I love Saturday mornings!  It needed to be a Saturday morning, too.  I fell asleep last night shortly after 9!  And then I slept for 10-11 hours.  I could have slept even longer.

Buckle up, here was a summary of my Friday as an inpatient and outpatient dietitian.

For being a 3 day work week, I was worked.  Yesterday was quite a day.  I took off a bit more than I could chew but that’s what happens when there are 2 dietitians off on a Friday.  I immediately had a quiet freak out when I was given on “pod” of the CCU (sicky of the sickies!).  I loved the ICU during my internship when I was working there regularly but now I don’t and I question my own abilities.  Or it’s the fact that our CNSC that primarily works in CCU totally rocks it and I just sit  in amazement as I read her past notes.

I screened patients in from CCU and the entire floor that is the step above CCU.  I didn’t have time to get to the hospital before needing to go to cardiac rehab.  I ate lunch (hummus leftovers!) while checking for new information on my CCU patient.  We were waiting on a patient to be hemodynamically stable before starting the tube feeding which I still needed to figure out the right formula and goal rate.

After chowing down on lunch I dashed off to the hospital to get going on some educations because typically on a Friday if a patient has a discharge order, they may be waiting for a dietitian to do an education before letting the patient leave.  I educated, grabbed calorie counts, asked about weight loss, GI symptoms (fact: as a RD, talking GI symptoms becomes like talking about the weather!), food preferences, need for snacks/supplements, etc.  I had 2 back-to-back outpatients in the afternoon which prevented me getting all of my charting done promptly.

Guess what happened while with my outpatients?  Pages and needed calls to CCU and PCU.  One patient was waiting on me to be discharged.  Apparently a late consult order was sent for weight loss education.  I had 45 minutes left with my outpatient.  Luckily the nurse mentioned that the patient is going to cardiac rehab!  Perfect!  I told her it’d be better for the patient to be seen as an outpatient for weight loss and I’d be the one to see her anyways.  That was actually the better scenario.  And then the other page was about starting a tube feeding that I had to enter orders for.

After I was done with my outpatients I started on entering orders and charting.  I was a wee bit stuck on my tube feeding order though.  The smarty CNSC RD kcal and protein recs were not quite as usual as most other recs.  I had to play around with different formulas to decide which was more appropriate.  I did have to call another RD twice for a few questions.  I haven’t done the actually ordering for a tube feeding in awhile and forgot the protocol for some things (i.e. unclicking labs if they were already done today, no need to consult RD, etc).  After it was all done and entered, I left a note for the smarty CNSC RD about the patient since she works this weekend.  At the bottom of the note I wrote: “Note-for nutrition support: teach me everything that you know!  Thaaankkkksss!!”  But really.

I figured I would need to take my pager and make sure I had my phone close by once I left work in case there were any need for clarification per RN or MD.  But I didn’t leave once I finished my inpatient notes and orders.  I still had my outpatient notes to chart.  I finished all that needed to be done and left over an hour late.  That could bother me or I could be thankful that I had to work on my inpatient skills today.

Anyone read all of that?  Give yourself a gold star.

After leaving work, I headed to the Y.  I had thoughts of just going home though.  I haven’t worked out at a gym or use a treadmill in 3-4 years?

College days were awesome when your gym fee was already included in tuition and all your peers were around you (and the occasional faculty member).

I ran 3 miles on a treadmill.  The treadmill faced the river!  But they put a flippin TV on the top of the treadmill so you don’t see the river.  Um, hello?  This is why we need a gym in the first place.  Too much TV.  #irony

I had to hold my darn phone for the Nike GPS to work.  The earbud cord would catch on the treadmill a few times which caused a minor heart attack every time.

That run totally felt like a faster pace than the GPS or even treadmill said.  My glutes still say so this morning.

I came home and checked my mail to find a race package!  I quickly opened it up and was confused.

Didn’t I sign up for the Get Lucky half marathon?  Not the Polar Dash 10K?  Does this mean I can run the 10K for free?  Can I still snatch up a race medal for it?

I tried the jacket on long enough to make sure it was a good fit.  It looked big but fit fine.  The jacket is long in the arms and torso but fits perfectly if that makes sense.  Thumb holes for the running win!

They may have messed up my bib and chip, but Team Ortho gives great running gear!

Must work on better mile markers and time clocks though.

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Some people have asked why I changed the style of my posts to more information posts rather than day-to-day posts.  Day-to-day posts go on forever (case and point: re-read this post).

I’ve been eating breakfast while typing out this post-

Steel cut oats with apples and cookie butter.  Alterra holiday spice coffee on the side!

Plans for today: run 8 miles (even though I’m sore from last night’s run), grocery shop, help plan a Packers game viewing with friends (not really sure what is even going on for it), and snatch up some cupcakes (slight addiction?).