On Wednesday I finally gave my presentation at work entitled “Blood Products in Oncology Patients.” I have worked hard on it for months and it has been hanging over my head for even longer. It went well, so I would have been relieved except that only six people showed up to hear it. Thankfully two of those people were my director and my manager. It’s almost impossible to get all the nurses from the unit to be away from their patients for 30 minutes to hear an inservice. But since I am evaluating the effectiveness of my presentation via a pre- and post-quiz, I need more people to hear it than six. So I’ll probably have to give it again, and again, and again.

On Thursday I was forced to go to a boring class for half of the day. Afterwards, my unit gave a surprise baby shower to one of our patients, a 23-year-old girl with a heart tumor who was pregnant when she was diagnosed and had a C-section when the baby was 26 weeks old. He will be coming home next week, and because she is from out of town and living in an apartment, she has nothing for the baby. The shower was great. She cried, her mom cried. I almost cried.

But afterwards I was told that I would be taking over the patients of another nurse who had to go to a meeting. All five were new to me, and the nurse I took over from conveniently left some of the most difficult work for me to do. I left work an hour late, my nerves frazzled. This morning she asked me why I didn’t chart assessments on the patients (which must be done once a shift). I told her that it wasn’t my responsibility to do this when I was only with the patients for two hours. The assessments are supposed to be done first thing in the morning, anyway. Apparently she complained to my director, but my director agreed with me. Victory is mine.

After work last night I had a nice, relaxing evening planned with two of my best friends and former roommates who now both live out of town. But the day before our pastor informed us that we need to host a group of five teenage boys at our home this weekend for an event going on at church. David and I are involved in the event and are going to be staying with our groups from 7 p.m. Friday to Sunday after church, but my house was not prepared for this. So as soon as we got home yesterday David and I went on a whirlwind cleaning spree. It’s still not extremely hospitable, but at least when the boys throw their sleeping bags on the ground they won’t suffocate in dog hair. I was still able to have a wonderful time with my friends, but I stayed up a little later than I’m used to.

That brings me to today. The church event starts at 7, and before that I have got to pack not only for the event itself, but for camp next week. Yes, I said camp. Starting Sunday evening I will be the camp nurse for Camp Good News down near Galveston. I’m excited about this because I grew up going to camp and my good friend Emily and her husband Bobby are the directors. But I also hate being away from David, and I’m nervous about going from taking care of adult oncology patients in the hospital to taking care of kids at camp. It’s a little different.

I won’t have internet while I’m gone, so I figured it’s a good time to knock out one of my 101 goals: spend a week without internet except email once a day. I’ll have my phone with me, so I should be able to do the email thing. I’ll have to resist the urge to Twitter. It’ll be tough.

So that’s why I’ve been silent this week, and it’s why I’ll be silent next week. Miss you, and catch you on the flip side. :)

XOXO,
Kathleen