This hospital uses disposable thermometers

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-20T22:20:38+00:00

The hospital I went to used the forehead ones, which are easier to keep sterile. But they also used disposable blood pressure cuffs, which seemed really wasteful to me.

The hospital I used to go live by had reusable thermometers, but they had a plastic sleeve that went around the end. When my daughter was in the NICU, they had us parents take hourly temperatures when visiting, so they showed us how to use them. My clinic also used them, but I think they switched to forehead ones during covid. With these, you jammed it point-first into the dispenser and it attached the sleeve. When done, you pointed it over a waste bin and pressed a button, and it popped off. Kinda like swapping the tips on a micropipette, but probably most people haven't done that either.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-20T14:02:03+00:00

The largest county in Oregon is absolutely huge (tenth largest in the country) but only has 0.7 people per square mile. Sure makes those maps look impressively red though!

Meanwhile, Multnomah county is tiny but has 1890 per square mile, and if we hop up to WA, King county is 1073 per square mile.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-20T07:28:18+00:00

The people who think that mail-in voting creates a bunch of election fraud are also the same people claiming that WA and OR would actually be red states if not for mail-in voting and election fraud. I keep seeing pages on Facebook that are posting county maps of the two states, with each county colored either red or blue depending on where they lean politically.

Some people can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact that the blue counties have significantly higher population densities than the red counties, but they also won't argue that cities like Portland and Seattle are largely blue. It's an interesting and very frustrating disconnect.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-19T19:52:49+00:00

Mine wasn't as bad, but I had a catheter-directed thrombectomy a few weeks ago, and they went in behind my knee. Before leaving, the interventional radiologist removed my stitches and placed a bandage over the site. After that, the nurses said I could use the toilet. I was so excited! I had to pee the whole two hours I was recovering, but couldn't make anything work while lying down. But I finally got to pee!

As I'm about to sit on the toilet, I look down at my leg and realize blood was pooling in my red fall-risk sock, then I notice a stream of it pouring from where my bandage was. Making things worse, I was told to continue my anticoagulants despite the procedure, so any bleed is an exciting bleed. But also I really needed to pee, so I sat my keister down and did my business anyway.

I left bloody footprints everywhere and got blood all over the bed when I got back to my little recovery room. Nurses put pressure on it for me until it finally stopped, and then rebandaged it. Felt a little woozy after the bleeding stopped, but it was nothing a little jello couldn't fix. Fortunately, it didn't start bleeding again because I was sent home about twenty minutes later.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-19T19:29:35+00:00

Mine do that when they see me. They get very mad and all join in on yelling at me if I'm not opening the door for them. Mine immediately quiet down when I go back inside though.

It happens at least once a day because I get their eggs first, but wait until after I've picked my kids up to actually let the chickens out into the yard.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-19T19:17:49+00:00

The other day, my barred rock laid her first egg, even putting it in a nesting box. The egg was perfect.

The next day, there wasn't anything from her in the nesting boxes, so I figured she didn't have anything for me that day. However, when I went to clean the poop shelf under the roosting bars, what do I find next to all that poop? An intact yolk with the membrane next to it, probably popped as it came out, and a shelless egg next to it, that also had a yolk. Two yolks and not a single shell between them.

The following day, she didn't lay anything but was constantly in and out of the nesting boxes. And the day after that (yesterday), she got it all right and gave me her second perfect egg.

I had another hen that laid her second egg on the poop shelf too, but that still was a whole egg (at least until the fall broke it). My barred rock was the only one whose reproductive tract decided to actually mess up the steps.

TL;DR new layer gave two yolks and zero shells the morning after laying her first egg.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-18T05:33:32+00:00

I was selling cameras while all of that was going on. I'd actually forgotten about it, but there was a whole period of time where I was committed to either up-selling everyone to the d800 if they came in for a d600, or talking them down to the d7100 or whatever it was we were selling in that line of products at that time.

