Here's my little resident blood sucker. He thinks he looks very scary. I played along. To me, he's just darn cute. And we'll continue to get along just fine as long as he gives me all of the Almond Joys he collected tonight.
After coming back to the street after leaving one house his grandmother asked, "Did you remember to say thank-you?". He looked at her with big eyes and said, "Yes, Grandma, I did, but that man forgot to say you're welcome!". Adults these days!!!
We took Austin and his little friend Danny to Boofest tonight. We went on a hayride to a pumpkin patch (a very picked over pumpkin patch, I might add!) and picked a pumpkin. We played hide and seek in a corn field maze, jumped and played in a big 'ol pile of leaves, and got to pet some ponies. It's fun to see things through the eyes of children. They show us how to giggle and abandon the seriousness of adulthood.
When our older kids were little they didn't get to take friends very often because the three of them took up all the room in the car. It's strange having this little guy all by himself. He'd be bored to tears with just his Dad and I along on these adventures, so we usually take a friend. It's a whole different dynamic than taking siblings. Don't know how to explain it really, but I was struck by it tonight; how different things are this time around with him than it was when his brother and sisters were little. I think I watch with different eyes this time around too. Older eyes. Eyes that know that I'd better squeeze out all the juice this time because I know how quickly these times will be gone. How quickly he'll be too old for pumpkin patches and hay rides with Mommy and Daddy. I want to slow down time. Freeze these moments of his childhood innocence and wonder.
His first five Halloweens I got to choose his costumes. I dressed him in cute costumes. I dressed him as cows and bears and puppy dogs. Last year when it came time to get a costume he informed me, "I'm not being something "cute" this year Mommy". I kind of bit my lip and asked him what he wanted to be. I was so disappointed when he informed me he wanted to be a Ninja. I, of course, didn't let on that it wasn't completely cool with me and I bought him a Ninja costume. So I was not looking forward to hearing what he wanted to be this year. He's decided he wants to be a Vampire. So, the Vampire make up is bought and the various components of a vampire costume are being collected. I knew that "cute" wouldn't last very long. But as long as there is breath in my body, he'll be the cutest little Vampire on the block.
Someone stole my little bag last night at work.
A few weeks ago my sister was selling Longaberger totes, bags, and purses. She had this cute little fabric bag that I just fell in love with. It was a madris plaid with a denim pocket on front and had two little leather handles on top. It was small. It kind of looked like a fabric luch bag. It was much too small for me to use as a purse, but I instantly thought us using it at work. I had a supply of ink pens (some very cool ink pens I might add), my calipers, various medical scissors, a little emergency kit, Advil (for ME!), tape, a change purse for the vending machines when we miss dinner (which is most days), a few little touch-up make up thingies, a medical spanish translator and other little insignificant things. There are little alcoves outside our patient rooms where we sit to chart and get medications together from the overhead locked cabinet. The really weird part is that last night early in my shift I just had a feeling that my bag was going to be stolen. I just knew it!!! I usually carry it with me from patient room to patient room and always leave it sitting on the little counter of the alcove. Needless to say, when I'm being called from room to room so often, sometimes it's left outside of a room that I am not in at the moment. About 10:00 I needed my calipers to measure and ECG strip. When I went to get it, it was gone. I looked everywhere and it just wasn't to be found. I don't think I've ever had something stolen from me and it sure isn't a nice feeling. Now granted this was not some big expensive item. But it was MINE. It was useful to me and I liked it. I was surprised at how I felt. Aside from being mad that someone would take somehthing that didn't belong to them , I felt violated. And then I was surprised that I felt violated. It was a bag for cryin-out-loud! Why did it make me feel so violated? I later realized that it also had the receipt I'd printed from the internet that proved that I'd renewed my nursing license for this year. And, it had the printed proof that I'd taken a stroke assessment test with the American Stroke Association that I needed to turn in to my manager. I bet whoever took it was surprised when they got it to their car and realized it wasn't the mother-lode that they thought they were getting.
I hope the Bird-of Paradise flies up their nose and that they have a really rotten day today.
Not because the world needs another me, but because I need another me. I'm a critical care nurse and I absolutely love nursing. I find a happiness and contentment when I'm taking care of patients that nothing else in my life has ever given me.
