MedicineDan

I'm a new nurse. Been on the floor for just over two months. Fun times! I was using the correct PPE at the time. It just happened we got more info through testing.

It isn't a matter of whether or not we should end the lockdown. We *will* end the lockdown in any nation with a semblance of freedom. Yeah, just don't. My argument is not about whether it's right or wrong. My point is, it will happen. Humanity is simply not possessed of the character to stay locked away from one another. The lockdown will either end with governments taking reasonable approaches and trying to minimize exposure while allowing people out or governments will try to keep people under lockdown indefinitely and the lockdowns will crack open. It's that simple and has been for some time. Anyhow, to make this about me, which is my favorite topic, I had a patient from somewhere nearby some weeks back. He was double tested negative for the 'Rona and so was only under standard precautions. I admitted this guy who apparently had exposure for some brief time after testing negative. Then he came to us. I had him a total of... 3 times? I think with no PPE other than gloves. Guy's coughing and whatnot much of the time and, especially admitting, you really have to get up close and personal to auscultate and palpate and give a much more thorough assessment than after you know he's stable and you're concentrating on a specific system. lol First, the good news. I believe he lived, although he transferred out and I have no access to info after that. Second, more good news, it's been long enough, I either never caught it or the massive amounts of beer and booze I drink on my days off killed the nasty bugs before they could do me any harm. :big beefy grin: EDIT: Removed something that could, although unlikely, have been identifying of the patient.

We're playing 5th edition and she's pretty excited. Strange group in that everyone plays characters that actually fit their own personalities. None of this business where the tongue tied nerd plays the bard. For example, my other niece (22yo) plays a sorcerer. She's a wonderful kid, but a bit vain and constantly taking selfies, tweaking her hair, that sort of stuff. My brother in law is Mr. Fixit and he plays a rogue. Anyhow, I've looked into Roll20 also. I think I played a small one on one session with a friend who was running a game. I just want something that will be easy and intuitive for a young player starting to branch out into the role of DM.

Keep on the Borderlands! :wink and grin: My pathfinder group likes modules. We're almost done with a campaign where the main baddie is some guy named Lols or some such. Unfortunate name for a non-comical bad guy. I always create my own campaigns, so I haven't run a module for years, but I did enjoy Expedition to the Barrier Peaks back in the 80s.

Sorry about the thread necromancy, but my 16 year old niece has gotten into DnD with me and now she wants a hand at creating her own campaign. We've had to resort to internet gaming and I was wondering what would be good and easy for both a 50 year old grognard like myself as well as friendly for a young adult. I don't mind dropping coin on it if it's good. I don't mind getting something free as long as it does the job. Also, any tools that will help her run a tabletop? I do my stuff by hand (maps and whatnot), but I wouldn't mind using something that makes my life easier also.

My wife cuts my hair and I dye hers. Now that she works at home, she realizes her hair isn't as grey as she thought. At first it was like, "I'll have you dye it right before the big meeting." Now it's, "we can wait until I go back to the classroom." lol Just a quick aside: you're a real bastard, giftd! You and your full head of hair. Mine's getting pretty thin. Hope everyone is staying safe.

This crazy assed noc shift schedule combined with school is killing my game time even more than previously. I finally finished Episode 3 of Wintermute from The Long Dark. Fun game, but they made changes that really dropped down the difficulty. I don't mind, though. I've played it on... Survivor? Whatever the hardest mode is. It's brutal game in sandbox, but I think the story mode really *should* be easier. I think they had the vast majority of their players not finish the first episode because the learning curve was too high for most folks. Maybe more people found this current episode more casual play friendly. I think I'll finally go back to that Disco adventure game I started a while back. I only got about five minutes in before I basically couldn't play for a while and now I want to explore it some more. If it's too demanding, though, I'll have to wait for a while. Always on the lookout for good games when I lurk on these boards.

