Posts Tagged ‘nursing

It’s The Small Stuff

April 9, 2009

For the last week I’ve been house- and pet-sitting for a family in our church. Although there were a few good things about staying at their house (it’s closer to the park and ride, they have a really awesome TV, and there was an actual TABLE at which to eat my meals), mostly I just REALLY missed my husband, my dogs, and my bed. The dogs I was watching are approximately 100 pounds each, and neeeeeedy. The first night I was there, they woke me up no less than five times for one reason or another.  Anyway, I came back home last night and it was wonderful to sleep in my own amazing bed (which in my family we refer to as the Great…
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The Future Revisited

April 7, 2009

When I first went to college, like every kid I was faced with the premature decision of what to do with my life. I was never someone who always knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I changed my mind a thousand times: from photographer, to singer, to physical therapist, to philosopher, to athletic trainer, to minister. In the end I got a degree that trained me to be a youth pastor, which I didn’t want to be, and another one that trained me how to think but didn’t leave me a lot of (read: ANY) job opportunities. I guess I followed through with it because I enjoyed the classes and the professors, and like most adolescents…
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Grateful

March 27, 2009

It’s Friday, hallelujah, and I want to take a moment to say how grateful to God I am for the way this week has gone. The biggest thing is that my husband David maybe, possibly, hopefully, is on the right track to maybe, possibly, hopefully getting his pain under control. The haziness of that statement is reflective of how I usually feel regarding this whole ordeal, but my goodness, things are looking up! Yesterday morning when I got to work I was feeling very emotional/irritated/sad for what seemed to me like no reason at all. But I think the reason was that I had to give first-time chemo to a very anxious 22-year-old boy who looks alarmingly like my little brother. It…
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The Case of the Missing Patient

March 21, 2009

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…
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Mondays

March 9, 2009

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….
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