3.31.2009

Another first...

Today I experienced my first earthquake. It wasn't a big one--4.3 to be exact--and the epicenter was in the south Bay. I was at school when it happened. I heard a loud noise and the building shook a little and I thought "geez, someone must have dropped something really heavy on the second floor to make the building shake." Duh. Actually, I did wonder if it might be a quake but then I assumed it wasn't.

Anyway, no harm done but it's kind of surreal. My mom has been worrying about earthquakes since Michael accepted the job offer out here. That and wildfires, bears, cougars and, get this, tsunamis. We had to reassure her (multiple times) that there are mountains between us and the ocean so there won't be any tsunamis. You just can't reason with a mother who is looking for any reason to worry. You can believe I'm not going to tell her about this. Thank goodness she doesn't read my blog.

3.27.2009

A new first...

I successfully put in a new IV last night--on the first try! I realize this probably doesn't seem like a big deal (maybe it does if you've ever had an IV put in) but this a huge deal for the nursing students. And I did it on a little old lady with tiny little old lady veins that roll around. Yay me!

3.23.2009

Some resolutions. Ish...

Yes, I know it's the end of March. Like, 3 months too late for some resolutions. But, hey, this is about the time everyone else abandons the ones they made 3 months ago so it's not such a bad thing to start now, right?

This is a big year. A challenging year, if you will. I wasn't planning on any resolutions per se and I never got around to my own 31 for 31 list (I didn't do a 30 for 30 either but then 30 kind of sucked) but there were a few things I wanted to do and the only way to hold myself accountable was to publish them in a public-type place. Like the internets. Not the refrigerator door, not the bathroom mirror--the internets. So, here they are, in no particular order.

1. Make bread from scratch (no cheating with a bread machine)
2. Donate blood at least 4 times this year (can't do more it more than every 8 wks)
3. Try 3 new recipes every month
4. Do some container gardening...maybe some tomatoes, a pepper plant and some herbs?
5. Meet more of our neighbors besides just the couple next door
6. Do some sort of exercise (besides walking the dog) a minimum of 3 times a week
7. Try at least 3 new restaurants on Murphy Street (there's at least 12 and we eat at the same one every time)
8. Work on being more consistent with my tennis game
9. Hang pictures on the walls that do not feature any member of our families
10. Spend Christmas in Hawaii
11. Make this blog more aesthetically appealing (gotta have a stretch goal)

So far, I've given blood once (this morning, in fact) and I tried one of the Thai places on Murphy St. last week for Michael's birthday. Also, I met 2 other neighbors on Friday (Rick who lives across the street and 3 doors down) and Saturday (Paz who lives across the street). Next weekend I hope to buy some plants and begin my container garden. Any recommendations from the gardener extraordinaire? Also, suggestions for recipes and breads are always welcome as are travel tips re: Hawaii.

3.16.2009

To my husband on his 37th birthday...


Happy birthday to my:
  • biggest supporter
  • honey do-er of everything that even remotely involves engineering or any other science or the use of his leatherman
  • walker of the dog while I sleep in after a late night studying
  • fetch-er of Chipotle when I just can't bear to cook dinner
  • giver of awesome foot rubs
  • total geek hotness husband

I love you. You're the best.

p.s. you smell like a monkey and you look like one too:>

3.15.2009

Try not to lose...

That's commonly heard at my weekly tennis clinic when Mark has us doing drills. He'll put half the class on one side of the net and the other half on the other side and he'll tell us to play competitively and then he'll tell us try not to lose. Which is a different way of saying try to win. And while "try not to lose" and "try to win" are essentially the same thing, you want to win and not losing means winning, it's still a different mindset.

It's actually pretty easy to beat yourself by trying to overpower your opponent and then missing the final shot and giving away the win. Trying not to lose is something I need to work on.

3.12.2009

Not really a big deal...

