poor puddy tat

Story #1: A person gets in their car with a friend and goes on the freeway. They hear a strange sound and wonder if it coming from the radio, so they turn it off. Not coming from the radio. Its a distinctive: "meow....meow..." They pull off the freeway and look under the hood, there sits a kitten curled up on the engine. She goes to pull the cat out and puddy don't like that, so it proceeds to bite her hand. Bad puddy tat. Puddy tat runs away. Person comes to the ER a day later. There is no swelling or redness on the fingers that were bitten, but NP calls someone who connects her to the "state veterinarian" (who knew we had a state veterinarian? And why do we need one?) That person tells her that last year there were 7 cases of rabies from cat bites. Sounds bogus to me, but then I'm not the one decidin' what to do. The patient will have the rabies injection. When a rabies series is given it is given in 3 steps. The first step is to take half of what is ordered and "infiltrate" the area around the wound. (stick a needle into it) Ouch. Then the other half is given by injection - 2 shots. Next step another shot one week later. Next step another shot 2 weeks after that. No fun for anyone concerned.  story #2: Man comes in to the hospital to visit his wife who is an inpatient. Man is a insulin dependent diabetic. He takes his insulin that morning. He doesn't eat anything for breakfast. Nurse who comes in at 7 am notices him and he seems to stumble a little bit and she thinks hes drunk so she walks on. Two hours later the patient is found on the floor next an elevator by the ER. His blood sugar is less than 20. He is brought back around with D50W and orange juice, at which time he tells the ER staff, "I never eat breakfast". He has no idea how lucky he was to be in a hospital when this happened and have access to immediate help. He is sent on his merry way, but he just doesn't seem to grasp things when we tell him if you don't eat breakfast you could die or become seriously disabled.....Just another day on the cold, lonely prairie....