They Are Totally Kicking Me out of the Infertility Club for This One

All Is Well

The King's bloodwork came back, and all is normal. Apparently, despite eating french fries nine time a day, he is healthy as a horse, and with a good blood glucose level to boot. Yay for him.

Now that that weight is off my shoulders, I can scootch off to the hospital for work this afternoon with a light heart.* Hopefully I won't kill anyone today.

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* All those weight metaphors are kind of weird, aren't they?

Blood Work

The King and I went to a health and wellness fair this weekend (by accident--it was billed as a solstice festival), and there was a lady giving free blood sugar tests to screen for diabetes. She told us our sugar level should be between 80 and 100, given when we had last eaten. My test showed 89, just perfect.

The King's number was 302.

I called a friend of mine who has diabetes yesterday, trying not to panic. She said that with a number that insanely high, in someone who is healthy and has no other signs, it was probably a testing mistake. The King had some ice cream earlier in the day, and if he had any little smidgen of it on his finger where they drew the blood, it could have affected the result like that.

The King is supposed to go to sick call today and schedule a fasting blood test so we can make sure he's okay. In the meantime, I am just going to sit here and try to breathe slowly and deeply and not panic.

This Was Supposed to Be a Really Funny Story About a Naked, Demented, Old Guy, But Then He Died

I started volunteering at a local hospital as a nurses assistant on the Medical/Surgical ward. I want to be an RN and thought this would be a good experience. All I did the first day was paperwork, which sucked. But yesterday, I got to do real patient care! The nurse manager asked me to sit in the hallway in front of the doorway of a patient who likes to climb out of his bed, even though he's partially paralyzed and get help if he tried to get out of bed. They call it "sitting," because, well, that's what you do.

Naturally, about three seconds after the nurse left me alone, the guy, an 85-year-old man, started yelling and trying to pull himself up. I grabbed the nearest nurse and got her to calm him down. She did, and left. Then the guy sat up and saw me in the hallway. He yelled, "Come in here, hey, come here!" I didn't want to, but I felt weird just ignoring him. So in I go.

As I get to his bedside, he flings back the sheet, revealing his completely buck-ass naked 85-year-old self, and yells loud enough for the whole ward to hear, "Hey baby! Jump on, you're hot!"

Yeah. So that's how I got this really funny story for my blog about how a naked, demented, old guy wants to have sex with me.

Except that after I sat back down at my post, the guy calmed down. I thought he fell asleep, until a few minutes later when a nurse when to check on him. She shook him once, did a double-take, shook him again, then looked up at me and shouted, "CODE BLUE!"

It was just like ER. Two dozen nurses suddenly appeared, running into his room with carts and needles and stands. One of them jumped on his bed and I watched them pound on his chest over and over while another pushed about a gallon of something (atropine, I think, but I don't really know) into his IV port. They pumped and pumped away at him for almost an hour. It was insane. The half-dozen nursing students who were on the ward all took turns giving him CPR, which they were clearly terrified about. But it didn't work.

At 1:22 pm, he died. The head nurse asked, "Who do we notify?" The RN checked the chart and said quietly, "No one. He doesn't have any friends or family. We just call the coroner."

Sorry, Mr. Ethan. I'm sorry you died alone. I'm sorry the last words you ever spoke were embarrassing and dirty. I'm sorry I saw you take your last breath and didn't even know it. Maybe if I had known and told someone a few minutes earlier, they would have brought you back. I'm sorry you don't have any family. I'm just really, really sorry.

To the Babysitter Who Won't Go Home

You know the couple you're babysitting for, the two who just got home from celebrating their wedding anniversary with an incredibly romantic candlelit dinner and a walk on the sands of Waikiki in the moonlight? They don't want to hear about your new boyfriend. They don't want to hear about how you think Sanjaya never should have been on American Idol, and they don't want to know who you think is the prettiest America's Next Top Model. THEY WANT TO HAVE SEX. GO HOME!

Turn Left at the Polaris Missile

I was running an errand on Pearl Harbor last week, and I didn't know where the office I needed to visit was, so I called the King at work and asked him. Only in the military can you get directions like these:

"Come up Kamehameha Highway and turn in at the main gate. Stop at the gate so the armed guard can check your papers and search the car. Then go through the gate and turn right. About two blocks up, make a left at the thirty-foot-tall Polaris missile on the side of the road. Then drive until you see the three-story building with no windows, ten satellite dishes on top, and barbed wire all around it. Turn right after that building into the parking lot, go up to the third deck, and show the staff sergeant your ID. Don't worry, she's really nice."

Open Letter to an Animal Abuser

To the person who abandoned this dog on my street yesterday:

You are a miserable excuse for a human being. I can't think of awful-enough things to call you. Because there is a forest at the top of my hill where people go to shoot wild pigs, I suspect you are a hunter. When your dog didn't hunt well enough, you simply left him up there to starve to death.

You sick bastard. This photo really does not show the horrific extent of your dog's absolute emaciation. I've seen starved dogs before on Animal Cops and been pissed off, but seeing it in real life is a hundred times worse and absolutely sickening.

He is clearly someone's dog, not a stray. When I found him staggering down the street, I ran and grabbed our old dog's leash. Your dog clearly has been walked on a leash before and seems to understand a few commands. And despite his agony, he was sweet and good-natured. The Princess was almost falling out of her stroller to play with him, and he gamely wagged his tail and smiled at her and tried to lick her hand, although he was barely able to stand up.

Too bad I couldn't let her play with him, because not only did you let him starve, but he has a massive infestation of fleas and mange, and he was bleeding freely from several places on his body, where he scratched all his skin off to escape the agony.

I thought he would probably die last night, even though we fed him about ten pounds of food. But he managed to get through another night, so your dog is probably going to be euthanized today after the Humane Society comes to get him. I wish we could keep him, but we just don't have room. At least his death will be quick and painless, unlike the slow horror you sentenced him to.

I suspect you haven't missed many meals, you scumbag. I wish I could lock you up in a closet for a week or two with no food so you would have a tiny inkling of what this sweet, friendly animal has been going through.

Most sincerely,
Queenie