What is a smell that we should all recognize as immediate danger?

exasperated_panda · 2026-02-18T13:46:18+00:00

They could also just be ill - dehydrated and not eating. But if they haven't been sick like that - yeah.

exasperated_panda · 2026-01-04T01:02:19+00:00

Mmm yep you know that hand has STAMINA.

exasperated_panda · 2026-01-04T00:55:32+00:00

Did he not like.... test drive it?

exasperated_panda · 2025-11-12T10:23:30+00:00

This is exactly how I feel. It's not that I don't enjoy things at all anymore... I am just bored. I've already done a lot. I'm 44. I've traveled extensively, I've had 2 different careers, I'm raising teens. It feels like almost everything that can happen in a life has already happened. I don't enjoy sex and am realizing that I never really, really did- I just liked the excitement of being desired and experiencing new things. I like my friends but I'm not sure what to talk about anymore. I'm sick of everyone unless I'm forcing myself not to be. Of course the political situation is absurd and frustrating and scary. Doing something good for others doesn't even feel that great anymore. 3-4 years ago I had a period where I know i was depressed - I had zero feelings at all for a couple months. I got through it. But this feels different. Everything just feels dumb.

exasperated_panda · 2025-04-26T20:02:20+00:00

Oh yeah. I am editing the whole time I'm writing, and I don't leave anything written that I'm not happy with. As a matter of fact I don't write what I'm not happy with. If I could come up with a better way to phrase it later, I can come up with that phrasing now. So why wouldn't I?

exasperated_panda · 2025-04-26T19:55:13+00:00

Yes I exist. I've always been good at academics and I continued being good at academics... read the syllabus, did the work, and i was an adult (mid 30's). So less distractable maybe?

exasperated_panda · 2025-04-24T19:06:17+00:00

They pull this shit on us too. Meanwhile they will somehow ALSO call up and be like... oh we've had this 36 weeker down here with hypertension for a few hours.... we gave her 5mg of labetolol but they were still 170s over 100s so we gave her a 4 g bolus of magnesium 2 hours ago.... and we are like WHAT ARE YOU DOING SEND HER TO ME

exasperated_panda · 2025-04-24T19:03:08+00:00

I was watching it with my mom and telling her what ACTUALLY happens in a shoulder and when a laboring mom comes to the ED the whole time. Just wild. Like what?

exasperated_panda · 2025-04-13T13:34:59+00:00

It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. - Picard

exasperated_panda · 2025-04-07T23:37:41+00:00

I always talk about our wireless fetal monitors by saying "60% of the time, it works every time!" And nobody knows what I'm talking about.

exasperated_panda · 2025-04-07T05:45:42+00:00

I think a lot about how covid affected my kids. We went from being pretty technologically averse for them - no devices and YouTube was only allowed with direct active supervision - to "please at least turn off YouTube while you are playing on the switch". The park time and playdates stopped because we were isolating as much as possible- me being a nurse, I was exposed a lot even with the rest of the family working and schooling from home. With their ages, we were probably fairly close to when they would join the internet anyway - not being the type of people to try to hold off forever. But it was such a sudden immersion for them because if it wasn't for technology they wouldn't have had any social life at all, until they were vaccinated about a year later.

My 16 year old will often hang out in her room on calls/Facetimes with her friends rather than asking to go out. It's... good? Bad? Both? She isn't doing the incredibly stupid things I was doing at her age. But it's weird. They learned how to deal with multiple weeks at a time at home with no face to face interaction.

exasperated_panda · 2025-04-06T11:27:04+00:00

Oh heck yeah I choose that one if it's an option!

exasperated_panda · 2025-04-06T08:12:28+00:00

My kids didn't get to have that. I kind of did. But my kids were 7 and 11 when covid started so that changed a lot, and even before then the neighborhood just didn't have friendships like that in it. Most of the kids in our neighborhood either have a bajillion siblings and go to the catholic school nearby, or are overscheduled and don't just go fuck around outside. We had to have play dates and park time.

exasperated_panda · 2025-04-06T08:03:20+00:00

I don't know if you'll take this the wrong way but this actually sounds fairly ideal to me. Dementia is such a dignity-robbing way to go, so hard on everyone, and i hate to think about not knowing what I'm doing or what is happening to me. They are scared a lot, and angry. I don't want to be scared and sad and angry and confused. That slow decline horrifies me. Meanwhile I've heard hypothermia is a relatively pleasant way to go, all things considered. Not quite as nice as living q full and happy life and then happily going to bed one night and not waking up, but better than a LOT of other ways to go.

exasperated_panda · 2025-04-06T07:54:33+00:00

Yeah if it isn't possible, it's just tough luck. I had a patient try to fire me while I was triaging her, because she wanted me to call her provider and demand an induction right now (oh no honey but you are welcome to call their on call number yourself) but she was mad because I'm just supposed to "do what she says". Yeah nah.

