My Own Private Paradise...

I cleaned my desk at work today. Since I worked this weekend, and there was time, I took the time to clean my desk. That's always nice.

We have Mike, and he dumps the trash cans and vacuums the ugly carpeting. But, he doesn't dust. My dust on my desk is all mine. I cannot remember the last time I really dusted my desk, so it's probably been quite a while.

Usually, I just take a couple of paper towels, dampen them, and remove the first couple of layers of dust. Then I can work at my desk without sneezing. Or, at least, I don't sneeze as much.

And, it's probably not as bad as it sounds. Nobody in the office cleans their desk very often. We are home health nurses. Our main “work area” is our car. And I need to clean that out, too.

I brought home a bunch of pictures, in frames, that have been on my desk for about five years. They are cute pictures of my grandbabies, but they are out of date. And I took down the poster: an island in the middle of a beautiful, blue ocean, with the words “everybody needs their own private paradise...”

Really, my desk at work is not my own private paradise....

I rearranged the little cubbies I have on top of my desk, and put my nursing chotchkes on top. Looking through my filing drawer, I found a plaque that a patient gave me: “Nursing is a work of heart”. So, I put that on my desk, too.

I also brought a calendar from home. Gotta keep the island paradise theme alive, so it's on the calendar. Two palm trees this month. A starfish in the sand next month...

And, in the drawers, I found formerly important information that is completely out of date. Nursing is like that. Actually, all of healthcare is like that. Wound care modalities change. Equipment changes. Personnel changes. We even have a whole new crop of physicians. Many of them are still wet behind the ears, too.

Boy, don't I sound like an old nurse? Being of a certain age, I think I prefer the term “seasoned nurse.” In any case, I have been a nurse for the entire lifetime of one of the nurses who worked with me this weekend. That's humbling, to say the least....

So, my desk is clean. The grandbaby pictures are replaced. The outdated information has been tossed, and all my charting is done, for now. As I always say: I'm caught up until I get to work tomorrow morning.

And that will happen soon enough....another day in Paradise...