School, school, school. Blah, blah, blah. All the time, right? Yeah, boring. So I won't bore you with the latest and greatest in the land of incontinent older adults, many of whom have dementia and tell you they need to "go bim" even when they're already on the commode and have already gone "bim."

It's about grades and performance this time. This is a highly competitive program and none of us who are in it are "paying customers." You had to have seriously good grades to get in and you have to get better than a C in every class to stay in the program. And the curriculum is difficult not the least of which is due to the fact that this is an accelerated program not an abbreviated one. Yet, I find the work ethic of many of the students appalling.

Every week we have an exam or a quiz or some such thing do and a lot of the students whine about not wanting to study (hey, it's not like I live for studying or anything myself) and then they don't do as well on the exams as they would have liked. And then they commiserate about their grades and inevitably they ask what your grade was and my grade? Almost always an A. Which is good, I know. But, man, have I come to dread the day after the scores are posted and they look at me and my grade is only one of 3 A's in the class and they all got B's and C's. See? Not a big deal but it gets on my nerves after a while.

And on top of that we're doing med administration during our clinicals and that includes everything by mouth, nasogastric tube, topical application and injection (no IV meds until after we graduate) and all the people at my clinical site seem to want to do is jab people with needles. Yes, it's exciting and a little scary especially when you are administering something like heparin or insulin and it requires the signature of 2 RNs before you can give it but, sheesh, there's more to it than that.

There is just so much information to learn and so many things to be on the look out for and I always worry that I'll miss something. Sometimes I worry that my classmates aren't worried enough. Maybe it'll be different in another couple of months after we've all given loads of injections and it starts to become routine. It's like that saying about: what do you call the guy(or gal) who graduates at the bottom of his (or her) medical school class? Doctor. It's the same for us. And I don't know about you, but I want the goddamned valedictorian taking care of me when I'm the hospital.

3.09.2009

Why my dog is an asshole...

Most of you have had the distinct pleasure of knowing me when I adopted Shana (maysherestinpeace - that, by the way, is on purpose and anyone up to date on the Terry Pratchett witch series will know that, right?) and will remember that she did horrible, unspeakable things like eat shoes and underwear; steal Thanksgiving turkeys; eat birth control pills; get in the trash (a lot); eat a tube of citrus face wash; eat fireworks and she got sprayed right in the face by a skunk. Oh, and she puked on a boyfriend once. Hee hee!

Normally Esme doesn't give us this kind of trouble but she seems to be channeling Shana's spirit these days and I'm seriously about to ship her off to the monkey house. She's been counter surfing and has pulled down a big loaf of irish bread, eaten half a bag of pizza cheese and one half of a ball of raw pizza dough (that one there cost us $325 in emergency vet bills, god) and on Friday we came home to discover she had managed to open the cabinets where the trash is kept and pulled out the trash can and all of it's contents and spread it throughout the kitchen and living room. She had gone after some chicken fat leftover from cooking off chicken for her behavioral training (might I add that this dog gets to eat organic chicken. Little rotter) that I wrapped in paper towels, wrapped in a plastic bag and placed in the bottom of the trash can. Not only did she eat the chicken fat-covered paper towels but she ate that little absorbent pad thingy from the bottom of the chicken packaging. That thing is wrapped in plastic and I'm pretty sure she ate some of it in the process.

I can't even begin to describe how pissed I was at this dog. Instead of having a date night with my dear husband, we spent the evening mopping the kitchen floor and steam cleaning our living room rug. Then we locked the little bugger in her crate and went out for Indian food and a trip to T@rget. So far she's passed the paper towels and we're keeping a close eye on her for any obstruction but I have to say: it's a good thing she's so cute or I swear I'd have FedEx-ed her back to Sarah, her foster person in Ohio.

3.04.2009

'Til death do us part...

A lot of us have said those words as part of our marriage vow and even if you didn't say the actual words, you probably said something like that. And if you haven't said anything resembling those words to another human being yet you're probably planning to at some point.

