Hickman 12/13/05

Well, I spent most of the AM with MD's and most of the PM with RN's. It's been a regular alphabet soup kind of day. The Hickman catheter was surgically implanted by Dr. Krom who is Dutch. He is fun to be around because he has a real jovial kind of personality. One example: it is very unusual for me to spend a day at the clinic without someone saying either, "So, where are you from," or "So, you're not from around here then?" "So - then" sentence construction is VERY Minnesotan. Then we usually talk about who has the bigger accent, Southerners or Minnesotans (I personally think it is a tie except the tie breaker has to do with where you happen to be located at the time). But I do enjoy listening to people speak Minnesotan probably about as much as they like to hear me talk.

Anyway, getting back to Dr. Krom and his jovialness. Shortly after he introduced himself, he stopped the conversation and said, "By the way, my accent is Dutch -- I am from Holland." I suppose when you live here like he does and get the comment, "You're not from around here then, are you?" fired at you twenty times a day, you get in the habit of heading them off at the pass by being first on the draw. I replied to his kindly volunteered information by saying, "My accent is Southern North American." We both laughed. You never know when a person from Holland might need a little assistance with the location of an accent and I am sure he could tell I'm not from around here, probably, but you never know.

In case you might have been curious about the catheter, it IS painful. It is going to take a few days to get used to I am sure. It also comes with excess baggage like maintenance and upkeep and dangely things that have to be secured. The needles in the arms every day were maybe slightly preferable to the catheter all things considered.

Well, after eleven hours at the clinic and a couple shopping for groceries, I'm pooped. They tell us we will be getting three to six inches more snow tonight and all day tomorrow. We have had snow on the ground since day after Thanksgiving. We have this snow all shoveled off the sidewalks and streets so it is about time the old snow was freshened up a bit and we got more snow moving work to do.

Stay tuned for more exciting news... same time same station tomorrow.