As part of a teacher workshop my office hosted yesterday, I got a chance to visit Shands Hospital's Hyperbaric Chamber. Those things aren't just for treating scuba divers with "the bends"! I had no idea!

From the Shands website:

The painless therapy often is used to treat burns, carbon monoxide poisoning, slow-healing wounds or the diving-related decompression illness known as "the bends." Gas gangrene and other tissue-destroying infections also are among the conditions helped by hyperbaric treatment.

The nurse speaking to our group talked about "dives" they do to treat air/gas embolisms and how the "depth" they go to causes a nitrogen narcosis equal to the consumption of 6 martinis, so they call these "6 Martini Dives". LOL. The patient wears a mask with 50% oxygen, but the attended does not, so the attendant inside the chamber with them is actually more 'narc'd' than the patient! It's a good thing there's 3 nurses running the show and the attendant inside makes none of the decisions once the treatment begins!

Most importantly, however... where do I sign up? And can I forego the oxygen mask, please?

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Well, it's FRIDAY! Wheeeeeeee!

And thank god for that! If Carl and David keep me up any later on a weeknight before work the next morning, I'm going to perish fitfully. I NEED SLEEP!

The weekend: Watch the Gator game on Saturday (it's LSU... the Gators are gonna lose :(), go hang out with NolanNolan and Jory, meet my sister and her husband for dinner on Sunday. Lots of Evercrack!


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