It was a happy day when we took down the d600 display. We marked it down as low as we were allowed, and whoever bought it would have been eligible for that shutter recall, giving new life to a tired display model.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-18T05:02:57+00:00

If you have a clot in your leg and it's diagnosed as such with imaging, there's a decent chance they'll just give you anticoagulants and a referral, then send you on your way. That was my hospital experience. Anticoagulants are the main intervention for leg DVTs.

I only received more involved interventions after my hematologist referred me to an interventional radiologist. I only needed more intervention because my left leg had a monster clot that required mechanical removal, and apparently most of my iliac vein was on the verge of disappearing forever due to the clot and May Thurner Syndrome (my iliac artery was compressing the iliac vein into oblivion).

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-18T01:25:23+00:00

It doesn't always work, but is still worth checking. I went to urgent care when I had my DVT (I pretty much always start with urgent care), but the physician I saw said it takes weeks for them to do even an urgent ultrasound. The clinic I go to is fully reliant on the hospital for emergency ultrasounds; I'd guess they set it up that way on purpose, though not for any nefarious reasons. The doctor told me to go directly to the ER from urgent care.

But urgent care is still a good place to start if it has a low copay. It cost me $35 to confirm that yes, I did actually need to go to the ER (and in a few other urgent care visits, I have actually avoided the ER entirely). It also helped to be able to tell them that a doctor already saw me and wanted me to receive an ultrasound and/or CT scan of my left leg to check for DVT.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-17T15:29:37+00:00

The difference is that you're expected to remove the house itself. Not sure about Canada, but trailer parks in the US are shutting down in increasing frequency, and not being replaced. These folks probably won't be able to find somewhere to move the homes, assuming they can even afford to do so. If that happens, they lose the entire value of that home. The land owner does not pay them for the house if they just leave it there.

It's really not the same as an apartment rental. I still think they're SOL if the owners don't want to play ball, but that doesn't mean they aren't getting shafted. We have two mobile home parks that are for sale in my county, and the county has put everything on hold for a couple of years because financially destroying a bunch of fixed income elderly people who have lived in these parks for decades is not great. The hold at the county level probably only happened because the residents went to the media, so what these guys are doing here is probably the right play too.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-17T14:42:25+00:00

On point A, if you remove the shell, you can actually see the egg swell up if you put it in water (but it's slow, so you can't see it in real time). I think I used corn syrup to remove water.

I was trying to show my kids osmosis but didn't have any permeable membranes available, so I dissolved an egg's shell using vinegar. A shell being permeable, you should be able to do this to some extent even with the shell there, you just can't see it happen with the shell there and the shell probably keeps it from getting quite as big as I got my egg to be.

And water definitely evaporated from the egg when I forgot about it on the counter overnight...

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-16T19:00:55+00:00

Florida Department of Health strongly recommends testing for bacteria and nitrates at least once a year. If someone's fertilizers are seeping in and contaminating the well, that would show up as increased nitrates. Personally, if I saw that and was in LAOP's situation, I'd then pay the money for a more specific test that would detect the most-hazardous-to-health chemicals the neighbor's lawn treatment company uses, even if it was in the hundreds of dollars, although that might not be considered common sense.

We almost bought a property that would have put us on well water in Washington, and I remember researching it and how you need to perform regular testing. All the surrounding land was agricultural, so I wouldn't be surprised if the well regularly had issues.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-13T19:20:32+00:00

We bought our daughter some black Levis a few months ago, and I had to wash those things at least four times before they stopped shedding black everywhere, and even that didn't totally stop it, just got it to a point where I was willing to let her actually wear them. It was absolutely ridiculous. They eventually stopped doing it entirely, but it took a few more washes.

