A terrible work week

This was a really hard week of being nurse. It was filled with sadness, thankless, crazy, busy, and sick patients.
In my new job I have not had many of those weeks, weeks like this in my last job burned me out, and made me question being a nurse. That was a terrible feeling questioning the career I love and know I am meant to do. I do not like having weeks like this, it causes me to come home bitchy, it takes all of my energy and stresses me out. I already feel like I am more emotionally liable working night shift, weeks like this make it so I can't control my emotions.
Sometimes it is so hard to go the extra mile when patients won't take care of his or her self. It is hard to run my ass off all night to in turn hear, that we are not doing enough.  The plus side I am done with school so I was able to sleep most of the day and not be worried about assignments or discussion questions.
I work with an amazing team, working with them helps ease all that we dealt with this week but we were all spent and so ready for our days off.

 I wrote this awhile ago and never posted.

Burn Camp

A couple of months ago I received an email that was gut wrenching. If you are my Facebook friend, which I think are the only people who read my blog are, you know that Burn Camp was cancelled.

The foundation that my burn camp was associated with got a new director and she is an evil corrupt person. I can not speak to this woman's motives, intentions. I can  hope for kharma to work its magic.

A group of people who have been involved with burn camp for many years came together and started  working to save burn camp. They started the Eyabsut Family Burn Foundation. These people are so incredible most are former counselors and camp directors. I can not express enough thanks to those who have worked so hard.
They have been successful and camp is on.  The fundraising goal was $80,000 and over $100,000 has been raised, this money ensures camp this year and that camp will continue on in the future years. If you are able to help http://www.saveburncamp.org/ is the website.  This is one of the most amazing places in the world. I can never express the wonderfulness of burn camp. I have been a camper, counselor in training, junior counselor, counselor, cabin leader and now nurse. This year I will be in a new role, I will be the camp nurse. I am excited and looking forward to this role. I am hoping to make connections with lots of the campers. I hope to make the connections will all of the campers.
I hope it is not lonely, I love the goodnight time of camp and am a little sad to be missing out on that part.
I work three nights this week and will head to Washington sometime on Friday. I may sleep all day Friday pack my car and head to Washington early on Saturday morning at like three or four am. Camp is a long week and I do not want to start out my week behind on sleep.
I am very excited about this year and can not wait for Eyabsut 2012.

Growing Up Continued

I forgot the many types of nurse I want to be. I have always loved pediatrics. I wanted to work in pediatric intensive care unit, I used to work in a pediatric hospital and I loved it. There was this one patient who had whooping cough who if he did not have good parents I would have totally adopted him.  I also love ICU, my final quarter of nursing school was in the St. Francis ICU.  I also love the cath lab. I got to watch a few procedures and think how the heart can be fixed is seriously amazing.  Next the ER,the variety is awesome. Working as a ER Tech in a medium sized ER definitely peaked my interest. Another job I wanted to do is work in the N.I.C.U. that has sort of fallen off my radar because I am totally petrified of  really sick babies. One of my best friends did her final nursing rotation in the NICU and came to love it. I worked in the nursery of my hospital for two shifts and spend some time in OB to become more familiar with this department as it is definitely my weakest department. I have worked some in the ER and I love it.
See my dilemma continues.

What do I want to be when I grow up?

Health care was an easy choice, I pro/conned medicine vs. nursing for a long time. I didn't want to be in school forever and the concept of physics was scary. I decided on nursing after long talks with my nurses about what I loved and who I was.
Since becoming a nurse the idea of getting my master's and becoming a nurse practitioner has always been there. Since breaking my leg I have been working in an informatics position. Nursing / Healthcare informatics is not going away. The technologist I have been working with has encouraged me to get my master's in informatics, it something I have considered.
I have realized since coming to my last job I am passionate about staff education, so yet another possibility of master's degree in education.
Yesterday I attended the trauma conference and thought about nurse practitioner/clinical nurse specialist because how awesome it would be to work on the trauma team.
I am in my last class for my bachelor's degree. I have started requesting information for graduate school but how can I pick one when I want to be everything. I feel like the five year old that has about ten different career choices they will tell you about.

