Been pretty busy around here.

Well, I've been working a lot of hours around here. Trying to pay for the rest of that little excursion I took with my better half last week.
So I've worked all but one day since last Friday, and still have two to go. I am working twelve hours a day, so I'm pretty tired. But I'll try to fire off a quick post here just so ya know I'm still alive.

Ok, Here we go.....Defending Kennedy.

But first things first. I hate all things Kennedy. I despise the lot of them.
The same way that Democrats hate G.W.

Does that mean that I'm a Republican? uh...sorry, no.
So what am I?

Well, none of the above. Consider me an independant.
But I'm an honest independant.
When the whole story broke about Kennedy's little accident and that there were some kind of drugs involved, my first reaction was to write a post about the dangers of "driving while Kennedy" but I just can't do it. I'm honest. And I'm a nurse.

I see things at work that most people never knew existed. And this whole incident makes perfect sense to me, and I find myself in the awkward position of having to defend Kennedy.

There is a mental state that happens very often in hospitals which nurses refer to as "being confused".
Now this isn't the same kind of confused that most people think of when they hear the word 'confused'.
That would be like, "I got confused when I got off the elevator, and I turned left instead of right."
That's the normal definition of confused...ie, a brain fart.
Nurses refer to a different kind of confusion. Think of it more as a temporary state of....senility....psychosis....almost like alzheimers.
Let me describe it for you.
It's the middle of the night. You are in a hospital. Mr. Jackson in room number ten wakes up and gets out of bed. He begins rearranging the furniture in his hospital room.
"now, Mr. Jackson, you can't be moving furniture. You've just had an operation."
"Get the hell out of my bedroom!"
"Do you know where you are?"
"Duh! I'm in my bedroom. Where do you think I am???"
"What year is it?"
"Well, last time I looked it was 1982"
So you get him back in bed, and go back out of his room and say "Mr. Jackson is confused."
It's a delerium. Caused by what? medication...stress...too much stimulation...the fact that there is no real 'night time' in a hospital.
Any number of things.
In the ICU it is so common that they call it "icu psychosis".
In other places, they call it "sundowning".
And 99% of the time, the person has no memory of it in the morning.

And that brings me to defending Kennedy.
Kennedy had taken the sleeping pill called Ambien.
If you go to www.drugs.com and look up ambien, you will find:

What are the possible side effects of Ambien?
If you experience any of the following serious side effects, stop taking Ambien and seek emergency medical attention:
·an allergic reaction (difficulty breathing; closing of your throat; swelling of your lips, face, or tongue; hives); or
·hallucinations, abnormal behavior, or severe confusion.

And there you have it. What happened to Kennedy is a known side effect of the sleeping pill that was prescribed by his doctor.
Now obviously he shouldn't take it any more.
And I believe, just as obviously, he is entering drug rehab just so that he can tell his constituents that he is doing everything he can to overcome his "problem" so that in his next election it will be hard to hold this whole mess against him. He could have handled it differently though. But that's his own business.