope to have some hot photos in subsequent ads.

Tim Grayson, formerly of Zeut, tells me that it looks good for using some Zeut music in the bike-mower music video. More on that later.

One more shift tonight.  It's Memorial Day, and the Bolder Boulder is bringing another 40,000 folks into the area. If I can manage to avoid strangling any dirtbags tonight, it will be a successful evening.  That's a warning to all potential A-holes out there.  No more Yankie my Wankie!

www.AlchemistThreadworks.com

Alchemist Plantable Tags

Cool idea in the works.  Claire came up with a great idea to have plantable, seeded tags.  You know, the kind that you throw in the ground and come up wildflowers or some kind of vegetation. Costs a bit more, but certainly adds a wow factor (and eco-conscious of course).  http://www.bloomin.com/index.html.  Bloomin' is local too, which is great.  Working out a deal with them in trade for organic shirts.

We're also planning to work with another local artisan that we've talked about before.  We will be introducing a Walt Works organic t-shirt.  They will be on sale on the website this summer.  Mock-up of the T in a future post. We are hammering out the design now.  This is exciting since Walt has a devout following.  His bike geekness is legendary, and his frames are bling (but utilitarian at the same time).  The bike-mower he is going to build, however, will seal the deal.  Can't wait to get some pics of it in action.  Look out for the Youtube video this summer too.

Kind of busy in the ER right now, but I'm having a hard time motivating myself enough to go treat all the dying non-emergent patients.  If I have to go see another "just don't feel right", I'm going to turn homicidal. 

Oh crap, the nurse just told me about the 92 year old lady in room 5 who has been dizzy and tired for a week.  I suppose I should go see her.  But first I have to go take a wiff and a gander at the foul discharge coming from the lady in 11.  And yes, it is coming from THERE. Got to love this job!

One last shameless plug to vote for me in the Breck Epic Blog contest. http://www.facebook.com/TheBreckEpic?v=app_20678178440

Ryn tells me you have to sign into Facebook to make it count.  Aren't we too old for Facebook?

Well, if you understand how to use Facebook, do me a favor and tell all your friends about the contest too. 

Here I go to battle death and disease . . . .

Night shift ranting

If you haven't checked it out yet, go to www.AlchemistThreadworks.com to see the new website.  Let me know it you find any bugs or have any suggestions. 

As per my M.O., I seem to only find inspiration to write during or after night shifts. After 2 in a row, I feel remarkably perky.  Lots of stuff happening with Alchemist, but I'll get to that.

Had a fellow brought in by the ambulance for being unconscious outside of Burger King.  He was able to mumble that he had a seizure disorder and that he had NOT been drinking.  After blowing a 350 (over 4 times the legal limit), we put the rails up, tightened the soft restraints, and tucked him in for the rest of the night. When I checked on him in the morning he was sober enough to boot, so I told him we were going to call his wife to come pick him up.  His eyes widened,
"Uh oh."
"You're in trooooouble."
"Oh man, do you have to tell my wife why I'm here?"
"I can if you want me to."
"No. No. No."
"You're in trooooouble."
"Oh man."

As much as I wanted to yank his chain, I figured that he wasn't in the mood.  Since he behaved, for the most part, during his stay, I let him off easy.  I'm getting soft in my old age.  He was at least more tolerable than the kid who came in wanting pain meds for his sore knee.  I looked him up in the drug database and found out that he had just had a boatload of Percocet prescribed for him a few days ago.  I tried to give him every opportunity to give it to me straight, but he just kept his eyes on the T.V. and said he only had Advil to take.  After I explained to him that I knew about the Percs, he shook his head, then nodded it. He explained that they threw a big party the night before, and someone stole all his meds.  I was too tired to deal with the cops or call his doctor, and he was a really stupid kid, so in the end, I just kicked him out with nothing but his discharge papers to soothe his aching knee.
Makes me want to sell t-shirts for a living.

On a less bitter note, Walt Wehner of Walt Works came by to buy a shirt for his buddy's wife the other day.  "T.V. Sucks, Ride Your Bike."  I was out mowing the lawn with my crappy push mower.  I've sworn to myself that I would get rid of that thing every summer for the last 6 years.  Walt told me to stop being a girl, and that the mower wasn't that bad.  He proceeded to run all over my front lawn pushing the mower around like a redheaded step child.
"See?"
"But you didn't run over any sticks.  The sticks jam up the rotors, and you have to pull them out or it won't mow."

I placed a stick in the way and told him to try to mow over it.  He plowed over it and snapped it like a twig.
"Stop being a girl."
"The stick wasn't big enough."
"Stop your whining.  You know you could attach this to the front end of a bike . . . ."

I told him he was crazy and came up with a dozen reasons why it wouldn't work.
"Well, I am offering a free conversion to anyone who wants to convert their mower to a bike-mower."

Well, it's hard to argue with free, so we're going to make my crappy push mower into the sweetest bike-push-mower in history.  Once it's done, we'll have some cool pics for you to drool on.  I'm not sure if it will be bike porn or mower porn, but it will be porn.

Lots of other things to blog about, but those sleepless night are catching up now.  But before signing off, I need to give big props to Ken for backing up his 12 hours Clydesdale world champion title with a win in the Boulder short track race today.  Ken, you will be called a sandbagger if you keep winning the C's. I've got a lot of work to do if I'm going to keep up in the Breck Epic.

Last thing, if you haven't already, vote (for me) in the blog contest for the Epic. http://www.facebook.com/TheBreckEpic?v=app_20678178440
If you want to read the entries:http://www.facebook.com/TheBreckEpic go to the discussion tab.
Contest ends on June 11.  Tell all your friends, put it on Facebook, Tweet it, email it.  Do whatever it takes cus I'm getting my ass kicked right now in the polls.

Thanks, all.

-jeff

Alchemist website 3.0

Okay, the last website was kinda cool, but the flash was painfully slow, and the template was too rigid.  So . . . Check out the revamped website.  Still at AlchemistThreadworks.com.  I'm having some issues with the slideshow at the beginning, so if you have any suggestions, let me know. Thanks!
-jeff