My Weekend

This was my weekend off, and a much needed one I might add. Seeing as how I don't really know anyone in Chattanooga yet, it is a bit of a challenge to find ways to fill up my 3 days off. I mean there's only so much shopping a girl can handle before getting completely burnt out. On Friday after finally getting up around 12:30 pm (hey it was after 4am before I went to bed) I decided to hit the Y. I discovered that there are very few people who work out in the middle of the afternoon, so I may have to make this my new time to visit the Y. I'm not really sure what I did with the rest of my day because as I sit here try to recap my weekend, I can't think of any great life events that occured on Friday. I think I payed some bills and put away my laundry, but if I were on the witness stand, I don't know that I could safely say this what happened on Friday, January 13th. Wow, I didn't realize until I just typed that, that we had a "friday the 13th". I guess nothing too horrible happened. Or maybe it did and my memory was erased and that's why I can't recall what I did. Saturday I braved the mall and found some new pants at Banana Republic. I also picked up some new picture frames at TJMaxx to add to my ever growing collection. That afternoon I watched the women's american nationals ice skating finals. For all of you who aren't up on your women's figure skating-and I'm guess that's probably most of you- this is the last major event before the Olympics that helps determine the 3 women who will represent the USA. Exciting I know, I bet you're on the edge of you seat waiting to read what I did on Sunday. I decided to try a new church this weekend as the one that I had been to a couple times was, well, let's just say it was too "Baptist" for me. So while this may sound rather odd considering the comment I just made, I decided to attend Woodland Park Baptist Church. It was definitely more my style and the pastor was really good. For now, I'm pretty sure I'm going to start going there. After church I went to Target, and then I headed up to Cleveland to watch the Colt's game with my friend Nathan. For those of you who didn't catch the game it was an emotional rollercoaster and a gut wrenching loss for Peyton and the Colts. They had several opportunities to win or at least force overtime, but weren't able to capitalize on any of them. It was a very sad way to end the season.
So that about sums up my weekend. Thrilling as you can read. I also managed to clean the apartment, do some grocery shopping, and balance my check book. This comming week I have 60 wonderful hours to look forward to in the Parkridge East ER. Hopefully they will be as uneventful as my weekend was!

the nuts are loose in chattanooga

is it asking too much to just see one normal person during a shift in the er? i didn't think that it was, but after the 60 hours i put this past week at good ole parkridge east, i have decided that it is indeed asking too much. i consider myself to be an "average american" but i'm becoming less convinced of this on a daily basis. it would be nice to walk into an exam room and see a patient who isn't going to lie to me, has a job, and isn't completely psycho. as the title of this post implies, the majority of the patients i have seen here lately are crazy-some of them literally. i have seen a few patients with legitimate complaints and who actually weren't just there to get pain meds, but when the ratio is 1 normal person to 20 crazy ones, one tends to forget about the normal ones.
i made another patient mad this weekend because i didn't write him a prescription for percocet for his "back pain", which according to him was horrible pain- the worst he'd ever had. however, this man is telling me all this as he sits on the bed calmly without even the slightest hint of discomfort. i mean come on, if you want me to believe you even just a little bit you should probably at least pretend to be in pain. he did give me this sob story about how horrible things were in his life right now, so maybe that was his strategy to get me to give him drugs. needless to say i didn't write him any narcotics and when the nurse went to discharge him and give him a shot for his "horrible pain" he got mad and left, which was fine with me.
in other news, i joined the y today as part of my semi new years resolution to try and live healthier. i also finally got around to setting up my high speed internet this past week, and i can assure you that i will never go back to dial up. as i am know to be suffer from a lack of patience, it's very nice to have pages load quickly. so that pretty much sums up what i've been up to since my last post.

