Nurse Hands

My trip home from Las Vegas via Seattle had me seated next to a very pretty 20 something girl. She and her team were travelling to Zootown for business.  As I was sitting next to this girl I couldn't help but notice her beautiful, perfectly manicured hands. In fact I was embarrassed and wanted to hide my hands. I try to keep my hands cared for. I used to and occasionally still do bite my nails however it is something I have really been working on. However even if I polish, file, and  moisturize my hands will never look like that. I use such thick lotion, the lotion I use for my burned skin on my hands. I have even used the barrier cream aka butt paste on my hands to no relief. I wash in and out of each room, or hand sanitize. If I am walking down the hallway I push the hand sanitizer. I was feeling so self conscious and embarrassed about my hands only a couple of days later I saw this on Facebook.

This summed it up and made me feel so much better about myself and my coworkers hands.  

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!