catching up

i am so thankful for today.... no class and no clinicals. in fact we are done with the complex care portion of this semester's clinicals and will soon switch to mental health. for that we go to the VA hospital mental health ward in topeka. that means, we leave about 5:30am and get home about 6 or 7pm. long day but it's only 1 day per week and it sounds like it's really going to be a nice break. my friends come home with hilarious stories to tell and we don't pass medications or anything like that with the patients, we just talk with and play games with the patients. we also watch tons of movies it sounds like, so boring but it will be a nice break from the really quick thinking, fast moving pace of the ER. i will miss it terribly though. if i could just have a break for a few days, and get to go back to the ER, i'd love it!! my favorite er nurses were both working yesterday and so i told them that i knew they were going to really miss me and they both said "oh, you'll be back. no doubt, we will be working with you again". they are probably right. if i didn't have such a strong desire to do labor and delivery (and i do, it's overwhelming actually), i would definately be an er nurse. i just love the unpredictability and the pace. yesterday was interesting. we were waiting for an ambulance to arrive with a head trauma who was severely hypoglycemic and combative (probably due to having such a low blood sugar). so were were all waiting in the trauma room for them to roll in, and lise (nurse) said, "ok, if i were you all, i'd get those white lab coats off and gloves on now. we don't know how much blood there is going to be"...so that's when we really knew it was going to be something. it ended up that there was just a big cut that needed stitched, but the care that is taken to ensure that the patient remains safe and aligned to prevent any potential worsening of spinal cord injuries is pretty neat to watch. there was a lot of blood. i don't really mind that. we also had a 20 year old girl come in who was a screamer!! she is apparently a drug addict (according to her family physician) who wouldn't allow us to give her any narcotic pain medication. she said her hip was hurting her. so she laid in the room screaming and crying for "someone to please help her" sad really and i wondered why mental health wasn't called but we did give her 3 IM pain injections and she still left screaming and angry with the er staff. she wasn't my patient but i got to hear her anyway!! then, i had a 3 1/2 year old little boy (i always race to the little ones) and he was truly the best patient! he likes going to the dr so he was so cooperative (of course i was also playing with him and gave him stickers)!! he did manage to puke all over but i happened to be out of the room when it happened so i was clean!! he had a respiratory virus and needed a breathing treatment, that combined with the steroid we gave him, made the little guy sick. poor thing, but really such a good boy!! i'll miss all this er craziness!!

we have managed to lose 3 students in my class this semester so far. all 3 were in the OB/Pediatrics rotation so that's a pretty small group these days. i'll be in that rotation during the fall semester of my senior year next august. kind of scares me!! we know for certain that 1 and likely 2 actually, were officially kicked out of the program, and the 3rd was a little more voluntary i guess. kind of crazy~!

on a "so proud of her note" my jess stops smoking on saturday!!! she has been taking a medication that has allowed her cut down for the last couple of weeks, and sat is actually stop day!! it's important for her health, and MINE!! heaven knows i don't want to get on an 18 hour flight to greece if she is still smoking!! no way!! i've seen what happens when things get stressful and she really wants to smoke!! things like, as soon as she gets outside and the lighter won't work, it gets chucked across the parking lot and tears begin to flow!! very funny in retrospect but not so much right then!! i have been seeing jess everyday this week and i LOVE IT!! i miss that girl when our schedules conflict. i spent time with her sat, and we have been at water aerobics together mon, tues, and tonight for sure!! then friday night were working on bracelets so i'll see her then too!! YEA!!

i start my diet today...i'm very excited actually but my family is already like, "lets go out to eat sat night, and let's go out to brunch next sunday" ( i think we're actually going to be in sedan--hope you don't care theresa!! that weekend) so i said, go ahead, i can't eat it anyway so don't re-schedule for us! i actually am required to have 1 real meal per day so i could eat it then, but i'm very serious about maintaining this and don't want distractions that i can easily avoid. so...i guess i'll have to be unsociable for a while!!

boy howdy--our march weekends have filled up quickly! this weekend we have a birthday party of one of the day care kids, next weekend my niece's birthday party and trip to visit chris's parents, the weekend of the 17th, i'll be out of town with my nursing friends, and then march 31st is caden's birthday party!! so, a busy month ahead!! that's it for now!!

