how to have fun in virginia

i decided to go on an adventure with friends and hike up Old Rag one last warm weekend in october. "a 5 hour hike with "rock scrambles" and "panoramic views"."

i should known better that when people use phrases like those to describe something, then more than likely they have never experienced it themselves.

it was actually a lot of fun, but i did truly think i was going to die the next day. i hurt so much... down to my very finger tips that i had used just the day before to grip for dear life and scale boulders during part of the famous "rock scramble" (i may be exagerating that last part but there really were some parts that i was more than little concerened about, i felt like people like me probably shouldn't be allowed up without a safety harness)

me, victorious at the end of the "scramble"



i don't really feel like the picture needs any explanation.

i'm not asleep

still on night shift, hence the 3am blogging.

the heat is broken here on our floor...it's so cold!!!! i have been begging the engineering dept. to bring us up some space heaters for the kids but they keep claiming that they will have the heat fixed in a few more minutes. this has been going on for the last few hours though so i'm growing less and less convinced that this is true.

i felt so bad because i had to change a diaper and the poor little guy was so cold, i went and got him a little knitted hat and booties and bundled him up good afterwards but still, it was a cold 3 minutes.

i have perfected my diaper changing skills so that i can change a poo filled diaper (or any kind of diaper really) in about 60 seconds. factor in the re-bundling and outfit change it's almost like a superhuman power.

i know i'm writing to an audience of mostly moms with multiple children for the most part but hey for a 25 year old single girl these are some "mad skills" to possess. that's street lingo for "an impressive talent" which i learned from the last 10 year old i hung out with (the last 10 year old and also my sister).

i have also fine tuned my hearing to that of mothers who can distinguish their child's cry apart from an entire screaming room of children, now i can hear a pump or monitor beeping and just by listening i can tell you if it's mine. and my super ears are telling me...yup, that one's mine...and the baby's hungry. seriously, i feel if you have to eat every 3 hours you should at least have the courtesy not to burp like a 20 something frat boy who just won a beer chugging contest.

it's 3:30 am, what are you doing?

so i'm actually currently at work, probably shouldn't advertise that but it's 3:30 am and i have no meds to give and everyone is alive and breathing so for the next 30 minutes i have nothing to do. and actually in 30 minutes i'll have a full 15-20 minutes of work and then nothing until 6:00 am at which point i will give my last medication of the night and then sit around and wait for the day shift to show up at 7:30. i truly dislike night shift. it's all a bunch of hurry up and wait.

so yesterday i talked to the PICU manager and she as formally as she could, she offered me the job. she told me i'd need to contact nursing recruiting to find out my new salary but i'm pretty sure it's more than i make now so that's kind of exciting. she did tell me that i'll need to become chemo certified which freaks me out. i am terrified of taking care of oncology patients let alone putting toxic chemicals through a central line. one thing that made me feel better though is that she told me that if there is ever an really sick kid in the PICU with all kinds of drips and pressors and tubes and such then they will assign 2 nurses to that patient. life is much less scary when you have a buddy.

work here is horrendous right now. the burn out rate for nurses is something like less than 5 years...i'm shocked it's that long. seriously, if our patients were always like the ones we have right now i would quit. i would be back in Ecuador before you could even say "¿Dónde fue ella?". last night i cried when i walked it every one of my patients' room. you really need to remember to pray when you work in a place like this otherwise....it would be unbearable.

well, my thirty minutes are up. i have extremely important work to go do...that will hopefully take longer than 10 minutes! it's all about killing time on night shift.

Keeping Up Appearances

Lately i've been feeling a little worn down, the spirits have been somewhat depressed you could say. after going to confession at work the other week i've really been trying to not let the difficulty of the job affect the care i give. like fr, anthony told me, i'm bringing something special to these kids, something that not everyone else in the hospital brings them, i just need to keep reminding myself that, otherwise i end up coming home looking like this picture!

so life has been quite busy lately, i know i'm horrible at posting but i promise to try harder. there's a lot of things in my life i'm going to try harder at. one is that i have finally joined a gym.

