~*~WHEW~*~

I know it's been awhile since I've posted, and for that I apologize. It's pretty much more of the same story. I had class on Monday and worked on Tuesday. I couldn't tell you what happened on Tuesday. All my days run together now.

I worked again yesterday and boy was it a crazy day. I started the day with four patients and an in-room procedure at 0730. I also had one patient itching like crazy to go home. I took care of the procedure (it was really cool, it was my first cardioversion ~ I got to see a patient go from atrial fibrillation in the 150s to sinus rhythm in the 60s in just one shock!) After that, I called to get discharge orders on my other patient and proceeded to get her out of the hospital as quickly as possible. My next patient needed a chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia before discharge, so that was ordered and done. My final patient was pretty stable but had a lot of meds and was a possible discharge. So, here I was looking at 4 possible discharges and not quite knowing what to do with myself. The next patient to go was the cardioversion. Then the chest x-ray came back normal, so that patient went home, too. By this time, I had another patient from surgery with low blood pressure on bed rest who only wanted to get out bed. While I was taking report on my 6th patient for the day, the doctor came for patient 4 and wanted an update. I quickly wrapped up report and gave him his update. I got discharge orders for #4 and starting working on his papers. I knew it would be a little bit before his ride got there, but I still wanted to have a little bit of time to get everything done. While I was trying to finish his papers, my 6th patient arrived and so did my discharges ride. We settled my transfer and I proceeded to discharge my last patient for the day. After he left, I had a ton of paperwork to catch up on. I barely felt like I was above water all day, but my preceptor was so happy with how the day went. She made sure that I knew she thought I did a good job.

Today, my friend Jen called and asked if I wanted to join her for a day on the town with her and her son. I met them around 12:30 and we headed to the mall. We spent the better part of the day there. We had a great time and she found some really good deals! :)

Tomorrow I work at the clinic and Sunday is a 6 year old's birthday party. Plus, somewhere in between all my doings this weekend, I need to study for Monday's class!

I hope everyone has been doing well. I'm hanging in. I'll try to post sooner than a week out, but no promises! cjb

Where did the week go?

I just realized this morning when I got up that I hadn't posted all week. I had class Monday and Tuesday and those keep me busy. I'm so tired when I come home that I can hardly think. Then after sitting in class all day, I have to sit through rush hour traffic. Tuesday's traffic was horrible. It took me nearly two hours to get home. I hate that. Classes were good this week, though. And I only have to drive downtown two more Mondays!

I was off on Wednesday. I got together with an old class friend and we had lunch and spent the afternoon together. It was good to see her and compare stories about work.

Thursday and Friday were spent at work. Both days were long. Thursday didn't seem like it was going to end. I had a recovery patient that took us a long time to warm up and they kept trying to give me another patient. Thankfully one of the other nurses took my last admit so I could get my discharge out and all my paperwork finished before the end of shift. Yesterday was a much smoother day. I had one turn over (discharge/admit) early on and then another discharge and an admit really late. Thankfully I had all my paperwork done on my other patients and I could focus on my last patient. It all worked out. We were out on time. I was tired last night.

I have a lot of work to do around here. I need to get my storage unit back in order from tearing it apart several weeks ago. It's still on my living room floor and I want my floor back. I want to be able to vacuum more than 5-10 feet at a time! That's my goal for this weekend. I hope you all have a good weekend. I'll try to post again later this weekend, cjb

I LOVE MY BED!

Most of you who know me, know that I love my sleep. Now, I can truly say I love my bed and can truly enjoy my sleep! :) It's been a long time since I've been able to say that in my own home. It doesn't matter how I decide to position myself, I'm comfortable. It's wonderful!

