Celebration

The fact is, our boys are growing up. The oldest son's best friend got married this weekend. Graduated college, and now married. It won't be long until the groom is one of mine. ***sigh***

The bride was delightful, family was awesome. We had to go out of town for the wedding and were able to stay onsight at the colleg campus. The grooms family has had a tough year and friends came to show support and celebrate. It was great!!

Isn't it wonderful when we come together, love one another and rejoice!! This family has been close to us since the oldest boys were toddlers. They have celebrated everything together and I'm so excited that we were able to partake.

The Funeral

I got a message from a friend last week, her mother had become ill suddenly and passed away. I was stunned, the first I heard of it and it was over. I initially thought that I had missed everything, but then began to realize that the funeral had not happened. The morning of the funeral I realized that as I was typing a letter to her about how hard it was for me when my dad died, and how lonely you feel in the midst of the people, that I could tell her this in person.

The thing is, you couldn't just up and go, this place was a couple of hours away. But when I thought about completing the letter about how I understood what she was going though, I realized I could hug her instead. The drive was good, I had time to reflect on many things. It was one of those where you drive like crazy on the interstate, then you get to drive in the country. This state, in late spring, is beautiful. Yeah, what a sacrifice: I got to be away from town, alone.

One thing people don't know how to do is to just be. It's a helping word: be. Sometimes there are no words, you just are there. I had no great thoughts for my friend, I'm not "puffing" myself up. I remembered the pain when my parents died, and I came. If there was wisdom to impart, others did it. I just wanted to be there for her.

This woman died in the house she was born in, she decorated the cemetry before she died. She raised wonderful children and was keeping her grandson while her son was in Iraq. She had a faithful old dog that will be lost without her. Moments of wandering around, there is a river that flows behind her home, one that is popular with canoeist. It was a simple funeral, yet it spoke volumes. I never met her, but I would have been honoured to call her a friend. I wish I could effectively describe what I felt, but words limit me. There was a certain amount of mourning, because she will be missed, but it was a celebration of a life that was not wasted.

Maybe that's it...... a life that was not wasted. How much time do we waste, but what is wasted time? Is it a waste to sit and read, to enjoy just "being" with someone and not doing? Is it a waste if you don't solve the worlds problems, but you are faithful to the people around you? Is it a waste to live a simple life, one that surely Hollywood would make fun of, yet you have a simple faith that God is eternal and we are not?

I envy those that can do that. Can realize we are not to waste what God has given us. To enjoy the time together, to enrich our minds and souls, to give to others as we have been given. To be forgiven, to forgive, to love, to be loved.

I suspect this kind lady is in heaven, enjoying the presence of God and seeing the tears wept in her honour. She probably wonders why they cry for her, but she has surely shed tears as they do.

Rest now my friend, this is your legacy. And I thank you that you allowed me to come and see this part of your life. Don't hide what and who you are. I know you were surprised by my presence, but you would have surely come for me. You were taught by your mom friendship, and this is who you are. Friends love each other, they can just "be" there, and when you need to safely cry, now or in a year, I'll be there if you need me. Funny thing, you accepted me at a time when I was weak and loved me, and should you need me, I'll be there for you. Go sit at the river, think eternal, and know you are loved.

Pearls.......

I'm putting the following link here, what I'm requesting is that you pick the character from Pearls that best suits you, BUT that you also pick the character that best suits me.

http://www.comics.com/comics/pearls/html/cast_PearlSwine.html

I can't wait.........

Drama

This last week has been interesting. Work was, well, fascinating. We weren't that busy for once, and well, the nurses and staff had spring fever. I wear a stuffed figure of a character on my stetoscope, they keep stealing it. They were hilarious. We actually got to destress. Nice, probably won't happen again in a long time. Even the docs were pulling jokes on each other.

Okay, I must tell. Once there was a surgeon that was asked to help do a trach. I won't say at what level training he was to protect his innocence. So the pulmonologist, the RT and the surgeon are at the bedside ready to start when the surgeon whips out instructions. Well, see one, do one, teach one........

Recently same pulmonologist and RT are getting ready to do a trach, surgeon (a well trained surgeon that has a great sense of humour) pulls out instructions from his pocket. Pulmonologist screams..... "YOU!!!" at the RT who is rollong over laughing. Pulmonologist is now seeking revenge........

On another note, stress has been high at the church, but I think we are on the down side of it now. Okay, we are leaving, now sheeps without a pastor. But so much good has come from it that I believe God will redeem the day.

And I want to thank my blogging buddies here, it's nice to know that our hearts touch even when we don't know each other. I hear "Fiddler on the Roof" so I'm out of here.......

