I think it's safe

I don't think yesterday was a fluke. I'm finally feeling back to my old self. I've gotten quite a bit of cleaning done today. I also finished those socks I was working on. I'm just waiting on them to dry so I can take pictures of them. I think they turned out great. I just need to figure out the heels a little bit better.

I'm off to work again tomorrow. I hope it's a good week. I'm sure I'll come back with stories to tell.

I'm going to try to get some more cleaning done, so I'm going to sign off for now. More later, cjb

I'm afraid to say - "maybe?"

I called in sick to work yesterday. I didn't sleep hardly at all the night before and felt pretty much the same when I woke up. Didn't think I could make it through a whole shift of very dependent patients and lots of walking. I took it real easy, though I did run a few errands.

When I woke up this morning, I didn't have that run down feeling that I've had for the past week. I really need to be over this. I hope this is the start. I have this weekend off ~ which means I can take it fairly easy and be ready for work bright and early on Monday morning. I've been doing a lot of crocheting and other various projects that allow me to sit. It's amazing how much I've gotten done on my blanket for my preceptor. I only have 8 more squares to finish for it. I'll post a picture of the finished product. It's going to be really nice. I've also been working on a pair of socks in red and black. I finished the first one this morning. I'm getting ready to start the second one and hopefully finish it today or tomorrow. I'll wash them and then post pictures. I hope to be able to wear them when I work ~ hence the red and black. They've crocheted up really nicely.

Not much else is going on. I'll post more later ~ as always! Have a great weekend, cjb

Or not . . .

So I really tried today. I did. I got up, got ready and even went to work. I was feeling puny. Just not my normal self, but I WANT to be better, so I told myself I could do this. I only had two patients, but one was more work than three combined. I started feeling weaker around 10, but thought I could make it if I took some ibuprofen and cough medicine, so I did that and sat for a few minutes. By 11:30, I was ready to fall asleep, so I looked at Annette (who was completely okay with me going home at 10) and told her that I needed to go. I closed out the charts and handed the patients over to her. Told the charge and supervisor and asked for sick time for the rest of the day.

I just feel like such a wuss. I don't feel that bad, I'm just weak. I don't have the energy to do all the walking required of me. So, here I am at home, back on my couch in my pj's. Contemplating taking a nap. Annette told me not to come in tomorrow if I feel the same way. But I don't know if I'll feel this way or not. Plus we have to call in by 4. I guess if I'm not feeling a lot better by the time I go to bed, I'll call in for tomorrow. That will give me all weekend to recuperate. This bug has really taken me for a loop.

I'm off to rest. More later, cjb

I might live

So somehow I made it through a restless night. I'm still feeling puny, but am starting to feel a little bit better. I'm not coughing as much as I was, but am still congested. I'm also still pretty weak. I was supposed to work at the clinic tonight, but called in to rest since I do have to work tomorrow. I'm planning to go in unless something comes up and I get worse overnight. I don't foresee that happening.

I managed to get a couple of loads of laundry done as well as a load of dishes. I also finished up a project I've been working on for my brother's wedding. It turned out nice. No pics in case he reads! :) Not much else is going on. I need to finish making the bed and folding the rest of the laundry.

I hope you are all having a great week! cjb

In Which Crystal Passes ACLS

So, somehow, amidst all the drugs (legal, of course) and half not with it, I somehow managed to pass megacode and the exam for ACLS. I didn't study at all last night. I took the meds the doc prescribed and some nyquil and was fast asleep by 8 o'clock. The alarm scared me awake this morning at 6. So, I guess I slept all night and then some.

I was home by 11 and back in bed. I turned my phone off, but for some reason, that doesn't stop people from knocking on my door. I guess it wasn't my day to stay in bed. I did manage to sleep until 2, so I guess that's better than nothing.

I think I'm feeling some better. I'm still coughing up junk. I'm still congested to no end. I still want to crawl under a rock. At least I'm at home on my couch. And I have tomorrow off. I'll post more later, cjb

Hack, cough, hack

That was me today ~ all through ACLS class. I can't believe I made it through. I left feeling like I'd been run over by a train. Thankfully, I think some of the protocols stuck in my fried brain. I guess we'll find out tomorrow when I go back hacking to test.

