Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Monday, February 25, 2008

Such a Mean Mom

This morning Jake starts moaning about a stomach ache, he mentioned that it felt like someone was stabbing him, he was doubled over in pain and whimpering....so I say, "oh, honey you don't have to go to school" He positioned himself in front of cartoons, made a lame, albeit pitiful, request for the "big bowl" and quietly watched TV while Isaac got ready for school. About 9 am and lots of cuddles later (the best medicine for stabbing stomach pains of the most dramatic kind) I say to poor pitiful Jake, "Hey, I know, let's go to a movie!".
He asks, perking up quite a bit, mind you, "The Spiderwick Chronicles?"
"Absolutely," I answer.
He threw the covers off of himself and dashed up to his room to get dressed...A MIRACULOUS recovery...so I shout up to the speeding bullet that he has become, "Great, we'll go after school, be sure to get your back pack"

HAHAHAHA
The look on his face when he came back down the stairs....

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Castro's out


WOO HOO, Castro's out! YAY. And when they were talking about it, they filmed a reporter in front of Versailles, on Calle Ocho, in Miami, my very very favorite Cuban eatery! Yummy Cuban sandwhiches and pastilitos, if you ever ever make it to Miami...oh, wait but more importantly, Castro is out!

Jake comes up to me the other day and tells me he hopes Hillary or Obama wins (does a mother proud -- did hear hubby mutter something under his breath about me unfairly indoctrinating the children). I ask Jake why.

He says: “Because it’ll be historical, it’ll be the first woman or the first black man as a president”
So, I ask: “What about Romney, he’d be the first Mormon?”
Jake: “Are Mormons black people?”
Me: “Ah, no, they’re all colors, it’s a religion”
Jake: “Is Romney black?”
Me: “No.”
Jake: “Well then it doesn’t count.”

I thought about teaching him that that’s not why we choose, we choose because we want the best person for the job. Also thought about explaining what a big deal it was that Kennedy was a Catholic and he being elected was historical because of his religion and in a country that values religious freedoms it’s a big deal. I thought about explaining that we should overlook religion when deciding as well as color and gender (or even party)—as long as we know that religion, color or gender won’t interfere with the person’s decisions.

But he’s 8 and I barely understand that stuff myself.

Sitting in Silence wants an OB story….I’ll tell the happy one (there was a sad one, I’ll tell that later when I’ve let it settle a bit).

A woman was having her third C-section (oh and she was a year older than I…hmmmm, maybe there’s a chance after nursing school for a third…JUST KIDDING). Anyhow, she was beautifully round, her husband wonderfully attentive and the surgery went off without a problem and when that beautiful baby appeared and cried out to the world that he was here, I burst into tears of happiness – for the mother, the father, life in general. The staff in the operating room were laughing and congratulating and telling the mom and dad how beautiful the baby was and I stood in the corner crying, trying not to sob at the happiness of it all. Later, the mom asked how it all was for me (she knew it was my first time observing a C-section...had one myself, but didn’t do much observing at that time). I told her it was beautiful and it moved me to tears. She grabbed my hand and thanked me.

WOW

Med/Surg has been a great learning experience…complete with learning about changing rectal tubes (don’t ask, you really really don’t want to know), giving meds, enemas, cleaning up barf and explaining to the alcoholic who is detoxing that no, there is nothing flying around the room. BUT there’s nothing like that feeling of watching a baby being born. Even the sad experience was fulfilling -- being there for that woman in her hour of need…those are the experiences where I felt at home, I know that’s what I want to do.

Monday, February 18, 2008

No I'm not dead

Oh my gosh, my last two weeks have been insane….I should be studying and cleaning the house but thought I’d update, really really quickly.

Clincals -- totally awesome. Love my instructor. She does demand the best from us (which is cool, but hard) but also gives us the best. She asked which ones of us want OB and so she scheduled half our OR observations in the OB/GYN department. She has gotten us an ICU observation day and an observation day with the IV nurse. These are all experiences that you don’t normally get, she really has gone above duty in her teaching.

Bombed my last test….could be because I had so many extra clinical hours I had no time to study, could be I was taking Flexeril and was in a foggy haze…could be I’m just that much more stupid then I thought. I have more time to study for the next one, stopped taking the Flexeril so I’ll know if I bomb the next one whether or not I’m stupid.

