Growing pains

First off- I have to wonder who these random china mans are who are making comments on my posts. I don't read chinese and dont know how they have gotten through my privacy settings..

I have been pretty bad at updating my blog. I have had many attempts at it and then get distracted or bored and delete my posts. If I'm bored writing it there is no point in making you bored when reading it.
Lately I have been busy trying to have a social life. I was talking to my friend Jenny in Colorado about being an adult and how much planning goes into practically everything you do. You have to plan your trips to the grocery store, plan meals, plan a time when you can call your friends to make plans to hang out. When it comes to even talking to Jenny there is so much planning that goes into it. We text back and forth (with sometimes hours or days between each text) planning on when we can call each other to catch up on life. I miss my days of being spontaneous.
Work is going ok. I'm growing to love a lot of the people I work with. For the most part this has been a great first real job because I have a lot of time to learn how to be a nurse and not be overwhelmed. But in some ways its nothing I was looking for. I am however, VERY lucky to have a job. When I complain about my job I am often reminded of how my mom has been jobless for a YEAR and many other people who are with out jobs all over the place. The Lord has surely blessed me.
Another part of being grown up that I'm not so fond of is the number of bills that come along with it. I have recently begun to pay back my student loans and have become compeletely independent from my parents. Learning to budget is uch a hard concept for me. I am hoping I will get the hang of it while I am young and single.
I have had some funny stories to post here from incidents at work and with friends but can never remember them when I get home. Here are some pictures from my trip to NC from Christmas break like I said I'd post. We went to the sand dunes in the OBX. I have never seen anything like this in my life. I felt like I was on Mars!

and for new years we went to dinner and watched the ball drop with our bubbly and/or sparkling cider. It was a great way to bring in the new year. I'm not quite sure why that was all underlined and I can't get it to not be. Here are some of the great people I got to hang out with.

no sugar added

I bought some apple sauce with no sugar added to make some banana bread. I didn't end up using all of the apple sauce in the bread so I decided to have some as a midnight snack. I can't say for sure because I'm not sure what my face just looked like with the first bite, but I can imagine it looked a little bit something like this :

Yet I keep eating it!

Work has been rather slow lately...the days I actually go to work that is. I have been called off a lot due to our low census. Our floor hasn't really filled our bed space like they had anticipated. Given, this is a good thing-meaning less sick people but let's get real, the hospital is still a business trying to make money. And I'm a nurse who likes making money :) . As before mentioned, our floor is made up entirely of new graduate nurses like me. I have been asked by one of my superiors to train a new member of our staff come the middle of January. I am not too sure that this is a grand idea due to the fact I am not sure what I have to teach the new guy seeing as I am still new myself. I do enjoy many parts to my job, and there are many parts that I wish change would come about. Don't be surprised if you guys don't see me in Gainesville come 6 months from now.

Tomorrow night I am getting in a car to drive 9 hours to North Carolina to meet a few of my intern buddies from this summer. We are having a little new years get together! It will be great to see their faces again and get to catch up. I love long car trips. Something about them give me peace. I think its all that option of silence and time to think. I'm excited for the get away and for the fun events Stewart has planned! Our new years is going to be a themed party. The attire has yet to be determined. Pictures will be posted upon my return.

Can I be yo' baby Mamma!?

My friend Tammy and I were walking around Walmart last night around 3 am only to remember just how great late night walmart runs are! As we were walking around and playing in the toy aisles we were discussing the name my friend chose for her new baby girl- Lucy Mathew Eden Cruse. Tammy and I weren't making fun of the baby's name per say but we were sad because she's going to get an ear full from her friends when she's older. As we were talking, a woman from behind a Christmas tree (a walmart worker putting out more decorations on the shelves) jumps out to contribute to our conversation. "Oh, YOU think that's bad?! Well, giiirl, let me tell you. I gots this friend from high school, yeah, and I went to her baby shower and I had axed her 'What are you gonna name your baby?'. Do you KNOW what she told me?! She done gone named her baby Marijuana Cocaine Johnson. And yo' ears ain't broke. She named her baby girl Marijuana Cocaine! I axed her why she was gonna name her baby that and she told me it's what she loves the most and she loves her baby too." Tammy and I looked at each other and agreed that Matthew wasn't all that bad. We tried to continue our 3am shopping when the woman continued.. "But that ain't the worse! My nephew by 2nd husband has a baby. He done gone named his baby girl Tarantula. He named his child after an inseck! So support your friend for her name choice cuz it ain't that bad." I think I might have peed my pants a little at this point. The lady herself was cracking me and Tammy up, but the way she just kept shaking her head and saying Tarantula under her breath just got me.

