Untitled no. 2

I don't know where to start. What I can say is that I find myself being bored with stability. I mean, my life circumstances are in flux, there is a great deal of uncertainty about my medium and long term future, and so on. But my internal life has been relatively calm for about a month or so, maybe more. I find that I yearn for the ups and downs that I am used to. I am not accustomed to this kind of predictability. It scares me sometimes. I am definitely able to have a range of emotion, but sometimes I worry that I am not feeling enough.

Part of this blog project is compiling information about my feelings and experiences so that I can write a book. I also am working on getting these feelings and experiences into words, sentences, and complete thoughts. Often I find it difficult to do so. I remember the experience of writing when I was younger; my best work was borne of turbulence, I often would write a lot in a storm of passion and rarely edited what I produced. Of course, I would guess that teenage and early adult writing in a many cases comes from a place of emotional drama. Now when I want to put down a thought, I have to first get over this wall of vapor that siphons my thoughts and feelings away the moment I decide to give them voice. That sometimes happens when I just start writing stuff. Often I can't cross that wall.

Poll Addendum

The operational definition of "first clear memory" is a memory that you can "see" in your mind. The image must be vivid enough to be describable. It can be a very short period of time, like a clear memory of your mother's face the first time she yelled at you or something.

From the trailer park to Congress

First, I will say one thing and get it out of the way...

If you are using google reader or something to read my blog, please click on my page because I am getting few responses to my polls and the small sample size is skewing my results. Also I like to get hits on my page counter.

Anyway,

As an absentee voter, I had the privilege of looking up the candidates as I was voting. It was excellent because in TN they do not list third-party candidates by their party names, they are all listed as independent, which I did not know. Because I could look everyone up, I was able to vote Green for one office.

In the process of researching the candidates, I came across a man running as an independent who calls himself Jon "Trailer Park" Jackson.


Only in Tennessee, baby. Would you ever vote for a fringe candidate?

Shamless copy from another blog

I owe this question to The Dutchess Of Kickball.

Let's say you found a genie in a bottle and instead of the typical three wishes you were granted only two, but with a stipulation. You could have anything you wanted completely selfish no matter what, but only if your other wish was for something completely selfless. What would you wish for? And of course, no wishing for more wishes.

Random picture of the day:

Silly tag thing

I normally hate this kind of thing but since there are only 5 things and I get to pick them out, I suppose I can manage the effort.



This is a virtual game of tag. Beth tagged me, and these are the instructions:

1-Link to your tagger and list the rules

2-List 5 random facts about yourself

3-Tag 5 people

4-If you’re tagged, play along and pass it on!



1. When I was a kid I was OBSESSED with those pencils with the little toppers, not the kind you can take off but the kind that are attached and the pencils would have a little saying on them. Like I had some with those little felt teddy bears like this little guy or like these . I totally had the globe one and the merry-go-round one. :)



2. My dad and I lived in a little loft area of a friend's storage shed for a while when I was younger.



3. I don't usually shower every day.



4. I hate scrimshaw, any mealy or sweet apple, and the smell of fresh dog turd.



5. I am obsessed with batteries and tape. I always think we are running out and need more.



I decided just now I ain't gonna tag anyone. SO THERE!! But if you want to do it, make a comment to this entry and link to your blog.

Untitled no. 1

Happy thing number one: For my friends who ran in the Baltimore marathon today, congratulations. And I am glad that the sloppy fortune that I thought befell you did not happen. You know of what I speak.


Happy #2: I got to leave work at quarter to 5 today! Booie picked me up and we ran errands, and bought some stuff from the Linens N' Things store closing sale, and got ice cream, all by the time I would just be leaving work.


Happy #3: You guys, this is why I am a nurse. Adina and I were eating at Atwaters this afternoon, and this balding but cute-ish young-ish looking guy came up to our table, and said, "excuse me". He looked familiar to me... but I was also wary of him too, cuz weirdos always want something from me. He said, "I'm Brian xxx, I was a patient of yours at Johns Hopkins a few years ago." I looked at him in complete shock; here was one of those patients that really stuck with me in my heart when I cared for him three years ago. I took care of him quite frequently, and I remember even having dreams about being his nurse at home. He had Burkitts Lymphoma, an extremely rapid-growing cancer that can doube in size in a matter of days. Some Burkitts patients can even see the tumors growing before them. It takes a LOT of high-dose chemo to attain shrinkage, which initially can be pretty easy but in the long run it often relapses and the effects of the chemo itself can be lethal.