FRESH AIR, SUN, & DRIVING

Today for the first time in 7 weeks I drove Ruby. I am not ready to drive all of the time, but it was so nice to get behind the wheel of my vehicle. If am driving I will be giving ample following room, I practiced slamming the brakes I can do it, but it does make me nervous. By the end of the less than five mile drive I could feel it in my leg.
Things that are unfortunate there is something wrong with my Jeep the pedals aren't moving, the windows won't go down, it says the driver door is not closed. Really lame and pisses me off. I tried to find a cure online it didn't work. We are waiting  for some paperwork from Washington for Jason's Jeep, until that comes I am not sure I want to take it to the shop because we will be essentially without a vehicle.
We spent the afternoon at Molly's we sat in the sun on the deck, watched the dogs play and visited. I loved getting some sun on my legs and face. I love how the sun can warm you like nothing else. It was in the low 60's when the sun went behind the cloud it was chilly. The dogs were having a hay day. I pet the horses. It felt like Spring. Earlier this week I was telling Jason how excited I was for being at Molly's and drinking her sweet sun tea.
I think being back at work has helped, most days it has been a little bit to cold to be outside but since I have broken my leg I definitely have cabin fever! I can't believe just how refreshed I feel from getting a couple of hours of fresh air has made me feel.
This week I was cleared to walk with crutches, I can apply 25 pounds of pressure increasing 25 pounds a week. The first day I could not even apply 25 pound, as the week progressed I have been able to apply more. It has been nice, I do not like walking with my walker I don't feel like I can control my weight as well as I can on crutches. I still have been using my walker at work, two blocks of using crutches is a long ways. My hospital is two blocks long. Being able to put some weight on my foot has made taking a shower so much nicer. I got good news about healing, it is happening,  I have six more weeks of sedentary work and we will see what happens at my next appointment.

Jess came to visit.

One week ago Jason and I headed to Missoula to pick up Jess. She flies standby and I had been waiting all day for her to come. We forgot it was Mid-Winter break, and it was President's day so lots of travelers. She arrived and I was so happy. I remember living with Jess and the apartment being roughly 85 degrees. I prepped her and gave her fair warning, our house is chilly, I have the electric blanket on the couch. I turned the heater on in her room and had the electric blanket ready.
On Saturday we went to Wal-Mart, it was ghetto, but fun to get out of the freaking house and be able to get a few things. On Thursday my work gave me a walker (more to come on this ) it is one of those that you can sit on. I can go backwards really well. Wal-Mart was fun because who doesn't have fun with one of their bffs.
Our goal was to work on wedding projects. We worked on the string chandeliers, our first ones sucked, we realized we needed a lot more yarn. I will post a separate blog so people can see what it is really like and provide some of the resources I found for this if any one is curious.
It was so nice to watch tv, chit chat, do a craft, visit, fb, etc. I miss girl time.
On Sunday we decided that we would make ourselves do homework and then go see "The Vow".  Homework took all day but alas we had time to hit the movies. "The Vow" was good. I thought it was a really sad movie, more so when I saw the ending. During the movie I also got sad because I was taking her back to the airport in the morning, no coffee dates, trips to Ross have to wait. I hope she will be back soon!
 She was smart and hit the airport first thing in the morning but can I say puke to getting up at 0345... I am really looking forward to our next visit. Thank you so much Jess for everything ! I love you!

Birthday Christmas Trip

The second week of January Jason and I headed to Washington to visit our families. We did spend more time with my family because it was the week before my birthday and Jason's mom and grandma had been here for Christmas.

It was so nice to see my family and a few friends. The first day my Mom and I did a little last minute shopping, and we ended up having Christmas at mom and Nels. I was very lucky in that I got to spend some quality time Will. He is a really funny although serious boy. While we were eating dinner he bit me he has some good strong teeth. Jason and I got Will this fun dinosaur toy that bounces balls and out and plays music he and I had a really fun time. We went to Maya and Greg's for breakfast and it was fun to see Will in his house with all his toys, I fed him pancakes and I couldn't believe how much the little nine month old ate. I also loved spending time with my sis. I was kinda bummed around Christmas because I really missed Moo.
I met Jess in Woodland and headed to where she was planning on having the wedding. It was so good to spend time with Jess. Her stepmom's family owns a beautiful ranch in Washougal Washington along the Columbia River Gorge. She stayed the night with me at my mom's house. We went to Dad's for breakfast and then up to see Skye! It was good to see her. I need new tires on my Jeep and couldn't make it up Zillig. We ended up walking up to her house. Skye is doing good! We also went and visited my aunt Vicki and uncle Sandy. It was nice to see them. We spent a day up with Grandparents with Maya and Will.  Will loves Granny and Grandpa.
There was a snow storm brewing and boy did we not know what were in for. We headed to Puyallup for our last day. I got to meet Jason's grandparents and their significant others (on his Dad's side), it was nice to finally meet them. We went to dinner with his Mom and saw his Grandma before heading over to see the Aaron and Robyn.I was so happy to get to see another of my best friends Robyn and I know Jason was happy to see his bff Aaron. They recently bought a very nice house.

