This is what my Friday nights have come to?

Well, Sarah is out of town for the weekend, so I have taken her two girls to ease the "kid load" at her home. First up was the Care Bears Movie, and now it's Charlotte's Web 2. Family Video has free kids movies (not the cool new releases) even if you don't rent adult movies. We got pizza for dinner, which was more of a treat for me than it was for the girls.

I did get a new job, but not the one I previously mentioned. I will be a Nursing Assistant, don't know when I start yet. Still with my same employer, just a different department and much better experience for nursing. I am excited, but I'm also sad to leave my current department because the people there are so awesome.

I tried to start a load of laundry during the Care Bears, but I forgot my roommate mentioned the washer was making a weird noise and smell earlier. Well, if I had any doubts in the truth of that statement, I no longer do. I ended up turning the washer off. So now I have a resting washer full of soap, water, and clothes. I guess I will call maintenance in the morning...I'm hoping it will get us a new washer, but figuring they'll take it all apart and replace a part or something.

Ok, cartoons and employment opportunities can only be exciting for a couple of paragraphs. Mostly just wanted to write something because Mom is addicted to the internet and needs new material to occupy her time.

Helloooo.

Well, Grammy and Aunt Linda came to visit a month or two ago, and one of them requested that I write more. I suppose they want to know what's going on in my life, but there really is not much going on in my life.

Typically, I'm exhausted because I have school all day and work all night. Little known secret: I'm waiting to hear back about an interview on a different unit at the hospital. I don't think the hours will be any better, but the experience will be better, and that's important. I'll be a little sad to leave the recovery room if I get the new job. I don't mind my job one bit, and I (generally) enjoy the people I work with.

I'm sure if you haven't heard this from me, you've heard from my mom that I moved out. One of my friends from nursing school and I got an apartment together. It's a lot of fun, and it's nice living closer to school and work. I do miss Mom's cooking, though (and Mom...). The nutritional value of my meals has plummeted since moving out. (Hint, hint - send a girl some sliced mangoes and pasta e fagioli, lady!)

See, I told you nothing exciting is going on...

Some people get 15 minutes; I get about a second and a half.

I'm at about 10 seconds in this one.





And about 17 or 18 seconds in this one. This was the shot where they wanted me to have my "Tyra Banks Moment" and be all serious for the camera. Like that's something I'm capable of. The commercial flies right through each shot, anyway, so I don't know why it was so important for them to take 15 million shots over and over of one thing.

HIV/AIDS Fundraiser

Hey, my friend Pat is riding his bike really effing far for an HIV/AIDS fundraiser, but he needs to raise $3000 in order to be able to ride in this thing. Maybe you can help him reach his goal...and aren't donations tax deductable??

Here's the direct link to his fundraising page:
www.tofighthiv.org/goto/pattyt

I think you have to copy and paste that into your address bar. (Mom, I can help you.)

Just click on the orange link that says "DONATE TO SUPPORT PATRICK"

Anyway, thought I'd help spread the word for him.

Post-surgerical sillies

Towards the very end of my shift (so, late at night), I introduced myself to a patient who had just finished his stay in the recovery room and explained that I would be taking him on his stretcher to his hospital room. I should say, he was only there for a laparoscopic appendectomy, which is a pretty routine in-and-out kinda surgery. He is otherwise young and healthy, and one of the nurses wanted to hook me up with him until we found out he's married.

So half way to his room, his wife asks him how he feels. "It hurts. I don't even think I had surgery yet, did I?" Ha. I couldn't tell for sure, but I'm nearly positive he wasn't kidding. Lots of people are surprised when they find out their procedure is all done.

This whole time to his room, he's laying on the stretcher and can't see me because I'm pushing the handles behind his head. He could see my coworker, who was at the foot of the stretcher.

We get to his room and have to move a bunch of furniture around in order to pull the stretcher in the room. We do this for every inpatient. You'd think they'd design hospital rooms more efficiently, but they don't. It is my least favorite part of the job. We finish moving furniture around, and I grab the foot of the patient's stretcher to guide it into the room. He looks at me surprised, "You're new [to me]!" He said it with such surprise, as if to say, "Where in the hell did YOU come from?!"

Then, we get him moved into his bed, and he lifts up his gown to see some blood on his abdomen. "Oh my God, I got my period!" He was obviously joking, but on top of his confusion and the look of awe on his face, this was completely hilarious to me.

***********

A different day, I was taking a woman back to her room who had just had a mastectomy thanks to her breast cancer. On our way back to her room, we picked up her family from the waiting room. After the usual greetings and all that, the patient's sister said, "Hey, at least mine are bigger now!"

Time to ease up on the ice cream...

My 3-year-old nephew just asked me if I have a baby in my belly. Of course, my response was, "No, I don't have a baby in my belly. Are you calling me fat?" To which he said something along the lines of no, he's calling me ugly. Hm...

In his defense, he has an Aunt Ally (kinda close to Abbie, no?) who has a baby in her belly, but I'm not sure if that makes me feel any better.

If I could turn back time...

Made a giant ass of myself yesterday at work.

Much of my job entails me picking up patients from their hospital room and bringing them to the surgical area via stretcher or bed. I also take them back to their rooms after they're done in the recovery room.

