Author: Kathleen

Diary of a Rookie Camp Nurse
I’m back from camp and it’s good to be home. I’m going to attempt to sum up the week I had for you, and I’m going to start by getting a few points out of the way:

>If you grew up going to camp every summer as a kid, then worked all summer at camp until you graduated from college, and even wanted to work full-time at camp for awhile, and therefore you are very excited about going back as the camp nurse, know this: it will NOT be the same thing. It won’t be what you remember. Especially if it’s a different camp than the one you grew up with and you don’t know that many people. Being the camp nurse is a somewhat lonely and isolating experience. You have to be available at all times, and if you leave your cabin (like for meals, or all-camp gatherings) you have to leave a sign on the door and take your phone with you. I realize now more than ever that I would hate to be a doctor because I would hate to be on call. I like knowing when my time is truly my own. So at camp I would end up spending long hours at a time alone in my cabin, but I couldn’t really relax because someone could come in at any moment.

>If you think that you’ll go to camp and get a lot of exercise and continue your triathlon training, think again. My sleep schedule was thrown all off, so I was way too tired to wake up early and go run or swim until the next-to-last day. And early in the morning is the only time that was feasible to exercise.

>It’s a lot harder to give meds to kids at camp than it is to give meds to adults in a hospital. I had to track the little suckers down. I found it easiest just to carry all the meds around with me in my backpack at all times so I could catch them. That, and a homemade first aid kit for fixing cuts and scrapes on the run.

So anyway, I arrived at camp last Sunday night and promptly received my first lesson: be flexible. They couldn’t find the key to the nurse’s cabin. Turns out the nurse from the previous week (an older lady who has been there for years, and is kind of protective of her “space”) had kept it, along with all the registration supplies, on purpose so that she would have a chance to “talk” to me. Lecture, more like. She practically ambushed me at the infirmary and made me late to registration. Thank goodness I’m such good friends with the directors, or I might have made a bad first impression.

My home for the past week

Registration went fine. Afterwards, I finally got a chance to settle in to my cabin. I organized health forms, made a list of food allergies to give to the cook, went over the schedule, unpacked, and read over the previous nurse’s notes. All of a sudden I started to get super nervous. I was thinking, if a kid actually comes to see me, will I know what to do?

The high-tech “clinic”

My first patient (child? customer? patron?) came at 11:30 p.m. that night, right before I went to bed. Keep in mind, I’m used to going to sleep at 9 p.m. and waking up by 5 a.m. I was tired. She claimed an upset stomach. I had to call her mother to get an OK to give her some Pepto, because it hadn’t been checked on the health form. (I was going to get to know this girl really well by the end of the week; I think she just liked the attention.)

My sleeping quarters. It’s not quite a Tempur Pedic, and no that’s not my comforter.

That second day I was quite frankly overwhelmed with loneliness and homesickness, something I’m not used to. Mostly I missed David, and our loving home. At camp no one paid me much attention because they didn’t know me, and I’m not exactly an outgoing person. I started to get the hang of things, but I was completely on edge every second I was alone in my cabin. Also, I couldn’t shake the feeling that people were judging me based on how young I look. I’m 27, but people think I look anywhere from 16 to 22. Usually I don’t mind because I know I’m competent with what I do. But at camp, I really didn’t know what to expect. It’s probably silly, people probably weren’t thinking that at all, but it made me feel insecure.

Thankfully, soon enough I got a chance to talk to my good friend Emily, who is the camp director along with her husband Bobby. Then the evening came, and I got to leave the confines of my little hole. I actually got a chance to talk to the kids and get to know some of them. And I actually got a good night’s rest.

Each day was better than the one before. David came to visit for an evening which was wonderful. He tried to kidnap me and take me home with him, but I don’t blame him for that. :) The kids were really adorable, and I started to kind of feel like I knew what I was doing. I got to know some of the staff’s names. I started to master the art of taking cat naps, which meant I was finally able to relax a little. I began to enjoy mealtimes, mostly because I got to sit with Emily.

Bobby, Emily, Emily’s sister Camille, and Bobby’s brother Danny singing a song by camper request

By the last day, I almost felt normal being there. I wasn’t exactly sad to leave, but there was a certain nostalgia about it all the same. Here’s a rundown of what I dealt with:
- 13 upset stomachs
- 12 cuts/scrapes/abrasions
- 8 cases of fiberglass (from the canoes – apparently you can remove the shards with pantyhose? Wasn’t expecting to come across this one)
- 5 headaches
- 3 insect stings/bites
- 2 minor joint injuries
- 2 splinters
- 1 nosebleed
- 1 pulled muscle
- 1 blistering sunburn
- 1 case of a wood chip in the form of a spike being impaled into a kid’s knee. THAT was exciting, but rather easy for me to deal with. I tried to pull it out once, it wasn’t coming, and I sent him to a doctor.
Before I left I accidentally pulled the door off its hinges. Guess I don’t know my own strength! That, or it was just a really old door. Oops.