Super Villian

I took a Super Villian quiz for a friend of mine. I'm not into these things, but I did find the questions interesting. I didn't realize "motherly" would be a question. I think I can understand most of the answers. So, here it is.


You are Mr. FreezeMr. Freeze
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
68%
The Joker
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
67%
Dr. Doom
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
67%
Riddler
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
64%
Lex Luthor
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
52%
Two-Face
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
52%
Venom
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
51%
Poison Ivy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
50%
Apocalypse
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
46%
Juggernaut
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
44%
Dark Phoenix
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
44%
Magneto
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
39%
Catwoman
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
37%
Mystique
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
36%
Kingpin
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
33%
Green Goblin
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
28%
You are cold and you think everyone else should be also, literally.

Ouch

I've been busy with real life lately and haven't written much or read much on the blogs. Much to my surprise, I went to Fat Doctor's blog today to find out that she is closed down. Seems a co-worker buster her out to the boss. The boss was fine about it, but it really bites. I guess for FD it was much like having your diary read over the loudspeaker.

So many people are amazed that we blog. What do you say? What if your boss finds out? What if a patient recognizes themselves? First of all, you would have to be more paranoid than I am to recognize yourself. Seriously, of all the people in the blogging world do you think you are special enough to make the interesting stuff you read on here? Come on.... and then you have to realize that so much is embellished to make it interesting, well, Jerry Springer has some openings.

My boss..... she wouldn't be happy, but methinks she would get over it. I think too that she recognizes creative writing. However, I don't want to push it. I do love my job.

I'm sorry FD, I really am. You have shared so much with us, we've walked down many things with you. I'm still touched by the death of one of the bloggers, I never knew her, but yet, I did. Somewhat better than some folks I see on a regular basis. Why is that? Because she opened up her thoughts for us to see, something we don't trust those close to us to do.

Alas, real life calls. I have much to do before going to throw myself before the patients and families tomorrow. See if I have any sanity left.

Patient Wisdom

I love patients, they have such "interesting" tidbits. Today I was informed that putting a rubber band in the patients hair will induce seizures.

There are days that the families help us do our jobs, they tell us how to give the meds, they tell us how to pull up the patient in the bed. They help us manage our time, because we so often sit around and do nothing (this is usually when at 5pm I'm writing my 9am assessment that I couldn't write because I was bathing the pt and giving meds, talking to the doctor about what we need or what has happened, u know.

I remember my mom was worried about me reaching over my head when I was pregnant because I might strangle the baby. But then, I freaked out when I ran into an electric fence because I was afraid I might electricute the baby. Ah, the days of going to the family doctor with the baby and asking if having the car windows down were the reason he had ear infections. He was sooooo patient with me.

We learn, we grow, we teach. Of course, we snicker behind the closed doors....

Is It Obsessive?

If you wake up at 12:45 am and call work about something you forgot to do, is that too obsessive?

That was the second phone call. Some have called me "work boundary challenged." Can I charge them for that time? Oh dear.

She Knows It's Coming

Okay, I show up for work in the ICU Thursday.... my orientee is sitting in a chair. Ha you say, so..... So this gal never sits, she is usually 30 minutes early for work, has report underway, makes me look terrible all the time. So I'm thinking, what's wrong......

We start report. Now, I'm not the most observant person in the unit, but I could even tell Zippy ain't feeling so good. First clue, she can't finish a sentence without having to stop for a breath (and when the sentence is "No, I'll stay." it isn't a good sign). Second clue, I've seen pt's that have better colour than she had (you can include 1/2 dead pts in that), third, my co-workers all said she was sick.

Give her credit, Zippy was determined to work!! She refused to go the ER, she said she couldn't drive home, she was gonna work. We had a balloon pump pt and something else, nothing serious. I kept telling her that it was fine for her to stay, when she passed out we could do anything we wanted (the chaplain later told me that this statement was pivotal in her relenting to care while she could control some of it). When she was trying to give the 9am meds and couldn't get the meds down the NG tube and realized that someone would have to help with that - she thought it was stopped up, reality was she was too weak to push the meds, it flushed easily with the healthy nurse. She finally said that maybe she would go to the ER. I knew there was no way this gal was going in a wheelchair, but her audible wheezes were unnerving to me as we walked down to the ER (yeah, not very observant, I didn't hear them with all the racket in the unit, in the hallway, oh my!) And of course, she was breathing 37 times a minute.

I also work in the ER pool, so I was hoping that would speed things up for us, alas, not to be. We got back rather quickly but getting respiratory was a little slow. I went back and forth (I was charge in our unit, hated to be gone long) and Zippy was in good hands. However after her 1 hour updraft and CXR her sat on room air was 85%. I suggested maybe O2 would be in order, but didn't put it on in case they wanted gasses. Epi and steroids were given, and she ended up on 40% veni mask. Long story short(er), she got admitted to ICU for bilateral PE's (blood clots). Two days later she is doing much better, I did manage to care for HER patients without killing any of them, and she is ALMOST cooperating with her care.

