Coming Home is Wonderful! & The Curse of Money

I'm at home for a few days, what I'll call my "spring break" I guess. I still haven't written my essays for my midterm exam in healthcare policy class but who cares. I haven't felt like it. It's nice to finally be away from school with my parents. I think the older you get the more you appreciate them; their wisdom, their love, their home, their advice. I've got a really good set.

If somebody actually did take the responsibility of being my financial respresentative, here's something else for you to keep track of. Would you like to take on the federal government? I just found out yesterday that I owe the IRS $492. Maybe I should have recovered a little more from my $500 car repair before I let myself find out how much I owed the government. Thank goodness this is the last year I'll be filing as a dependent making an adult wage...

7 Days + 56 hours (at least) + 11 patients (at least) = TIRED

No, that's not overtime, it's technically over two weeks, but it sure feels like it... It's a good thing I have off for a week cause I don't think I could stand to go in to work again anytime soon. I've had some really bad days at work this week. Sunday I took a break for 17 minutes all day long to wolf down my food (which is highly unusual). Yesterday I went in to pick up the patients of the RN that leaves at 3 (just to be NICE to the other nurses I work with and make a few exra $$'s) and walked into a confused combative nursing home patient with a kink in his intestines causing everything you think that might cause. By the time I'd left at 8:30 last night we'd put tubes in both ends trying to relieve pressure and I'd almost gotten punched in the head 5 times trying to do it. Another patient I've had all week has multiple personality disorder and wants her morphine and has been very difficult with all the nurses and doctors. Refusing medication, everything. I think her husband gave me a bag of candy because he felt sorry for me. He was calling me the "quarter back." You know something's wrong when the doctors come out of the room, look at you and go "I'm sorry, she's psycho" while they twirl a finger around by their head. In the words of Lauren Clifton (the night shift nurse) "I'm over it!" We decided both of us had had enough of her and I think we both told her straight, albeit nicely. I've had a retarded Orange Grove patient and admitted 2 hospice patients this week. One day I sent 4 people out to various places in one day, 3 in the span of 2 hours. This week has been an exercise in extreme patience for me. I suppose this week has made me a better nurse and nurses say that these things come in cycles, in other words, I shouldn't have another week from purgatory for awhile.

If every week was like this week, I don't think I could stay at this job or in nursing for that matter. But fortunately there are windows of hope in all this running my head off and difficult patients. No matter how you are feeling you put on a smile and are pleasant when you walk into the "good" patients rooms and they help to give you the boost you need to make it through the other rooms. It makes me feel badly though when I don't get to give the good patients the time they deserve because "I want my morphine shot" lady is hounding me every 5 minutes.

So now I finally get to go home. How wonderful... Mom sent me on a $75 shopping trip to the VM yesterday. I'm sure a bunch of kids do that before spring break. I haven't gotten any of my midterm for Health Care Policy written. How can you write when you're tired and come home totally wound up every night? I'm taking it home with me. I think one of the greatest things about today is that I get to be OUTSIDE in the SUNLIGHT all day. When you work 12 hours you don't get to see the sun for days at a time. Funny how little things like that become so amazing to you.

In other news, Carrie's digital camera has been the bright spot in both our weeks I think. She's making me want one, but I have to get a newer computer first so I'll have somewhere to store the pictures. And that computer is coming next week! Anthony's building it for me. So that's something to look forward to.

Sabbath again...

This week has been very busy. I worked a full time week (Sunday-Wednesday-Thursday) and was busy doing homework the other days I was off. I still need to actually write my research paper/essays for my midterm in HealthCare Policy. I was just too tired to do it yesterday. I sat here and stared at the screen most of the day in between talking to 5 people online and doing housework. Now I work Sunday Monday, spend Tuesday doing homework and possibly working another 4 hours and then go home on Wednesday.