I tried to get into my doctor's office, but they didn't have any appointments until Wednesday afternoon. When I called my dad in tears on my way home, I decided it prudent to stop at the doc-in-a-box. I don't generally do this because I like all my records to be in one generalized location and they tend to over prescribe antibiotics, but since my phlegm has changed to a nasty greenish yellow, I decided I was infected and probably had an upper respiratory infection. After getting there at 3:30, they finally called me back around 5:00. I mean seriously, you would have thought all of North Texas was in the clinic. Went through the normal what drugs do you take, what is your history, how much do you weigh, blah, blah, blah. Now, why are you really here? The nurse doing my intake was really nice, I think everyone in the clinic today had the same crap. He basically started from the top and worked down with symptoms. And let me nod my head. After a strep test and a flu test that both came back negative, the doc told me I have bronchitis with an upper respiratory infection. (Gee, didn't I already diagnose myself?) Two hours later I'm walking out with prescriptions for a cough medicine and z-pack.

Then it's off to the pharmacy. Thankfully my pharmacy fills pretty fast, plus I able to pick up a few choice groceries while waiting. All in all, I made it home before 7. I'm already in my pj's and I don't think it will be too long before I'm in bed.

I hope your Monday was better than mine. If this is bacterial, which I'm sure it is, I'll be feeling better in no time flat! :) cjb

Happy Easter

I hope you are all having a wonderful Easter day. It's a cool day in North Texas after a wonderfully warm weekend.

I started getting a horrible hacking cough yesterday. I have had a relatively well winter season, so I guess it's about time I get sick. It comes at a bad time as I have to take ACLS Monday and Tuesday. I was up half the night coughing up my lungs. I'm trying to take it easy today. I'm just reviewing for my class tomorrow.

I did manage to find an outfit for my brother's wedding yesterday. It's a beautiful skirt and blouse. I was really starting to wonder if I was going to find anything. I truly despise shopping. Normally everything I like doesn't fit me properly. I have finally started shopping at Lane Bryant and all their spring clothes are out. Since the wedding is in less than a month, it was perfect! I knew the outfit as soon as I saw it. product zoom (here's the top from the Lane Bryant site); product zoom (here's the skirt).

Anyway, I need to get back to ACLS and resting. My cough is starting to get the best of me. I hope everyone has a great week! cjb

Dinner and Starbucks

I met a friend that's in her last semester of nursing school and on spring break for dinner tonight. We had a great visit. It was nice that we were both able to relax and not have to worry about getting work or school the next day. We mostly caught up on the goings-on of both our lives. We spent a lot of time together last semester working with our nursing student organization and our friendship has grown from there.

We noticed things starting to pick up at the restaurant, so we decided to head to a local Starbucks to visit for a while longer. We sat and chatted for quite awhile. I noticed her look up like she recognized someone, so I looked over my shoulder. It happened to be one of my former classmates! I called her name and she came over after she placed her order. As she approached me, she said, "Crystal, are you still nursing?" The conversation continued until an older gentleman interrupted and said, "What kind of question is that for a coffee shop?" We just looked at each other and laughed. Apparently she and couple others are really at the frustrated part of the transition to nursing. I guess I have one of the longer orientations. She just got off a couple of weeks ago. It was good to see her and know that we are all surviving ~ even if we are just barely keeping our heads above water some days.

I do love my job. I have good days and bad days, but the love for what I am doing shines through and those around me can see that. She could see it today and it made me feel good! :)

I just had to share the comment and the interruption. It was probably much funnier in real life, but oh well! Have a great night! cjb :)

Time for some catch-up!

I realize many of you are probably wondering where I have been! I'm safe and secure, just been busy! I'll start by recapping a little bit of my trip with Jen. She has all the pics, so I don't have any to post right now, but when I get them, I'll post them.

