Last week was our annual inspection which lasted four days. We did very, very well. I'm still some what numb over that. It was a week of hell with 12-13 hour days of work, 3-4 hours sleep per night. Ok, ok, a little too much stress. There is nothing like 5 and 6 government workers coming to your place of employment and trying for 8 hours a day, 4 days in a row to try to find errors.

The inspectors go through everything: patient records, employee files, inservice records, infection control records, and every room in the building. They watch medication passes, treatments, transfers, general care, patient and employee interactions, and they meet with the families and residents behind close doors.

I'm never really worried about the "big" stuff for us because I know we work and try very hard. It's the small stuff that can make a survey go bad fast like: forgetting to knock on a door, dropping a washcloth on the floor, not washing your hands after handing someone medications, a medication bottle not dated when opened, calling a favorite patient "Sweetie" or "Hon". Yep those minor things can start adding up in citations fast.

Anyway we had the best survey this building has had in at least 10 years. Yea! My upper lip is almost healed and my lower lip is healing from almost be chewed off. I never quite realize I'm doing this under stress until someone asks why I have blood running from my mouth. Ugh.

So the last two nights I've had the best sleep that I've had in weeks. Well except for the part last night dreaming I was sleeping in a chair beside the bed of Ronald Reagan as he was recuperating from a fractured hip. Just where does this shit come from?