Yesterday, one of my coworkers was pushing a woman on a stretcher by me. I was the one who picked her up before surgery, and now she was on her way out of recovery. I wanted to acknowledge her. A simple smile and nod would have been appropriate. But nooo, I have to impulsively smile and ask, "How'd it go?" As soon as I got the words out of my mouth, I wanted to crawl into a hole. She stalled for a second and said, "Uh, it went okay." Not only is it none of my business how her surgery went, but the reason I wanted to crawl into a hole is that I remembered she was there for a D & C.

I came thisclose to peeing in a cooler

I'm pretty sure I am a rich, retired woman in a struggling 20-something's body. I am a proud supporter of warm weather, sunshine, and all the fun that goes with it. I'm telling you, living on the Florida coast is THE life. There's a sunrise group that gets up early and watches the sunrise every morning. There's a tennis group, a kayaking group. There's a group for everything that's fun, and at the end of the day you can sit on the deck and watch the sunset with whatever beverage you're in the mood for.


The terrible town in Tennessee we stayed in after our first day of traveling.


Sunset


At McKee Gardens


Banyan Tree


Alligator...don't worry, it's fake.


Just a rock, but it looked more like a giant donut.


Mom, Grammy, and I. The always beautiful self-shot.


Another sunset.


I love this photo. It was my first day accidentally attending the sunrise group. I thought I'd be the only one awake at such an early hour, but I should've known better.


Sunrise on a cloudy morning.


Kayaking with Grammy.


Mom and I.


Another attractive self-shot.


This photo has made me laugh every time. We were walking through the sand trying to get our feet wet in the ocean, and the water came up higher than mom expected. I think her scream scared Grammy right outta the picture.


The traffic ahead of us while we were parked on I-75 North this morning.


The traffic behind us... After sitting in this traffic for about 45 minutes, I HAD to go to the bathroom. Mom wanted me to just go in a cooler in the car. Yeah, a cooler. I almost did it, too, but instead I turned the engine off and grabbed Mom's zip-up jacket. I made her get out of the car and follow me to the side of the highway. I planned to climb the guard rail and find a nice tree or even just an area with some brush blocking the view to at least one section of the traffic. The jacket was for Mom to hold as a curtain between me and whatever traffic the brush didn't protect my butt from. However, before we climbed the guard rail, the driver of that blue SUV on the right of the photo opened his window and warned us that his son just tried to go pee down there but almost fell because it's so slick and steep. He offered us a blanket for Mom to hold up over by our car. How absurd but kind. How humiliating. But we used this generous stranger's blanket as a curtain while I peed, directly onto the pavement of I-75 North. I then returned the blanket...awkward. We would see this blue SUV hours later, on the side of the highway, but we would be too selfish to stop and help.


After about 2 hours without moving. We were stopped for 2 hours and 40 minutes because of a couple of accidents, likely due to the fog and icy roads.

It was out of this world - people were getting out of their cars all over the place, just to go for a walk to see what was holding us up. They'd walk back and those of us who didn't want to venture out would open our windows or doors to chat and get the scoop. At one point, a couple of young, skinny guys with shaggy hair in their eyes walked by. Mom said, "Who are they, the Jonas brothers?" It's not as funny in writing, but I still think it's hilarious.

I had a GREAT time, and I actually wouldn't mind moving to Florida some day, but for tonight I am excited to sleep in my own bed.

See you on the flipside

Well, I should be packing or sleeping or something. Mom and I leave early tomorrow morning for Florida, assuming the snow's not too bad. Until I'm back with pictures of palm trees and the ocean, here are some videos of kids I do not know. The first one, you probably don't need to watch more than a minute to get the gist. The second one is my favorite, and I think the third one was on AFV at some point.

Lost and not found

Somebody left a coat in the surgical family waiting room. I would have never known, but a patient's family member told me. She also told me that she thought she knew which patient's family it belonged to. How very nice and helpful.

I took the coat to that patient's room, but the patient was sleeping and her family was no longer in there. I asked the nurse if she knew whether or not the family had gone for the day. The nurse didn't know, so she took the coat from me, and I followed her back to the patient's room. She woke the patient up and asked if the coat looked familiar. The patient didn't know for sure, but she thought maybe it could be her son's, so the nurse asked her to smell it. You know, because a post-surgical patient has ability to smell things and determine their owner. After sniffing it, the patient reached into the pockets to see what she could find. Her hand disappeared into the pocket and came back out with a handful of condoms. Awkward!
"Oh no, this isn't his! He's got five kids."
Not knowing what to say to that, I pointed out the obvious by saying, "Maybe he needs them, then?"
"No, he's had a vasectomy. This is definitely not his!"

*****

Should have some sunny, sandy photos soon. Can't wait to get out of this gloomy state for a little while.

Welcoming myself.

I've been peeing on toilets since I can remember, I own no house to redo or repair, and if i had kids who got snow days all the time, I'd be fired from my job and forced to quit nursing school. That said, Sarah urged me (and by urged, I mean mentioned it once the other day) to start a blog. I don't have kids yet (assuming I'm not through menopause by the time I meet a guy who's not a complete nut job and/or douche bag) to write about like the rest of you, but I do see some exciting stuff between working in the recovery room and going to nursing school.

So as to avoid any HIPAA violations and any potential internet-turned-real-life stalkers, I will leave some things fairly anonymous.

Also, I recently purchased a digital camera, so maybe I can eventually post pictures of...I dunno, a dog or a tree or something.

Exciting stuff, huh?