The snow is up to my bumper, the back was covered solid, and it is up over my boots.

The whole time we were in Washington my sleep cycle was really messed up, I would be so tired early and wide awake in the middle of the night that was weird.
It was nice to catch up with Robyn. When we arrived to our friends house there was probably six inches of snow, and when we woke up there was a lot more snow. We decided to head on home. I was so disappointed and couldn't believe the fact that Washington is terrible about doing anything about the roads. We left Tacoma and  headed north on I-5, it was not plowed at all nor was I-405, and really I-90 for that matter. The top of the pass was blowing from the snow off the lake. Eastern Washington was a little better, Idaho much better, the pass in Montana was ok. We ended up taking the shorter highway that was not plowed at all, it was a little hairy. We eventually arrived home to at least a foot of snow.

The broken leg

On the 21st of  January I was heading to work and slipped on my stairs, as best I can tell I did a twist and buckle. My leg was underneath of me and I threw it out, I noticed that my foot was looking a little weird. Jason was standing in the house, when I told him I think I broke my leg. Then I decided maybe it is not broken just sprained so I gently tried to touch my foot down, which resulted in me feeling a bunch of crunching.

Jason took me to St. Luke and unfortunately our ortho doc is not taking any new patients because he is leaving, so I was transferred to Kalispell. I was a direct admit, went to CT Scan and then up to my room. I was having a hard time laying still in CT scan because I was hurting and so the tech taped my feet together. Dr. DuMontier came in and so did one of his assistants that night and told me the plan for surgery in the morning. The whole time I kept thinking did I really break my F-ing leg? You have got to be kidding me and to this day  I still feel this way.

When I was at St. Luke they had not been able to start an iv in me because I was dehydrated from having the flu the night before. So I was given two shots of demerol. At Kalispell they got an ER nurse to start an iv and I asked to be put on iv fluids knowing that I had been dehydrated and would be NPO. My pain was pretty well controlled and I was sleeping relatively comfortably when I twitched and woke myself up. That hurt like hell at that point it was 4:30 in the morning and I had to get some iv pain meds. The staff was awesome and I really appreciated them.

When I went to the OR the staff was very nice wishing me happy unbirthday when I made the statement that for a lot of people birthdays stop at 29 but I will be more than happy to turn 30. I was really nervous in the OR, I was also trying to see my CT Scan pictures or x-rays of my leg, but without my contacts could not see much. Surgery went well, I was told I have a rod in my tibia and screw in my ankle. I stayed on Sunday night and went home Monday afternoon. I have to be non weight bearing on my right leg for probably eight weeks. The first day I walked with a walker and came home with crutches. Man I am regretting being out of shape crutches are hard work.

Things at home have been ok. I have had a lot of pain and it is getting a little better. Jason and I have figured out how to do a bath/shower which definitely helps because I was feeling so gross. I slept on the couch for the first few days and have tried to sleep in my bed but I get one good sleep for a couple of hours and then I have a really hard time getting comfortable. I think I am headed back to couch because for some reason I sleep a little better on the couch.

People have been so supportive of me and friends from work have dropped food by which I really appreciate. My work has said when I am released I can do light duty at least part time. Of course I am stressed about money, but luckily my Grandparents helped me out.

On Tuesday I was slipping and stepped down on my right leg which made it hurt a lot but it is feeling better. The psuedo splint/cast I have is really heavy and pulls on my knee a lot which is where I have a lot of my pain. My knee is where the main incision is and it is still pretty swollen. I have two smaller ones on the lower inside of my knee.

Today was my first day out of the house, I had something I had to pick up from the post office. I was nervous but did ok, although walking in the post office was a lot further than I am used to. It was really nice to get some fresh air!

I am so incredibly grateful for Jason! He has been amazing through all of this. When I can walk and get things secured I definitely have to do something for him!

Recurrent nightmare

Tonight Jason and I watched Knight and Day with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. There is a scene where Cameron Diaz is in the backseat of the car and there is no one to drive the car. This is basically the premises of my nightmare that I have had so many times. Watching this scene reminded me of the dream.

In my dream somehow I end up in the back of the car and all of a sudden realize there is no driver, as the car is speeding along I am stuck and must get in control of the car and get in the front seat.Of course I am panicking and don't know what to do. I used to have this dream a lot. The only thing I can think of is feeling like my life is out of control, but I really don't know. I do not know the last time I had this dream, I think it has been awhile.