I can't tell you how scared I was. We lost a blogger in the fall to this, of course I've seen pts die with it, one of our nurses mom died with one (sorry babe - I know it still hurts and I know you were very scared), and I'm quite attached to the girl. I'm hoping that Zippy will take this serious, will actually cooperate with the docs (we did hand pick them), and will heal quickly. After all, I am having to do my own work, God save the patients!!!!

Tagged - Why I Blog

Survival - I've found that my survival depends on being able to look at most situations and to see if I can make someone laugh when I retell it. I now find myself thinking during the day about how to tell this without violating HIPPA or my friends confidence.

Interaction - I live a fairly sheltered life, seriously!! I love hearing how others respond to what I say and think. There are a few of you out there that have responded so kindly to me, but I also like to challenge main stream thought (except for when I want you to come to the main stream).

Venting - 100% O2..... I try to keep myself out of trouble by changing enough that the idiots won't recognize themselves or the suits either. I have totally refrained, well, most of the time refraned from trashing someone that gives me a paycheck. But come on, there are sooooo many times I just want to scream, "you may have imprinted your image on my forehead, you may give me a paycheck, but I can't keep saying over and over that you 'really' care about my staff when you have everything you need and we don't" and we could go on from there but I suspect most of my readers know what I'm talking about.

Dreams - I finally spoke the words today to a friend, "I would really like to be a children's book reviewer." Possibly even a writer. No, that's not true. I would really love to be a writer. So this is a way for me to fulfill some of that. (I would be really good as a kids book reviewer though).

Freedom- I can talk all day in here without being interrupted once. I can tell the story, edit the story, jazz the story, but you can't stop me *giggle*. This is so freeing.

Too Bummed To Blog

I've not written anything, been busy attending to things belonging to a higher power. This is not the first time I've been involved in a church that was imploding, but this time I'm more detached. It's sad really. Why, why, why? Because we are but frail humans with a sin nature. Now, not everyone believes that, it's okay, but I've seen enough sin nature to convince me. Otherwise, how do you explain the news and what people do to each other.

Today was a new low. Everytime I try to type something about this, I can't. I think I need to leave it at that. Fortunately, this time my source isn't the church, it's the rock. And I hope and pray that I not take my eyes off the rock.

Maybe when I go back to work Thursday the patients will give me something to laugh at.

The Call

The man called asking about his dad. I took the call from the hostess. He hadn't talked to a nurse in about a week. My first question is usually tell me what you know, so I know how to fill in the blanks. He couldn't understand why dad wasn't getting better. It's a safe bet in my unit to discuss heart failure and fluid in the lungs. I educated, read the pet scan results, went through the mans history (and in a unit aren't they all the same??), looked up CT results. I explained about the surgery on Monday (lung biopsy). He still wasn't getting it why dad isn't any better. I'm finally going "look, he's 83 years old, the parts wear out!" "No he's not, he's 72." I'm sure of this one, after all, I can read, "He's 83, right here on the chart." Then I reinterate about the family meeting and how Jim Bob, Sue Bob and his mom were talking with the doctors when he goes, "Who's Jim Bob?" Duh, I say, "Your brother!" Thinking how bad is this connection (in my defense, the phone had been breaking up). "No, my brother is Mark Bob!" Sadly, 47 minutes and 30 seconds into this call I ask, "Who is your family?" It's the Symthe family, I had been telling him about the Smuth family......

You must understand, I had been tired, hungry, and the last part of the talk a little exasperated. My staff is now rolling on the floor as I tell one of them that this call is actually for them...... Could they please talk to the man who surely (and maybe rightfully) thinks I'm an idiot. Needless to say the HIPPA police will probably take me away when I go back......

Naked Patients

First might I say, why is the only patients that want to be naked are the ones we don't want to look at??? *sudder*

Overheard: "Now Mr. Smith, why do you keep taking your clothes off?" said the cute young nurse.

"Because I breathe better naked!" was the hasty reply.

Why

Yet again the patient didn't make it. I don't know the details, I wasn't there, but I got to clean up the emotions after. He was only a few years older than me with a preteen child. My staff was upset, they weren't expecting it. Yes, he was on a balloon pump, but geez, we see a lot of people recover after that. So why are we so surprized that this one didn't make it? Because we do our job well. He talked, laughed and joked up until he coded.