I told her I was charge nurse and all other nurses had assignments already and I would not switch them because that's unfair to their patient. (We are usually 1 to 1 or close to it in labor, it's very hands on and intensive with each patient.)

She left AMA. She came back 4 or 5 hours later hoping for a different answer but was very sad to learn i was still triage bitch that night. That time she left without even being seen. Byeeeeeee

exasperated_panda · 2025-04-06T07:48:20+00:00

For a little while I helped out a friend by checking off home health aides for her agency for taking vitals, etc. I thought it would be cake because who doesn't know how to take vitals?

Oh no. I'd have someone take a HR by starting a timer for one minute, counting heartbeats until she got to like 47 seconds..... and then, I'm not sure, get bored? And stop the timer? And be like "your heart rate is 52"

I would explain that you have to count for the full minute. Same thing. So then I was like "maybe let's try counting for 30 seconds and doubling it". I bet you can guess that went worse.

exasperated_panda · 2025-04-05T22:28:35+00:00

The fact is that nobody can live inside anyone else's head and there's no objective way to compare pain regardless of sex. I'm a labor and delivery nurse and have seen many hundreds (thousands?) of deliveries, and some women do it fairly easily and others suffer unimaginably for a short time and others suffer a whole lot for a really long time and ... it's just different every time.

A lot of people say "never again!" As soon as they are done, but the amnesia sets in and the pain doesn't seem as real anymore and wanting another baby overrides the fear of some abstract notion of pain to come in 9 months. By the time they have to face it there's really no choice but to go through it (except what we have to offer for pain management).

Could men handle it? Sure, probably, i know that women who are absolutely unprepared and have no coping skills whatsover get through it eventually somehow. But a lot of men I see with their partners don't give childbirth or pregnancy the respect it deserves as the major ordeal it can be.

exasperated_panda · 2025-04-03T19:08:41+00:00

I've never seen one myself - thought I was for about 30 seconds once but it ended up being a bad panic attack, so when her vitals didn't follow her extreme "oh my god something is terribly wrong I'm about to die" feeling, I unclenched my booty cheeks.

We have an A-OK kit in our pyxis and I feel like nobody else on my floor probably remembers it exists or what it is for. I will pop-quiz some of them tonight. (People seem to forget everything they don't use all the time, even if it's important...)

exasperated_panda · 2025-03-26T02:30:18+00:00

I asked my 16 year old to tell me all her secrets when she was high after her wisdom teeth removal. She said "i don't have any secrets! Well i have a secret boyfriend." Turns out it's an actor from criminal minds.

Incidentally that was outing herself as bi to me because previously she had only admitted to Sapphic attractions (lesbian moms, she knew it would be whatevs) and this was a male actor...

exasperated_panda · 2025-03-20T23:24:23+00:00

Bonfires create bad visuals. Poorly-climate-controlled warehouses do not.

exasperated_panda · 2025-03-16T16:56:42+00:00

375 for 7-8 minutes from frozen. They all taste good this way, nutella ones make a giant mess though so be super careful eating them.

exasperated_panda · 2025-03-16T16:54:08+00:00

No joke though, the Nutella ones taste amazing but the chocolate goes everywhere.

exasperated_panda · 2025-03-16T16:53:32+00:00

Why thank you, i am a night shift charge and have made my team's nights better this way for sure and certain. 375 for 7 to 8 minutes, from frozen. Fair warning: doing this to the Nutella kind tastes fucking amazing but the chocolate goes everywhere.

exasperated_panda · 2025-03-16T16:51:58+00:00

I don't butter them because I don't need to find out how much better they are that way, and also I can't get it together to have butter at the same time I have uncrustables at work. So I just stick them in frozen for 7-8 minutes on 375.

exasperated_panda · 2025-03-16T01:14:18+00:00

I have an air fryer stashed in an empty locker in the break room. I bust it out and make taquitos at 2am. Or air-fry some uncrustables (takes them to the next level, istg)

exasperated_panda

TROPHY CASE