We are in a nursing shortage that appears to get worse every day. I see nurses leaving their profession all the time. Why? They are burnt out. Not because of the patients or because they don't like nursing. It's because of the demands of management to do more every day. Every couple of days we are given more documentation to do. I've been to three mandatory in-service classes in the past two weeks. They were great, I enjoyed them. I learned new things. Important things that will help me in my job. But along with every one of these in-services comes more documentation, more red tape, more time consuming tasks that take away from patient care. Administration is constantly harping on customer service. I'm a huge cheerleader for customer service. I feel like I go above and beyond when it comes to customer service. But there are times when because of the acuity of our census that the documentation gets in the way of patient care. We have to be vigilent of CYA (cover your ass). Everyday they ask more and more of us and expect us to take care of more patients with less help from those angels called nurses aides. And all the while management is wringing their hands wondering why they can't keep good nurses. Many nights I leave work feeling defeated. I can't stand it when the clerical aspect of my job takes away from the clinical part of my job. When I know a patient needs someone to hold their hand for a few minutes and listen to their fears and concerns and I can't do that because they've just told me that I have a patient coming up from the ER with active chest pain and new onset atrial fib on a heparin drip. The other night I had just this situation happen: I had a patient going for a pacemaker the next morning. He was an elderly man and was very scared and needed a little tlc and reassurance. I had the ER patient coming up any minute, and the nurses' station had just called me to tell me that another of my patients was having chest pain. So I go to the patient having chest pain, get vitals, start the O2, call for a 12 lead EKG, and give the SL nitroglycerin. When you're treating chest pain you can't leave that patient. They get Nitro,you take vitals in five minutes. If they are still having the chest pain you give another Nitro (provided the Nitro hasn't knocked their pressure too low), you do this times 3, praying that their chest pain is gone by the time you get the third Nitro in them. If it isn't you go to IV Morphine. All the while I'm doing this, I'm thinking about the man in 327 that needs someone to listen to him, the ER patient coming up that will require a full admisssion that will take a good 45 minutes, and before I can get out of the room with my chest pain patient (the third Nitro relieved his pain), the nurses station has called me again to tell me that my patient in 330 (a confused, combative little lady on a dopamine drip) has pulled her IV out for the second time this shift. As if it isn't enough to be spread so thin (I also have 2 other patients that I'm silently praying won't need me any time soon), I'm already way behind in my charting, not to mention that it's 9:30 and I haven't had a thing to eat since lunch and my bladder feels like it's going to explode. The daughter that is staying with her mother in 330 is pitching a fit because I'm not in there pronto restarting the IV her mother has pulled out and I'm now dealing with the new admission from ER whose wife is frantic and upset thinking her husband is going to die right here, right now. I want to scream "I'm only human here people!!!!" But I don't. I smile and get them settled into room 326 and start asking the three pages of history question that are required for an admission, after I start the chest pain treatment protocol of Nitro x 3 which, for him also required 4mg of IV morphine. In the middle of all of this Lab is calling me (we carry hospital cell phones) to give me critical lab results on my patient in 328 that requires a call to his doctor (a doctor who, by the way, hates to be called and is beyond rude when we call him). Somehow I managed to make it through the rest of my sift. My chest pain patients are pain free for the moment, the doctor was called, orders were taken regarding the labs, my new admit is fully admitted, his wife has been calmed down and given coffee and a cookie, the scared little man is sleeping after his Ambien kicked in, the IV has been restarted and finally I get to give report to the night shift nurse coming on. It's now 11:45 and I have at least an hour of charting and paper work to do.
I really do love my job. I love nursing. I hate the hoops we have to jump through and I hate not being able to spend the time with each patient that they need and deserve. I don't wonder why nurses leave the profession. I do wonder why administration can't see what's going on and give us enough help that we need to do the job that we love .
Gotta go, it's time to get ready for work! ;)
Well, the Chicago White Sox won the wold series! I love it when underdogs win things. Of course, if the Astro's had won it would have been cool too. I would be more excited if the Cubbies had been the Chicago team to win, but oh well. Anyway, with so much baseball news in my ears lately I've been reliving my baseball memories of my son, Patrick. He was an absolutely great player. People who watched him play for years still cannot believe that he wasn't drafted by the pros. The dream of his life was to play professional baseball. He would have done it for free even. But, it wasn't meant to be for whatever reason. I went back and dug up a piece that I wrote right after his last college game three years ago. By reading it below, I hope you get a feel for him and what a neat guy he is, but mostly I think that this puts into words how very much I love him.