Why do we walk away from these cases saying, "what did I miss" "could I have done something different". Because we are exactly what a nurse should be. We care. This was OUR patient, he deserved the best and we gave it to him. We tried. Fifty years ago he wouldn't have had this chance, actually more like 15 years ago. We give good care. And because of that, we cry, we have bad dreams, we analyze every move we made. And I hope we never stop.

I hope if I ever do become the patient my nurse cares enough to cry at times, that she or he would think of each move they make. This time it's a healthy cry. We lost, but with the process of reviewing what we did, we also gain a respect of the fact that our patients, even when the laugh and joke, are very sick. And they need us, to be there for them.

Amazing Grace

We all left home tonight, three seperate vehicles. I only anticipated seeing one child at the concert, instead all of us were there. How strange that we, having children of this age (early twenties, teenager) should all end up at a choral concert at a church that none of us attends on a Friday night. The music was beautiful, this choir and orchastra will be leaving next week to travel to England to sing at the church where John Newton wrote most of his hymns.

It is Amazing Grace

Jellybeans

I like them, a lot. I'm type II diabetic, had a drug rep dinner tonight with dessert. I have a bag of jellybeans in my room. I want them, yet I know I should not.

Blast the evel (can't remember what movie that is a quote from) nurse that recently gave me jellybeans and reminded me how much I love them. The evil little things, so full of favor. So tempting....

Know what makes me do better control..... looking at patients. I don't want to be one. I constantly am reminded that I must exercise, eat better, so that I'm not a patient and that I can live to see my grandchildren grow up and marry. This would be the grandchildren that are not only not on the way but of the children that aren't married (only one is dating currently).

Anyway, maybe one jellybean...... maybe not.

Spring

This time of year is when I always wish I lived on a farm or ranch. I'm smart enough to know there's a ton of work to it, but the rewards are there as well. I have a friend who's parents raise sheep. I want to go in the next few weeks and see the lambs. There's just something about babies, lambs, basically innocence that we need more of in our lives.

There are many spiritual points I could make at this time, but I will leave them to you to point out. I had another favorite patient (actually more the family was a favorite, never really knew the pt) die, on Easter actually. Just as there are many other photo's I could post to hint at spring (oh, it's been a cold snap here as well, doesn't even feel like spring) we all know about the seasons and God's timing. However, my head hurts, I need to clean, and you can just think about lambs and Easter.......

Promised Photos

This is the obit written by the child in seminary. I have great hope for the future with this child as a spiritual leader. The eldest child has written a song, the youngest is in mourning. I wonder if, since he died so close to Easter, if Fat Tuesday will rise again....


On April 5th 2007 at 7:30 p.m. a dear friend and family member was murdered in a crime of passion by a toy-obsessed, energetic, addict, puppy. The dog is now in custody but the loss will be great.

Known to some as the one you hope you don’t pick up in the claw machine, Fat Tuesday turned out to be a diamond in the rough. He was a photogenic icon for many people. To some he might have represented a very important religious time. However, his family knew that religion wasn’t what Fat Tuesday was all about. You see to Phat it wasn’t about trivial events or even very good hair upkeep. What Phat cared about was peace, love, and ironically he loved animals. It was that love that ultimately led to his demise. He was warm and cuddly all the way down to his soft cottony insides.

He is survived by the xxxx family, including Aaron his primary caregiver and best friend.

A graveside service will be held on Friday April the 6th at 5:30ish for family and close friends (or anyone else) at the family's backyard.

Tentative Speakers include:

Stephen
John Michael
Jonathan
Aaron

And tentatively:
Pastor John Piper (Bethlehem Baptist Church)
Coach Stan Heath (SFU Basketball Coach)
Benedict XVI (Pope)
Matt Redman (British)
Bill Cosby (Fat Albert)
Kenan Thompson (Fat Albert)
Mike Huckabee (Future President of the United Stated)

A special musical tribute is also expected by Nick Cannon (hilarious) but if not Jonathan will do it.

100 Posts

This is my 101st post. Can't believe, I know, what an amazing feat. And for all two of you that read me you wonder how I filled the pages with such, well, whatever.

Todays note is hopefully a you tube event my son sent me.



Lets try......

What Have I Created?

I'm having trouble with the photo here, will work on that. The boys announced tonight that Fat Tuesday was dead. The dog killed it. Fat Tuesday is the doll, oops action figure won out of a claw machine at the movies. Fat Tuesday has had quite a ride, literally actually... front seat of jeep, trip to the zoo, no telling where else.

Since Fat Tuesday is dead, they are now in the kitchen painting him the proper colour cyanotic, including having a cap on his head to keep from discolouring his hair. The obit is being written.... What if they had applied this much work to their school.

Tomorrow I shall get permission to download a proper picture (I had planned on doing that anyway about the trip to the zoo) and possibly the obit. *shakes her head in wonder*