Thursday, May 24, 2007

big events

with my thoughtlessness and work schedule it happens that i'm behind a few events; i will now send out my congratulations to mike and kayleen!!!












and a happy birthday to pat and mike!!! 22 years old and i can still kick their asses, though they don't like to admit it

Monday, May 21, 2007

won't you be my neighbor?

just when i was starting to miss Seattle and all it's new-age hippie wackiness, i walk out my door to find this across the hall.
like a little slice of home in the middle of the über yuppie suburbs of DC.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

happy anniversary to me

these are some pictures from my life in Ecuador:
















~this is a vacation to Baños on the left and the pic directly above is a view from the roof of our first apartment way up in the northern part of Quito




~this is me eating a typical fruit called Tuna, fyi if someone tells you that you should try a fruit named tuna and your better judgement tells you that you shouldn't, listen to your better judgement. (note that the rubber gloves are not a fashion statement in this photo but a part of the safety equipment needed to eat this fruit)






~this is a picture from the new apartment we moved into that truly was in Quito as opposed to our other apartment where cab drivers refused to take us and friends would never visit because it was so far away. here we were finally within walking distance to the hospital, a grocery store (real one not a small curbside tienda), a church that wasn't surrounded by packs of rabid dogs, and our friends were actually willing to pick us up or just stop by.



~here is the Good Friday procession through El Centro, the guys dressed in purple are part of the brotherhood Cucuruchos and basically are penitents who walk the procession carrying crosses, wrapped in chains, and are in some way making acts of penance












~here is a picture from our Easter celebration. that's monica is the photo with me, she came in to spend a few weeks with us. note the artwork in the background came with the apartment and was not chosen nor hung by us, there is a long story behind it suffice it to say we felt guilty taking them down.





~this is another picture in the apartment (across from the disturbing children's artwork in the hall) us with a few of our Ecuadorian friends


~and no photo album of my life on the equator would be complete without at least one photo from the bull fights. it might not be politically correct to say this, but bull fights are awesome. awesome except for the whole part about the bull dying and all that, but watching the bullfighter especially the good ones is amazing.
Well, i could put many more photos up and reminice for a lot longer but i need to get back to my relaxing. only 31 more hours until i have to go back to work.

what smells?


so i was walking into starbucks this afternoon and i smelled Seattle. not just caught a whiff of something that reminded me of home, but full on waterfront, pike place market, that smokey smell from the restaurants alder planking salmon, smell
-i say waterfront but mean waterfront minus the pier funk, those of you familiar with Seattle waterfront will understand what i mean when i say that-
funny how a smell can bring back so many random memories, all the sudden i remembered a time when i was a little kid, probably only 6 or 7 though i'm not positive, and the whole family went down to the waterfront and we went to an imax show on the eruption of mt. st. helens. good times.
i'm kind of at a crossroads, again, in my life, when i'm trying to figure out what i want to do next. i possibly have the opportunity to move into the PICU at my current hospital but the question is do i want to stay here for another year?
my options would be to move to the PICU in august and then stay another year, or i could stay on the floor i currently work on until january then i would be done with my contract with the hospital and could move anywhere i want to. i have thought of moving to new york city or possibly back home to seattle or move out to pittsburgh and work out there but i just don't know what i want.
the thing is, i don't absolutely hate it here anymore. i'm starting to have a life here with friends and routines, but still it's not home and i can feel myself becoming more and more uptight. people here get so angry about EVERYTHING!!!
at starbucks there was a line out the door and customers were absolutely freaking out that they didn't get their coffee the moment they ordered it, there was muttering under their breath, blatant audible comments made to people standing next to them. the girl behind the counter actually forgot to make my drink and i had to remind them (i admit i did get really annoyed with this but i kept it to myself and was very polite) and someone actually turned to their friend and said to them "if your drink gets skipped you need to say something right away instead of waiting until they're in the middle of filling someone else's order" as if to say that i was in the wrong to ask her to make me my tall americano. i swear, the day i become that uptight is the day i move out to the hippie commune on Lopez Island.
in other news today marks the 1 year anniversary of my return to the US. one year ago today i left Ecuador to come back to the states and pursue my nursing career.
i can't believe it's been a year already and at the same time it feels like a lifetime ago that i lived there. i definitely miss it and want to go back eventually. i loved living in a thirld world country!
so today is day number 4 of 5 days off. i have successfully done nothing since i left work last wednesday, i'm thinking tomorrow i will get some stuff done but today is sunday, a day of rest, and i am resting.

