Twas barge week

Very much looking forward to a short work week and enjoying the long weekend gifted by celebrating the Labour Day holiday. And by enjoying I mean....sleeping in, chatting with my coworker then having brunch, crocheting a bit, checking out the online newspaper from home (that has somehow been appearing in my inbox gratis this week after I unsubscribed during the years long labour dispute - clearly trying to win me over, we shall see when the time comes to put my money on the table) mind you I have missed Dilbert, checking out Pinterest travel hacks and now...updating the blog. I did (in a nod to the to-do list) organize my food cupboard to see what I have left as I eat my way out the community, what can be gifted and what stays. Gotta pace myself!

This past week saw a tying up of ends from various programs (preschool assessments for the two students moving up to 'big school' here), baking of farewell scones for my roommate, delegation from the aforementioned NIC heading out for a visit/wedding to myself who is now A/NIC, and arrival of a CHN from the west coast. My coworker has a long ER history so my fears of IV access are put to rest. Although meeting the 2 yrs ER experience threshold as requirement for CHN work, she speaks of issues wrestling the PH programs and general clinic work to the ground. This is something I have understood as a problem for many others for the past five years and have been pleased with my eclectic work experience prep. She's done TB nurse contracts in GN and I can pick her brain on that, so we're a good fit. She's looking for a sedate contract so is a keeper. We spent Friday as an orientation day where she found her way around the health centre. Our fax line is down so that was a hassle but we can still scan / email so work goes on.

It's been a fairly active week with the barge in community and I was pleased to see them leaving without any major trauma to deal with. They use heavy equipment to lift houses, shipping containers,

house being moved

vehicles and more from the barges across two narrow ramps onto a quickly created gravel ramp to shoreside storage. The clerk summed it up as she said "I met a house on the road on my way to

leaving for the next stop

work this morning driving my 4wheeler, it was big, made my heart pound". My coworker speaks of another community where she was sent to the airstrip with an emergency response pack as Buffalo Airways was crashing with four passengers. They made an emergency landing and all walked away but she took a while to get over herself. As she said "walking away or expired you can deal with, it's the in-between stuff that would've done me in".  Only a couple of more minor crew issues dealt with - the big complaint from nurses is dealing with out of territory healthcare paperwork. Lots of new faces as clearly all 100 people here are known. A community member was telling me the previous week that as kids they used to go jump on the shipping boxes hoping to free some cans of pop but as she said "all that workers comp and liability stuff put an end to that". Ah times they have changed I told her. We were dealing with the flurry of activity required by the DPW maintenance dude to package up and export the biohazardous waste of sharps containers, I have elected NOT to explore the garage and find them still sitting on the pallets, I shall rather assume the stars have aligned and they have exited with the barge. We donated four large bags of refundables from the health centre as fundraisers to two community groups,  they were being sorted and sent out on the barge yesterday afternoon.

Earlier this week I had reason to phone the physician on call at the regional hospital. The switchboard operator who has a thick accent (unclear of the region of origin, I asked my coworker who says he is Muslim / speaks Arabic and she would know having worked in the Middle East) answered and asked for the triage number which we are required to give when calling so I say "4." I'm just looking for the physician to agree with me on the antibiotic I'm going to give recommended by Bugs n Drugs as it's a required Dr order in our formulary. When putting me on hold he says "one gracious moment". It was about 4:45pm as the patient arrived then to be seen with a complaint of several days duration, the fact that a previous social visit had been made earlier that a.m. is relevant only to the annoyed nurse apparently. I was patched through to the millennial intern assisting (and lest I sound sexist please remember my gender) one of the princesses with an attitude and the tone to match. As I'm waiting for her to speak to me, she's talking to someone in the background and says "it's a CTAS world". For those non nurses reading this I will clarify that CTAS means Canadian Triage Acuity System which are the numbers 1 - 5 designating the acuity of your presenting complaint 1 is being resuscitated, 5 is you can wait until tomorrow to be seen, in other words the triage number the switchboard operator had requested and paged the Dr for. I chuckle and say "it sure is a CTAS world" meaning to establish rapport and missy (the age of my kids) answers "we're just in an education session here, can this wait?" with a very superior tone. I say "I just need an antibiotic ok, will only take a sec" and she says firmly "I will call you back" and hangs up. I am not impressed! We close the health centre at 5 pm and the time drags on as we wait for the callback. The NIC suggests dispensing the antibiotic in question and ignoring the bureaucracy as in "you made the call" and by 5:20 pm we are both ticked enough with the wait to send along the patient with meds. The physician on call (sweet mature Dr) calls as the patient exits and I review the case where she quickly okays the antibiotic choice asking "is that all you wanted?" and I state "yep, could've done that in a few seconds" to which she sighs. I am pleased she is dealing with Missy Attitude personally and not me!

The news this week is sad. Difficult to watch planes underwater in Houston airport, people losing everything including their lives in the flood, dogs sitting patiently waiting with their dog food for rescue  having been abandoned in boats and the recovery effort underway. The cruise reservation company we deal with in Houston is struggling to collect payments via phone as their offices were affected and I chatted with some very calm managers despite all their problems this week. The most personally disturbing news story to me was of the ER nurse arrested in Utah for refusing to give the police a patient's blood sample:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/nurse-sobs-help-me-while-getting-arrested-for-simply-doing-her-job_us_59a98902e4b0b5e530fe51d2

Apparently the chief of police has apologized and the policeman is 'on leave'. I should hope so! Actually I hope he's fired - there's no way a nurse could screw up that badly and still have their job. 

The weather has been foggy, rainy with gusty winds but the flights managed to arrive/leave pretty

appropriate home decor

much on schedule this week. There was even a charter on Friday to take the five students attending high school in Inuvik over to begin the school year. So, I remain optimistic about my scheduled exit, although snow is predicted for one day next week, this isn't unusual timing. Have been practicing a few words in Greek - clearly not going to master the language in anything less than years of study but would like to be polite and recognize the names of the ferry offices. Some more work on my online course, a craft project to finish up, photo book to do, some research for the cyclades, online shopping for such things as the new throw pillow on the right which I just ordered from BlueGorillaInc (how could you not with a name such as that?) and the 12 remaining days will slip away.