Saturday I sat bundled in layers of clothes and blankets along the fence behind third base. It was biting cold and spitting sleet and rain. I wouldn't have left my place for the warmth of the car for a million dollars. It was, what turned out to be my beloved son's last baseball game. It was the championship game of the NCAA North Central Region Tournament- Division ll (Baseball), the winner would advance to the Division ll World Series in Alabama. Our boys had lost the first game on Thursday and had fought their way back up through the losers bracket on Friday to be here. We were #2 seed, Ashland University was #1. It was a double elimination tournament, we'd lost one already, they hadn't lost any. We would have to beat them twice that day. Without going into a boring play by play of the game, I will simply say our boys lost. They've come from behind many times to win a crucial game, I wasn't really worried. Somewhere in the eighth inning it began to dawn on me that we probably weren't going to win this time. With that realization came the gut-wrenching epiphany that I was watching my son's last game. I couldn't even breathe for a second. I watched him play third base trying to burn that picture into my mind. I wanted to catch every detail, every movement, every mannerism that makes him unique. I was trance-like, blinking away tears and praying, yes praying that he could have just one more game.This might seem silly to a lot of people. Some might argue that it's just a stupid game. They don't know my son. They don't know that his first word ever was "ball". They don't know that this child of my heart has lived, breathed, slept, and eaten baseball since he was old enough to know what a baseball was. The don't know the sacrifices he's made to play America's game. They don't know that baseball has been his life, his dream, his love. But I knew. I knew how badly he wanted to win that game. I knew how much he dreaded the last out to come in the ninth inning. I knew, and my heart was breaking for him. It wasn't to be. We lost 6-2. After the game coach took the team a little behind third base for their usual post-game huddle. We, the parents of the eight seniors on the team stood huddled, watching, tears streaming down all our faces, unified in our unspoken understanding of what this meant to these boys; to ourselves. This was it. The end of a 16 year era in our lives. The end of little boys' dreams. Coach talked to them for about 5 minutes. As he and the coaching staff turned to walk back to the dug-out they were wiping tears. The underclassmen followed close behind, dry eyed. The image of what was left of that huddle behind third base will never leave me. Eight tough-guy athletes, arms around each other, crying. Not because they'd lost a game, but because it was thier last.It seemed an eternity that they huddled there, holding on to one another, as we their parents stood helplessly watching their hearts break. Finally, they headed back to the dug-out, wiping their eyes, gathering their gear, hugging coaches. One by one the seniors headed out to where we were. I thought my heart would break as I watched sons and Dads and Moms grabbing each other and just holding on wordlessly because words weren't necessary. My Patrick was the last one out. His Dad walked up to meet him halfway, they grabbed each other, they cried, I knew my heart was breaking. I couldn't move, I could only stand there, tears silently streaming down my face, watching my son walk away for the last time from his favorite place on earth, a baseball field. He walked towards me, arms reaching and tears streaming. I couldn't find the words I wanted to say. Couldn't come up with a Momism to give him comfort. I could only squeeze him and say "I love you". I wanted to tell him how proud I was of him, what a good and loving kid he was, how much fun we'd had over the years through all of our baseball travels, what good memories he'd given us, what a good sport he'dalways been, and how very lucky I was to be his Mom, but I couldn't talk. He held on to me for a long time, squeezing hard and just before he let go he said, "Thanks Mom, for everything". Tom Hanks was wrong. There is crying in baseball.
Well, I didn't win the Powerball drawing last night. I guess all my plans are off. All the wonderful charitable things I was planning to do will have to wait. But gosh, isn't it fun to "plan" what you'd do with the money! It was fun while it lasted.
Tonight is the night of my sons date. Somehow I think I'm way more excited about it than he is. He's such a good guy. Good looking, hard working, sweet, sweet guy. He had a girlfriend all through high school and since her he's just dated around. No one serious. That's fine. It's not like I'm trying to pawn him off on anyone. I just can see a lonliness in him that I don't think he even recognizes. He needs a someone special. He's such a sweetheart and girls are always hitting on him, but he's just not been interested in a serious relationship. I kind of think he's ready now. All of his friends are getting married and that's changed his lifestyle. His best buddies have wives now that are taking up a lot of their "guy" time. I think he's bored. This girl he's going out with tonight is so pretty and sweet. She is kind of in the same place as he is. All of her friends have gotten married and she's kind of at loose ends too. I'm crossing my fingers that some major chemistry develops tonight. She is exactly the kind of girl I've been praying for him to meet. What I'd give to be a little fly on the wall tonight.