Tuesday we surprised Carrie with a surprise dinner with the Heilmans at Olive Garden. She knew we were going to Olive Garden but didn't know they would be there. On the way into the parking lot she spotted Ryan's car in the adjoining Toys-R-Us parking lot and said "Isn't that Ryan's car?" and then proceeded to call him on her cell phone. Ryan was already inside sitting at a table. Fortunately Ryan was able to play it off all the way until she sat down at the table and realized they were there too and she was still on the phone with Ryan. It was fun. Last night we went to the Heilmans house for waffles before they head to Colorado for ski trip.

Today it's early church (Hollie is singing) and maybe Sabbath School then coming back to make something with potatoes since the ones we have need to be used. We're so used to going to the Heilman's on Sabbath this is totally out of sinc. We'll probably go do something with Hollie tonight.

The Weekend - however short it may be

This weekend seemed short, probably because I kept very busy. On Friday I met Carrie at OMS and saw some of her students as well as her vivacious cooperating teacher. Then we took off for an afternoon of painting pottery, our $10 off coupons made this just about the right price. Next it was off to vespers and then we spent the evening scrapbooking.

Sabbath I was AT the church at 7:30 because I was the designated organist for the weekend, name at the bottom of the order of service and everything. This was probably the easiest Sabbath to play the organ because SAU's Wind Symphony played all the major music (Prelude, Postlude, Offertory) and I only had to play one hymn with them as well as the little prayer/call to worship repsonses and the music when the kids go back to their seats. It's a bit nerve wracking to sit poised above this HUGE noisemaker and try not to touch the keys until you mean to, where you mean to, with all these people around you listening plus being on the radio. I had to watch Ken Parsons (the conductor) thru my "rearview mirror" on the organ to get the cutoffs for the hymn with them. It's great fun to play with all the brass and the organ going at full blast, the whole platform rumbles. I even had to beef up the organ to be heard over them. Now my dad calls me Maestro whenever he answers the phone... "Dad, I just played a hymn..."

Sabbath afternoon we spent at Heilman's, as usual, and took a nice long walk on the Greenway. These pictures are from that treck.

And then I worked Sunday. I had a 16 year old and a 95 year old. Talk about extremes. One couldn't remember what day it was, the other played shoot-'em-up video games all day and ran his blood pressure up with all the girls in his room. We also had a lady die (not my patient) less than 12 hours after admission. It took her forever to go, her nurse kept thinking she should call the doctor because she would have 30 second pauses and then her heart would start going again. (She was a DNR, Do Not Resusitate, so we all sat at the nurses station and watched her heart's demise.) Watching a dying heart is a nerve wracking thing, you feel like you should be doing something about it. The tough thing about it is that we nurses were trying to lighten the mood by joking about it a little bit (after all, this is our work, and it's stressful) but we had to be respectful of the family. Death is not fun or normal and I'm thankful that we rarely see it on my floor.

A Day Spent in Family Planning

I could have said a day spent in gynecology, or a day spent sticking cold metal objects in places where they don't belong, but I figured family planning was the more kosher description and actually technically the right title. I have now done 2 PAP smears and watched about 15.

Things I learned today:
#1 All of Ooltewah (probably including most of SAU) is sexually active from the age of 14-60, and a good portion with multiple partners, except me... and Carrie... and Stephanie... what is it with these 14 year olds who think this is NORMAL?
#2 Just because you get an STD doesn't mean you should stop sleeping with the person you got it from. Just get checked out, get it fixed and it will all be better.
#3 People who can't afford health insurance and/or can't pay for their doctors visits can afford breast implants.
#4 Condoms are a girl's best friend, and can be had by the bag full at your local health department.

On the upside, I think I have a much better idea how I would do my own family planning if and when I should need that knowledge. I now know what it's like to be on the other end of the table making the diagnostic decisions.

Oh, and, my car is fixed! Two more new axles did the trick. I think I'm a little paranoid about every rattle or shake now though.

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