My house is a mess.

I haven’t dyed my hair in like a hundred years and I’m amazed how really gray I am…yikes.
Ok, that’s about it, not much time to really do much…but now for the exciting part of my day, I’m going to catch up on all of you!

Small world, the nurse I'm following (not instructor but the actual nurse), his wife is a teacher at one of the schools over here, and Colleeno followed her a couple weeks ago for one of her observations...small world!

And hey, Ms. Martha must understand because I did not get an email reminding me to update....but I bet it was coming...

oh yeah, and I got new windows and doors...yay, now I when I sit in the family room, I don't feel a draft.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

A Meme

I got tagged by Danielle for a Meme on useless trivial habits I have...hmmmm, well almost all that type of information about me is useless and trivial, but I'll go for the most trivial....

Here are the rules:
(1) Link to the person that tagged you.
(2) List the rules on your blog.
(3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
(4) Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
(5) Let each random person know they have been tagged.

1. I can't sleep with my feet uncovered -- it's a hold out from when I was afraid of monsters under the bed (a couple weeks ago...hahaha, JK)

2. I have a paper due on diverticulitis today and instead of working on it, I'm reading blogs and doing stupid memes.....In other words, I'm a procastinator.

3. When I was a child I liked peanut butter and sweet pickle sandwhiches.

4. If it wasn't so impractical, I would have gone back to school to be an interior decorator rather then a nurse....I really love to decorate.

5. I'm a practical person...in a flighty, artsy, procastinating way.

6. I can't think of anything really interesting, but probably in the middle of my lecture of the lower GI tract I will think of tons of things and want a redo...

OK, Danielle already tagged the people I would tag...Dodi
Aimee and yes, she does need to update more, Colleeno, Ms. Marfa and Scott -- so if you want to read more on this line, check out their blogs and if you want to do this meme, let me know and I'll come read your blog!

And....oh my gosh, spell check is out, so I have no idea how badly I've done here....

Now, for the more serious stuff....I went to the Caucus (again, have no idea how that's spelled) for the first time ever. I had no clue what it was all about and it was so neat to be a part of the political process at that level...you really feel like at that level your vote means something -- like you're at the heart of the whole process. And there was such a camraderie (again, wish spell check was on). I even saw someone I knew...My first words, "Oh my gosh, I had no idea you were a democrat" she said the same to me and we hugged. I met some other neighbors too. You see in a red state, and in the suburbs, it's hard to find other dems...and ever since liberal has become a nasty word (and why is that?) it's not like we want to shout it out to the roof tops. I mostly keep my opinions to myself. Along with choosing a candidate, we also decided we should wear blue D's on our shirt in Scarlet Letter fashion.

So here's my opinion...
Romney? Really? Why?

Obama, Hillary? It was hard to choose, mostly because they're both a little left of the whole party line (I'm a middle of the road, fence sitter myself) I went with the majority (Obama) but still not sure who my fave is.

Really, really, I would like to tailor design my own candidate...some one down to earth, who really has, not only the country, but the individual man and woman who works to keep this country going, in mind...not so much big cooperations and the people who can afford to lobby. A candidate who cares about the earth and our resources....whether or not you believe we're in for a heat wave, ice age or nothing's going to happen, it does make sense to use renewable sources of energy...like say, solar, wind....It makes perfect sense to take care of our poor, our sick, our young and our old. I know that how we do that needs to be tweeked (I'm not about a free ride) but give me a break...and single mother trying to make it on her own, needs some help, if dead beat daddy isn't going to cough it up....and blaming her for getting into the mess, well that's just not helpful.

You know I just thought of something, maybe Jim Fay needs to write "Love and Logic for the politician" hahahahah (ok, for those of you not parents, Love and Logic is one of my favorite parenting books, it's about parenting out of consequences...like, 'If you choose to go out of the house without a coat you'll be cold, and if you make that choice you can't complain" I love it and the kids love it too).

anyway...I'm just saying.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Wordless Wednesday I CAN'T WAIT!






These pictures were taken last May--only four more months to go....