nice weekend

it's been a nice weekend. friday, caden and i went over to my parents house and gave my mom a perm. caden was very helpful with the process, handing me rollers, papers, picks, and laughing at grammie when we put the foam on her head! it was a very nice evening. today, chris let me sleep late-very late actually, and then caden and i went to jess's house to celebrate heather's birthday with them and all the aunts. jess's dad left this morning only to be replaced with the aunts. it was very fun and caden had a great time. he was very shy initally as usual, but soon warmed right up and was playing and talking to just about everyone. the aunts even said how much more talkative he was this time versus the last time that they saw him. heather got some nice presents and got a beautiful music box and bracelet from her mom which was an emotional and very special moment. much laughter along with a few tears made for a very nice afternoon.
i do have some exciting news though...i went and visited with a place friday that is called "life balance health and wellness" here in emporia which specializes in weight loss and management. the program is very similar to one that i participated in for a while in topeka, and is expensive but less so than going to topeka every week. so after discussing it with chris and figuring out the financial piece we've decided to go for it! the exercise is going great and has been, but i need something more. and weight watchers here just doesn't seem to do it for me. plus, to keep motivated i need to see some significant results early on and with the other program that i did before getting pregnant with caden, i dropped 40 pounds pretty darn quick. this program here uses many of the same foods which i thought were generally pretty good, definately do-able, and i have 1 year to get the weight off before we go back to iowa for in vitro again. i have a lot to lose so i'm getting very serious!! it's very exciting to me! so that's what i know for now. off to bed...

Another Good Day

another good day here in lovely emporia, ks. clinicals went well, nothing too exciting in the ER, except one time when i thought we were going to get to go and work a code in same day surgery, but it got cancelled about the time all of our running feet arrived. great news for the patient! then i picked up my little ball of sunshine for our lunch date. we had lots of fun at then met with the speech lady/evaluator/tester for 1 1/2 hours. she agreed that caden was no longer in need of their services as he has met all the 36 months goals and surpassed many of them for the older children!! YEA CADEN! we already knew that though--he's come so far since last march when he got the tubes in his ears! he'll be 3 march 29th so i'm trying to think of a good birthday party for him. the little train isn't going to be ready again this year so we thought about doing some tractor rides at grandpa tom's but that's not going to work out either. he is insistent on having a "thomas the train" theme, but i'm not sure what else to do!! if you guys have ANY ideas i'd really love to hear them! I'M GETTING DESPERATE!! we don't need it to be a big thing, but need to have some activities for the children! so any help would be appreciated! well, nothing else is going on here really so just a pretty relaxing and fun day!!

busy day

well, for the 1st time this semester, i played hookie!! i just felt like taking a day and getting some things done around the house. so, i was a very busy lady...even cleaned my dressing room, which to those of you who know me personally, is a VERY BIG DEAL!! it's nice and clean...not spotless but enough to make my husband fall to his knees! i also did 3 loads of laundry this morning (which is something that chris usually does), and took out the trash, washed the jeep, went dining room chair shopping, and met with the speech therapy people! then tonight we made a quick trip to the store, and then i cooked supper, well the mashed potatoes, gravy, and peas anyway, while chris and caden went on a long walk! chris was so impressed! he even told me that he knew he'd make a "wife" out of me one day, it just took him quite a while and a trip to kansas city for the weekend! of course, he would never seriously make such a stupid remark, so it was pretty funny. and it's final...we found some chairs and ordered them this afternoon. shipping was free so it wasn't too bad a deal. looking forward to having safe seating at our table again!! so tomorrow i'm working in the ER again (yea!) and picking up my baby boy at noon for lunch and a meeting to finish up paperwork with the speech therapy folks. talked with the therapist this morning about stopping services since caden has made such progress and is talking up a storm these days. he simply couldn't hear us before he got the tubes in his ears and now that he can, he is a little jabber-jaw! i mean it, he almost talks non-stop! she was very impressed with his progress and "commended" me for working with him and always including him in conversation which is obvious when he says things like "mama izzie is hollering ". she says he has a great vocabulary and that i should be very proud....of course i am very proud of him, but she said i should be proud of me too! and i am proud of the parents that chris and i are. oh, we make many mistakes and we always will, but we do the best we can and we couldn't love our baby more! so, that's a wrap, now it's time to settle in and watch the jayhawks kick some wildcat butt!!

