kapachino

Blog

  • A Rare Change In Routine

    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 top. I scrubbed and moisturized my hands, which get dried out from washing and sanitizing a hundred times a day. Finally, I put on some lip gloss.

    After all that, I was tired. But I looked in the mirror, and I felt better. I slipped into bed and drifted off into a happy dream. When David came to join me a little while later, he nestled up to me and whispered in my half-sleep, “I love it when you shower at night. You smell good all over!”

    I’ve been following the same routine ever since.

  • Positive Self-Talk

    Or, Things To Be Happy About:

    1. We joined Netflix for the sole purpose of catching up with Gossip Girl. Also, I watched the season premiere of Dancing With the Stars last night. David watches both of these shows with me, and actually likes them.

    2. My house is clean, even the floors and couches. This is immensely soothing to my nervous system.

    3. There is a Yankee Candle burning 24/7 on my mantle.

    4. Watching Law & Order today, David spontaneously started singing to me, “Love In The First Degree.” He was inspired.

  • Mondays

    Working on the Monday after I’ve worked a weekend is always the worst. The only good thing about working weekends is that they are usually a lot more laid back. The bosses aren’t there, patient testing is cut down to a minimum, and there aren’t a million doctors, residents, and other random people swarming the unit. Plus, the people I work with over the weekend are my favorite coworkers.

    But Monday…ugh. It’s my fourth day in a row to work, and we have admissions all over the place. I’m still training a new nurse, which takes a lot of patience. Not to mention we’ve had some really tough patients lately. That sentence doesn’t even begin to describe what I mean. There are times when I think about what a depressing place my unit can be. At the end of the day I am beyond exhausted. It’s a constant struggle for me to continue pouring myself into these needy patients day by day. It drains me, yet it is so gratifying.

    But the other day I was in the middle of helping a patient when out of nowhere she looked at me, smiled, and said, “You sure do love your job, don’t you?” I can’t think of a better compliment. Because I really do – I love my job. And I’m so glad it shows.

  • recovering

    For those of you who don’t know, my husband found out in the middle of last year that he has a condition in both of his hips that causes the bone to die due to lack of blood flow. The disease is very advanced in his right hip especially. It’s an extremely painful condition because it causes a deep, aching bone pain, similar to cancer of the bone. If left alone, eventually his hips will collapse.

    Since he’s so young, and hip replacements don’t last forever, we’ve tried a different procedure to help prolong the need for them. What they do is drill holes in his hips to clear out some of the dead bone and relieve the pressure. He had the surgery done on his left hip first, since there was more of a chance of it working. Yesterday he had it done on his right one.

    The doctor’s very words were that the procedure is a “Hail Mary” for his right hip, and if this doesn’t work he will have to get it replaced. Obviously we want to avoid that.

    Anyway, he came through the surgery alright, and I was able to get a really cute picture of him with his surgical gear on lying in the stretcher, but sorry ladies, that one’s for me to enjoy!

    Unfortunately, this recovery so far has been a lot harder on him because this hip was so much worse to begin with. He really should be staying in a hospital for a few days, but they just gave him a bunch of pain medicine after surgery and then sent him home within 45 minutes. Well, that medicine wore off in about 3 hours and what he has to take now isn’t covering it. I took today off work to be with him, and I’m doing all I can to make him comfortable. It’s so hard to see him like this.

    So right now, this is what is consuming our lives. That, and cleaning my house, which I needed to do for my own sanity. It’s not easy for either of us to be going through this. Him in miserable pain, unable to be of much help around the house and practically immobile, and me helpless to make his pain go away, with all the duties of the house and dogs and work on my back.

    There are times when I start to feel myself get irritable – not at David, but just at the situation. But all I do for him is worth it when he compliments me. He’s the best patient I’ve ever had, and taking care of him is definitely the most fulfilling.

  • Back and On the Attack

    Hello again!

    Did you miss me? I missed you. Seriously, even though I’ve been blogging for about 8 years now, I didn’t know how important it was to me until I had absolutely no access to my blog. I don’t consider myself a writer, but apparently I like to write. If you consider this writing.

    Anyway, most of the technical difficulties have been worked out, and now my brother is very diligently working on a long overdue redesign of this site, considering how the header still says “engagement edition” and I’ve been married for five months now. I can’t bug him about it TOO much though, because he does have an actual job that he has to do. Somehow, I’m not the priority. Hm.

    Obviously, life has been happening to me during this forced blog fast. Some of it I will be talking to you about soon. But now, it is past my bedtime. One more thing though: my husband is having surgery tomorrow on his hip, and it is very important for a number of reasons. So if you pray, please pray for him. If you don’t pray, well, give it a try – you might find that it changes you.

    I’m so excited to be back. Thanks for hanging in there with me.