A Little Grey's

I have decided that Grey's Anatomy is not far from reality. The past month, spending most my time in a hospital, I have felt I am living on screen.
The drama, the romance, or lack thereof...


Yes we have a tech room and yes that's me waiting for Mcsteamy or Mcdreamy

The anger...

Usually expressed with any strange object we can find

The accomplishments and the failures, unthinkable sadness and pain...


Along with the miraculous recoveries and joy...




As I try to process all these feelings, I am overwhelmed and my state of mind continues to be altered. It's like I am trying to balance on a surf board. I have had several wipe outs, and a few good rides. Sometimes I feel I live a life that no-one else could ever understand unless they too, lived in the hospital,or maybe watched Grey's regularly. If you ever ask how my day at work was, there are no words to express all the experiences, so "FINE" is the answer you will get. Underneath the "FINE" is an array of emotions. But as Meredith says, "somehow we all make it through"!

A Mayan Adventure

Saturday night I had the opportunity to go to the Mayan to watch a friend dive. I heard the food wasn't that great, so I wasn't expecting a lot. I thought it would be fun to mostly watch the diving, because how awesome is that? A diving show while you eat dinner? Apparently it's so awesome that we had to wait an hour for our table. But not awesome enough that they fill all the tables in the restaurant. Seriously, when we were shown to our table there were about four other tables in our area without a dinner party. So when our waiter left, we got up and moved to a spot with a better view of the divers.
Do you want to:
a) see the divers dive scroll down
b) talk to the Mayan priestess click here
c) eat the fish tacos click here

So the diving wasn't what I was expecting!







No but really...


Do you want to:

a) meet an honest to goodness diver scroll down
b) meet a stone lion click here
c) meet a parrot click here

Yeah so I don't want to brag but I do think I could show their divers some moves. I wanted to show off my abilities but I didn't want to embarrass anyone, plus I had a skirt on and I don't think it was as stable as the loin clothes everyone else had on! But here is a picture of me diving in highschool for the Leopards

Man that Mayan water looked tempting!

So I decided to pose with one of the true Mayan divers just so I could get some of that skin to skin action- He did have nice muscles!


Needless to say it was an adventure!

MTV CRIBS

So this may not mean anything to anyone else but a NICU nurse, but I found it hilarious! Especially since we have an Aden, Jaden, Braden, and Kayden on our unit. Oh and a Neveah (heaven backwards)!

The Flood Gates Opened!

So over the last few years I have been what I heard a friend once call "emotionally parked". The well has been dry. Not that nothing has happened to upset me, it's just that once you have reached rock bottom, it's hard to reach that point again. My threshold of emotional pain has been set fairly high. It has been at least 6 months since I have cried last, maybe longer. This last weekend I guess I finally reached the threshold.
Although I work in a very emotional place, I have not let it effect me outside of work. I put on my game face for 12 hours and leave it at the door. Not the case this weekend. Without realizing it, the patient I had taken care of Thursday night, and a few times before, kept creeping into my mind. The most adorable 3 month old you can imagine! We will call him Peter: red hair, big blue eyes, super long eye lashes. Everything about him is perfect except for the body he was given. He has a muscular disease that will eventually take his life. His mind is intact but he can't move, maybe just the end of his fingertips. More importantly, he can't breath for himself. Though we have tried many times, he can not live without mechanical ventilation. Well, when you are a family from a small town, taking home a kid on ventilation is near impossible. No company is going to give you a vent because of the risk of being so far away from medical care. There are very few nurses that are available to do home care, which places a huge burden on the family. So what are the choices? He can go live in a facility (like a rest home) or the family can take him off support and let him go. This may seem like an easy choice, but when you have someone who is mentally intact and responds to your presence, it is much harder then you think. As his nurse I felt a huge responsibility to make every moment memorable for him. I got him up into a OT/PT stroller to get him out of bed. I Changed his bedding so he could sit sideways in bed and I even pulled the crib out to the middle of the room so he could look out the window and not have to look at his vent all the time. I played toys with him and lullabies for him. His happiness including the way he was positioned was totally up to me. That is a very humbly experience. Peter got to me. Some how he got in through all the walls I had built up and pulled at my heart strings. As I lay on the couch Friday night with my head on Lucy my dog, unexpected tears came rolling down my cheeks. And then the flood gates opened. I was crying for the first time in a long time. I was crying because it was unfair for him to have such a body. I was crying because of the pain his parents were going through. I was crying because there wasn't anything I could do to change the situation. I kept thinking of his cute little face staring at me. This pain I was feeling was all too familiar. It is that feeling that comes with loss. This situation brought every feeling I have ever had about loss to the surface. Loss to me are those things in your life that have actually taken pieces of your heart that can never be replaced. They are covered up with time, but there is always a hole beneath the cover that remains, and will always remain. As painful as loss is, I find it interesting that I chose a profession that deals with it continually. For some same strange reason I feel strongly that I need and should be there for those who are experiencing loss in their life. The scripture
"those willing to bear one another' s burdens" goes through my head a lot. So maybe in my own way, crying is how I'm trying to carry some of Peter's burden. If this is the case, I will cry a lot in the next few weeks.