Monday, February 04, 2008

Apparently with Alzheimer's, some men get a little....ahhhh...hmmm..frisky. So, would you be taking their vitals and happen to lean over them you need to protect your boobies.....and never never bend over. I was thankfully warned and was able to move quickly, and I nicely held his hand while listening to his heart and lungs. He got some attention with some hand holding and my cleavage went unfondled.

My other patient has this seriously low blood pressure and pulse and he slept through me taking his vitals. I tried to wake him with a nice quite, "Mr. so and so", he didn't arouse so in a loud voice I yelled, "MR SO AND SO" he startled awake and asked me what was going on. I said, "oh nothing, I just wanted to make sure you were okay, you kinda scared me with your low BP" Thank goodness he laughed.

Today I got to observe in the O.R. I got to see some brain surgery...how cool is that!

Saturday, February 02, 2008

woo hoo

Yesterday was awesome....a 94...woo hoo. It's a great feeling when you get to a test, read the questions and actually know you're not guessing (well except for a couple). THEN, I got stopped for speeding and I didn't get a ticket -- ok, so I've actually never gotten a ticket for speeding and I've been stopped a couple of times, Jason HATES that. This time, he didn't even go back to the police car to check my ID, he didn't even ask for insurance and registeration....why? I think because I was in my scrubs. He asked if I was on my way to work, I explained I was a student and going to clinicals. He thanked me for becoming a nurse and tried to talk me out of wanting labor and delivery. When I told some of my fellow students , they told me they've heard that a lot of times medical people get out of tickets...not really a perk they mention in the shiny nursing catalogue at school.....have any of you heard of that?

And I just can't stand it if you think I'm this speeding freak, normally, when I am speeding, it's because I'm unaware, I'm just following traffic. So my fault is in my checked-outedness (which is probably also really bad).

Yeah the time stamp is correct, it's really really early or really really late...but I have to write out all of the information on my patient for this weekend. Lucky me, he's combative.

Anyway...a 94 woo hoo, yay me.

and ps....the spelling check option isn't working, so this post and last post may be full of spelling errors! I know they're full of grammatical errors...but until they get a check for that, I'm out of luck....and to think in my first life I was an English major...bad me.

oh geeze, it's like I can't get away with just being happy about something...ok again, yay me.

Friday, February 01, 2008

Jake

Hmmm, he's in a 'stage' and I think it's a funny one....sort of.

Isaac was sick last week, so he stayed home, Jake had the choice, but he really likes the school day care, all his friends are there and he gets to play dodge ball, and it was paid for so I took him. I went to pick him up and I left Isaac in the car, doors locked, instructions not to open the doors, covered in a blanket, in a safe suburban neighborhood and right outside the door. As we are walking out of the door Jake asks where Isaac is, I tell him, he says "Mom, do you really think that's a good idea" I think, yeah, it's 1 freaking degree outside and he's hacking up a lung, I think it's a great idea to keep him in the car....what I say is, "yes, honey, I try to make good decisions when it comes to you both, I thought about this and figured it was the best thing to do, given he's sick."

So, we get into the car, Jake feels Isaac's head, and reports to me that it feels warm and asks when I last gave him medication....I assured Jake that Isaac's meds were on schedule. Then he spots a Starbucks cup and asks what it was. I explain that we went through the SB drivethrough after dropping him off that morning and Isaac had a vanilla milk...then my EIGHT year old says, "Mom, do you think it's a good idea to give a sick child milk"....

OH Geeze...

And this is where my fantastic parenting becomes apparent....and I say, 'JAKE, WHO IS THE MOMMY"

and he pauses...yes, he pauses and thinks about it.
"ahh, you?"

I have another test today...I'm off to Starbucks to study for a couple hours...I have no idea what to think because I thought I was prepared last week only to get a really low C (yikes). So we'll see....but here's the hard part...my schedule next week...let me tell it to you so you can feel sorry for me:

Sat, Sun 6:45am to 7:30 pm at the hospital
Mon, Tues 5:30 am to 2pm at the hospital
Wed, off but I have study group
Thurs, Fri Class
Sat, Sun 6:45am to 7:30 pm at the hospital

then next Monday? blubbering idiot and in bed all day? Maybe Jake can take care of me because he suddenly now knows everything....and I'm NOT going to tell my mother this particular Jake story because she'll only laugh and think it perfectly deserved...