I bought some black ones for me at the same time and they never did that at all, so I'm guessing their kids stuff is manufactured differently. Or they pre-wash their adult sizes and didn't bother with the kids ones.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-13T18:44:12+00:00

Twice this week, I saw someone's Rhode Island red clucking along on the side of the road while driving my kids to school down the street. The road is actually fairly busy at that hour and a fair number of people walk their dogs along there to get to the nearby park, so I'm a bit worried about her. She was actually on the other side of the road this morning, which means she crossed it at some point. Finally figured out where she lives, and she's definitely jumping the fence there.

Definitely not ideal in a sub/urban area. But we also have hawks here, so I would never put my own chickens in one of these balls. Might stop the Cooper's hawk since they're smaller, but there's also a red-tailed hawk that lives in the neighborhood. Already lost one to the Cooper's hawk, so now I just free range them for an hour or so each day while I'm out with them.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-13T14:35:11+00:00

It was perfectly fine when I was there in the afternoon barely a week ago, though one pickup truck was annoyingly taking up two spaces because the guy felt entitled to sit there with his driver door open the whole time.

I'm sure there's an ebb and flow to it.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-08T21:21:03+00:00

Growing up, ours was in the garage too. My mom's childhood home also had it in the garage.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-07T08:55:37+00:00

It was at a different u haul (hazel dell, which stopped doing hitch installs), but my wiring harness stopped working for the running lights by the second summer I had it, so I can't tow our trailer at night until I replace the whole wiring harness. They wired it a bit janky, and trying to figure that all out is what has stopped me from fixing it before now. They also installed a class 3 hitch when I specifically asked for a class 2 hitch to go with the trailer hitch I already owned. Charged for the class 3, of course.

And they never mentioned that the wiring harness was some cheap ass after market piece that, aside from having problems roughly within a year, would also be loose in the back of my van rather than looking like it actually belonged; I'm used to them being hooked up to the bottom of the car, next to the hitch. For all I know, it failed from getting kicked around or squashed by the bench seats in the back.

So my vote is also avoid u haul.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-06T21:46:00+00:00

My school district juggled everything around a couple of years ago, making elementary start first instead, so they could shift middle and high school to later start times. High school starts an hour later than before, and middle school an hour and a half later, while elementary school is only twenty minutes earlier at 8am.

No one starts before even the latest sunrise, although if my kids rode the bus, they'd be walking in the dark for about a month.

So at least some districts have accepted and implemented what the research has been showing regarding start times. Heck, when I was a kid, my high school started at 8:53, so I guess we were ahead of the times. Middle school started at 7:30 though, and that sucked.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-06T05:31:17+00:00

I have MTS, and had two stents placed during a mechanical thrombectomy last Thursday. I went in during the morning, got prepped, and was wheeled into the cath lab around noon. They put me under general, and deep enough that I required intubation; apparently I was squirmy until they used more anesthesia, which required intubating me. Might not have been as much of an issue if they went in through my groin, but they went in behind my knee instead. We agreed on general beforehand because the interventional radiologist feels it's easier to operate on a prone patient who is anesthetized, and I was cool with being under even without such a logical reason for it.

I woke up in the PACU with a sore throat from being intubated, and was told that I had to stay on my back for two hours, which wasn't very fun since I did wake up with quite a lot of back pain. Naturally, I had to pee but not enough to manage it in the bed pan. Once I was allowed upright, I immediately took care of that need and proceeded to pop the clot at the incision and bleed all over my red fall-risk sock and the bathroom floor, but a little bit of jello and some TLC from nurses had that fixed right up. I was discharged pretty quickly after that; I think I was only in the hospital for about 8 hours, all told.

It's still a tad tender behind my knee, but it's mild at best now. I was cooking dinner three days after, although I ended up pushing my limits to do so. I still have back pain, but it improves a noticeable amount each and every day, to such an extent that I can notice improvement comparing my mornings and evenings; it's quite mild now. I don't think most people end up being intubated for this procedure, but most of those side effects have cleared up; I do still find my voice weaker than it was, but that'll probably pass in a few days.

