kapachino

Yesterday, instead of having patients myself, I was supervising two new nurses. They would do most of the work, but I would be there to help out and answer any questions they had. Pretty good deal, I thought. The morning was easy enough, even though I had to delay my lunch more than usual so as not to leave my trainees stranded. Right after I ate I started helping to discharge one of our patients. She was a young-ish Asian woman who had brain surgery recently and subsequently has next to NO short-term memory. Her husband was with her, and once they were ready to go I told them that I would send for an escort to take her down…
Continue Reading »

Today my grandmother’s grand piano was moved into our front room:  Don’t you just love the quality of my iPhone picture-taking skills? It’s not ours to keep; we’re holding it for my brother David because he claimed it. But right now he’s living with my other brother Barry and a roommate, and the spot for the piano in their house is being taken up by a ping-pong table. They have their priorities, you know? Having this piano here brings back memories. My family and I actually lived with my grandmother for a few years when I was in elementary school. The piano was in her front room, too, which I always considered the library. It was quite a bit more…
Continue Reading »

Before I became a nurse I was really excited about the prospect of wearing scrubs every day. And I do admit, they are comfortable. Also, it takes me no time at all in the morning to pick out what I’m wearing. The biggest decisions I have to make are: Do I want to wear a white or black undershirt? Do I want to wear the scrub top that buttons down or pulls over my head? It’s pretty great. However, it comes with a price – UTTER BOREDOM. At Methodist, there is only one color of scrubs we can wear, and it is called Caribbean Blue. This is what it looks like: Not a bad color, really, but it gets old….
Continue Reading »

So I am on my church’s “communication team,” and my job as part of this team is to write a monthly newsletter. Our team then meets once a month to mail it out. During this time we also go through the information forms that the congregation fills out and puts in the offering plate each week to update the mailing list. We met last night, and as I was stuffing envelopes our team leader, a woman about the age of my parents, was asking the rest of us questions about the information forms. “Who is Maggie McDonald?” “Oh, that’s my brother’s girlfriend.” “It says here she’s a regular attender, is she on the mailing list?” And so it went. Until…
Continue Reading »

I’ve discovered that I like showering at night. One evening I was feeling particularly bad about myself. It was one of those times when I decided to skip exercising and eat an entire Milky Way Midnight instead. I looked in the mirror and just felt…ugh. Even though it was already getting late, instead of plopping into bed like that I decided to adhere to a saying I learned from a cancer organization: “Look good, feel better.” I started by taking a shower. Next I did an exfoliation of my face, shaved my legs and arms, and lathered myself up with body cream. I blow-dried my hair. I put on a cute nightgown instead of my usual PJ pants and tank…
Continue Reading »