Thursday 26 November 2009

Trouble comes in 3s

Another week another practice. Actually l am at this one for a few weeks with side trips for nights to my old emergency work and a prebooked couple of days at Christmas at a different vets. Love it here for the friendliness. The vets make coffee, something that's very rare. And the SVN is always shoving a plate of cheese, ham pineapple toasties or sweets or something into everyone's hands. And the others bring in all sorts of titbits.

Friday l walked into prep sniffing burning. The other nurse was pulling the door open on the tumble dryer coughing and l went to help her try work out what was wrong (other than the fact the tumble dryer wanted to go terminal). While l emptied the fluff catcher she found a load under it that had fallen through.
A good clean and l went off to finish setting up op theatre while she restarted the dryer. I walked back into prep a couple of minutes later to find it somewhat transformed. It was now a swirling fog of smoke. Coughing l yanked the plug out of the wall, the tumble dryer door had already been opened.
We stared at the machine mindful of the old saying.. there is no smoke without fire. Thankfully this situation disproved the saying.

Upshot is that they will need to get a new tumble dryer and the radiators are doing sterling work.

Yesterday l unpacked the drugs order and having lent my scissors out had to use my biro to rip open the tape on the boxes. It worked fine, l had about 3 boxes and it was just tape. I am sure everyone has done the same at some point.
Half an hour later a wet, blue flash on my arm caught my eye. The nib had fallen off and my pocket was flooded. And ever time l moved l was being covered. I carefully surgical spirited my arm to remove the blue and went on the look out for something to put on so my tunic could go in the wash.
Last week l had thought about putting some scrubs in the car "just in case" note the term thought about.
All l could find in the practice for me was a blue scrub top (Nurses wear green and vets blue) tough it would do. Apart from the fact l was squeezed tight and had to be careful about movements as l think it would have ripped if l moved to fast.
General hilarity at my new fashion mode greeted me.

Problem 3 was more disgusting. I have every so often the last few days had the odd bad whiff around my handbag. I should clarify l have a haversack not a standard handbag. I had a look inside but could see nothing. With my work l figure some cat or dog anal glands had misfired and some had zapped it, hazards of the job.
I was at work early today and sat in the car waiting for the other 8am nurse to turn up as she has the keys. I decided to clean my bag out. The base in the main section wouldn't go flat and l lifted it up.

At some point in the last couple of weeks l had a dim memory of buying a ham and mushroom pastie. This had somehow got shoved under the base and forgotten about. Needless to say my "handbag" has been scrubbed with hot water and various washing substances (fairy liquid, washing powder, hibiscrub) and is now drying at work. My temporary handbag is a plastic bag.
The others find it hysterical and l have faced a barrage of hysteria and comments all day.

4 comments:

Sage said...

Ewwwww to the pastie in the handbag... having said that I have done the same with my work bag, left something in there on friday because I hadn't eaten it and by Sunday it was ewwwwful lol..

Hopefully that is the last of your bad luck.. xx

Vetnurse said...

Thanks Sage l was busted when l tried to slide into the ward and rescue my bag without being seen. Another round of abuse!!

JuliaM said...

"At some point in the last couple of weeks l had a dim memory of buying a ham and mushroom pastie."

Oh, oh... ;)

I once missed a packet of ham that rolled out of the carrier (carefuly stowed behind the front seats of the car) and under the passnger seat.

I don't drive to work, so next Saturday..

Luckily, it wasn't summer!

elderly rock chick said...

i thought it was just me who had days like this! while i wouldn't wish it on anyone it does make me feel less disaster-prone!