Oh, and as for my week without internet? I missed it. A lot. I was not anticipating all the downtime and isolation, so I did allow myself one liberty: I downloaded a few apps from my iPhone. (Sally’s Spa, anyone? Love it.) But I got a lot of reading done, and the entire week was oddly relaxing, I think, if not mentally then physically. And at least I got to mostly stay out of the 100+ degree heat.

Me and Emily. She’s the one who’s pregnant, although this picture makes my stomach look swollen as well.

So there you go; an honest account of my camp nurse experience. Now I’m going to drag myself away from watching reruns of Law & Order SVU and go run for the first time in a week and a half. As always, thanks for reading. :)
June 28, 2009
When Even A Looming Vacation Is Stressful

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

June 19, 2009
Meet Our Furniture

Hello. Let me introduce you to the furniture in our home. Don’t worry, it won’t take very long.

First up we have our bed:

If I weren’t already married to David I think I would marry this mattress. It is the single most expensive thing in our house but worth every penny. We will have this baby for the rest of our lives. Obviously it needs some dressing up. I’m thinking an upholstered headboard, a bench at the foot, some regular nightstands instead of TV trays, painting the chair rail white, and something on those blank walls.

Next we meet our one and only dresser, which stands across from the foot of the bed:

It’s a good thing we have decent closet space, because there’s not much room in this solid wood chest. This was David’s before we got married. It’s very well made, but not too pretty. I’m not sure what will become of it. We don’t really use that TV on top, it’s just there because that’s where the cable line is. (Although there was that one time I discovered that if I watched the results of Dancing With the Stars on this TV, I could get ready for bed at the same time! I was so pumped. Don’t those cable networks realize that people start getting tired after 8 p.m.? Sheesh.)

Let’s move back to the front of the house now. You’ve already seen my grandmother’s piano:

And here’s the bookshelf in the same room:

This will be a great room…eventually. The red is too bold for my taste, there is no lighting, and the bookshelves are cluttered and unorganized, for starters.

Heading back into the living room, we have David’s beloved recliner:

I think he loves this chair like I love our bed. That is why, although I don’t particularly care for the look, it will remain in our living room indefinitely. Sigh…the things we sacrifice for love! (Although I must admit that he has completely sacrificed his opinions on our home decor to me. Such a sweetie!)

Here are our loveseat, chair, and ottoman, which really aren’t ours at all:

We are “borrowing” them from David’s brother Chris and his wife Kim. They don’t need them at the moment, and we LOVE them. See how we’re taking such good care of them, Kim? How nice they look in our living room? How without them we would only have a single recliner, or be forced to pay lots of money for another good sofa? See how you should just let us keep them forever??

Anyway, next we have our main TV, which is currently perched upon some sort of desk that we are borrowing from David’s parents:

I can’t wait to get that area set up with a proper TV stand. We might just have to “forget” to give back the desk though, which is actually quite nice. Hmm, I see a pattern forming…

And now I’d like to introduce you to the newest member of our furniture family:

Yes, we FINALLY have a table!!!!!!!! Every one of those exclamation points is warranted. You have no idea how I have longed for this day. Six months of eating meals on the couch in my lap has really gotten old!

My mom and I found this table at an antique store last week for only $250. It was the first thing I laid my eyes upon, and I had a feeling I’d be taking it home. But we still browsed the entire day, just to be sure, before returning to snatch it up. I think it’s adorable. Pay no attention to the chairs in this picture, however. They’re just on temporary loan from my parents until we buy our own. I’m thinking white, maybe two sets of mismatching yet coordinating pairs? Not sure what style yet, though. What do you think?

Well that’s it, folks. You have just viewed our entire furniture collection, minus our guest bed which is really boring. In fact, most of the time I forget that room is even there. Our house is pretty much a blank slate, and I’m loving the challenge of filling it up and making it pretty. :)

June 16, 2009
#31. Take the Charge Nurse Class
I went to the 8-hour long class at Methodist the other week that supposedly taught me how to be a charge nurse. What is that, you wonder? Well, a charge nurse is basically like a supervisor. Except that we already HAVE a supervisor on our unit. Two, in fact: our director, and the nursing manager. The manager acts as the charge nurse Monday through Friday, and she doesn’t have a patient assignment. But on the weekends, we’re on our own. Someone has to charge, and that person has to have a patient assignment as well. For my weekend, that person is always my mentor Pat. But she’ll be retiring soon, so others will have to take over.

