Pica was an unusual problem. A few of the patients I took care of during my thirty-year nursing career experienced it. Essentially, Pica is consumption of non-food items. Ice, clay, dirt, chalk are among common substances I have known patients to eat. Constant ice-eating can lead to anemia. I even knew of one patient who snitched a bag of clay from another patient who had dug it from a clay bank near her home. Afterward, the clay bank lady began peddling her bags of clay to other patients. The cause of Pica is poorly understood. It may arise from dietary deficiencies or cultural influences. There is no effective treatment, though patients are usually prescribed multivitamins. I did once have a patient who came in complaining of severe belly pain. During surgery, she was found to have eaten enough clay that it had hardened like a brick. She was totally obstructed and ended up with a temporary colostomy.
human interest
I’m Pretty Sure I Used to be Cooler
Doorbell Ring
https://ring.com/share/7f5d90a7-df84-4ccf-8383-61c2cd04744c
Our doorbell kept ring all afternoon. Follow the link to see our guest!
Overcoming Self-Pity: A Tale of Compassion and Self-Reflection
A balmy January evening was followed by a frigid, icy day of the kind we rarely get in Louisiana. I wore warm clothing but never warmed up as I drove the thirteen slippery miles to work. I begrudged going in knowing there would be extra patients hospitalized due to the loss of power and water, Dialysis patients can’t forgo treatment. I’d be doing a sixteen hour day and have to spend the night at the hospital to be available for emergency admissions. I thought longingly of my family in my cozy home who’d be gathered before the fireplace later that day, eating stew my husband heated in a cast iron pot in the fireplace. I had a good pity for myself worked up.
On my way in, I met a co-worker clocking out. I wondered how she’d been lucky enough to be relieved. Then I saw she was crying. I forgot myself.
“Gracie? What’s wrong?” I asked. Gracie wasn’t a crybaby. I’d known her for years.
”I gotta get home! Grandma had clothes hanging in front of the heater and burned the house down. Everybody got out, but everything’s gone! I don’t even have a toothbrush! “ she wept. “My brother’s coming to get me and I don’t even have a coat to wear home.”
I felt so ashamed of my self-pity. “Here, take my coat. I took my wallet out of my purse, leaving her my lunch, comb, brush, lotion, tissue, umbrella and tylenol. “Here, take my purse and coat. This will help a little”
Experiencing her misfortune firsthand made me ashamed of myself. I wished I’d had more to give. Ever since that time. I give what I feel called upon to share. I’ve never regretted anything I gave away. I feel better if I do what I should.
Sex Education in the ‘50s
I learned all this valuable information back in the 1950’s with absolutely no sex education! Probably until about the time I started school, I thought when people wanted a baby, they went to the hospital and picked one out from a collection there. Those that were not chosen grew up to be doctors and nurses.
The sex of the baby was determined by the way the parents dressed it and fixed its hair.
After I noticed pregnancies, I drew some conclusions. The unborn baby breathes through the mother’s naval. If she submerged, it will suffocate.
Before I found out about sex, I thought women had babies because they had breasts, sort of like, “which came first, the chicken or the egg?”
When a friend enlightened me on the “facts of life,” I didn’t believe her. I told “That’s stupid! Nobody would do THAT!”
Mama, the Twins and Aunt Suzi
My friend Ellen planned to adopt her sister’s Suzi’s newborn due about the same time as her own. Ellen was Suzi’s birth coach and put the newborn baby girl to her own breast at its birth, taking it home with her the next day. Suzi went back to college, missing only one day of class.
A couple of days later, Ellen sat in the obstetrician’s office, hugely pregnant, nursing her newborn baby girl amidst a bevy of confused pregnant women in the waiting room. The next day, she gave birth to a baby girl.
The girls considered themselves twins, calling Ellen, Mama, and cherishing Suzi as their favorite aunt. It was a happy solution to a challenging situation.
Quick and Easy Way to Retire Comfortably
Don’t borrow money to live on while you go to school. If you must borrow, borrow only enough for tuition and books. You don’t need cable TV, Fancy cell phone plans, money for eating out or partying. If possible get a dependable roommate. If you work steadily, you won’t need entertainment. Peanut butter, whole wheat bread, and beans are nutritious, high protein foods, and you can keep them in a metal lockbox in your room if your roommate is a moocher.
Buy your clothes at resale shops and Goodwill if you don’t have cash. You don’t need as many as you think, especially if you don’t eat out and party. Take a job, any job, until you get one that pays better. Never quit one job till you have another. If your boss is an idiot, keep your mouth shut. If he really is stupid, he will undo himself without your help.
Live without credit cards. You will probably have to finance your first vehicle. Get a sturdy used car and drive it as long as you can. Luxury vehicles are for people with cash and those who plan to go bankrupt.
Start out with a small house. Pay more than the principle every month. Don’t upgrade till you have sufficient equity and cash. If you are a couple, make sure one of you can make the note if the other is out of a job or out of the picture. It happens.
Do without whatever you can’t pay cash for. You need less than you think. Take care of your vehicles and drive them as long as you can. Cook at home except for special occasions. Get a freezer and buy on sale. Enroll in a retirement plan as soon as you get a steady job at the highest rate you can afford. Increase your investment every time you get a raise. Chances are, the tax withholdings will make you bring home a lot more than you thought.
Take the vacation you can afford. Short days trips to the zoo and local attractions and camping, run far less than cruises and Disneyworld. Kids love this stuff.
When the kids are little, if you have the opportunity, work alternate shifts so one parent is with the kids as much as possible. You will save a fortune on daycare and have a better idea of what is going on. Teach kids the difference in what they want and what they need. It’s a good reminder for them and you.
Decrease your expectations. You don’t need all that stuff. Nobody cares, and if they do, find new friends.
Did I say it was quick and easy? I guess I was thinking in geological terms.
I Am So Sorry, Rosie. I Didn’t Know.
This is updated post. Please excuse the offensive word used in context in this story.
Rosie was beautiful, the first black woman I ever knew. She tolerated my stroking her creamy, caramel-colored legs as she washed dishes or ironed. Her crisply starched cotton housedresses smelled just like sunshine. Normally, I trailed my mother, but on the days Rosie was there, she couldn’t stop suddenly without my bumping her. Rosie ate standing up at the kitchen counter with her own special dishes while I ate at the kitchen table. I wanted to eat standing at the counter with her but wasn’t tall enough. One day as we ate, she told me she had a little girl. Pearl was three years old, just my age, Three years old. I was enchanted. “Is she a nigger girl?” Rosie’s face fell.
“Don’t say ‘nigger.’ That’s a mean word. Say ‘colored’.” I was surprised Rosie corrected me, not knowing I’d done anything wrong. I was also surprised to hear “nigger” was a mean word. I’d heard it many times.
Rosie said no more. I was relieved when she seemed to have forgiven me, soon allowing me to hug her and stroke her beautiful, smooth legs as she worked along.
It was years before I realized how deeply I’d hurt her. I am so, so sorry Rosie. I wish I could unsay that awful thing.
Addendum; I was raised in the deep South, before the Civil Rights Struggle began. My home was as prejudiced as any. I went to a segregated school and knew a black child. Should we meet on the street on the street, we just stared open-mouthed at each other. I believed the lie until I went to college and made black friends. My eyes were opened! Why is is so hard to learn that people are just people?
Nutsrok 