It is the curse of an inpatient nurse to not know what happens to your patients when they leave. We honestly thought Brian was going to die on our unit. But he left, and except for some occasional readmissions early on, we did not know what happened to him. But here he was, looking like a normal guy, good coloring, filled out, smiling, eating with his wife and 2 small children. He said, "You saved my life." He called to his kids and pointed to me and said, "This is one the the people that saved daddy's life when daddy was very sick." My heart fell to the floor. He told me that he was completely cured, no evidence of disease after 3 years.

Cure is a word we almost never hear on my floor. Disease control, hopefully. Prolongation of life, if we are lucky. But rarely is the word cure used, because it is rarely found. When he went back to his table, I looked at Adina and started to get teary. I made a real difference in Brian's life. I connected with him at the time, and he remembers me years later as someone who saved his life. He paid for our dinner, and said, "This and a million dollars and maybe we'll be even." I gave him a big hug.

I truly believe that I was meant to get out of work early and go to Atwaters and see him. Sometimes it is easy to forget that people do get through this crap. I felt to proud to do what I do and to be who I am.

Which brings me to my last point:

Please register to become a marrow donor with the National Marrow Donor Program. They will send you a cheek swab kit that you send back. You could save a life, too. Click the link below to get more information.

Late breaking blog post

Adina went to take a shower after I was done, and noticed that there were these strange white things that seemed to be moving around. They were LARVAE and OMG I really thought that they came from my body until I saw one drop out of the bathroom fan onto the floor. I feel like I am going to vomit. Fortunately we have bug spray in the house.

WOMAN vs. MACHINE

Is a light fixture a machine, you ask? Adina asked the same question. Fortunately for me, I had the complete set of the Charlie Brown Encyclopedias, where I learned that a machine is any device that reduces the amount of force needed to perform work. So, there. (Don't give me any B.S. about this, Andrew, just roll with it.) It took me many hours to get this D-A-M-N light fixture working; it was a seemingly simple task of putting a new cord up and attaching a new socket. The cord would not fit through the threaded nipple (yes, that is what it is called) and it took about an hour just to figure this out, when Adina suggested I strip the whole cord and replace the insulation with a thin layer of electrical tape. Hm, not the safest thing, but heck, it worked.


When will I be declared an American hero? Dammit!

The brightest spot ever

The spot in MY HEART!! hahaha. You know what I would really enjoy right now? For pharmacy to send me my chemo on time, for once. Cuz then I can, you know, give it on time. Which is nice for everyone.

The patient that I had four days in a row last week, my critical patient, died the morning after I left. Yup. One of my coworkers joked that he died as a result of poor nursing care the previous four days. Ha. The strange thing is, he was doing so well... I had weaned him off his Versed drip, he was on trach collar most of the day, etc. (For you non-nurses out there, those are very good things). And the nurse told me today that he just suddenly dropped his heart rate and they could never bring him back! Totally strange. It is kinda a blessing though, I mean, he was never gonna get better, probably. So might as well go quickly.

Does this seem crass to you non-nurses out there? I feel like nobody but a nurse could understand a nurse's attitude toward death.

I just found out that my little 20 year old patient with sickle cell anemia lost his graft- basically what that means is that he had a bone marrow transplant and the transplant didn't take- his body took it over and his sickle cell anemia is back. He doesn't even have any family in the room. I went in there and spent a little bit of time with him, asked him if he wanted to talk to me about it. Surprisingly enough, he removed his headphones and a small tear ran down his brown little cheek. "I don't know what is going to happen to me," he mumbled. I wish I had something to say to him, but what can you say? I told him it was OK to grieve over this; he has experienced a great loss and it's OK to let yourself cry about it. It's all part of the dirt and grime of life that I am lucky to be a part of.

PILLOW!!!

Like, OMG! I finished this pillow for my uncle's wedding present... uh... his wedding was a few months ago... but you have a year to give a gift, right? Right? Anyway, I have been working on this thing for a LAWNG time and it feels good to see the end product. Anyone who is on Ravelry can see this pattern and my other fine works under my name: gratefulsned.

And, I have recently become aware that one of my readers has made a comment on this blog while actively toileting. Yes, that's right. Which one of you is it? Let the suspicions swirl until you, my readers, become a maddened mob with murder on your minds. God I love alliteration.

Myopic

There is an Ansel Adams photograph of a really cool-looking tree in my patient's room. I rarely ever notice the artwork in my patient's rooms. Isn't it strange how one can become oblivious to one's surroundings? I mean, this photo is right next to my drip titration guideline sheet and has been here since the building was built. And yet, I am only really looking at it for the first time.