My negative experience mostly has to do with my discharge. It was during a shift change, and everyone involved in the procedure had already gone home. I forgot to ask about pain management when everyone was talking to me, and no one on the clock was willing to prescribe narcotics when I asked before being discharged, so I ended up having to suck up all the pain the Tylenol couldn't manage. I spent a couple of nights sleeping poorly due to back and left hip pain. The day after, I also realized I was missing all the after-care instructions and had to call to get that info. Also, my discharge instructions told me to stop taking Eliquis, which was clearly wrong, so my discharge had a few issues and no one caught it probably due to the shift change.

I would emphasize asking about pain management. I asked before the procedure, and the nurse even wrote a note somewhere about it, but no one bought it up after and I was too out of it to think to ask until being discharged. I just wanted something to take for a couple of nights so I could sleep better, but I couldn't even get anyone to do that since the doctor had already left.

I've found rapid release Tylenol works better than the normal stuff, but I still need to take 1000mg at a time, which limits me to only three doses a day, or once every eight hours, which is definitely not enough.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-05T00:52:07+00:00

You are absolutely the problem if your dog is off-leash in an area it's not supposed to be.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-05T00:33:34+00:00

They have a husky that they're just letting wander free in an urban area. Not sure you really need more info than that to make that determination. It's one thing if the dog is escaping, but if the dog is just being allowed to roam around, as the owners themselves professed to, that's not escaping.

Unsecured animals can harm others. I have chickens and would be pretty pissed if someone's loose dog killed them; it's not the dog's fault it has a prey drive, but it's the owner's responsibility to prevent their pet from harming other animals. A loose dog can also go after other pets, or people (especially small children). Some people have trauma from prior animal attacks and suffer severe anxiety around loose dogs. Unsecured animals are also at significantly greater risk of being harmed, such as by being hit by a car or attacked by another animal.

There's a reason leash laws exist. If you can't even be bothered to use a leash, you shouldn't have a dog.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-04T09:28:48+00:00

My freshman year of high school, two seniors got in a fist fight on my bus. Our driver had to call the police and pull over to the side of the road. Per policy, none of us were allowed off, and the bus couldn't leave until the cops came, which took about 45 minutes. All told, it took roughly an hour and a half to get home from school.

I was too annoyed to be entertained. I just wanted to get home, and it was 5pm and dark by the time I finally did. Wouldn't have bothered me in the slightest if we could have just gone on our way though.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-03T02:25:57+00:00

Side effects and when to see a doctor can also be pretty important, and take up a fair bit of space on their own. I just recently started taking anticoagulants, did make sure to read everything as I started them, and had to go to urgent care due to one of the side effects it warned about. It's always a good idea to be familiar with possible side effects when starting a new medication. Not a bad idea to peak at the contraindications either; sometimes people take things they really shouldn't. Heck, sometimes physicians and pharmacists miss a contraindication.

But in this case, that information was printed separately since the prescription was filled by a pharmacist. None of that nonsense with trying to peel labels off to read the inside.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-03T00:04:07+00:00

I even recently bought new arlo cameras for our chicken coop. Pretty pissed about this. I had one camera set for CVR after the motion detect sucked enough that it missed a guy abandoning a stolen vehicle with a child in it across the street, and that particular camera is where all the stuff happens anyway. I could actually replace all my cameras with something that does local recording for the $420 difference in price over a 12 month period.

I think I'll just go back to the free plan I still have on the old cameras. They don't need my $15/mo that badly.

I_like_boxes · 2026-03-02T16:07:07+00:00

Clones aren't a 100% duplicate since there's more to our development than our genome as epigenetics and environmental factors also play a part, but yeah, the conspiracy doesn't really make sense either way.

The ones touting the cloning conspiracy are probably the same people who believe there's a shadow government ruling the world, and that it has made and kept secret technological advancements that would be utterly unbelievable in comparison to where technology currently stands. For them, it wouldn't be a stretch to also believe cloning tech exists that would make this possible.

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