Blessings from heaven

This morning I was watching TV, and a show came on about a family who was unable to conceive.  The show was the emotional story of this family adopting a 2 year old girl and 1 year old boy who were natural siblings.  While watching their story, my heart again started to ache and tears began to flow for the people in my life who struggle with having children.

Over the last 15 years or so I've spent many hours thanking my Heavenly Father that I am  able to have children.  When I was pregnant with John (my third child in three years) I made a comment to a friend of mine about how hectic it was and how I was frustrated to be pregnant again so soon.  She, being the wonderful woman that she is, took my hands and said, "Jennifer, we've been trying to have a baby for over a decade.  Please don't complain about such a precious gift."  Needless to say, I was immediately remorseful and humbled.  At that moment I realized how truly blessed I was.  

As a child and young women, my deepest desire was to be a wife and mother.  To my relief, fertility has never been a problem for me.  My first three came in 3 years and, with the 4^th, I went off birth control and was pregnant with my next cycle.  Even with this pregnancy, we chose to leave it up to Heavenly Father to decide.  Before we were married I tried to tell Mike that it wouldn't take very long, but Mike, and his engineer brain, figured that, statistically, we had a good 6 months or more before I got pregnant.  Well, as most of you know, the due date is 2 days after our 9 month anniversary.

Throughout my life I've met other wonderful women, and men, who have a deep longing for family and children but are not able to conceive or are not able to have as many children as they want.  I think about my own wish for children and can only imagine the heartache of my friends who are unable to realize that simple, fundamental desire.  I know my own want for children is one of the strongest pulls I've felt, but it is been a satisfied want. 

The dilemma I have is this…I can empathize with the desire that women have for children and bigger families, I feel pain for the heartache as time passes and a baby seems to be further and further away, but I am abundantly blessed in that one area that may cause the most pain in their lives.   How do I support women like these?

Beware the Ides of March

Ever have one of those days...

Not that it's a great day, or even a particularly horrible day, just one of those days where you feel like you've been twisted and turned up-side-down 12 times and all you can think is, "Huh?" Today was like that.

On Mondays I don't start work until 10 am so I took the extra half-hour to meet the landlord of the complex I'm trying to get in to and see if I could sway his decision to rent to me. I was expecting to get in there around 8 (when the sign on the door says the office opens) talk to the guy for a few minutes, and be on my way by 8:30 at the latest.

Didn't happen.

The manager came in around 8:30 and then, when I tried to give him the $800 holding deposit he said, "I got your credit score back and frankly, there are a couple other people with better scores. I want to help you though so just hang on to that." To say I was crestfallen would be an understatement. I've been looking everywhere for a 3 bedroom place that I can afford and this was my last hope. If I didn't get this place, I'd have to go back to a 2 bedroom. NOT ideal when you have 5 people.

I started to explain why I think I am a good risk (full time job, will be getting a better job once I pass the NCLEX, support is through the department of child support services instead of cash from the kids' dad, etc.) and he asked what kind of work I did. I tried to explain that I'm more than a glorified lifeguard and he seemed satisfied. Then he asked me about my kids. Specifically if any of them were "into gangs" or if they "wore their pants down around their butts". I told them that my boys were both in Scouts, my daughters were active in their church groups, and we all went to church every week. He asked if we were Jewish (I work at a Jewish community center) and I said, "No, we're Mormon... LDS"

His face broke in to a wide grin and he asked what ward we were in and how long we'd been members. I realized he must know some thing about the church so I answered his questions and asked him if he was LDS. Turns out he is... although inactive. After that, he said he'd decided to help us out and would pass on the other applicants. He took my initial deposit, we worked out the details of the rest of it, and he gave me my new address.

Of course by then it was almost 9 and I had to get to Palo Alto (from south San Jose) by 10.

I made it to work, did the bit of paperwork I needed to finish, and started guarding. I kept breaking out in random giggles and laughs. A few people looked at me funny but I really didn't care. I also spent about 2 1/2 hours singing hymns of praise in the sunshine of California "winter".

Big event #2 came about an hour before my guard shift was supposed to end. A woman came in with her 3 kids (I'm guessing ages 11, 6, and 4). We have a rule that children under 7, who can't pass a basic swim test, must have a parent in the water. They were the only family in the pool so I let it slide when the mom pulled the legs of her jeans up to her knees and stood in the water ankle deep while the 4 and 6 year-olds played. The 11 year-old did the same as her mom but was in and out of the water. The 6 year-old passed the swim test and the 4 year-old, while unable to swim, was pretty water savvy.