Fun Times

Chris and I returned from our much needed weekend get-a-way both a bit relaxed and a bit frustrated!! no, it's not what you think!! we had a great weekend, first going to the nelson-atkins museum of art. we have different tastes we discovered! and i'm also a bit impatient or maybe he's just a bit slow!!?? i don't know but we've decided that winter is not the time for me to visit because when it's warm, i could go outside and appreciate the beautiful architecture of the museum as well as the garden of sculptures, instead i was stuck inside and spent much of the day sitting on the bench waiting for my wonderful art-appreciating husband and thinking about all the horror movies, murder mysteries, and even scoobie doo episodes that take place in museums at night!! i said i'm not patient. i'm not sure that's the word really but i just want to walk into the room, and if something catches my eye, then i want to go over and read more about it. chris, well, he wants to read just about all of them regardless. i've decided that it's not really my fault. you see, in all my other duties, it's rush rush rush. rush to get the patient's medicine, rush to get the dr's orders, rush to get my homework done so i can hang out with my boys...rush rush rush. so, it's difficult for me to slow down it seems, unless i'm doing something with our caden baby! but in the end, we both agreed that it would be a beautiful place to renew our wedding vows in the future! plus, chris only got in trouble one time so that was good!!
then we went to the hotel chris found for us. it was the hotel savoy, apparently a very swank place in it's day and an um, "charming" place now. it is very old, and has the radiator-type heaters that hiss all night long and prompted me to immediately locate our escape route in the case of fire but it was nice and clean! they did have a lovely breakfast that you order for the next morning and at whatever time you specify, they have it ready for you in the dining room! great food. and the waiter said that he thought i looked like his sister he hasn't seen in about 10 years so he sent some cinnamon rolls and fresh fruit with us for the drive home! nice nice!
the dinner at figlio's on the plaza was AMAZING!! i mean it truly! not to mention that it is also where chris proposed to me so it has special memories for us. the comedy club was great!! i laughed so hard, i'm sure in part due to te 3 beers i consumed but i love it! the MC was ok funny, the opener was freaking HILARIOUS, and the headliner was average. i could've listened to the opener all night! it was great and we'll definately return.
then the frustrating part started. it was shopping day today for me but one of the most important items we were searching for was new dining room chairs. we have these chairs that i picked up at a yard sale probably 5 years ago which were extremely old but very cool so we re-finished them and have been using them for all this time. well, they are all pretty much broken and falling apart--literally. so it's time. we looked everywhere!!!!!!!! we finally found some for $50 a piece at nebraska furniture part which is an ok price, but they were out of stock so they'd have to deliver them later this week, with a $55 delivery fee. we weren't going for that! we visited nebraska furniture mart when we were crib shopping for caden and were treated terribly when we said that we did not want to spend $500 on a crib. i'm not exaggerating...$500 was the average. CRAZY!! so not a great start, but i've heard many many good stories since then so with no luck anywhere else, we decided to try it. let's just say we're not fans!! we just don't agree that we should have to pay the extra delivery fee when we were more than willing to transport them ourselves, had they been in stock...so no more nebraska furniture mart for us!
we sure missed our baby boy!! he had a great time and my parent's house and then papa tom's today. he sure was happy to see his mama and daddy though!! well, it's bath time for my precious boy so that's it for now!! hope you had a great weekend!

catching up

sorry it's been a few days. seems like during the week, i don't get much time to sit down and type! it's been a great week in the ER for clinicals! i am just very comfortable there and enjoy the staff very much. i like the unpredictability of the patients needing care and the opportunities to learn! nothing too serious came in so nothing too scary but enough to keep us busy most of the time. i expected many more falls and car wrecks but we lucked out this round of crappy weather.
today is passport day!!! it really does make the greece trip official i think! i still have a hard time believing the trip is real and we're really going to GREECE!! i'm so excited!! but for now, i'm very much looking forward to this weekend! chris and i are headed out of town sat morning and have lots of fun stuff planned just for the two of us! i still don't know where we're staying though. makes me a little nervous!!
caden and daddy both got their hair cut last night. it's so darn cute to see caden just sit there like such a big boy! i asked him if mama should get a hair cut too since he and daddy were and he said "yes" and i said " no silly, mama just got hers cut", he actually said "looks pretty mama". that kid is so dang cute! and we have some sort of BIG news to report...wednesday night when i was at water aerobics, chris came upstairs and found caden in the hallway with both his pants and his diaper down and he said he needed to go potty!!! of course, he had already gone so no luck but a BIG step in the right direction i think!!! yea!!