A Weekend in the Big JC

I went home this past weekend to visit the family and celebrate a late Christmas. The Big JC was pretty much the same, except for a few new construction sites and some road construction. Of note, there is a Fatz being built in Elizabethton near the new Wal-Mart, which if you have never eaten at a Fatz, you definitely need to check it out when it opens.
On Friday night, I went to DeAnna Stoltzfus' wedding-who is now DeAnna Smith (just a bit of a simplification). On Saturday I went up to Bristol, VA to spend some time with my Granny, which is always fun. I spent New Year's Eve hanging out at the Disque house, ate some delicious white chili, played Gesstures and spent some time catching up with Leah. I also got to see my good friend Mark Hossler and his wife for a little while which was cool. I must say it was a bit of a struggle to stay awake to usher in the new year, but I'm going to blame that on my lack of sleep the week before and the very nice warm fire that I was sitting in front of. The highlight of my weekend was probably getting to spend time with my niece Kaley. She has grown so much in the month since I saw her last and she is as wild as can be. I swear the kid has more energy that anyone I have ever seen. She is so entertaining and has started talking lots more. I have pictures to post later, so there is something to look forward to. I am also proud to report that the Christine has now offically started working at Chick-fil-a in the Mall so now all five Keyt girls have joined the "cult". I'm sure everyone is surprised by this.
So as you can see it was a thrilling weekend in JC, but none the less, it was good to see the family and catch up on what was happening back home. This week it's back to work as it is my week to work five 12 hour shifts. Yesterday we saw 101 people, hopefully it won't be that crazy today.
Hope everyone had a Happy New Years, let me know what you did. Later~

Christmas in the ER

I hope that everyone had a very merry christmas and thoroughly stuffed themselves with wonderful christmas goodies. For those of us that spent the holiday working, I hope that your day was not as hectic as mine. Here's a small recap of how my holiday went:
I rolled out of bed around 10 am on Christmas morning, sat around for a while reading the newspaper, got ready and headed out the door to work my third straight 2p-2a shift in the ER. The past 2 nights had been extremely busy so I was looking forward to a nice slow evening, as I had been assured by one of the ER docs that is was normally slow on Christmas and that we would just sit around, eat, and it would be no big deal. Well, he lied. I walk in to the ER to a scene that can only be described as chaos. Most of the rooms are filled with patients, and the handy dandy Tracker is showing a long list of patients still in the waiting room. Never a good way to start a shift. Some patients were actually pretty sick and did really need to be there, however most of them left me wondering if it is really possible to live with out a brain.
To add to my fun night, I got in a yelling match with a black man which prooved to be quite interesting. He and his wife had gone to eat at the Huddle House and he fell on a greasy floor, hitting his head, jaw, and lower leg before blacking out. He was very polite when I first went to see him and I got his full history, examined him, talked for a little while with him and his wife about their christmas, explained what I was planning on doing and left to put in the orders. Since he had blacked out and had some facial trauma, I decided to CT his head to check for bleeding and to check for any fractures. The injury to his leg was just a bruise with some swelling and since he was walking around fine decided it didn't need to be x-rayed. So I think things are fine at this point. When he comes back from CT, he comes up to the desk and starts yelling about how he needs an X-ray of his leg and he's hurt and nobody is checking him out and on and on. So I very calmly ask him what the problem is and try to explain that I did not feel that it was necissary to x-ray his leg and that it was just bruised. He continues to yell and carry on in front of everyone and goes on about the fact that he was a nurse aid and he knows that when something is hurt you should x-ray it and I don't want to check him out right cause he's a man and I'm a woman and I'm trying to belittle him (they taught him that in some class) and all this nonsense. I-still very calmly at this point- ask him to step into his room and I will discuss the situation with him. The yelling continues, and it is obvious that his wife is embarassed. So now comes the part, where I start yelling back. He tells me I am just a student and I do not know what I am talking about, and I pretty much lost it at that point. I worked hard to get the "C" after my PA and I will not let anyone insult my intelligence or my education. So I very loudly say back that I am not a student and that I am fully certified, know what I am doing, and I am not going to stand for him to talk to me like that. After all this, I finally get him calmed down, re-explain the situtation to him, and apologize for any misunderstanding there may have been. Needless to say, he didn't get the x-ray of his leg, his wife came and apologized for his behavior, and the CT was normal.
So yeah, it was an interesting night. Of course there was the high point of flirting with the really cute EMT, but that's another story. :)
Love to hear how your holiday went, hope it was better than mine.

Isn't she cute?

