Feeling better

Well hello all,

I feel that I am finally able to figure out who I am.  I have shed some crap that I have accumulated over the years (physical and mental) and I am ready to come out of my shell.  It's like a light just went on and I figured it all out.  It won't last very long, but the little moments of insight are wonderful to have. 

I have been in my current position at work for a year and I am finally starting to understand what the job is about and how to do it well.  Forensic Nursing is a piece of nursing that they don't teach you at school.  It is a combination of Correctional Guard, Nursing and Lawyer.  Even though we don't council patients on what to do about their charges, we still need to be able to tell them what is going on and what it means.  At the same time, we need everyone to stay safe.  There are days that I feel that I am being very parental as they start acting out and need to settle down.  I have a lot of time for the truly sick people that we have.  And most of them are the sickest of the sick.  People don't usually get arrested for just acting wierd.  It is usually that they have injured someone else and while in jail it is discovered that there is something unusual going on.

I have been living in the same apartment for over 2 years now and I am happy where I am.  I still browse the adds to see what is out there, but when I think of packing everything up, it gives me ulcers.  So I am here, and happy to be doing what I do and living where I live. 

What I need to do now is start having intrests outside of work.  I have so many choices but can't make a decision.  I have 3 weeks off this summer and was planning a trip abroad.  However, with the volcano and my fear of flying, I'm not so sure.  In lieu of waffling about what I will do, I have set myself a decision day.  So on the said day, I will figure out where I am going to go.  Local, national or international??  Who knows?

I hope you all have a wonderful summer.  I'll let you know what I decide to do.

Merry Christmas, or not

Hello to my 3 followers and various other poppers-in. 

I'm having a heck of a Christmas.  Last week a patient tried to kill himself and almost succeded.  A guy at work (employee, not patient) was flirting with me and I was contemplating going on a date, but that didn't work after I discovered that he is currently in a relationship with a woman at work. 

Now the updates from my uncle are getting grimmer and my dad will be leaving in the morning to go see him one last time.  My dad was going to be having supper here, but given the circumstances, I have e-mailed my cousin to see if they have room for one more person.  So not all is lost.  And if that doesn't work, I will pop in at work where there will be more partying than working going on. 

I also have a friend coming in from out of town that I haven't seen in 25 years, so that will be good for a laugh if nothing else.  Hey, I got a date for Saturday!!  First time in 2 years.  And he is well and truly single.  I checked!!

And I am having an open house on Sunday and I have no idea how many are showing up.  At least 15 for sure.  I'll let you all know afterwards. 

Off to Mass to hear my dad sing.  I will work at finding the joy.

God bless and may you all have a Merry Christmas.

Sometimes...

Sometimes, you just have to wonder where people go to become nurses.  A patient today had an "episode" while in the gym.  The group comes back to the unit and the orderly comes yelling in the nursing office that so'n so is not doing well.  I let the other nurse go and look as it is her patient.  All of a sudden, they are yelling and screaming that we need 911 and this patient needs to go out to the acute care hospital.  We are a psych hospital so we are not very good at this whole chest pain thing.  I go in with the blood pressure cuff and I look at him and there is no way that this is a heart attack.  But "better to be safe".  The three other nurses are running around like chickens with their heads cut off.  I decided that I would wait at the door and let the paramedics in.  All of our patients need police escort if they leave the unit, but the paramedics don't need the cops there to come in.  I get to the door and the ambulance is sitting there.  I go see what the hold-up is and they are refusing to come in until the cops arrive. 

By then, I'm in a wonderful mood.  This is just not on.  I go get the doctor who comes out and tears a strip off of them, but by then the cops are there so the show continues.  I walk them down to the patient's room and there are 3 nurses and 20 patients all standing in the hall.  So I clear out the riftraff and send everyone that doesn't need to be there, away. 

Patient returns a couple of hours later with a Diagnosis of "anxiety attack".  Now the thing that is annoying me the most is that this whole hoopla could have been avoided if someone just took a good look at this patient and stopped to think.  He was sweaty, but he had been in the gym.  He was complaining of chest pain, but his BP and HR were ok.  He has court in a couple of days and has been stating that he is anxious for the last couple of days.  Pt  can talk, Pt can drink fluids, and Pt even took a pill.  Complexion OK- not blue, pale or red, no shortness of breath.

The problem is that these nurses have been away from acute care too long.  Everything is a big freaking deal and it sets off a panic attack in the nurses.  And gives me a headache. 

Cool poem

http://pakazoid.blogspot.com/2009/10/had-edgar-allan-poe-been-emerg-nurse.html



This is a wonderful parody.  Edgar Allan Poe meets the ER.  You all need to check it out.  I don't usually read poetry as I just find it is not my thing, but this one sucked me right in.

A clue

If, in an eight hour shift, I give you enough medication to knock down a moose and you are still threatening people, I'm going to rethink the "I only drink occassionally and have the rare joint"...Ya, I believe you.

I seem to be going through some sort of transformation stage.  A reinventing of myself so to speak.  In the past 2 weeks I have had a lot of "lightbulb" moments and they all seem to be pointing in different directions.  So what do I do with all of this new information?  I don't know. 

It's this wierd feeling of not really fitting in anywhere and not really wanting to work at making it flow better.  I'm slamming into walls everywhere.  I suppose that is what life is about, but I don't know what I want or where I want to be and it is causing a bit of inner turmoil.  And it's not the big things.

It sounds lame, but having 2 cats die in the space of a month has brought home the fact that I will not live forever and if there is anything that I need to do in my life I need to get on with it. 

It's like breaking in new shoes.  The blisters are brutal, but after a while the shoes start to losen up enough and the blisters form calluses.  They then become favorite shoes. 

Maybe I just need to let go of the control freak in me and just let it flow or take short-cuts, but that seems to make the messes bigger and more complicated.  By holding on to what I can control, I feel more secure.  So the less secure I feel, the more I feel the need to control everything.  And it is making me tired.

Or maybe, I just caught the cold going around at work.

I haven' forgotten you

Well hello,

Thought I would drop by for a visit.  I have this crazy 14 week rotation at work and I sometimes work 2 weeks of days, shift to 3 days on evenings and then back to days again with only one day off in the middle.  My body is rebelling at the short turn arounds and I sometimes wake up feeling like I am ninty.  I have also not bought a car after my lease expired so I am on the bus.  A bit more walking and generally it is OK, but groceries are a bit of a pain. 

And last but not least, I had 5 cats at the begining of the summer and I have lost 2 of them.  Misty had some sort of feline Leukemia so after some testing and over $600, I decided that it was time to put him down.  Whatever it was, it wasn't going to be fixed.  The second one was Tigger.  She had retreated to the closet and wouldn't come out.  She was very sick as well.  No testing, just had her put down.  So I have 3 cats left and they are all over 12 years old.  I have had these cats since birth.  I did give one away but it was so hard to let them go that I kept the rest.  Now, I will have to let them go the hard way.  So I am enjoying the company of those that are still with me. 

And for the first time in my life, I will be hosting Thanksgiving here at my place.  I do have some work to do to get the place ready.  Why I have chosen to do this is so that I will get to eat the food that I like to eat and not have to smell turnip boiling.  Gak!!

So I will be back with more when I am a bit more rested.