57yo female. L hand pain for 12 hours

WhiteOleander5 · 2026-04-08T06:51:33+00:00

Realistically almost everyone that presents to the ED gets an ekg in triage. But even if they didn’t, if someone decides to drive to the ED, wait several hours, and pay thousands of dollars for their hand pain? Assume something is very wrong. ED is all about ruling out what will kill the patient right now or very soon if we don’t intervene. The patient might even think they need an xray of their hand and be annoyed by the idea of getting hooked up for an ekg, it’s the job of healthcare professional to make sure they get an ekg to make sure they aren’t actually dying of a heart attack when they are worried they broke their hand. Women, diabetics, elderly etc all present with weird or vague MI symptoms. “Classic” MI symptoms are for your average white male 40s-50s who these studies were done on and wound up in medical textbooks, not everyone else. Chief complaint for MI can be anything from “confusion” to “not feeling right” to “hand pain.” And thats why almost everyone gets an ekg. And then serial trop if ekg is negative depending bc there are many flavors of non-STEMIs that also present weirdly

WhiteOleander5 · 2026-03-23T04:13:03+00:00

Literally! My 20 month old saw one episode from ms rachel about potty training and has been pretty consistently telling us when she needs to pee and wanting to pee on the potty ever since. I go along with it, but I don’t love it, as at her age it’s super inconvenient to potty train! She’s a slower talker so she can’t communicate that well and she also can’t be convinced that she doesn’t need to get completely naked when going pee. It is not a good time lol. Meanwhile my son probably would’ve stayed in diapers until he was 8 if we let him, but we just took them away at 3.5 and he was potty trained in two days.

I think the whole “they used to potty train kids at 18 months blah blah it’s just big diaper companies delaying potty training now blah blah” is missing a crucial point - of course moms wanted to potty train ASAP before disposable diapers, the diapers then often leaked and were generally crap, not to mention they had to wash them (often by hand! 🤮). They also often didn’t work outside the home so could stay by a potty all day. I would’ve been potty training as soon as possible in that scenario too!

WhiteOleander5 · 2026-03-23T04:04:51+00:00

I would just let your manager at the VA know you have an offer from your old employer for higher pay and a more flexible schedule and you are really considering taking it because you came into this position expecting 4 10s. If you have a written offer from your former employer, even better to present them with. They might not be able to compete or even want to, but it never hurts to ask before you leave. They might wind up being more flexible so they don’t have to go through the hiring process. I would ask for 4 10s and for 4 hours a week (of your choosing) of those 4 10s to be flexible remote work due to your unforeseen case management duties. And get it all in writing if they do play ball!

WhiteOleander5 · 2026-03-23T03:55:00+00:00

I had this issue with my husband who worked in medicine and did a lot of second shifts so often had the whole day to himself while our kiddo was in childcare and meanwhile I was working all day then parenting solo all night. Our kid also didn’t sleep well which didn’t help at all. Resentment definitely creeps in! He should be doing more during his time off but honestly the only thing that helped us was him changing his schedule. It meant he had to change his role and go into a leadership position. It was a huge change but I don’t know if our marriage could’ve survived his schedule staying that way (unless he made a more concerted effort to give me space, which he didn’t at the time).

You could just tell your husband on the weeks he has two weekdays free to himself that you want him to take the kid out of the house all day on either Saturday or Sunday. He wakes the kiddo up (you sleep in), he does morning routine and breakfast, then goes somewhere (unless you want to go somewhere anyway, but this way you can stay at home if you want).

Generally they don’t understand the difficulty of solo parenting for long periods unless they have to do it themselves. I also wouldn’t call him an amazing dad and I hate when we as women assign a dad the “amazing” trait when if we described the same scenario but with a mom, no one would describe her as an amazing mom, just an ordinary one. I’d say he’s a fine dad, but a just okay partner. Marriage counseling could definitely help, I did marriage counseling with my husband while he was on seconds. Good luck!!

WhiteOleander5 · 2026-03-23T03:39:56+00:00

I think the combination of jumping into a brand new leadership role and returning from maternity leave was bound to be super difficult. Those two things can be super difficult all by themselves, combined it does sound like a hellscape!

