Vacation

Sorry I've been gone!  I have been absent for a few months while trying to make and deal with some semi-important things in my life.  

First.....I have decided not to continue with school.  I have always thought that I would need to get my 2nd Bachelors degree (this time in nursing) and get my Masters in Nursing also.  I pushed myself by taking classes, looking for a prestigious school to attend, all so that I could "move up the ladder" and become the queen of Labor and Delivery nurses, travel around the world teaching at conferences and run a successful consulting business.  I don't think on a small scale!  So I have made the decision to just stop going to school.  Cold turkey.  No more.  And you know what?  I like not going to school!  Who would have thunk it??  I have spent the last few years trying to juggle school, home, kids and work and I was nothing but tired and stressed out and never giving enough time to either of those things.  So its done.  Yay!

I was also recently diagnosed with Celiac disease which has really thrown me for a loop.  I have had some minor health problems in the last few years that I have not ever really tried to get help for.  I just chalked most of them up to getting older.  After all, we just start to fall apart after 40 right?  I have a great NP who just happened to ask about problems during my last visit and suggested it might be Celiac's.  I just laughed at her but went to get tested, mostly just to humor her.  Surprise!  Labs are through the roof and the GI doc confirmed it after doing a scope (not the funnest thing I've ever done!). So its been a big change in my diet and a crazy learning curve.  Explains a lot though.  Sometimes I'm not nearly as smart as I think I am!  I never would have thought that all my troubles could be related to each other.

This week has been a wonderful week so far.  The kids are on spring break so they are home but thats still ok.  I have slept in for 3.  WHOLE.  DAYS.  Now in my case, sleeping in means until 7 or 730 am but its still wonderful!  And I have not done ONE.  DAMN.  THING.  We have watched movies, I took a nap, did some knitting and read some books.  Its been sheer heaven.  I love having this time to do absolutely nothing without deadlines, assignments, projects hanging over my head.  Sheer heaven, I tell ya!  I realized that I was making myself really unhappy and stressed with trying to accomplish everything at once.  So I'm taking it easy and enjoying every minute of this. 

I promise I'll have pictures of knitting, kids, projects and everything coming soon.  I'm working on baby blankets right now but I'm hopelessly behind.  These poor kids will be in college before they get these blankies if I don't get on it!  So I'm going to turn on netflix and settle down for an afternoon of knitting. Or taking a nap.  Haven't decided yet.

So what are all of you up to?

I love my job

First patient of the day yesterday.

Ms Tweaker - "How can you ask me that?  I'm not some crack whore off the street!"

Me -   "I just met you.  I don't know if you are or not."

Then she left AMA.  For the fourth time in less than two hours.

And she was the NICE patient!

Why I do this

It has been a rough couple of days at work.  Working in Labor and Delivery is usually a happy place.  Moms come in and deliver these cute little babies and its usually a happy event.  Dads are nervous, moms scream, families are anxious.  Then this new little person pops out and now we've increased this family by one more and everyone is happy and excited.  Yes, there are things that can go wrong, but for the most part its a happy time.  This new little life is a new beginning, a way to start over.

But sometimes things go horribly wrong.  We had a mom who has been on our unit for a few days.  Super high risk with a probable placenta increta, which is when the placenta, instead of attaching to the inside of the uterus like a normal placenta, has grown through all the layers of the uterus, into the abdominal cavity and into other organs.  And on top of that, it was also a previa, where the placenta is positioned over the cervix (dangerous in and of itself).  Placentas are full of blood vessels to help nourish this new baby so when one is damaged then they bleed A LOT.  And when they are attached in places they shouldn't be, the chance for a big bleeding problem is enormous.  So this mom is with us for a few days and she's doing pretty good, very minimal bleeding, baby looks good on the monitor.  And we like her.  She's very nice, appreciates us, thanks us for every thing we do, she's very concerned about the baby and excited at the same time.  The perfect patient that we are all bonding with.  Then all hell breaks loose. She calls out saying that she feel like she is leaking something and we go in, pull the covers back and find her sitting in a pool of blood with more pouring out of her.  This is not good.  Stat her down to the main OR where she gets an emergency c-section to get the baby out and thats when the trouble starts.  We knew that this would be bad so every surgeon has been on standby.  She is pouring out blood as fast as they can pump it in and they are working frantically to get all of that bleeding under control.  They can't get all of that placenta out of her because its grown into her bladder and other places.  It's stuck.  This woman who had been stable just a few hours ago is now fighting hard for her life and although we haven't lost yet, we aren't doing good.  Its been two days and she is still fighting hard.  Over 85 units of blood so far plus all the other stuff we give.  She has exhausted the hospital's supply and we are pulling in blood from wherever we can get it.  Just to buy us time so we can try to fix her.

Sometimes I wonder if I've become so jaded that I just don't care anymore.  I've seen thousands of babies born, most into happy families where you know they will be loved and cared for.  Its just another day at work and although I am happy for the families, they are just another patient.  Some situations are sad, when mom is a druggie or there is abuse or you just know that this family situation isn't ideal.  We make the necessary references, do what we can but then we go on to the next patient and put the previous one out of our mind.  Very rarely do we get a patient that has affected us like this one.  A night of fun for this woman has turned into a fight for her life and its not fair.  One minute she's fine, talking to us but nervous.  The next time I see her she is in ICU covered in lines and tubes and monitors, with nervous staff around her struggling to keep her alive.  I am a nurse.  I am lucky enough to bring life into this world every day but I also know what death looks like.  And I am seeing it in her now.  We have bugged our friends and family to go donate blood.  She's not an L&D patient anymore and we feel helpless that we can't do anything more so we will do what we can.  And we wait for updates.