So far

so far, i've had a pretty nice weekend. really nice actually. last night my parents wanted caden so i had a date with my husband. we went to dinner and saw "hannibal rising" which did not live up to my expectations in case you wondered. we don't usually go to movies though so it was nice.
this morning, chris, caden, jess, and i headed out to the mall for some fun. they were having all kinds of activities...well, more like a health fair but the reason i really wanted to go was to get caden's pictures taken at "yesteryears photography". yes, it's one of those old time looking pics that you get to dress up and pretend and i really didn't think caden would go for it, but he LOVED it! he decided to be a "hunter boy" and even wore a coon skin hat! i couldn't believe it! they are adorable and we actually get to pick them up on monday! when it was done, which was like all of 10 minutes because caden is so used to having a camera in his face that he is pretty darn cooperative, he said "fun time mama"! they are coming back march 31 so i think we might borrow kaylee and have some done of her too. way cute! and of course chris, caden, and i played like crazy tonight. man, i love that kid. nothing makes me happier or more at peace than just being in his presence. such a miracle.
tomorrow, i have have have to study for a test in critical care that's on monday, but i'm definately going to make time to create some fun valentines with caden. he picked madagascar for daycare but we're going to make some homemade ones too. i love to do stuff like that with him.
i'm very excited about this week at school too. both clinical days i am in the ER where i like to be and am used to how things run. i love the unpredictability of it and the staff is great! so that will make for a good week i hope, especially in contrast to last week! then next saturday, my wonderful husband and i are heading out to kansas city to go to a comedy club show and spending the night in a hotel. it'll be very nice to get out of town. i gave chris the responsibility of booking our hotel and now he won't tell me where we are staying!! he says it's a surprise! we're doing this to celebrate both valentine's day and my 30th birthday that was in december. times are too crazy then and money to short to do anything so we postponed to this weekend! that's about all i know so far!

Frustrated

I can't even begin to explain how frustrated i have been with myself today. this was my long clinical day. i was to meet my patient, do pre-op stuff with her, take her to surgery, scrub in on her surgery, go with her to the recovery room, and then take care of her post-op up on the medical floor. so, met her--she was nice, family was nice, no problem. went to surgery--GREAT. put in her catheter no problem, the dr was great and we joked around a lot, nurses good, and my patient did very well. recovery room was fine. spent a lot of time talking with the anesthesiologist and then accompanied my patient back to her room. well, apparently i left my brain in the OR. or maybe the anesthesiologist just has some anesthesia on him all the time that i unknowingly inhaled...i don't know but seriously....i was a freaking mess. could not get organized. she had a nasogastric tube and an incisional drain placed during surgery, both of which were new to work with for me, had iv antiobiotics that needed hung right away, vital signs every 15 min, then 30 min, then hourly, needed a new iv because hers was too old and was leaking (which thankfully i found...my one success today). i got her IV in right away, but immediately it blew. so much stuff and i just never felt like i knew at all what i was doing, couldn't find anything on the floor....blah blah blah...my instructor was extremely patient with me, but i was so embarrassed. i just wanted to go back to the ER!! extremely disappointed in myself today. although, i am aware, that this is the first time i've been back on the hospital floor since last semester, and i should expect some disorientation initially, but it was freaking ridiculous. now, my patient was comfortable and cared for appropriately and i know that if i was going back to care for her tomorrow, it'd be a completely different story. i'd be fine. her pain was managed, her family was involved, and we communicated very well. it was all the other "technical" stuff that got me today. it all got done but to say the least, it WAS NOT PRETTY!!
then i also got a message that my hair dresser's poor baby is sick today so no haircut and highlight for me tonight!! ughhhh.....i could have used some beauty time! perhaps a hot bath, or maybe a beer or two will do...tomorrow's a new day...

lazy weekend

what i had hoped to be a lazy weekend, turned out to be a little less. had a very long dinner with my parents on friday night (terrible service), and then my mom had another set back that took us to the emergency dept on saturday for several hours. where she was dealing with her right hand that didn't seem to work, her left hand has now followed suit. we've got to be missing something....just can't seem to get it figured out. any ideas? had our monthly brunch with our extended family and that was quite fun actually! much more so than normal as a matter of fact! the rest of our day we spent working on remodeling our basement and basement bathroom. and of course watching the superbowl! YEA COLTS!! haven't talked much to my jess though and i'm feeling a little withdrawl! i try to give her a bit more space when heather is in town. hope she is feeling better! so, no homework done yet but i'm not feeling too well so i'm headed to my comfy bed!! hope you had a great weekend!