I have to vent for a minute. I don't know if I've talked about my neighbors at all, but let me preface this by saying they can be rather needy. She is a diabetic and he is a smoker. They want to talk non-stop whenever they get my attention. That being said, last night I was almost asleep when I heard someone knocking on my door. I put my robe on and went to the door and asked who was there. It was the male neighbor. I cracked the door and asked him what he needed. He proceeded to tell me about his symptoms. How he passed out earlier that morning and now was having chest pain that was radiating up to his left shoulder. Then he asked me if I thought he should go to the hospital. My immediate response, being the good cardiac nurse that I am, was, "Take an aspirin and get to the hospital". He seemed like he wanted to keep talking. I proceeded to tell him again that he should go to the hospital and that if he didn't think he could drive himself, he should call 911. I then told him I had to be up early in the morning and that I hoped everything worked out ok. When I left for class this morning, their car was in the driveway, so I don't know if he went to the hospital or not. Seriously, if you want my advice, please listen to what I say. If you don't, then don't ask, and please don't wake me up just to tell me you are having chest pain. I don't keep nitro in my house and I can't fix you just because I am a nurse. *end vent*

Everything else is going good. I'm just going to review for tomorrow's class and take it easy the rest of the night. I'm still not feeling 100%. I'm hoping that it doesn't turn into something more serious. I'm just kinda blah. Hope everyone has a good week, cjb

Special Delivery and some FO's

Yesterday was a productive, yet expensive day for me. I finally broke down and bought a new mattress. Since my divorce, I've been sleeping on a handed down - handed down mattress. It's done the job, but it is old and seen it's better days. I promised myself when I got settled in my job that I would make the plunge and spend some much needed money on a good quality mattress set. So I did!! This is it, with my new linens and everything! Isn't it gorgeous?

When I sit on the end or the side, my feet don't even touch the floor!! Part of me just wants to take a nap right now so I can see how it sleeps. I can't wait to sleep in it tonight! :)

Now, on to my Finished Objects. I've kind of given up on knitting for awhile. I've been crocheting a baby blanket for a friend a work who is due within the next few weeks. She is having a boy. Here's the blanket folded in half. It was a very easy pattern and went very quickly. I hope she likes it.


I also made another scarf for myself. I love the yarn. I used it to start socks, but couldn't figure out how to finish them, so I scrapped them and did a scarf. It's very colorful and I like the way it turned out. Let me know what you think.


I think that's all the pics for now. Today is rainy and icky. I woke up to hail this morning about 6:30. It was at least pea size and probably bigger since I didn't have my glasses on. They said we might get more later today. I'll plan to stay inside today as much as possible. I need to go to the grocery store, but that won't take very long and then I'll be in for the day. I've posted long enough. I hope you've enjoyed my pictures. Have a great weekend! cjb

Happy Valentine's Day

I worked today. I'm exhausted. I just wanted to post real quick. I hope everyone had a Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm sending my mom get well wishes for her foot surgery that she had today! I talked to her tonight and she was telling all about the student nurses that followed her from pre-op to recovery. It was sweet. I'm so glad that she was able to have students. My mom has the kindest heart and would be a great patient for anyone to take care of. I would have wanted lots of patients like my mom as a student! Thanks, Mom, for contributing to the learning process of my profession! I love you and hope you heal fast!

Good night everyone. I'm off to bed, only to wake up to cold temps in North Texas. I must say I'm glad I have the next three days off. I'll tell you about my day today later. cjb

Klutz

That would describe me. I am forever doing things that make me wonder how I've managed to not seriously injure myself thus far in my life. Today was no exception. My day at work was relatively uneventful, though I did get to recover my first patient by myself. She was in for an AV Node ablation, and came out pretty much awake, but it was still considered recovery and I got everything done on my own. I felt good about that.

On the way out the door, I was almost to the point where I have to badge to get through the doors to the employee elevators. (I realize this would make a ton more sense if you had a floor plan where I work, but my words will have to do ~ sorry). Somehow, my right foot just decided that it no longer wanted to support me and totally gave out. I managed to fall on my left knee and avoid my wrists, but I think my ego was hurt more than anything. It was just bizarre. This hasn't happened to me in a really long time. I'm just glad I was on the way out.

After work, I met up with one of my co-workers and we went to dinner. We both graduated from school in December, however she is an exercise physiologist. It was good to see her and have some time to visit with her.