HIGHLY overrated this being "in shape" what is that any way? when the trainer at the gym asked me what my goals were i told him that it was to have the strength and endurance to hike through the jungles of third world countries. that seemed like an acceptable goal but it seems that Bally's Total Fitness does not have a specific exercise plan for training future missionaries. odd.

i have had a lot of visitors as well in the last month or so, first a good friend from college, then erin and lucia (which was so much fun guys!) and then just this past week my friend who had lived with me down in Ecuador. i love mary dearly but we always have the worst luck when we're together. i swear, if only MTV made a reality show about us...let's just say Real World's got nothing on us! and this past week was no exception. my car got towed! we were leaving the museum of natural history to go back to my car when i noticed oh so many cars along constitution ave. being towed, i started to become a little nervous and so, started walking a little faster. we were finally within eyesight of my car... and the tow truck in front of it, and i started running screaming "that's my car! where are you going?!!" the truck driver was good enough to stop and give me the address of the place it was being towed to. i asked him "what am i supposed to do? i'm not even from here?" and he told me "catch a cab, they all know where we are located" evil bastard. reason number 5,679 to hate DC. and so it was that as i watched my beloved daewoo being dragged through the streets mary and i hailed a cab driven be the nicest jamaican cabbie ever. when we got to the place he insisted on giving us directions back to constitution and then waited at the side of the road until i had my car back. he even was going to wave half of the cab fee when an oversight led us to hand him a $5 instead of a $10. the first truly nice person i've met since i moved here. he said it was because he's really from jamaica and not DC. and so, a $100 ticket later and a trip to the SE portion of DC later, the daewoo and i were reunited hardly the worse for ware. and mom, dad, if there is an inexplicable bill for towing sent to the house please direct it back here and i'm sorry for the inconvenience

also i have noticed that there are far to many smells in my life, i go to the hospital and am exposed to all kinds of foul repulsive smells, then i come home and it seems like i have a different cleaner for every different object in my apartment, and lotions and perfumes and laundry detergent etc. why? there is no need for so many different smells in one life and so it is that i have decided to simplify. i've just become so overwhelmingly nauseated by smells that this has become an necessity rather than a choice. so there it is, i have developed an allergy to smells.

in the work aspect of life i am still very much as i was. over worked and under paid. just kidding, to an extent. i do love my job but it can be very trying at times. i have heard from the PICU here and they have told me that i would be able to make the move in febuary. this is exciting but very intimidating. can i really be a PICU nurse? this means a lot more than i currently deal with. this means life and death and vents and ECMO and serious ethical questions. the question that most frequently comes to mind though, is am i smart enough? but i know that this is a ridiculous doubt, a fear of the unknown more than anything else.

tomorrow is anther day and i have to go to work again. i had off today which was wonderful, highly unusual but a welcome change of pace when i usually have to work every other weekend and this time around i only have to work this sunday.

no hables espanol?

it's october and i haven't posted in a month, guess it's about time to make my annual appearance.
tada!!
that's right, i'm still alive.
was at work today, made it to mass which is always a plus.
you never know when you work in the hospital whether or not you're going to be able to make it to mass or not. sometimes i don't. it makes me pretty sad when i don't, but today i did.
i even got to go to confession which was awesome.
i love the priest at the hospital. he really takes the time to get to know people and offer spiritual direction and tries to call all of us heathens on to be better people.
i do have to go back to work in exactly 7 hours though, so i am off to bed.
just wanted to let everyone know i'm still alive.
adios mis amigos.

From the Mouths of Babes

the explanation behind this photo is that Finney was generously sharing his lunch with me...after he had taken it out of his mouth...and chewed it.

what you can't see, although perhaps have already inferred, is that he was quite successful in his attempt. the pre-chewed Gerber meatstick is in fact in my mouth. how sweet

When Moths Attack

So i had a horribly frightening experience the last time i left my house.

a large moth flew at me and tried to attack me, luckily i was on my work and had my stethoscope handy to use as a weapon.

though this is not a picture of the exact moth that attacked me it is a good representation of how truly hideous he was

the moth did escape unharmed but i'm pretty sure he'll think twice before coming near me again.

To Lisa:

I'm still alive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but i have to go to work in 5 hours so please enjoy this picture of a giraffe

~me

Deep Thoughts, by Finney

"When we consider how the Fibonacci Series relates to music you must think of our "octave":
It's made up of 12 + 1 (13 including the octave) chromatic tones.
We consider the semi-tone (1) and whole tone (2 semi-tones) to be building blocks of diatonic scales.
Pentatonic scales are 5 tones.
Diatonic scales are 8 tones.
The 1st, 3rd, and 5th tones in the diatonic scale are the building blocks of root chords.
I could go on to demonstrate the influence that the Fibonacci series has had in music...but it's likely better (if you're not convinced) to trust me that i know what i'm talking about"

A Journey's End

Maggie fought the good fight, she finished the race and yesterday evening Maggie passed away.