Criminal Behavior

So I got pulled over the other night for rolling the stop sign at the bottom of East Capitol. I saw the lights flash the minute I turned the corner. Of all the things to get pulled over for. I was trying to spare my breaks, plus how much traffic is there at 10 pm? Um, waste of time on the "taking a hunk out of crime" end. I guess good place to make money on otherwise law abiding citizens. So as the lights twirled around into my back window I noticed a second cop car behind it. Yeah, it pretty much looked like a crime scene. Apparently I am pretty dangerous. So the cop comes up gives me the 20 questions, where you been and where you goin? Is that any of his business? Then as he asks for my license and registration, his little radio that he was so proud of goes off. He steps back and starts talking to some guy about his new place and how he loves it. Then he talks to another guy about how his parent's are renting their basement out. Ok, at this point I'm livid, but I have enough sense to bite my tongue because I knew if I didn't speak, he wouldn't give me the ticket. So he's all nice and kind of flirtatious which was making me sick. He says he's going to go check out my record. I'm sure he really didn't. Probably caught up with another friend. Came back and said, "yeah you have a pretty clean record so I'm just going to give you a warning. WHATEVER! At this point I didn't care, I just wanted to leave. I was so Mad. If you are going to stop me and take my time then give me your time. Do your job and let me go. Pulling someone over is not a good way to pretend like you are actually doing something for the community and it is definitely not a good way to get a girl's number!

Jamba

So today was free Jamba Juice day. If you are a friend of mine who's number I could remember, I sent you a text. I have maybe one phone number in my phone of someone I never talk to. Don't Ask! I continually remind myself of my dad who owns a nice cell phone but finds it easier to call me from the ground line at Home Depot. I know, it makes no sense. So anyways, me and some of my BFF's at work decided to make a Jamba run together this morning after working all night. We young fiery nurses have added spice to or unit that consists of nurses who have been there since before I was born. When we work together there is always fun to be had amidst the intensity of the unit. Today we definitely were the entertainment for those who happened to be in the 400S store at around 7:45am. Danette ordered some strawberry PB mix that the store cashier talked her into. As she tasted it, she yells out "Disgusting"! I of course had to try it. As I tasted it, I yelled out "nasty". All 20 juice makers turned red in the face. They were trying to promote their new and improved breakfast smoothies, and we were expressing how gross ours tasted to all who were in the store. I guess we could have been more gracious about it, but we were tired, and all etiquette was gone. I of course was the happiest because I stuck with my usual favorite "pina colada" so I would not be disappointed. Jen decided to see how many free smoothies she could get by stopping at all the Jamba Juice stores on her way home. I just wanted my bed! I hope those of you who believed my text were able to benefit.

A Pes of Wood

So as I was looking at my unorganized dresser today, I glanced at my shadow box full of memorable items, that sits and collects dust amidst the chaos. One item that always makes me smile when I see is my little jar labeled: pes of wood. This jar is symbolic of many things. I smile because looking at the spelling on the jar, I was obviously a cute innocent 6 year old. It also makes me smile because of the story behind it.
If anyone knows my dad, they know that he is a by the rule guy. He does not like to push the limits on anything. This comes naturally to him, but his profession has not helped. Maybe thats why he is good at what he does. Spending most his days as a Pediatrician, he has seen the in's and out's of what can go wrong. If there was anything that could possibly cause a serious injury, we could not have it at our house i.e. trampolines, four wheelers, boats, motorcycles, etc. He had seen too many head traumas and broken bones to let us take the risk. Plus how could he not implement what he encouraged parents to do without using it on his own kids. We were the first to have to be in car seats, and the first to have to wear bike helmets. I thought my life was over when I had to have this big ball around my head. Me and my sisters did what we could to sneak around and not obey his rules, but every time we did one of us got hurt. My dad's advice was always right! So this jar of wood is in remembrance of a time I disobeyed the rules.
I was playing on my ultra cool solid wood playhouse in our back yard one winter afternoon with my friend Lauren. There was about a foot of snow on the floor of the playhouse so you could not see the bottom. For some reason, Lauren dared me to take my shoes off. I remembered my dad's rule of "no taking your shoes off outside" and knew I should not disobey, but I rebelled and did anyway. Probably sheer out of defiance plus I was being dared. As I lowered my foot into the snow I suddenly felt a sharp shooting pain go up my foot. I knew right away I was in trouble. I was probably more afraid that I had disobeyed rule #1051 then about what just went into my foot. As I screamed for help, my mom brought me inside and tried to find what had gone into my foot. Though she searched long and hard she had not luck. After some consultation with my dad from the office, I had to soak my foot in hot water until he got home. This was probably three to four hours. Once he got home he tried to remove the object but could not find anything. Six months later, after my foot was twice it's size due to inflammation, I ended up having to sit through an exploratory plantar take down by a general surgeon to remove the piece of wood that had shot through my foot, just below the big toe, and floated down to about midpoint. My dad tried to tell me the story of the three little pigs, but this did not help. It only made me angry that he thought this would calm me down. Where was the anesthesia? Needless to say, I learned my lesson young about disobedience. And if I forget, I have a reminder that sits on my dresser!