We left out mid afternoon and dropped her son off at work with her husband and headed down 45 to Houston. We weren't in a real hurry, just kinda took it easy driving down. We had a blast. We laughed so much and both really needed to get away. We got to Houston around 9 and stayed with one of my good friends there. We headed to dinner late because we were all hungry. It was nice to be able to just sit and enjoy dinner with friends! Saturday morning Jen had an open house with a school she's applying to, so we headed out to the Omni Hotel. It was impressive. We spent quite a bit of time there and she felt a lot better about everything by the time we left!
After the interview, we headed towards San Antonio, but not before eating at Cracker Barrel. We were both so hungry. The only other thing we wanted was Starbucks. We figured we'd find one on the way to San Antonio, so we pressed on. We got to San Antonio mid afternoon and headed straight for downtown. After not finding a Starbucks between Houston and San Antonio, we were thirsty for caffiene! Downtown, SA was bound to have Starbucks!! We wandered through the Alamo and found an arts festival going on, so we watched some of the vendors. It was really neat. We finally asked someone where our beloved coffee shop was and headed that way. It was a 2 story building, so we sat on the balcony and enjoyed the breeze. We had dinner plans with some of her family, so after our break, we headed back to the car to start toward dinner at the Alamo Cafe. It was delicious. We had originally planned on staying in San Antonio and heading back home on Sunday, but there were no hotel rooms available. Since we were playing the whole trip pretty much by ear, and Jen is a night driver, after dinner, she suggested we start driving home. I knew I was in no shape to drive, and I told her that. I made her promise to stop and get a room if she got too tired. We had a book on CD and listened to that. We pulled out of SA around 10 and pulled into her driveway about 3 am. I couldn't believe she made it the whole way. We had a great time! I relaxed most of Sunday and prepared for my week.

Monday was back to work. When I got there, my preceptor had called in sick, so I started the shift without a preceptor. They had called someone else in early, so it would only be about an hour. It takes me a little while to get my stuff together anyways, so it was ok. It turned out to be a heavy assignment. I didn't feel completely comfortable by myself yet. I had a chest tube and a patient completely reliant on BiPAP (yet non-compliant), I had at least one more patient, but I can't for the life of me tell you what the problem was, I was too worried about my other ones. Plus we started computer charting on Monday. My chest tube patient was stable and we did the dressing change and a couple hours later the doctor came and removed the tube. It all worked out. My BiPAP patient was a completely different story. CO2 levels were sky high and he really needed to be intubated to get the CO2 out of his body. For many hours during the day he refusing to wear his BiPAP. They finally ordered a sitter for him because of his confusion. We moved him to a room closer to the nurses station. I did get to start a lidocaine drip. He got a lot worse during night shift and they ended up intubating him.

Tuesday, I had another preceptor. We had a fresh group of patients. Heart failure, fractured pacemaker lead, and a couple of post cath patients. They kept me busy. I hung a lot of potassium and started nitroglycerin today. My fractured pacemaker lead patient gave a quiet a scare and the crash cart was positioned outside his door. Because the lead was fractured, it wasn't capturing. At one point his monitor was reading asystole, I was in his room, he was talking to me and had a pulse. It gave me quite a scare, but we got through the day and he made it through the night with no problems.

Wednesday was my 3rd 12 hour shift. I had another busy day. I had the fractured lead patient, a post-MI, and pre-op CABG patient today. Nothing major happened. I did a lot of teaching with my pre-op CABG. He was very anxious. Since I worked on that floor as a unit secretary, I could help with a little bit of what he could expect. Plus we have some awesome videos they can watch if they want to. He watched them and said they helped. I had him for two days, so I'll probably check in on him when I go back to work next week.

I take ACLS early next week. I've spent most of this morning doing nothing. I seriously forgot how much working 3 12's in a row can take out you. I have dinner plans with a girlfriend from school tonight.

Thank you for continuing to read even though my posts have gotten fewer and further between. I'm trying to post more frequently. Working 12 just isn't conducive to coming home and posting! This post has been long enough, I'll post more later, cjb

Busy Week

This week seemed to be much like all the others I've had lately. It flew by and I realized I hadn't posted. I had lots of interesting things happen this week and I'll try to recap them here.

Monday was pretty much just a normal day at work. For once, we didn't turn our patients over. I think it was the first day that I've actually kept all of my patients all day.

Tuesday I had the opportunity to observe in the EP (electrophysiology) lab for their day. It was very interesting. I got to see an ablation and several different types of pacemaker placements/revisions. I was pretty tired when we finished because wearing lead is a must in the lab. Radiation is used during all the cases, so you have to wear lead from start to finish. When I got home, my feet hurt so bad, I could hardly stand it. I was really glad that I had the next day off! :)

Wednesday I had a sheath pulling class. It was about 2 hours and very informative. After the class, I headed out to see if I could find a new apartment closer to work. I just headed up the main road near the hospital and found a complex less than a mile away! :) I went in and talked to them and asked a lot of questions before I decided to look at one of the floorplans. I ended up putting my deposit down and now have a place to live when my lease is up here the end of May.

