kapachino

Tag: nursing

  • I Guess They Trust Me

    Well I’ve been trying for days to post pictures from our new house and our wedding. After trying on three different computers and three different browsers and still getting faced with a blank page, I called my brother, my web-design guru. Turns out something has gone wrong with my software, so he will be fixing it soon hopefully!

    So I decided that just because I can’t put up pictures doesn’t mean I can’t write about SOMETHING. So here is something. I have been a nurse for about eight months now, and my director has asked me to precept (train) a new employee. Some have told me that I must be doing a great job to warrant this trust, but I personally think it’s more the case that we are running out of experienced nurses that can precept – we have had a lot of people leave for other jobs lately, for various reasons.

    My director had told me the nurse’s name that I would be training, that she was younger than I, and that she had graduated around the same time as I did and had been working at another job up until this point. Today she let me know that the nurse would be coming by the unit tomorrow and I’d get to meet her.

    Well, she showed up today, and as soon as I saw her, I recognized her! It’s an acquaintance I went to school with, recently married with a new last name, who is extremely friendly and who I always thought would be a really great nurse. This relieved a lot of my anxiety, because I am unsure of my ability to make a good first impression. Also, she is really easy to talk to. We’ve already had a phone conversation, which is crazy for me because I’m a chronic phone avoider.

    So the moral of the story is that I’m actually kind of excited about this now instead of nervous. I’m still not that experienced, but I know that the rest of our staff will help me whenever I need it.

  • Does This Mean I Need Another Vacation?

    Last night when I went to sleep at 8 p.m. David lay down in bed with me and took a nap. It was a nap because he could never ACTUALLY go to bed that early. Anyway, he decided to get up a couple of hours later, once I was already asleep. Apparently his movement stirred me halfway out of my dream, because I started talking to him. He thought I was completely awake.

    I wasn’t just babbling random words though, or so he tells me. I started clearly demanding that he give me all his prescriptions and medical records so that we could get him admitted to the hospital. Since I’m a nurse and he had been sleeping, he seriously thought that something was wrong with him. I was so insistent that he started to get really worried. 

    At this point I vaguely remember that I was trying extremely hard to convey something to him that seemed so obvious to me, and I didn’t know why he didn’t get it. Eventually he asked me if I was partly dreaming and I responded, “I thought you knew I was!” 

    When David reminded me this morning about what happened, I had no recollection of the events. He finished the story by telling me that I should try dreaming more about him than the hospital. My coworkers think this means that I need a vacation, and I tend to agree.

  • Weekend Update

    I’ve had every intention of posting more frequently this year. Then I went out of town for our fifth annual Angel Fire, NM girls getaway, and since I’ve been back I’ve been getting back into the swing of working and taking care of things at home. Whenever I go too long without posting I get into a self-defeating cycle of feeling like I need to make a really GOOD post, which causes me to put off posting until I have something really GOOD to say. And the longer it goes, the better the post needs to be. Well this time, forget that. Here are some random things.

    My wonderful husband turned 30 this week, and his family got him a Wii. One cool thing about being married is that sometimes you get presents by default. I hope to someday soon have some spare time to play a video game every now and then.

    I have had a patient this week who is a real handful. She must be the adult form of ADHD, because she can’t sit still, is extremely needy, and is noncompliant. She has been caught twice smoking in the bathroom. Also twice she has snuck off the floor without telling anyone to go downstairs to smoke, and then she’s too weak to make it back so hospital staff has to bring her. And on the very day that my boss gave us all a lecture about preventing falls in the hospital, she fell. But I know it’s not my fault, because it happened not 15 minutes after my boss herself had actually spoken to the patient about not getting up by herself. Anyway.

    So there is my random update. Lately it seems the only chance I have to update is when things are slow at work, and right now I’m eleven hours into a twelve hour shift, so please forgive me.