Friday, May 18, 2007

this is my life?

typically my days begin at 5:30 when my alarm goes off, i try to avoid the inevitable and generally hit the snooze button once giving me a whole extra 7 minuntes, so in truth i should say my days begin at 5:37. then it's shower, coffee, dress, run frantically out of the house because i hit the snooze button and took to long in the shower. I get to work at 7 am, or just before so as to avoid the glare of the night shift, they like to act like they are the victims because they had to stay up all night when in truth 90% of night shift is made up of nurses who specifically have requested to work nights, and mostly because they cannot handle the stress of a day shift.

after report is done i then face the next 12 hours of being waitress, transport, public relations, therapist, babysitter, secretary, oh and i'm also still the nurse, which means i still need to assess my patients, give medications, get blood or other specimens for the doctors, start IV's, hang blood, change dressings, suction out trach's, and whatever else those crazy doctors have decided they need to do with these kids. (including but not limited to colon clean outs, enemas, describing in detail a patients stool, retrieving "nasopharyangeal aspirates" which is a fancy way of saying they want you so suck boogers out of the kids nose and send it to the lab, all of which things are about as much fun as they sound) the worst though, is the paperwork. i think every nurse will complain about the paperwork. i have been tempted many times to write something like:

Nurse Focus Note: D) Pt. is 6 mo old male, admitted for R/O sepsis, VSS, afebrile, purple and green lesions to body noted, non-tender, round and approx. 3 in. in diameter occurring over total body surface. small bony prominences noted on forehead, appendage from the coccyx increased in length this shift, current length 63cm. A)VS Q4, measure strict I&O, Measure tail length BID, Meds given per MD orders, IVF running, Cont. on CRPO2 monitor, MD notified of new length and lesions, family updated on POC. R) pt. resting quietly with family @BS, no apparent pain or distress. No new lesions noted, no increase in size of current lesions or tail. Good PO and UOP, approx 4cc/kg. Afebrile. Will cont. to monitor. K. Corrigan, RN

i wonder how long it would take before someone noticed it, my guess is never. that's how important nursing notes are. if the doc's have any questions you can bet they aren't going to flip through the chart to find it themselves they are clearly just going to hunt you down and ask you themselves.

this is all just a broad overview of what i do, no one can even imagine how stressful your day can become over something like a baby not peeing for 5 hours and you can't get a hold of the doctor because they're in clinic and the person covering for them is not around and all the third year will tell you is that you need to page so and so for the answer, or a medication that was supposed to be given at 8am for a kids seizure disorder is still not on the floor and the pharmacy hasn't sent it down and now it's 3 in the afternoon and every time you call pharmacy just keep telling you that it's coming, or my personal favorite, when you get overhead paged to go to 4 different rooms, all consecutively done and then the same person pages you to the front desk to answer a phone call....and you are standing directly behind the person paging you the whole time. it's not that i think everyone is mentally challenged it's just that i think they turn off any form of logic or critical thinking skills they may have once had, as soon as they start their shift.

so if you are ever so unfortunate as to find yourself or a loved one in the hospital please remember before you start bad-mouthing your nurse for not getting your jello cup STAT, that she is probably juggling about a thousand different things at that same moment and changing linens, giving baths, getting ice water or jello cups are not high on her list of priorities. especially when she has patient (A) who is receiving a blood transfusion, patient (B) who has suddenly become tachypnic with decreased urine output, and patient (C) who needs to have his trach suctioned out every hour or he will develop a very large mucus plug. I am not a personal slave, i am a human person with dignity and deserve to not feel guilty about going to the bathroom or eating food!

this obviously comes after a very bad week where all of this clearly happened, it was such a bad week that i actually cried a little in front of a stranger, but the reality is that this happens every week. when people get sick, or their child gets sick, they loose all sense of proportion and reality. people begin to think that they are the only people in the entire hospital and start demanding ridiculous things of you. i have to constantly check my emotions and say a little prayer asking God for patience otherwise i will loose it and you would probably find me wandering around the parking lot all tangled up in IV tubing attacking any one who came near me with an ambu bag

nursing is very much one of the thankless jobs, and one where people remember the bad things that happened much quicker than the good, but regardless of all this i love my job. it's definately those times when someone does say thank you after you've given up all hope of it that totally make things worth it. i may have 5 days off and i may be so thankful for them and feel like i totally deserve them but i'm excited to go to work at the end of everything. (alright i realize that last little bit was pretty cheesy but i don't want anyone to think that i hate my job or that i think it's horrible in any way.)

Monday, May 7, 2007

life events

Well it's been a busy few weeks, hence the lack of posts. last weekend was my first weekend off in i don't even remember how long (unless of course you count Easter when i had to call out sick due to exhaustion, i don't though) so i took advantage of that time and drove out to visit Kelly and Dan and the boys.

Finn turned 1 yr old and i was happy that i got to drive out there to see them all.

in other news, i went shopping! oh the exciting life of a single 20 something living in the big city.
what i don't understand is how weeks can go by and i don't even notice. it's been almost a year since i moved out here and i still tell people i just came out here. but when i actually think of it in terms of events that have happened i feel like i've been here forever...well maybe not forever but definately more than 10 months.
ok, i just looked at the clock and it's 9 pm which means it's my bedtime. i have a busy week ahead of me and need my beauty sleep.
oh i almost forgot, i went to the salon yesterday, so now my outside matches the way i feel inside and i am undeniably a blonde. even I can't say it's not! (picture pending)