I SHOULD have made the mom stay closer. I SHOULD have enforced the rules as written. Now, before you get too worried, no one was hurt. The 6 year-old gave the 4 year-old a noodle float to play with and they were doing fine... until the little 4 year-old decided (while standing in waist-deep water) to jump over the noodle. No problem with that until her knees get hung up on the noodle and the rest of her is dangling, head first, over the other side. She tried to bounce on her hands to right herself, couldn't do it and started to panic. I jumped in the water, she rolled over, fell off the noodle, and took a gasping breath of air as I reached her.

Mom also came deeper in the water... although looking back on it now, she stayed just far enough away that she didn't get her jeans wet... and I said, in the most civil voice I could muster, "This is why we have the 'arm's length' rule."

Emily (my boss) came out of the office and the ONLY thing I remember saying to her was something stupid about not blowing my whistle. The family left shortly after that, Emily gave me a dry shirt and put my pants through the spinner. I put them back on when I went on my rotation outside and they dried pretty quickly. The rest of my guard shift passed with out incident.

Swim lessons, though... that was another story.

My private lesson (the child that happily SCREAMS through the lesson while doing just about everything I tell him) decided that today he was going to not only smile and laugh and talk to me, but he blew bubbles, floated on his back, learned front AND back ready position, and generally had a great day. BEAUTIFUL! It was a great way to end my work day. I had a few parent's asking if I knew who the instructor was and I happily told them that the instructor would meet the class right over by the 4 ft well.

Guess who the instructor turned out to be? YUP! Me. I didn't mind, really. It was a fun class and I had a new student today who was a little bigger and more daring than the others. He splashed and kicked and learned what I was trying to teach him... except the whole, "ALWAYS keep one hand on the wall" rule. I had my other student about 8 ft from the wall kicking on his tummy when I saw my new student's hair... well, the top of his hair... sticking out of the water and two little hands groping for the wall. His mother made it to him before I did and pulled him up to sit on the wall.

At this point I felt 2 ft tall. Class was over so I told the other child he did a great job and went to talk to my scared student. I was able to get him to stop crying long enough to apologize for letting that happen and to ask him if I could show him what to do if that happened again.

He got back in the water with me, we worked on jumping towards the wall and he was ok after that. I apologized to his mom, reported to Emily (she must think I'm a spaz after today) and got in my car.

Wait, no. I was still at work when I got a phone call from Dana saying that Jordan was in too much pain to walk and I'd have to take her in to urgent care tonight. I had an apointment for Jordan for tomorrow, but if she can't even walk, maybe it can't wait. I called Kaiser, they set up a telephone interview with a doctor, and I drove home.

I DID manage to get a shower in before the doctor called back and she said that the best plan (since Jordan seems to be about where she was yesterday) is to keep the apointment with her regular doctor and give her some pain killers if she wants them.

I'm about to go tuck everyone in and I can honestly say that I'm glad today is almost over. I can also say that if anything else happens I just may dance naked in the streets JUST to get put in jail long enough to collect my wits.

CHEERS!!

Lost dog found

So, my mid-morning meeting turned in to a web meeting and I was a little late getting out to get Juliana. It wasn’t going to be a big deal though because she’d start walking and I’d just grab her on my way to my next meeting. Everything went as planned… except that Juliana had a dog in her coat.

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Yes, that’s right… a DOG! A teeny tiny toy Chihuahua wrapped up in her jacket like a little baby. The thing probably didn’t weigh 5 pounds. She said she found it in the street and was looking for its owners. There was a mom and daughter that she had approached and asked them if they knew who’s dog it was and they were trying the numbers listed on the dog's tag. Neither of them work. I tried too.

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So the dog (his name is chocolate) came with us to my meeting. I met with Ricco and Juliana was on doggie patrol. Once we finished there I called my mom looking for commiseration in my predicament. So, what does my mom say when I tell her the story? “OH! Take it home to meet dad! If no one claims it, maybe we can adopt it!”

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Seriously?

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Long story short, my dad loves him, the pound has no record of him…and no space to keep him so he’s staying here until either his owners go to the pound and find him in the book of posters for lost dogs or 30 days pass without him being claimed in which case my parents will have a new dog.