I'm home now and am feeling better than I was last night. I'm still tired and will probably end up calling it a night very soon. I'm off tomorrow and have a busy day ahead of me. I'll post soon, cjb

More daily struggles

As I go through this thing called life I have many things I struggle with. One of the main things that I fight with on a continuous basis is migraines. I have had migraines or headaches for the majority of my life. If you talk to my parents or even my siblings, they can describe many events that were ruined by my headaches and their undesirable effects (read nausea and vomiting). These started as a young girl and I can distinctly remember coming home from school some days and doing nothing but lying on the couch wishing something could make me better. Many outings with Girl Scouts and school trips and the like all somehow were effected because it seemed like I always had a headache. As I grew older and hit puberty things started to get a little bit better. I still remember taking a lot of tylenol for someone my age, but it got me by. I gradually moved to ibuprofen and survived on it for many years.

As I continued to have birthdays, the headaches started coming back. I finally found a job with decent insurance and decided to see the doctor. After all, I was grown and there had to be something better than 800 mg of ibuprofen every 4-6 hours 4 or 5 days a week. Relief was to be found. My primary care doctor recommended I see a neurologist and handed me several cards. My insurance didn't require a consult, so I could choose the one I wanted. I called and got the first appointment available. I have now been seeing my neurologist for almost three years. He started me on Topamax and gave me several options for breakthrough headaches. After getting through the adjustment period of Topamax (read tiredness and cloudiness) I went from 4-5 headaches a week to maybe 4 a month. This was amazing to me. We are continually adjusting my medications and I am thankful daily for Topamax. I am even more thankful for it when my breakthrough headaches come. Thankfully, we've gotten me down to roughly 2 a month. I just have happened to have two in the same week. I get awful nausea and almost can't stand to be around noise or anything else. This proves to be a problem when I am working or in class as I was today. In so many ways I have "unadjusted" myself from my headaches, and for that I'm glad. But when one hits hard, I need my adjustment period. Otherwise, I'll be on the cold, dark floor praying for quiet. So far, I haven't had one hit while I'm dealing with patients as a nurse. I know my whole demeanor changes and I don't want to have to explain why I'm not quite as bubbly as I should be.

I don't know why I'm posting this, other than it's been on my mind this week. Topamax doesn't work for everyone. But it did for me. I'm just glad I was introduced to it when I was. I don't know how I'd be surviving otherwise!

I hope you are all having a good week. I'm getting ready to call it an early night (thanks to my migraine) and get up and feel better and go take care of patients that need me tomorrow. I'll post later in the week, cjb

Not much going on

Today has been pretty low key. I've been working on a baby blanket for a friend from work. I'm about half way done. It's an easy crochet pattern, but the blanket will be cute when I finish. I'll post pics when I'm done. I've also gotten ready for class tomorrow. We're back figuring out more strips and such tomorrow.

In the meantime, I've found a new best friend. It's called Bloglines. Some of you may already use it. But you can subscribe to all your blogs and live feed sites for news and such and check it for updates. Now I only have to go to one site instead of ALL my sites to see who has posted. It's awesome!

The conference I went to yesterday was good. There was a lot of information. Some of it went way over my head, but I think overall, it helped bring what I do on a day to day basis together. Plus I got a bag and some pens out of the deal. Can't complain about that!

I'll post more later in the week. Gotta pack my lunch and finish getting ready for tomorrow! Night everyone, cjb

Busy week

I didn't realize I hadn't posted since Monday. Where has the week gone? We are already well into February and today marks one month that I have been working as a nurse.