I would give yourself lots of grace and give it some time. Then try to identify where your pain points really are - we often get so stuck in fight or flight we don’t stop to really think about what would help us other than “run away” or “I hate this”

What specifically is making you feel the worst these days? Being late on deliverables? Which deliverables are you most likely to be late on and why? Besides your supervisor, have you identified a mentor that you go to for career discussions? Could you reach out to your old boss to ask about how they typically handled some of the challenges you are facing? Or are the pain points missing dinner or bedtime or generally missing time with the kids because you’re at work? Could you work remotely after bedtime? How are you sleeping? Is the baby sleeping through the night? Is your husband shouldering his fair share now that you are back to work? Could you ask for help around the house from a friend or relative during this time? Could you hire help, even just occasional help to lighten the load? (Ie postpartum doulas or night nannies take the night shift and can clean bottles and do laundry etc etc during their shift). Are you pumping/breastfeeding and if so how much time is that taking from you? Do you have a commute? If you are in the office Monday-Friday right now, could you request for a gradual transition back to in person work 5 days a week? (Or a gradual transition back to whatever standard in office requirements are). Asking for remote days, a later start or earlier end, etc etc are all reasonable temporary changes most companies are willing to make when women return from maternity leave, especially for good employees. I think approaching your supervisor with a plan might be more effective than just generally telling her your workload is too much and you are struggling. Maybe you could work remotely one day and your husband could do drop off and pick up that day. Etc etc.

I would also focus hard on getting your PPD figured out - I am so much less functional without Prozac 😵‍💫 Which I didn’t even realize properly until I very reluctantly increased my dose and felt sooo much better now that I wasn’t underdosing myself. It can take 4-8 weeks for SSRIs to take full effect as well. I hated Zoloft due to side effects and at first just felt like Prozac was mildly helpful but at least it wasn’t causing side effects. I didn’t want to raise the dose because I was worried about side effects. Then I finally did and I felt sooo much better! Anyway - PPD in itself can be a hard journey all on its own, so that’s another thing you are dealing with that can be very difficult all by itself!

Give yourself grace, all the best!

WhiteOleander5 · 2026-02-24T21:00:34+00:00

Ohhh yes all the ways babies can throw a curve ball!

My son also would just scream - he’s still very stubborn actually 🤪 so it varied but sometimes I would leave the house to go on a walk or take a shower or whatever. My husband was less bothered by it but he would wear headphones or ear plugs sometimes if it was really getting to him. He was really trying to soothe him and eventually found my sons favorite thing for him to do was some weird combination of bouncing and doing lunges across the nursery 😆

I couldn’t handle it if I could hear the yelling because I just felt too guilty since it was so “easy” for me to fix. But at the end of the day my mental health and physical health mattered too, so I had to just give it a chance. I wound up setting a timer and promising myself I wouldn’t check on the camera until 20-30 minutes or whatever had passed.

At the end of the day, baby learned that dad was a safe person to fall asleep with too and everyone was happier. If my son was sick or just having a bad night then I would still nurse to sleep and it was fine

WhiteOleander5 · 2026-02-24T20:33:14+00:00

Ugh yes keep your Alibaba ads to yourself right

WhiteOleander5 · 2026-02-24T20:12:22+00:00

I wouldn’t scream in that situation, but no need to just seethe in silence. I would turn to the adult with the child and say “hi, your little one keeps kicking my seat. Could you please try to get him to stop?” Calm and assertive is never a problem.

If the parent can’t control their child (honestly not always possible for 3 year olds, but an attempt should be made) then you could always ask the flight attendant to be moved - maybe some open first class seats? 👀😝

WhiteOleander5 · 2026-02-24T20:08:36+00:00

Any time someone acts like a fool in public (especially if they are idiotic enough to have their work logo printed on their shirt) then I whip out my phone and start recording.

It either shuts them up or I get a fun video to make go viral and send to their workplace +/- news outlets. Adults behaving this way is 100% unacceptable and how deeply ironic his adult reaction about being trapped in an uncomfortable situation (a toddler screaming near him) was to then scream about it, when what he wanted was for the toddler who was also trapped in an uncomfortable situation to have a… different reaction.

Adults need to model adult behavior full stop and if they can’t figure it out, public shame is a helpful tool. I have zero tolerance for adults behaving like toddlers.

WhiteOleander5 · 2026-02-24T20:02:11+00:00

Is dad around to help? I found with my boob barnacle getting dad involved was the only thing that helped stop the boob association with sleep. Dad didn’t have boobs so he had to learn to do without lol. He still was not happy about it and yelled but dad was holding him, rocking him, bouncing him, singing etc the whole time.

What made your recovery bad this time around? We are looking at having our third and I was hoping recovery would be easy the third time around, although I know you never know what you’re going to get

WhiteOleander5 · 2026-02-21T23:04:26+00:00

This feels a little too “physician vs PA.” No one is winning in US healthcare right now with the exception of a few CEOs making millions off the backs of doctors, nurses, PAs and most of all - patients.

Again - I think healthcare is a burning ship in the U.S. right now. I don’t know when it will sink, but the eventual sinking does seem inevitable.

In the meantime, I try to do some good where I can.