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He’s very sweet, very cute, and currently sleeping with my mom…who is in love with him too. Tomorrow I’m putting up “found” posters that the humane society gave me when I tried to turn him in.

so close I can taste it

So my instructor keeps talking about this imaginary nursing student who's in her final quarter of school but absolutly terrified of being found out as a fraud. Funny thing is that this woman bears a remarkable resemblance to me!


Now, my instructor knows (or thinks she does) that we all feel unprepared for the vast responsibility we are about to take upon ourselves, and it's good to know that I'm not the first one but I still look around sometimes and ask, "Did you mean me?" when the RN says, "Can you give the guy in 31 his pain meds?" or "What do you think we should do next"... Hello!! Don't you know who I am? I'm just Jennifer. I'm a glorified lifeguard for goodness sake!

Of course there are those days...and they're coming more frequently all the time... when I say, "Of course I can, do you want me to do the discharge teaching and redress his surgical site while I'm at it?" and I have a perfectly coherent answer about what we should do next for each patient and not only the one in front of us.

I have a little less than a month left in my nursing school career and I'm ready to be out there doing the work that I love. During my preceptorship it's been a wonderful experience to go from a scared little nursing student with my preceptor following me as I cared for two patients to a more confident student Nurse with four patients who was chasing my preceptor down only when I need meds signed off .

~*~Warning~*~
1. This is a long and drawn out session of emotional vomit purely for my benefit
2. I may describe medical procedures that some readers will find disturbing.
3. Read at your own risk

Because I have some suicidal-masochistic tendencies, I decided I was going camping this weekend. Why is this suicidal or masochistic? Because I’m a single mom, AND I’m in nursing school (20 hours in class/clinical and countless hours on studying for tests and writing papers), AND I have a job (10-20 hrs a week with some done at home.

Now, the kids (my 4 +1) were going camping WITH me so they were not a problem at all and I figured I’d study in the free time I had (it’s camping, you’re supposed to sit around all day), and work was going smoothly so the whole idea wasn’t really a problem.

I would finish my much anticipated, one-day ER rotation and, in the hour and a half between school and departure time, I’d pick up my daughter’s friend, hit the store for some snacks, come home, change clothes and meet up with my friend to caravan to the campground...Ok, so maybe that was slightly insane but I was going CAMPING so I’d have plenty of time to relax. Anyway, I digress.

To fully understand the antics of my weekend I do need to explain that I started it on a serious sleep deficit. I only had 3 hours of sleep on Thursday night.

See, there have been some disturbances at work that need to be cleared and I’m involved in that process. The problems are not insurmountable and we will actually have them under control fairly quickly but it needs urgent attention. I’ve been fielding phone calls and exchanging emails since it all started and on Thursday I needed to compile 3 years of records to update a spreadsheet to help clear up the current situation. I got the report out and figured I was clear for the weekend; the powers that be had all the information that I did.

So, Friday morning I was up at 5 AM because school starts when school starts. I hoped that the ER would be more adventurous than my previous rotations but I was really just happy to be there.

It was MUCH more adventurous than I’d hoped for.

It started out much the same as the other times I’ve done it…blood draws, bed pans, medication administration, standard work-ups…then the doc called for an intubation on a patient with breathing difficulty. Like any good little nursing student, I went to observe. Then it went from a respiratory emergency to a full-blown code. I’m talking “open up the crash cart”, “bring me a cut-down tray”, “I need a smaller tube for intubation”, “we need to get a central line started, STAT” code.

At some point one of the nurses said, “Let the nursing students get in there to do chest compressions” then turned to my classmate and I and said, “Do you want to do CPR?” WELL, no one had to ask me twice! I’ve been teaching it for 3 years of COURSE I wanted to do CPR. While the doctors and nurses worked to stabilize this individual my classmate and I switched out to do chest compressions. It was amazing and I’m STILL sore.

The patient’s heartbeat returned and successful intubation was achieved. Then we had to wrestle with a rather large panniculus (a hanging flap of abdominal tissue that consists of skin, fat, and sometimes the content of the internal abdomen) to gain access to place a urinary catheter, a rectal tube, and place a central line catheter in the femoral vein. Previous trauma to the subclavian vein prevented central line placement there. The whole thing was a two hour ordeal and I LOVED it. I was grinning ear to ear to ear all through post conference.