I've been lucky in that I work in an essential service and so I can get out. The Long Dark is great, but I find it unfulfilling. I just haven't had time to get into a totally new game since Pillars 2.

As a further aside, there's this great game called Grim Fandango. I started it, life got in the way, and I lost the disks. Never finished. I should see if GoG has it. It was brilliant.

If he wants to. ...Or you, Shady. Not my cuppa brew, but I've always the policy of spreading good cheer regardless of what zombie spaghetti monster folks celebrate. :faint smile with one raised eyebrow:

Too early... https://www.bing.com/search?q=day+of+the+dead&PC=U316&FORM=CHROMN

Oops, on my phone and didn't realize I was in CnC. Please move to OT.

This is the day that that Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad in it! Day off for me, so I'm chillin' and getting ready to go to bed. Whatever your creed, or lack thereof, I'm wishing you a happy and healthy day!

Still playing Long Dark episode three five to ten minutes at a time.

Oh, it's just a silly inside joke, Skazz. ...And now I guess I have to admit that maybe things *do* change around here. You're new, and that's a change on the good side.

Eldar! <.< Yeah, I felt dirty doing it, but I've had it done to me so often, I wanted payback. Bastards.

I haven't had time for nothin' lately, but I've decided to eek out a little time to try the 3rd episode of the Long Dark: Wintermute. I think it's the latest one. This time, we're playing as Astrid. Not bad so far. Seems we can save the game now, even quicksave.

One of the things that I love about this board is that it's like a time machine. I hope people take this as I mean it rather than how it may sound. Nothing really changes that much here. It's like a pocket dimension. The people in these parts are kind of like family, both good and bad. Sure, I feel kind of like the black sheep, but I don't mind. I leave and do other stuff, but I always wonder what's going on here. Eventually, I come back and poke my head in. Apparently, my pedestrian style is *just* distinctive enough to recognize. This is truly one of the tightest knit online communities I've ever seen, and I've been involved with a few. Anyhow, I've always been kind of a loner. Not the cool Fonzie leather jacket wearing kind. More the one who can laugh and joke but is always looking for the exit. This place is perfect. I can come, play in the sandbox for a while, and then go. When I come back, the band of brothers are still here, like Valhalla where all the warriors on every side feast each other with drink and song. Nothing can pull this place apart. Clearly, Covid-19 can't.

Picked a hell of a time to go into nursing. Started at the hospital right before things got hot and heavy here in the US. I've had to reuse PPE gowns and don't even ask about the masks. I question the county government mandating everyone wear a cloth petri dish over their noses and mouths, but I suppose they figure people will wear them properly *enough* that the benefits will outweigh the risks. I don't trust that, but then again I see healthcare workers wearing masks wrong all the time. My favorite was seeing two CNAs wheeling an iso patient down the hall. One wore the mask properly. One had a mask cover most of his mouth, more or less, but not his nose. The patient didn't have on a mask at all. Yep. That's all kinds of wrong. Even an N95 mask, which are under lock and key at this point, isn't really more effective than nothing unless its worn properly. Anyhow, it's not too bad where I live. Not a huge number of Covid-19 cases. Maybe famous last words, but I've been living on borrowed time for years, so... :shrug: I am worried about my wife, though. I want to thank you also, Keyrock. Keep moving those goods around the country. We'd all be screwed otherwise. Hell, I appreciate the folks at the local restaurants where I can pick up food. My wife has been doing the cooking for the first time in our marriage, and the learning curve has been steep for her.

Hanging on to Don't Starve because it's not demanding and I can play for a short time and then stop for a while. When I get the chance to deep dive into a game, it will be Disco Elysium.