  • It’s Not Just For Looking Pretty

    Oh right, I have a blog, and it’s something I’m supposed to WRITE in. I guess I’ve given myself kind of a break, because of the whole my-husband-had-surgery-right-before-we-moved-into-our-new-house business. We are having a lot of fun being there, but it sure is a lot of work. We still have a lot of walls to paint, fixtures, furniture, and other necessities to buy, as well as unpacking and organizing to do. There are times when it’s overwhelming, because I simply don’t have the time or energy to get it all done anytime soon, which is what my personality dictates. David told me the other day, “You know how I can tell that you’ve been really tired lately? I can leave a mess in the living room and you don’t even say anything.”

    Anyway, my sister-in-law gave me a hard time about neglecting this thing yesterday, so please accept my apologies. I will try to do better. SO…here are some things that have happened:

    >My husband had surgery for a condition he has in his hips. It’s going to be a long, difficult process to fix, and please pray for him because he’s in a lot of pain all the time.

    >One of our dogs, Eddy, probably tore her ACL. The vet said it could just be sprained, but after two weeks of rest and a week of anti-inflammatories, she’s still not putting any pressure on it. Poor girl wants to be just like her dad.

    >I was the matron of honor in a wedding, and I gave my first toast. I was really nervous, but it went well. David danced with me on his crutches, and it was cute.

    >Christmas came and went. I worked on the 25th, and it was the busiest day I’d had in weeks. Only the sickest of the sick don’t get to go home for Christmas. No fun.

    >BUT, we celebrated the night before with David’s family, and the day after with my family. It was all very merry. I don’t have any pictures because my camera is dead, I lost the charger somewhere along the way of the 5 houses we stayed in, and the new one I ordered doesn’t work.

    >The book we’re reading now for book club, The Pillars of the Earth, is excellent.

    One more thing: If you are a friend of mine, and you are a female, and you live somewhere in my vicinity, and you are interested in being my bike riding buddy, please let me know! This year I am resolving to use the nice road bike I have, and enter a race at some point. But I won’t ride alone, so that makes it difficult.

    Alright, that’s what I’ve got for now. Happy Sunday!

  • Thankful

    I’m sitting here at a computer in the hallway of my unit, Methodist Main 8 Northwest, finishing up my shift. I’ve had a sore throat since Sunday, swollen and tender glands since Monday, and a hacking, persistent cough since yesterday. It gets worse throughout the day, and by 8 p.m. I’m passed out in bed. I’ve had to be very careful to stay sterile here at work, although I don’t think I’m infectious.

    Although I don’t feel very well, I want to say that I am thankful for my health, and the health of my family. Yesterday, a patient of mine died on my shift. This was a man who we all knew very well around here, because he has been with us for a few months. He loved the University of Texas. Just a few weeks ago, he was depressed not because of his condition but because UT lost to Texas Tech. He had a very supportive wife and grown children about my age. When he was assigned to me yesterday, I was scared because I knew he didn’t have much longer. He was gasping for breath all day long. Right at the end of the shift, they told me they thought he was gone. I went into the room, and although I knew it was true, I felt for a pulse anyway. His wife was looking at me expectantly. I whispered to her, “I don’t feel anything,” and she just nodded and put her head down. His lips were white. His hands were cold. There was no more struggle in him.

    As I watched their family console each other, how could my mind not jump to my own family? To my own new husband, who I love more than anything in the world? I immediately wrote him an email to tell him that I will love him forever, and the most important thing is that he always knows that. There is a friend of a friend whose blog I read who lost her husband in a boating accident two years ago tomorrow. Today, she reflects on their last moments together. It is a beautiful and sad story, and it makes me want to hold onto my husband forever, but mostly it fills me with love for him.

    My job is a calling and a ministry, but sometimes it is a very very sad place to be. But I am grateful that every day it gives me perspective, and I pray that I will never forget this first death, and how my heart broke and I cried, and how tightly David held me when I got home.