Yesterday I spent the day in the cath lab observing. It was much the same as Tuesday. It was very interesting, but the things about cath lab was that it is much of the same procedure repeated on different people. I'm really glad I had to opportunity to observe in both labs. It helped me understand a lot about the types of patients I care for on a day to day basis. It also helped me realize that I am still in the right place in my career. That's not to say that somewhere down the line, I may not want to change but I do enjoy what I do.

I'm getting ready this morning to head out to Houston with Jen. We are both looking forward to getting out of town for a little bit. I have some things to do around here, and we really don't have a set time to leave. I hope you all have a great weekend. I'll post when I get home! cjb

I've had several creative posts come in my brain over the past week. The problem with that, is that I'm never at my computer when they happen, or I'm so tired when I get home from work that I can't think to type. So you are left with what I can think of on my days off. This weekend has been fairly low key. The snow left as quickly as it came. We had another day of it. March in Texas surely is strange. Later this week, it'll be in the mid to upper 70's and I'll have my house open.

I saw my neurologist last week. Just my normal six month follow up. We didn't make any changes to my Topamax. We talked about it, but since I'm so well controlled at my current dosage, we're going to stay where I'm at. I thought he might decrease me, but I'm really glad he didn't.

I start my normal three days at work this week. I don't have classes any more. I think they are going to try to rotate me through the cath lab and the EP lab this week. I'm really looking forward to that because those are the patients I deal with on a day to day basis. Things are going really well at work. Friday was a busy day. I turned over all my patients again. I got really busy around 3 or 4 and finally let my preceptor take over a patient. I had a direct admit and a lot of paper work to finish with him to make sure everything was in order. I really think she was happy to get to do some work for a change! :)

Not much else has been going on. I do have a few weekend trips planned. I'm going to Houston this weekend coming up with my friend, Jen. She has something she needs to do down there and asked me to go along. In the process, I'll get to see my friend, Sheryl. Then, the following weekend I'm going to Oklahoma City to see my nephew!! Since I haven't done much lately, I'm looking forward to getting out of town.

I hope you all have a great week. I'll try to post soon, cjb

It snowed!

So it really snowed. And it snowed quite a bit. I hope you enjoy my pictures. I know I don't have a lot, but my camera batteries are on the fritz and I don't have any spares. I'm not going out unless I have to today. It's solely laundry and clean house day. I hope you all have a great day! I'll post later! cjb

From rain to snow?

Seriously, I think I live in the strangest weather state in the nation. This weekend I had my patio door open to a beautiful 70-75 degrees. Last night however, it all started to change. We started getting thunderstorms around 5 or 6 pm and they lasted on and off all night and well into this morning ~ messing up my morning commute into downtown Dallas (for the last weekly time ~ more on that in a bit). The winds were strong and I could feel the temperature dropping, but I didn't think too much about it. That is, until I turned on the tv this morning. With this front came MUCH colder temperatures (right now, it's in the mid to upper 30's) and I can hear the sleet hitting the ground outside. I'm just so glad I don't have to work tomorrow. The world comes to an end when there's any type of precipitation, much less the frozen kind on the ground here!

So I had my lass class today for my internship. We started the morning with our EKG test. I'm happy to say that I passed with flying colors! The next test we had to take was a general assessment that really isn't graded, but gives them an idea of where we are at and where we need to be. I had what seemed like forever until we came back from lunch, but thankfully I thought to throw in the book I'm reading so I had something to pass the time. The rest of the afternoon was spent tying up loose ends. We were also presented with certificates of completion and a cake!

I'm getting lots of crocheting done. I've joined Ravelry and am having a blast. I can't show you what I'm doing here, but if you are on Ravelry, look me up! I'm sure you can guess my name! I'm experimenting with crocheting socks and some other things that I haven't tried before. Knitting just wasn't cutting it for me. I guess my hands have just crocheted for too long. I get the basics of knitting and purling, but beyond that, I'm pretty lost. I ended up frogging so many things that I started that it was frustrating. I decided that going back to my comfort zone and trying new things with old stitches was more productive! At any rate, that's the newest with me. I'll be home tomorrow, so if there is any accumulation of the white stuff, I'll take pictures and post them here! Hope everyone has a warm night, cjb