Great way to start a vacation away right? Absolutely!

But then I checked my phone. Remember the work disturbances thing? Yeah, it reared its ugly head and just wreaked havoc on my CPR high. When I was driving around trying to get everything done before we left I was also on the phone with work trying to get THEM to calm down. Not a good experience.

We made it to camp (just after they put the light dinner away), found a good campsite, and built a campfire for s’mores. The kids went to their tents and the grown-ups talked a while. It was good evening.

Saturday morning I woke up at 7:20 to drive my son to work…from camp…over an hour away. See, he has a Saturday job and couldn’t find a sub for his shift. I left Jordan & Laura (her friend) with my friend, Jen and John & Juliana with my boy friend, Jeff. Don’t worry, everyone survived.

While driving, and almost as soon as I was in reach of cell service, the work mess came back to life and LITERALLY didn’t stop until I was walking out the door to pick Jim up again. I was putting things in the car while on the phone and looking up the information that work needed. HOLY COW what a crazy mess. I was so glad camp was a dead zone.

Getting back to camp and relaxation. Yeah, that didn’t happen. I was almost to camp when I got a message that the kids were heading to the beach near the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz. Now, I LOVE the beach, any beach, ALL beaches, except that one. I really can not stand that beach. I got there, let the kids play a little more, got the morning scoop from Jeff and Jen, made the kids dry off, and headed back to camp for that relaxation I was trying to get.

Didn’t happen. After we got there, the kids & Jeff went to shower and I went to check on dinner. Turns out dinner was being served RIGHT THEN. I told the kids to hurry up and come right to dinner which they did. I took some of the wet things back to the camp site and by the time I came back to the mess hall Jim was killing Jeff in chess and the other kids were finishing up their dinner. Then they all ran to play with other kids & we grownups were able to sit and talk for about an hour.

On Saturday night there was a talent show with a skit featuring Jordan, Haley, Ashley, and Laura. They did the King Burger skit (youtube it, it’s hilarious) with Jordan (the original drama queen) playing the part of the sassy cashier. After that it was back to our campfire to do more s’mores, listen to Juliana’s friend’s dad read mythology (did I mention I have a seething dislike for mythology?), and getting to know new friends.

Sunday morning was breakfast, packing up the car, going to sacrament meeting (church) in a beautiful, outdoor chapel sent in a redwood forest, and a drive home. Now, I’m doing laundry and trying to recuperate from my weekend away…before driving to Utah next weekend for my sister’s wedding and another sister’s sealing.

~*~ end of rant ~*~

Q2

Holy COW time flies when you're going mad

Quater 2 is over and I'm still in a bit of a whirl...although considering that it just ended for me today that's not too bad.

I've spent the last 3 months caring for patients in acute care. Some were recovering from recent surgeries, others were recovering from serious medical conditions such as heart attack, renal failure, cholecystitis (inflamed gall bladder), and my personal favorite, MRSA.

I gave injections, hung piggy-back IVs (yes, Robin, finally), handed out medications, changed dressings, and Most Exciting...watched 3 surgeries!!


At work I dealt with a director on medical leave, and a leadership staff that dropped from 6 strong and steady individuals to 3 leaving me and two others in charge of the pool, the department, and swim lessons for HUNDREDS of children. (yes, that's one of the students)

We didn't fall apart but by the time the director came back we were more than ready to go OUT!!

So what's next? Q3

6 weeks in pediatrics

THEN

6 weeks in labor and delivery (babies!)

IT IS FINISHED

Well, first quarter anyway.

I've learned how to feed, toilet, bathe, dress, and assess the residents in skilled nursing facilities. It was quite a learning experience, but I'm so excited to be done!

The worst part for me was not the toileting as you might think, it was the suctioning. One of our instructors said that everyone has a fluid that they just don't handle well and mucus is mine.

The best thing was walking in to a room and KNOWING what do to. I'm amazed by how much I've learned and how easily I bring it forward for use.

We already have a reading assignment for next quarter. We'll be doing Medical/Surgical acute care nursing. It's the hardest quarter of the entire program with more students dropping (and being dropped) during quarter 2 than any of the others. The last group of quarter 2 started with 30 students; there are only 22 left. We're already one student short as one of our classmates is expecting.

It's all about communication, electrolites, and fluid levels.

READY

SET

GO!