This photo was taken at Yosemite. I have always wanted to go there. There are so many places in America that I would like to visit. This is part of the appeal of travel nursing: you can make a ton of dough and then take a few months off to do whatever. Also, of course, you could travel somewhere cool and work there. I really need to spend more time in the West. I have never been to the Northwest or the Rockies. Look at those mountains. I am enjoying looking at this photo and thinking about traveling while I am in this isolated hospital setting.

Hip-Hop gospel

I am sitting in my patient's room; he is intubated and sedated, but his family brought in a bunch of CDs of modern gospel music and I like to play music or movies for my patients. The CD I have playing right now is WOW gospel 2007. Now, when I think of gospel, I think, you know, like traditional gospel. But this is just like stuff you hear on hip-hop and R&B stations, and you can barely tell what they are saying, and when you can, it is so loosely based on gospel themes that I would be hard-pressed to identify it as Christ-centered music. It reminds me a lot of the new Christian rock music, with lyrics like "I just want to get close to you, oooohh yeah I don't want to let you go" and stuff. I guess, though, that is you like that style of music and you are gonna listen to it anyway, you might as well be absorbing somewhat positive themes.

I find that in my old age, I am getting more conservative about stuff, especially regarding clothing for young girls. I think it is totally gross the way young girls are dressing like mini-whores. Granted, I used to bring an alternate outfit in my school bag and change at my friend's house before loading on the bus, and change back when I got off the bus. But I hardly think I dressed whorish. I am sure I made some awful clothing choices but not in that regard. I remember I had a couple outfits that I would rotate all the time, including a black above-the-knee skirt (scandalous) and this grey tunic top that really accentuated the bosoms, but was unattractive in every other way.

Man... my 10-year reunion is coming up. I am considering going, but am alse terrified of the thought. Plus, is it worth it to drive up to Cape Cod and spend all that dough for a probably-lame reunion at the conference hall at the Holiday Inn in Hyannis? James, are you going?

1

So tonight I have 4 patients, which is a busy assignment for my floor. One of my young patients has recurrent disease progression despite bone marrow transplant, and is pretty darn sick. Her oncologist came in to see her and her family today, and told her that there is nothing else we can do to help her. I was there during the discussion- I watched her face as she began to realize that what he is telling her is that she is going to die, and it was heartbreaking. It is the kind of critical life-moment that only a few people experience with the patient, and the way it is handled can affect how well the patient accepts their mortality. I was really impressed with the way the doctor handled the conversation; he kneeled down by her bed and was stroking her face as she was crying. It was truly beautiful.

I have this fascination/curiosity about what it feels like to have the certainty that you are going to die, either imminently or in the near future. Sometimes I try to put myself in that mindset to see what it might feel like. The part that scares me most about the prospect of dying is the potential pain involved. Sure, the doctors would like to tell you that your pain will be controlled, but sometimes it is not. I also have this fear that maybe, just maybe, there is an afterlife... and maybe it doesn't look so good for me. Fortunately, these are all distant questions for me and I don't have to deal with them in my life right now.

Her family told her that she would never be alone... then left for the night! Ha ha. So I went in there a while ago because I had some extra time, and I asked her if she wanted some company. She said yes, and I held her hand and sat with her for 30 minutes. She fell asleep, and I prayed, in the way I do which isn't really verbal prayer, and who knows what that is about but at least I was able to just BE with her, and it seemed to be a comfort to her. I felt really lucky to have the unique opportunity to just be a presence with my patient. It made me smile.

Breakfast at 2:51 PM

I get mighty tired of rotating days and nights. How on earth am I supposed to keep myself in a normal rhythm psychologically when I am forcing my body to operate in the most arrhythmical of conditions? I just woke up, by the way... I am eating cereal. Now I get to go to a doctor's appointment, then... go to work again!!!

Opening Act

You can expect the following things from this blog:

1. Honesty about many aspects of my internal and external life.
2. Periods of absence and presence.
3. Odd pictures of my head, and probably of the cats too.

I have decided to restart a blog because of the roaring global demand that I increase my online presence. Because I belong to many sites, I thought I would have a better chance of increasing my presence if I do it in the laziest way possible, meaning, streamline all my blog interests into one blog. Hey, you gotta know yourself.

I would like to start by saying that there is no way I will ever get this first pair of socks knitted if I can't find my size 2 DPNs in time for work tomorrow. Don't you wish you got paid to knit? I tried knitting them on the toothpicks Andrew and Chad gave me but they got all splintery and are also the wrong size.

Anyway, wanted to get this show started, but I have to chart and tape report now. Ah, the trials of a night shift nurse.