I was able to see her to say goodbye and mourn with her parents and family for a short time this morning.

We will all miss Maggie but we take comfort in knowing she's no longer suffering and is now up in Heaven praying for us all.




“He called to Him those whom He desired, and they came to Him"

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July!!!

So we went out to Annapolis for the 4th and not only were there fireworks but there was a parade....WITH CAMPER VANS!!!!!! i now believe that a 4th of July parade cannot be complete with out a string of camper vans, especially vans with white bear skin rugs, champagne glasses and pillows that say "Big Mac".

beacuase nothing says American pride like a 1/2 mile string of campers vans

Updates

so it's been a month...my bad yo. in my defense, i have been THINKING about blogging.

as many of you know, i've been a bit preoccupied lately by one of my patients at the hospital. she's actually no longer my patient since she's now in the ICU but i've become close with the family so i've become somewhat territorial of them. Maggie is still very sick and the family is asking for all your prayers. she's been close to dying more than once now and she still has a very long road ahead of her, not only does she need to recover from this last open heart surgery but she will need a liver transplant in the very near future. so please pray for her and her family.

other than that not to much has been going on, i went to New York a few weekends ago. I went to both visit one of my good friends and also to look into a possible job at the Children's Hospital there in manhattan. it was a great visit with mary and i had so much fun but all my plans for going to the hospital totally fell through. it's still a possibility for the future but for right now i think i want to go into ICU nursing and if i moved to new york i'd have to take a position on a med/surg floor like i'm working on now. not a bad thing but it would throw off my 5 year plan.

oh that's right folks, i have a 5 year plan. 1 year of med/surg nursing, 2 years of ICU nursing, 2 years of OR nursing and then volunteer again. i'm hoping to go back to Ecuador to volunteer but i would go anywhere really. after that we'll see. i was thinking of going back to school for anesthesiology but that will depend on how well i like the OR. actually all i really want to do is work around the world volunteering. i hear the sudan needs nurses...

nothing else new, Kelly, Dan and the boys are coming out on friday, 5 of us in my 1 bedroom apartment... things should be very interesting! i'm actually really excited because i love getting to spend time with them and there are plenty of things to keep us busy outside the house so that we won't be on top of each other all the time. and as an added bonus for us all i finally got my air-conditioning fixed.

the A/C has been broken for close to a month now, basically ever since the weather started getting hot. but i've been out of town on the weekends and working so i really haven't thought about it too much, then the other day it was about 85 out and oh so humid and i decided to go for a run and walking back into my apartment felt a little like walking into my own personal sauna and it was then and there that i called to have them fix the air. i just envisioned hot cranky babies all weekend and it was not a good image. but as things are now a comfortable 78 degrees i don't have anything else to do except possibly clean my bathroom

my latest adventure

so as you may know i have to rotate days and nights. not my favorite thing but thankfully only two weeks out of each month. anywho, on my last night it was about 4:30 almost 5 in the morning and i had to run a blood sample down to the lab (usually during the day we have specific staff who go around picking up samples to take back down to the lab but overnight we have to run it down ourselves, that said, i often wonder who are the people who apply for a job where their sole function is to run samples of bodily fluids from one place to another?)
so as a general courtesy i let everyone know i was leaving the floor and would be able to run whatever errands they needed. i was instantly bombarded with requests and so off i went with my list in hand:

*central supply for a dressing for Korri
*diet coke from the vending machine for Emily
*lab for me

i decided to go to central first as it was on the first floor and i could just work my way back upstairs after getting the supplies i needed.
opting to take the elevators instead of the stairs for safety reasons i absentmindedly got on the first one that opened on my floor (first mistake of my ill-fated journey). as the doors closed i had this vague feeling of uneasiness as i realized that i was on the "slow" elevator but i shook it off and told myself it was fine, i had told everyone if i wasn't back in 15 minutes they were to come looking for me, a joke of course but at the same time i meant it and they knew it.

as the elevator neared to the first floor i noticed a funny sound, kind of like a chinking/grating type noise. not being well versed in elevator maintenance i wasn't entirely positive but i was pretty sure that this was not a good noise.

