STARS and STARS

i rather enjoy the song "your ex-lover is dead" by STARS.

but today, i have been given a moment to reconsider. i was removing a patient's skin while waiting for STARS to arrive and take him to a burn unit. and the word was that he had set himself on fire.

where there's nothing left to burn, please dont set yourself on fire.

thanks.

(and i still really like the song!)

auntie babysits.... and gets arrested?!?!?

so here it is, the wee hours of saturday morning.

how did i spend my friday night in small town?
babysitting.
yes, auntie JV spent friday night babysitting. it was pretty good.

except...

its just past 1am and i'm driving home. the streets are bare. this car comes out of nowhere and is following annoyingly close. we enter the township and i slow to the required limit. the car behind me flashes its lights. it is a police car.
great.
i haven't been speeding.
i'm convinced of this.
i didn't run a stop sign.
and yet here i am pulled over by the police.

where are you coming from? asks the young french officer (who i remember because she interrogated me one night at the hospital about the confidentiality of medical records. i guess she didn't recognize me).

uh... babysitting?

do you have a driver's license?

uh... yes. (i know i look young and the fact that i just said i was babysitting is not helping my case, i'm sure. i suddenly start wondering if the town has a curfew i don't know about)

the officer looks at the licence suspiciously. i wonder if i should offer her my registration or if that would be cheeky...

is this your car?

yes.
why?

So here i am, a young-looking female, returning from "babysitting", at 1 o'clock in the morning. Looks suspicious in a small town. I guess do-gooders aren't driving at that time of day. Unless its a doctor but i'm sure they all recognize their vehicles. Even i know what most of them look like and i haven't been here that long.

In the end there wasn't a problem. She had run my plates and they came up without a driver's licence attached to it. I guess she thought i stole it.

I should be relieved i didn't get a ticket.
Reminds me of last summer when i got pulled over by the cops specifically for not breaking any laws. Being a goody-goody can be hard work!

AUNTIE JV

it has been an interesting week.

i had a busy but enjoyable time working the ER on saturday and sunday but monday morning i woke up and i was SICK. ugh. i dragged my arse to a meeting at work on "workplace environment" and left in the middle to go puke.
little known fact: JV does NOT puke. ever. except the one time she had food poisoning. still cant eat spanikopita...

so i'm in the brown-tiled bathroom of the nurses' changeroom and i felt like passing out and i thought "JV! You cant pass out in the basement of a hospital!".
I managed to make it upstairs to the ER where the doctor asked me if i had been around anyone with GI problems recently (diarrhea or vomiting). "doctor", i said "i have spent the last two days working the ER. Its full of sick people!".
silly doctor!

things got hazy for the next few days and are only starting to come back to me now in bits and pieces. The doctor said she'd give me some IV fluids (one of my not-so-favourite ER nurses called me Princess and made me cry when she couldn't get my IV started) and some gravol, another doctor came by and thought i was a boy named Steven and then tried to kick me out, and my boss drove me home.
on tuesday i went back for a second round of IV fluids and gravol. they put me in the quiet room (which was nice because its QUIET and private and they let me sleep as long as i wanted) but Irish doctor tried to pink-slip me! He told the nurse that since i was in the quiet room they might as well certify me as being crazy.

a nurse drove me home and then Fid (female irish doctor) came and picked me up and the Irish Doctors held me against my will in their rather large house for the next 3 days!
I remember laying on the couch and being offered a lot of tea. And more tea.
I remember trying to explain to a 4 and a 7 year-old what an IV was for while i was rather spaced-out on gravol.
But i woke up on the morning of the third day feeling better (aside from head cold i picked up from Fid) and i was Auntie JV and the 4 year-old and i played all day. She did my hair. She gave me a puppet show. We made banana chocolate chip muffins! Fid and i made dinner and then she left me with 2 of her kids while she went to pick up the third. Mid (male irish doctor) came home as i was herding his kids outside to wait for their mom. I felt as if i had taken over his family! His kids were fed and dressed for their evening's activities and his dinner was waiting on the counter. Fid has decided that they are going to put a kitchen in their basement and make it into a nanny suite for me and i will quit nursing and be their nanny. It wouldn't be so bad - they have an indoor pool! Fid also decided that she needs to marry me off so i can have kids. She asked her kids "don't you think auntie JV should get married and have babies?".

i think the best was having the four year-old running through the house yelling AUNTIE JV!!!!