I think Zoraptor is right, except that I'm not sure Biden would lose a general. As far as I'm concerned, a lot of non-pundits I see are simply better than the majority of the pundits in assessing the situation. Predictions before the elections prove these chumps wrong *a lot.* Probably because we're not in a complete echo chamber. I did *not* write off Biden in the bad old days of the early primary. I don't know if I said this here, but I didn't think Biden could win the nomination. I thought he was more viable as a candidate, but the fact is that he clearly has no place running for president. Frankly, Biden is a terrible candidate in terms of mental acumen. In terms of likeability, which is *considerably* important, Biden does have a distinct advantage. On the other hand, Sanders could still win. I think the fact that people are paying attention to his extreme positions over time will be his undoing. Even then, the Democratic base might still put him over the top. Heaven help us all. Trump and Biden aren't revolutionary. Sanders is probably our most revolutionary candidate in decades. Certainly the most if we don't count doomed third party runs.

I'm getting used to staying up until 0700. I had to take the noc shift because of classes. I have advanced nursing practice and advanced pharmacology this semester. With God as my judge, it's not a pecking order thing. Being a specialized nurse with decent overtime might even make more money than a nurse practitioner. It's not that I get to wear a white coat. It's that I'm old. Old enough that I didn't want to go to med school at the time. Old enough that I don't want the physical demands of being a nurse for the next twenty years. Even that's not the case, though. I want as much freedom to help my patients as much as possible without having to answer to someone else. If California goes the same way as about half of the states, I'll be the primary provider and I'll be my own man. I might be a bit of a jackass around here, which I freely admit, but I'm *good* with patients. They respond to me. they trust me. In the past, if I'd posted this late, it would undoubtedly be the result of overindulgence. Now, it's trying to stay awake. Gives me the chance to catch up on random internet jawbonin' about political events. @Guard Dog Keep up the faith, man. I catch up on your posts when I'm here infrequently and feel like we're friends, even if you don't know who I am. Take that as an insult or a compliment as you wish, but I believe you're a decent guy trying to make sense of what I am convinced is a chaotic and capricious world.

It's so funny to see so many pundits writing off Biden's campaign. There were at least a few who claimed his best day in the campaign would be his first and then all downhill. He clearly is diminished in his capacity and I never thought he had as much up stairs as he liked to think, but the rest of the field has always sucked. I think we could probably flip a coin right now, but I bet we'll have a damned accurate picture by tomorrow night. ...Or, put it this way, if we don't know who won at least almost all the races by the time we go to bed on the west coast, we'll still know something to give us a picture. Even not calling most of these races will tell us something about how things are going.

Acute rehab is just a rehab hospital where the patients typically have had strokes or been in car accidents. Stuff like that. Occasionally, someone's primary doctor sends him or her because of overall health and mobility issues, but I think that's a little rare. Ballard was my first choice. Patients can be severely impaired, but you have them long enough to see them improve and go home healthier and more functional. A lot of my peers wanted to do ICU or Emergency, but I know from experience I would rather not have to deal with a death environment. I mean, I'll do what I've gotta do, but I want to go somewhere with the reasonable expectation that the mass of my patients will leave alive. I did my clinicals at this hospital and they recognized me when I interviewed. Don't worry about the donation. Give what you can when you can and they'll be happy to take it. It's about feeling good for what you can do, not guilty about what you can't. I know, easier said than done.

I've had two endoscopies. I'm a big guy and the anesthesiologist screwed up the dosing on one and I was awake and aware and remember the whole time. I was joking with my wife that I could have driven home just fine. The poor anesthesiologist beat a hasty retreat, but I would have told her no hard feelings if she hadn't left. She clearly felt bad about it. Meh, I've had worse happen to me. Meanwhile, I've been running around getting things ready for my first day in acute rehab. Bought scrubs and had them hemmed. Brushing up on some of my core skills that may have been a little rusty in the time I took off between getting my license and starting work. Still working on Advanced Pharmacology, which is a real brute of a class. Touching base with my academic adviser to map out the remainder of my grad school classes. Today, I gave my 80th donation and thus have given 10 gallons of blood to date. Tomorrow is my first day at work. Life. is. good!