NoJoMo: Work and Halloween
I am cheating a little bit with this NoJoMo challenge. I meant to write this entry on the first day of November Journaling Month. Technically, it is the second day but I am back dating this entry to make it appear as the day one entry.
Wednesday morning I was working an extra shift. I was planning to leave halfway through the shift but end up staying for most of it. I made the mistake of volunteering to perform what is called a K-B stain on a CAP survey. I wanted to show a co-worker that my method that deviates from the official procedure produces a better quality stained slide. I had planned on leaving in fifteen minutes but I wanted to show off my technique. The procedure we use typically takes a minumum of 40 minutes. My slides turned out great. The problem was counting the cells. A K-B stain measures how much a baby may have bled into the mother’s system. This is important if the baby is what is call Rh positive and the mother is Rh negative.
One level of the survey had a large amount of fetal cells. The problem is the way we are supposed to to count them. Our facility recently went from counting by sight to using a microscope eyepiece called a Miller Ocular. It causes you to see a large square with a small square in the corner of that large square. You count the cells in the small square while counting separately the fetal cells in the large square. It is very tedious. Anyway, I reverted to our old method of counting which I find more accurate. A now deceased co-worker wanted the Miller Ocular method to be the official method as if the mother only has the rare fetal cell, the M-O method will most like result of zero fetal cells counted allowing a negative result to be reported. To verify my count I had a co-worker use the Miller Ocular method. Her count was half of mine. I still felt my answer was more accurate and turned it in to the supervisor. I noted that due to the high number of cells in one of the levels that she should probably have my results double checked. We will see how that turns out.
After work, I headed over to see Laura. I wanted to see a movie with her called Evil Dead 2 starring Bruce Campbell. She enjoyed the camp factor and how after watching it that you felt as you had just come out off a Halloween haunted house. After the movie I invited her once more to a movie a friend David and I were going to see as part of a film society’s showing of free movies on a restaurant’s rootop patio. She declined. Shortly after, Laura’s mom arrived home and I told her of my plans for the rooftop movie and she inquired if I had invited Laura. Her mom really wants Laura to get out of the house more often. I told her that yes I did but Laura declined. Her mom was disappointed that Laura turned down the invitation.
Later that day, David and I made it to the rooftop patio. After we had our picture taken for a local newspaper’s online website, I went to get us a couple of beers. David lost our seats to some couple. I ended up with an obstructed view of the movie screen. Very disappointing. David wanted to know if I wanted to trade seats. I would have said yes but once David gets alcohol in his system he gets easily irritated and tries to pick fights. He was already started to get irritated at the type of crowd the movie had drawn. So, if an obstructed view added to the irritation, there would have been trouble.
After the movie, we went to Taco Cabana were there was a panhandler waiting at the door. It was some old woman in pajama bottoms rattling on about having a pacemaker, a life alert out of range, being in her pajamas, and needing $7 for a taxi. She should us that she had managed to collect a handful of quarters. We just said we did not have cash. Anyway, after we got our food, I was watching out the window and eventually she gave up and headed home I am assuming. I watched as she ran across a six lane intersection. For someone claiming to have a pacemaker, she sure could move.