then i noticed that i was no longer going down, but back up.

what was this?

i started hitting buttons in an attempt to stop the elevator but to no avail, it just kept fluctuating between floors but not stopping!

i had no idea what to do, i pushed every button i could and the elevator kept going.

after what felt like an eternity but in reality was about 5 minutes i was reaching for the phone in the elevator when i saw that i had not pushed the button to the 4th floor. i closed my eyes, said a little prayer and hit 4. i sensed the elevator moving now upwards but with what seemed like a purpose. the doors opened and i lept out feeling a sense of freedom i've never experienced. i was still a little leery of taking the steps in a dark hospital in the middle of the night so i hit the down arrow and waited and in a bank of 6 different elevators which one came back up? the one i had just escaped from. after that i took the stairs regardless of the creepy factor.

oh but wait, it doesn't end there.

once i finally made it down to central supply to pick up the dressing Korri needed, i couldn't get anyone inside to open the door. i kept ringing the bell but nothing. eventually some of the guys who were cleaning the floors a little ways down the hall told me i could get inside but another door.
this other door opened into a part of central supply i had never seen before, i kept calling out but no one answered me. as i walked on into the labyrinth of various medical paraphernalia the thought that i should probably just give up and call it a night did cross my mind but after the adrenaline rush of my earlier brush with death i just couldn't. so i kept going. and going. and going

so there i was, lost in the hospital's central supply at 4:30 in the morning. i kept calling out but literally only heard my echo in return.

i could not believe this was happening, first the elevator now lost? as i wandered through the sections of diapers, i couldn't help but see what an opportunity i had in my hands. to be unsupervised in central supply was like turning a fat kid loose on an all you can eat buffet.

eventually i did wander into the section i knew so i picked up the supplies i was asked to get and then just a few more i felt would be useful to us nurses on the floor. after that i headed to the vending machine for Emily and then to the lab.

as i finally walked back onto the floor a full half an hour after i said i'd be back, i felt my pager go off. i checked the message and saw that i had been missed. evidently i had been gone for 45 minutes and a search party was being organized if i didn't call them back.

next time i think i'll just wait till someone else volunteers to go off the floor.

who say's that?

i'm sure i've been noticable absent from my blogging but i've been back on nights this last week, this week too.


i dislike working nights mostly because i can't get back on to a normal schedule as soon as i'm done. i worked wednesday, thursday, friday night last week and i'm still finding that i can't sleep through the night. that said i can't really sleep in the day either, it's more like a series of naps where i always feel more tired when i wake up then when i went to bed. on the bright side only 2 more shifts before i get to go back on days.


last time i was at work one of the patient's on the floor invited me to her birthday party. of course i'm not exactly sure where "Deja house" is, so that might make getting there a little difficult but she seemed fairly confident in my abilities to get there.

I have never met anyone like this child. we had her up at the nurses station because she woke up at 5am and proceeded to watch tv, call her nurse in, go to the bathroom about a thousand times. this wouldn't have been a problem except that she had a roommate who really wanted to sleep. so we just brought her up to the desk with us and she entertained us for the next 2 hours. this child must have the soul of a 90 year old woman who's lived through 2 world wars, raised 15 children, and had to grow her own food and sew her own clothes her whole life. what adds to it is the fact that she's always had problem with her ears and now she's almost deaf in one of them so you have to practically yell for her to hear you (this was understandably another reason her roommate wanted her out of the room!)

at one point she turns to me and says, or rather yells "you know what katie, sometimes the kids at school make fun of me and it doesn't bother me. it doesn't bother me katie, you know why? because i know that they're just jealous. they're jealous because i have the beautty and they want it too. my mommy always tells me that if someone says something mean about you it's only because they don't feel good about themselves. there's a lot of kids at my school who don't feel good about themselves"

then there were many discussions on how if dr. craig wanted to come to her birthday he had to take her on a date first. and it had to be a cruise. and when the doctor asked if he did all that then could he come to her party she told him it all depended on how well he treated her. if he didn't treat her right the he could "forget it" because her mama told her "don't settle for a man who don't treat you like the queen you are"!!!! it's these moments that make me love my job so much. you don't have these conversations anywhere else.


so since i'm awake and my apartment is disgusting i should probably go and clean it. it hasn't been done in a while and there's some kind of funk coming from the kitchen, all very good reasons for me to go and clean.

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

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.

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.

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.)

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)