The most rewarding night yet

The last few times I have written about work have all been pretty depressing. I have had even more bummer stories that I spared the few who read this blog. Work is pretty dull lately. A lot of sitting and staring off into space. We have a floor with 24 beds on it. A considerably small floor I suppose. On our unit we have had max 8 patients in the past week. On Thanksgiving night we had 5 patients with 4 RN's and a PCA. We were WAY over staffed! YES, it is fantastic that people aren't sick, burned, and spending their time in the hospital on Thanksgiving. I agree 100%. But it sure makes for a hard 12 hours of work. There is no amount of caffiene that will keep you awake at that point of boredom! Tonight I have a total of 3 patients to care for. This is RARE! Typically I get up to 5 or 6. Instead of spending most of my shift staring at the wall, (usually patients are sleeping) I have had the opportunity to talk to my patients about their lives. You know- the caring part about nursing that really got me into it in the first place. Working night shift is not the most oportune time to build relationships with patients and families. Tonight I discovered one of my patients (who has been a fairly difficult patient in the past) was a nurse in the navy for 27 years! We spoke about her faith and the many places she has traveled. She assumed I was married, when I told her I wasn't, she assumed I at least had kids. She was shocked when I told her I was 23 and with out both. Aparently I am behind. One of my other patients had a rough day yesterday. His wife and daughter were by the bedside and were certain that he was going to die tonight. They had their pastor come in to read him his last rights. After going into his room many times where he had nothing to say to me because he was so tired he finally woke up and felt like talking. This 79 yr old man made me cry! He spoke about the love he has for his wife and daughter. "It's beyond passion, like it was when we were young! We have a mature love for eachother where we are intertwined" is just some of what he said. He spoke about a curse that has been over their entire family. No male has ever lived to see 80. His birthday is in May. Under my breath I tried to break that curse and encourage him that it's just around the corner. There is so much more to say, but not enough time to write it. All in all, I fell in love with this old man tonight. A love that was different. Tonight I was a nurse and it felt good.

Ready for something good to happen.

The last week or so has been real tough at work. Like I said, things have been picking up. Honestly, things aren't anything like what I was trained for or what I expected they would be like. The night nurses don't change dressings for the burn patients. The neuro(back, neck and head) patients are pretty time consuming. The entire month of November I am working with the same group of people. I have quickly made friends at work. I run on coffee. The people I work with enjoy the nights when I drink coffee. They say I'm pretty entertaining and really talkative when I drink it. Two nights ago I came into work with a mess of patients being given to me. I had a TON of stuff to get done in a 3 hour time period. One of my patients was supposed to be transfered to a different floor. It meant that I needed to assess her, give her medications and call report. The 29 yr old had a few issues, but was medically stable when I assessed her. We transported her to her new floor and that was that. I get a call 15 min after transferring her, that the poor woman had flat lined! REALLY?!! Yeah, really. They managed to bring her back, but it just didn't make sense to me. What did I miss? Last night I had a patient (21 yr old male) who was on his call bell all night long. He asked me to give him a sponge bath. He was constantly asking me for things. One time he called me in there telling the clerk he needed me right away. He wanted me to scratch his back/butt (because he was supposed to lie flat in bed and not turn at all). He had a male PCA assigned to his room. He wanted to be "taken care of by a female" because he "enjoys the touch of a female". It was obnoxious! Guess who gave him the sponge bath? NOT ME! The male PCA :). I clocked out at 8am and excitedly rushed to my car to get to bed. When I got to my car it wouldn't start. There was absolutely no power to it. The battery wasn't even 2 years old yet! I had to get it toed to a shop, only to find out it has about 800$ in repairs it needs but i'm only getting about 400$. I suppose I better start looking into new cars. I always wanted a Toyota 4Runner! Just got home at 9:30 and am trying to wind down to go to sleep and prepare for work tonight.

I spoke too soon

I don't know what I was doing complaining that my life was too boring and that work wasn't much of work at all. I have had some days(nights) where I go to work and I have soo much time on my hands I get bored. The last 2 nights however, have been nothing but exciting and full of action...maybe too much action. Normally when a nurse comes on to her shift she will get report from the nurse getting off of her shift. This should take about 30 minutes, give or take. Thursday, my shift began with a very crazy shift change. It took me an hour and a half just to receive report. During report, one of my patients fell in her room, while unattended, and hit her head. Let's put it this way- she shouldn't have been getting out of bed for ANY reason. Her little accident set me back another 30 minutes. Another issue I ran into was when I couldn't find one of the nurses I needed to get report from. I looked around the whole floor, only to find that she had gone home for the night with out telling me anything about my patient!! I called the nurse to see if she could give me report over the phone, but she couldn't and had to drive back to the hospital to inform me about her patient. AHHHHhh! What else could go wrong? Well, let me just tell you! One of my patients (not the one who fell) was a 101 years old. Yes! Born in 1908! This poor, poor woman was trying very hard to die on my shift and I wasn't about to let that happen. She made it through the night. Last night however, I had the same group of patients for the most part and had another very hectic night. This time the lady who fell and hit her head- she started having issues that turned into an emergency. I am very thankful that I have a great staff around me to help me though my stressful moments. That's not all... Oh no. I made my first med error. I felt like a complete idiot! It was sort of a pretty big mess up. Patient turned out to be just fine. I am so thankful I have the weekend off to recover from such a crappy two days of work. I hope its refreshing and not draining.

So I'm a workin' girl

Wow, who knew that working life could be so monotonous and boring. I never thought it would be like this. Get up at eh, 3pm and start slowly getting ready for work. Pack a "lunch" and some snacks. Head to work by 6:30pm. Work until about 7:30ish am, head home, shower and get ready for bed. Sleep from 8:30 til around 3pm and do it all over again. On my days off I do nothing productive or fun because don't have anything I need to do, or anyone I need to see. On top of that, I sleep all day, and most people are at school or work. So my social life has kind of dwindled down to hanging out with the people I live with. Don't get me wrong, I love my brother and I LOVE my Lyndsey! The dog and I have become quite good friends too. I am excited to go to Busch Gardens with a few of my closest friends for my birthday--that I will be celebrating on the 19th instead of my actual birthday-the 26th. I will be working the 26th and 27th and celebrating Thanksgiving with my patients. Another thing I am looking forward to is our intern reunion! It isn't until new years and I am not quite sure if I can take off yet, but I would love to see all of my intern buddies again! Not to mention see snow and go to the beautiful NC!! Well, back to work..and yes, I am blogging on the clock!