In the state of CA, it is mandatory that a healthy aging class be taught as part of the nursing school curriculum. One our assignments in this class is to conduct 3 interviews with a community-dwelling older adult, so, someone aged 65+ who still lives in the community (but not in a nursing home). I interviewed Michael's tennis partner who is 69 and let me just tell you that Bob regularly kicks Michael's butt on the court. Also, they're playing at the 3.5 level which is relatively advanced.

During the course of my interview I asked Bob about whether he was married, widowed, divorced, etc. I knew he was living with one of the lady's who is in my tennis clinic and that they reconnected at their 45th high school reunion a while back but that's all I knew. But during the interview I got the scoop and discovered that Bob decided to divorce his wife of 42 years because he felt that he still had too many good years on this earth and wanted to be happy. The details of what precipitated this decision are few but he did mention that they had changed too much and didn't share enough of the same interests anymore.

Just out of curiousity I asked him if, given how long our life expectancy is now, if he thinks it's feasible to be married to the same person for the rest of your life. And he said no. And if it does happen, great, but what a rarity it will be. Being married for more than 10-15 yrs to the same person seems like a rarity these days. But it got me thinking about things. I said those very vows to Michael 3 years ago and I meant them then and I mean them now. But will we feel differently in 40 years? 60 years? We could easily live to be in our 90s and beyond and that is a long, long time of being with the same person.

Do I think Bob is right? Kind of. Marriage takes work and commitment no matter how long you're married but the thought of being divorced in 40 years is mind boggling. Clearly, this is not an issue we need to concern ourselves with right now but it's been on my mind since Saturday. Frankly, the whole thing makes me feel sad. And it's a reminder that you have to take care of your marriage and not let it languish like some half-rotted plant in the yard. But what say you, dear internets? In this age of longevity, is it feasible to be married to the same person until death parts you?

3.03.2009

You're just dying to find out...

about the crazy things people stick up their butts, aren't you? We won't be doing a rotation in the ER anytime soon, and that's where those stories originate, but here's another example of something you don't stick up your rear: a dowel rod.

One of today lectures (well, both actually) talked about bowels (yes, again) and disease, etc., and our professor shared a story from his days as an ER nurse. A man came walking into the ER looking as if he just got off a horse, you know, crab walking. That's your first sign that something is not right. So, they do an xray and discover that he put a wax-coated dowel rod up his bum and it got sucked up into his large intestine. When that happens it often requires surgical removal. This is very much like the guy many of you heard about who stuck a big vibrator (including the testicle part) up his bum and he used a fork (yes, a fork) up there to dislodge it. In case you were wondering, the distal end of your GI tract has 2 sphincters and once you get something past your internal anal sphincter, well, it's gone. It's called the point of no return, people, so you better be damned sure that you don't stick anything up there that you can't get out. This also goes back to my own personal theory that your rectum/anus is in "out" hole not an "in" hole but that's just me. If you don't subscribe to that theory, that's cool, just practice good hygiene and never, ever use analeeze. You can hurt yourself without realizing it due to it's anesthetic effects.

Anyway, both patients required surgery and a temporary colectomy while the bowel healed. That means that they close off part of your bowel and then create a new anus by connecting the bowel to a hole in your abdomen thus giving you a place for excrement to, um, excrete. You attach a colostomy bag to the stoma (that's what the artificial anus thing is called) to collect your excrement until your bowel is healed and is then surgically sewn back together. Often this is a temporary arrangement but sometimes it is permanent in cases like colon cancer, etc.

So, my other theory is that no one wants a colectomy and there are ways to prevent needing one unless you get cancer but, hey, that's what sigmoidoscopies are for, right? And lots of fiber, but I digress. I think it should be a requirement that there should be a brief lecture during high school health class on sticking things up your bum. If you do it and something gets "lost", you should just take yourself to the ER right away and not try dislodging the item with a fork and, really, if you're going to stick something up your bum, make sure you can get it back out. Then there needs to be a talk about thorough cleanliness and hand washing. Hee, you can bet that parents don't want me running for school board...