At first, being the charge nurse doesn’t seem THAT hard. Here is a basic list of duties:
- Assign patients to nurses at the beginning of the shift
- Check the crash cart/defibrillation machine
- Make sure there is the correct number of staff scheduled for the next shift
- Be aware of the situation of all the patients on the unit by taking report, visiting each room, and making rounds with the doctors if possible
- Help out the staff as needed and address any questions or concerns on the unit as they come up
Okay, well maybe it does sound like a lot, especially if you have to take care of your own patients at the same time. But I’m not nervous about my ability to use my time efficiently; I’m nervous about dealing with conflict or issues with the staff. I am not an assertive person by nature. I dislike conflict. In fact, during class we took a test to determine our style of dealing with conflict and mine was a tie between avoiding and accommodating. I think that in real life I surprise myself and act differently than my gut tells me to, but I answered the questions on the test with my first instinct and this is what I got.

The following weekend after the class I got the chance to put my newly acquired charge nurse skillz into practice. Pat was there for any questions I might have, but she let me charge. I had to deal with quite a lot of issues, but I came out alright. The part I liked about it was getting to meet all the patients on the unit and provide some care for them without the hassle of documentation. I liked feeling in the know about everything that was going on.

But what I didn’t like was staff issues. Apparently I made a couple of mistakes in staffing, which were pointed out to me by my director when she returned. Also, there seems to be constant conflicts on our unit between the nurses and PCA’s (patient care assistants, which are like nurse’s aides). They all have extremely strong personalities, and I would rather just stay out of it. But as the charge nurse I have to be in the thick of it.

Overall, I don’t like being the charge nurse and I don’t really want to do it. I didn’t get into nursing to be in charge of other nurses; I got into nursing to care for patients. I hate the politics of the workplace and I don’t understand why everyone can’t just do their job and get along. I’m going to have to be the charge nurse this weekend again, and I’m not looking forward to it. But this is what my unit needs from me, so I guess I’ll just do it and hopefully become a better person along the way!
June 11, 2009
Four Rooms, One Space

Here I am, finally bringing to you some pictures of our house since it was painted and updated a little bit. So far we’ve only worked on the kitchen, living room, breakfast room, and laundry room. So let’s get started!

Kitchen

Here was what it looked like before:

Here is what it looks like now:

The kitchen is the room in our house that is the most complete. (That’s probably because it doesn’t require any furniture.) I’m not crazy about the pinkish backsplash, but it will do for now. There’s kind of a lot going on in the left corner of the first picture, but that’s because we like bread products and that’s where they’re piled up for now. Notice the lovely flowers that David got me, in a beautiful Longaberger vase. The bamboo roman shade is from Target and it was really easy to install. Just ask my dad! ;)

Breakfast Room

This is the little nook right off the kitchen and living room. Here is what it looked like before:

Lots of wood, pinkish walls, cheap metal blinds, and one hideous light fixture. Let me show it to you up close:

Um, yeah. That had to go. So this is what the breakfast room looks like now:

Nothing too fancy, but it’s a big improvement, right? We still need some window treatments, something to go on the walls, and oh yeah – a table and chairs. What I’d like to get is a round, dark wood table with four mismatching yet coordinating white chairs. Sort of like this (the picture on the top right). I’m going antique shopping with my mom on Thursday to try to find something!

Laundry Room

Usually this room might be forgotten when it comes to decorating, or at least put off until last. But our laundry room leads to the door to our garage, so we go through it several times a day. Here it was before:

Just kind of blah. And here it is now:

I drew that whiteboard calendar myself because I couldn’t find one big enough at the store. I knew I wanted something like this when I was having all my computer problems and organization went out the window. Making this helped me to feel a lot better! I want to get rid of that peg board on the wall and put up something nicer, but it’s stuck on there good. Another project for a later date. Oh, see my reusable grocery bags and dog leashes hanging there by the door? Now I have no excuses!

Living Room

This is where we spend most of our time, so I want it to be a space I’m happy with. I like bright, open, airy places. But here is what it looked like before:

All of the same colored wood made it feel very closed in. This was the major painting job that was such an ordeal to get done. It was worth it though:

The stationary bike isn’t part of the usual decor…we just happened to have used it recently and I was too lazy to move it out of the way.

A small update I made to the mantel. On the right is one of our engagement pictures, and on the left is something I made in five minutes with some scrapbooking paper I had. The vase was a gift from my good friend Megan.

Obviously I’m not the world’s greatest photographer, but you get the idea! We have to keep our couches covered with sheets or else I think they would become giant mounds of dog hair. Second on the list after a kitchen table and chairs is a TV stand and a couple end tables and lamps. And I’m wondering if I should paint the fireplace brick white? Right now I’m leaning toward yes. I think it would complete the look.

So there you have it; the work we’ve done on our home so far. Comments? Questions? Praises? Constructive Criticism? I’d love to hear it! This post has been a long time coming and I stayed up late (for me) to get it up, so please at least take the time to say hello!

XOXO,
Kathleen

June 9, 2009