I've had a good couple of days at work (all things considered). The plan this week was to bump me up to three patients. When we got in on Tuesday, we started with two and an empty room. That, of course, meant we would be getting one. We actually ending discharging one of the two, so at one point, we were down to one patient. Due to the nature of the hospital I work at, we don't have all types of surgeries available. We do, however, have a sister facility next door that has the capacity to do what we can't. That being prefaced, our one patient had to go for an EGD. We had to wheel him across the skybridge to the GI lab for his procedure and they brought him back to us. Before we took him, we were given the name and procedure of the patient we would be getting and the approximate time. When we got back, I finished up charting and got all caught up and went to lunch, so that I would be ready to hit the ground running when we got our post-ops. We recover our own patients, so we have to be prepared for anything. Instead of our next patient coming out at 1100, he got to us around 1250. While we were working on getting him settled in, I got report on our other patient. He was to be back to us in about 15 minutes. I think he got back to the floor at 1315. The charge nurse had to help settle him in because I still haven't recovered a lot of patients and need to get the practice. We had time to get caught up with charting, etc and then found out we'd be getting a direct admit from a doctor's office. I was actually kind of excited about this because I haven't had a chance to do very many admissions. She got to the floor at 1740 and things were chaotic by this point. The day finally ended, and I didn't get to do all the paperwork for the admission, but that's ok. There will be other admissions!

Today started out pretty good. I started with three established patients and got all my paperwork in order for the day. I like to pull my meds as early as possible so that I can correct any problems and/or get any missing meds up from the pharmacy. It turned out to be a good thing that I did this because I had a lot of problems with my medications. By the time I was ready to start giving my meds, one of my docs had been in and written discharge orders and the turn-over today needed to be FAST. From the time the order was written to the time my patient was out the door was maybe 30 minutes. It turns out that the surgery schedule was pretty much maxed out and so were beds. Somehow the two don't go hand in hand. I had a little bit of a stress there for a few minutes because everyone was wanting my patient gone and NOW, but I stood my ground and wanted my paperwork done properly. She did leave and we had enough time to get the room cleaned and the surgery patient in. I didn't take this surgery patient because he required a higher level of care than I'm able to provide right now, but I did help as much as I could. It still amazes how differently everyone comes out of anesthesia. We got him around 1000 and by the time we left at 1900, he still wasn't fully out of the haze. Between my other two patients one required so much care that I parked myself outside her room and the other required so little care that I almost forgot about him. I think I managed very well with my charting and everything. I look forward to having my normal preceptor back next week. It's nice to have the continuity of someone who knows where I am in my skills and not having to completely explain myself everyday.

That's a "brief" overview of my week. Tomorrow I'm going to a conference about pacemakers and EKGs. I hope it helps some of the stuff I do on a day to day basis "click"! I'll let you know. Hope you all have a great weekend, cjb

Class today. . .

Ya'll have to understand where this came from. . . During my internship class today, the lady who is teaching our rhythms has been a nurse longer than some of us have been alive. She is very good at what she does, and that is very much appreciated. When we got near lunch, we had started talking about AV Blocks and she tried to get this video to come up. She wasn't able to get it to come up before lunch, so this is what we came back to after lunch. It's a riot! I know all you non-medical folks out there probably won't appreciate it, but it sure did make learning rhythms a lot more enjoyable! Hope you have a great week! cjb :)

The project continues. . .

I'm not quite sure what to feel as I continue going through my storage unit. As I throw out massive amounts of "stuff" I can't help but feel like I'm throwing away my life. Some of it I want to forget. Some of the things I'm throwing away I have to because of the damage. Today it was pictures. Mostly college days. They were all stuck together and icky and impossible to salvage. I know that I'll always have my memories ~ and those can't be taken away, unless I want them to be. I guess I've been a "pack rat" for so long because I'm afraid of losing my memories.

I just took five more boxes to the dumpster. I guess that's why this was on my mind. Thanks for "listening"! More later, cjb

Happy February

We are well into 2008 and January has already flown past us. In so many ways it's hard to believe, but that's the way life goes, right? I am learning to take life one day at a time and deal with what is given me. As always, some days are better than others, but overall, I'm doing good.

Work is going great. I love what I do. My preceptor and I are getting along great. She is really very supportive and encouraging. Next week, I'll be taking 3 patients, so we'll see how that goes. She's always right there for questions or concerns, but I mostly take off and do what I'm supposed to do. I think I've kind of surprised her. At the end of every day we talk a little bit about how we both thought I did and at the end of every week we do the same.

It's supposed to be a gorgeous day here in North Texas. I need to open up the house and get more done on my storage unit as well as get some laundry done. I'll leave you all to your weekend doings. Hope you have a great one! More later, cjb