Since I have mastered posting regular posts to my blog I decided I would try posting pictures. I decided to start with a picture of my niece Kaley, because well she's obviously adorable and I miss her. She will be 2 the end of January and is really starting to talk more. She calls me Ra-Ra and she normally yells it. She is spoiled rotten between 4 aunts, 2 sets of grandparents, 3 great grandparents, and an uncle. Okay so I don't have much more to say for now. Wish be luck as a look forward to a full shift at the ER.

Holiday Madness

Okay, so I think I offically hate shopping and that I have lost any amount of sanity that I once had. Due to working lots, being sick, lacking the christmas spirit because I will be spending the holiday weekend working in the ER, and basically just being lazy, I have waited until the last minute to begin my christmas shopping. Yes, I know. I'm normally the one that has it all planned out way in advance and finishing my shopping way before all the other crazy folks get out there to do theirs. Well, let me tell you that after this year, I will NEVER make the mistake of waiting until the last minute again. I must add though that I was not a complete slacker in the gift department because I did attempt to buy some gifts early, but there were some shipping issues so it looks like those gifts are out and I will have to dream up something else. Anyway back to the main subject. So on Saturday I foolishly headed out to do some shopping- with about 6000 other people in Chattanooga. I first headed to Wal-Mart, which is a mad house during normal weekends, much less at Christmas. I have decided I am going to teach a class on store edicit, because people do not know how to behave in a store or how to make their children behave for that matter. If you stop your cart in the middle of the aisle, no one can get around. It that not obvious to people???? Also random stopping at weird intervals is very likely to get your heels banged with a shopping cart, so don't do it. Another one of my pet peeves when shopping is people who have NO concept of personal space when standing in the check out line. If I can feel you breathing down the back of my neck, you are probably TOO close. So take a step back and no one will get hurt.
After braving Walmart, I made another poor decision and decided to head to Hamilton Place Mall. I should have known that was a bad idea when I got to the road that circles the mall and saw that there were multiple police men around directing traffic. I had a similar experience with the shoppers in the mall as I did with the ones at Walmart. Except for at the mall you also get to add teenage punks who are standing in the middle of the walk way, and people with HUGE baby strollers. It's not rocket science. If you can barely walk through the aisle, I can pretty much assure you that the stroller, isn't going to fit. I won't get started on the traffic and the many stupid people who some how managed to get their drivers license, except to say that I'm pretty sure my road rage reached a new level this weekend and also to say that if you're driving near me, use your turn signals or you will force me to yell something not very nice at you or make an inpolite gesture. thanks.
I did survive the experience and managed to get most of my shopping accomplished so I guess all in all the weekend wasn't a total waste. However, tomorrow holds the potential for a whole other level of stupid people as I question why some many people come to the ER for minor illnesses and I get to listen to people try and come up with reasons that I should give them pain meds.

Joining the Band Wagon

Well, I've offically joined the world of Blogs. It seems to be the thing to do lately and seeing as when I'm not working I often find myself bored with lots of free time. So what better way to spend my free time than by writing a Blog. For those of you might be wondering about the name of my blog, it comes from a progression of nicknames that I have had over the past few years. In college my friend Wes decided in Organic Chemistry Lab one afternoon after we had all been inhailing lots of toxic vapors, that he needed to start calling me by my last name-and only my last name. I seriously think I can count on 1 hand the number of times that he called me Rachel. Anyway, "Keyt" stuck as my new name and was adopted by my friends Manny and Nate as well. They were pretty much the only people who called me Keyt, that was until I went to PA school and met Luke. Sometime during the first couple of semesters, Luke shared with me that he thought my last name would make a great super hero name, but it needed a few minor adjustments. First it to be lengthened to Keyter and then -and possibly the most important part- you just had to add The to it, because what is a super hero name with out that, to finally arrive at "The Keyter". For some reason this nickname caught on rather quickly with my PA classmates, although most of them simply went with Keyter when refering to me. So I'm still being called Keyter by most of the people I met in PA school so I decided I'd better learn to like. And since I couldn't come up with any better title, I figured I'd use it as my Blog title.
So that's the story- not too exciting, but hey it gave me something to talk about for my first post.