Why would I say that?

Me to kids:  "STOP MEOWING AT THE DOG!!"

Busy little bee

This has been a very busy month for me.  We have been busy at work delivering babies all over the place.  Its not nearly as busy as it used to be but even with the decrease in numbers we are kept running.  One thing that I've noticed is that we seem to have a lot of older first time moms lately.  By older, I mean in their late 20's and 30's.  In our hospital we see a lot of teen pregnancies.  17 years old seems to be a normal age especially for a first time mom so its a little unusual to see these older ones.  But I like it!  We've also had some sick moms lately.  I took care of one who wound up getting septic with a high fever as well as going into pulmonary edema.  Stat c-section of course.  It took all my nursing skills to keep her going and eventually they transferred her to ICU.  I saw her a week later and the difference was amazing! She had lost all that excess fluid and had been discharged home.  I don't think that she really understood just how sick she was and how happy I was to see her out and about, recovered from her ordeal.  I rarely get to see how my patients do after I'm done with them and this was just a blessing.

School is going on and on.  My nutrition course is interesting so far.  Apparently my diet of hamburgers, fries, cookies and diet pepsi is not the most healthy!!??!  Next week will start my attempt at losing weight (again!) and getting healthier.  I've committed to running the Disney half marathon in September so I will start running and working out.  Wish me luck.  The brisk walk I took on Tuesday just about killed me!  Had to recover on the sofa with a diet pepsi :)

Being so busy lately with the kids, school and work has left me little time for knitting.  I'm a little overwhelmed at the amount of UFO's I have so I can't make a decision on what to work on so I don't work on anything.  My 3-year pair of socks is almost finished so I will try to work on those in order to start on my February sock project.  So many projects, so little time!

Headed to Huntington Beach on Saturday for another volleyball tournament then its party time on Saturday night for my birthday.  Friends from work are throwing me a birthday party to celebrate my 21st birthday (for the 24th time!).  I feel so lucky to work with this group.  We are truly a family!

Its the first day of school!!  You don't how excited that makes me.  I love my kids, I really do but having them home for the last two weeks has really been a test of my patience.  Today was just blissful silence.  No one yelling or talking, no TV or video games or weird guitar music, no dozens of friends or loud music.  Just. Quiet.  At least until my husband came home.  He interrupted my nap.  Darn him.

School starts for me again, too.  I won't need to go back to Nashville this semester but I do have online courses to take.  Life-span development and Nutrition.  Nothing too difficult but I will have to be disciplined and make sure I get them done.  I've also decided to teach my Medical Terminology class again.  The college called, desperate for a replacement.  The teacher that had taken over my class can't do it now so they asked me if I could step in and teach again.  Its a lot of work but I could use the extra cash. My husband seems to think that we'll have extra money to do stuff with.  Little does he know that I've got my eye on some Signature Arts knitting needles.  They're a little pricey but oh, so pretty!

We spent yesterday at an out of town volleyball tournament for one of my daughters.  Got up at the unholy hour of 4am, traveled two hours to the L.A. area and sat on a hard gym floor (no chairs allowed - they scratch the floor!).  I'm proud of her for getting involved in this but we've got a lot of traveling ahead of us.  I took some knitting along but got absolutely nothing done.  Now I know for next time....simpler projects, more snacks.......and a butt cushion!

My Tuesday night knitting group has started a UFO club for 2012.  I made a list of some of my UFO's that I want to finish this year and posted them on Ravelry.  And this was just what I'm admitting to right now!  It appears that I may have a serious case of inability to finish things!  Right now, I'm working on the Sweater for Arwen from Interweave Knits 2006 (I have managed to misplace the magazine but I know its here somewhere!).  While at the tournament I realized that I had made a mistake at a certain point so know I will have to frog some of it.  Thats what I get when I try to rush things along.  When will I ever learn to just go slow and pay attention to the directions?

Bella says, "All this frogging talk is making me tired!"

Its a New Year!

Ok, I know I've been gone forever but time seems to just get away from me.  Between work, school, kids, knitting and sometimes sleeping it just seems to fly by!  I do plan on posting more often though.  One of the many new years resolutions that I plan on working on this year!

Work is work.  Women come in, have babies, then go home.  Our numbers are down but we are still busy since we always seem to work shortstaffed.  I like being busy and I have wonderful coworkers to keep me company.  We are really like a family and that's probably the biggest thing that keeps me at this facility.

Knitting is coming along nicely.  I finished a few small projects for Christmas and am now working on a sweater for myself.  I have started posting pics of my stash and projects I'm working on in Ravelry.  Its a little disturbing to see exactly how much yarn I have and how many projects I have planned as well as what I'm working on.  Another resolution - finish projects and use up stash!  And lose weight....and fix my finances......and......and.......