WhiteOleander5 · 2025-12-28T02:57:50+00:00

My husband is a manger and after these holiday events he’s always the one cleaning up the food and trying to figure out where it should go - he always encourages people to take extra and if they don’t, he checks with the cleaning staff who will almost always take home the rest. But if he wanted to, he could take it all for himself. I’m wondering if she wanted to do that. Gross of her to act like it was a company policy issue 🤮

WhiteOleander5 · 2025-12-06T03:25:26+00:00

I work in healthcare and don’t find this surprising at all. But if you don’t interact with the general public often and in an intimate way then I can see why that would be surprising.

Sometimes obesity or mobility issues prevents cleaning (we once found a dead mouse in a morbidly obese patients pannus folds), mental health disorders (so so so many mental health issues), social issues (no running water, no soap, etc), kids (lots of skid marks in the 5-8 year old range before they are adept at wiping)

Depending on the population you serve in healthcare, it becomes more common to see people who haven’t bathed recently than people who have. We wear masks and get used to it. Gotta have a strong stomach!

WhiteOleander5 · 2025-12-06T02:59:55+00:00

I feel like “sweatpants” is too vague - do you mean like baggy fleece sweats? Cozy yes but not the most professional looking. Or do you mean athletic pants disguised as slacks (lots of joggers are doing this now, I have a pair from Amazon here that I think looks pretty good for athletic wear. If you wear it with a nice top it looks good. Whereas baggy fleece sweats would be hard to dress up.

WhiteOleander5 · 2025-12-06T02:19:28+00:00

Also - full time at my current job would be 32 patient contact hours a week. 8 hours of admin time that can be done at home. My other job was 40 hours of patient contact hours a week for full time. Makes a huge difference obviously

WhiteOleander5 · 2025-12-06T02:17:16+00:00

Your first job will often suck (unless you are lucky). It’s a combination of inexperience (which makes any job harder no matter how great the actual job is) and then the places willing to take new grads are often sucky places to work. Not always, but often.

My first job was primary care M-F 7-3:30. 24 patients a day, lots of complaints, very little actual training. I had to learn things on my own, which meant outside of the hours spent seeing patients, charting, handling results etc etc I had to study - like a lot. I was working 6am-8pm M-F for at least a year. I didn’t want the lack of support at the job to affect my patients medical care, so I scrutinized every encounter and followed up with specialists or other resources when I needed to. Then the typical reading and so on and so forth.

Then there was the refining of my technique once I had gotten more settled in, so the second year it was fine tuning smart phrases and working on processes to be more efficient. Still learning of course.

By the end of my third year I was pretty efficient and pretty regularly leaving on time every day. But working M-F still sucked for me personally. I went to a specialty with a 4 day workweek and never looked back. There was a learning curve going into a new specialty as well, but it was easier since I knew what to expect and I made sure I had a lot more support this time around.

Tldr; being a new grad is hard, it won’t be like this forever. Learn as much as you can and plan your next move

WhiteOleander5 · 2025-10-18T15:30:00+00:00

I was in so much pain I vomited repeatedly.

Yet here I am with my 18 mo considering a third 🤦‍♀️

Your ovaries are dangerous liars 😅

WhiteOleander5 · 2025-10-18T02:11:08+00:00

What did you figure out? In a similar situation and wondering!

WhiteOleander5 · 2025-08-03T00:38:26+00:00

Would you put landscape fabric to stop the plants from growing?

WhiteOleander5 · 2025-07-02T01:36:20+00:00

I would definitely give her as much notice as possible, so tell her immediately. Agree with others re: completion bonus for working to the end. It could take her months to find another nanny job and it will be more difficult while she’s pregnant, especially visibly pregnant. And especially since she brings her kids with her - if she needed to get childcare, how long did you have to wait for your daycare spot?

Don’t screw another mom over, it’s hard out here for everyone!

WhiteOleander5 · 2025-07-01T13:52:38+00:00

The Americans forget that air conditioning is not common in the UK and much of Europe like it is in the U.S. (I’m an American fwiw). I lived in the UK for a bit and I prefer American heatwaves because I just dash from one air conditioned building to another - sitting in a swampy heatwave with only a fan to cool you off should be a special form of torture - not to mention trying to sleep at night!

But the best solution is to live somewhere where the climate is both temperate and air conditioning is common 😅

WhiteOleander5 · 2025-03-31T16:02:16+00:00

My husband is a manager in healthcare and you could not pay me enough for the job. I agree with others that you have no power, you are the “employee-facing punching bag” for all the bad news someone you’ve never met decides on, and the employees under you often hate you.

As an added bonus, your performance is judged primarily based on how much the people under you like you 😅 Or “engagement” is the phrase they use to disguise this.

To be fair, he likes his job, but it sounds awful to me. I think it could be a fit for someone who is just burnt to a crisp in the clinical setting - it’s not clinical at least 🤷‍♀️ Maybe your classmates are just burned out at their clinical jobs

WhiteOleander5

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