Today, Gabrielle and I went out to do a bit of shopping. We headed off to Super Target. I had gotten a Target gift card from our Investment broker for my birthday. We found a nice pair of work shoes for Gabrielle to replace the ones she has been altering to keep in a usable fashion as they breakdown. We found a cute one egg fry pan. And then we also got some coffee beans and a couple of candles to replace the living room pillars.
From there we headed to the Scrub store but they were closed. By that time, I needed gas…ok…I know I’m not the only one complaining about gas but come on…it cost $30 for one half a tank…OUCH!
We then headed to Menards to get some ideas on finishing off the laundry room which is about three quarters of the was done. So much to be done on the house…sigh. We started getting a bit snarky and decided we needed to eat lunch and stopped at a Greek-a-teria in Glendale Heights that we hadn’t been to in a long time. After lunch I realized why we hadn’t gone back…things didn’t settle well.
From there we went to Office max to pick up a couple of stationary things. Then headed across the street to Pier One, but didn’t end up buying anything there. We walked a couple of stores down to the Avenue and found a bunch of nice work clothes for Gabrielle. A quick walk through of Michael’s Craft store and we headed home.
Since then, I’ve been trying to get the damn printer to work but I’ve had no luck…I think it is quickly becoming Big F*$#ing Hammer time. A few loads of laundry and I’ll be heading to bed. Nite all
TTFN
HURRAY IT’S MY BIRTHDAY !!!!!!!!
Today Gabrielle flew back for North Carolina after a short visit with her mom. Of course, as with every return flight she was delayed. I swear it is a curse with her and planes, but if that is the worse thing she ever has to bear with the airline industry she is doing well. After checking her flight status I finally decided it was time to go to O’hare to get her. Well, as most of you know it was pouring with rain and as I got to close to Mannheim Road on Irviing Park Road I saw construction and no cars moving. OH Great! I thought to myself construction in this weather what will they think of next…I couldn’t have been more wrong. One of the drainage ditches for the runway across the street was flooded over and Irving Park Road had a nice 300 foot across 4 foot deep river running across it. The traffic had no choice but to cross it. We had no way to get across the median to get to the westbound side of traffic. So I’m thinking this was my titanic moment. Everyone knows my dislike of large bodies of water and that I don’t know how to swim and now I’m faced with crossing this river in my Saturn Mid-sized SUV, as I gaze upon the stranded cars in the water. Having very few options, I put the truck into second gear and slow entered the water. The truck was being pushed to the side by the current. Steam was rising off the hood of the car as I drove into deeper water. The water level reached the top of the engine hood. Fortunately I made it through and lucky enough as I drove up to the United Airlines terminal, Gabrielle has just gotten outside and didn’t have to wait very long.
After all that we headed off to Elgin for Bob and Jen’s after wedding celebration party. Now, I couldn’t go back the same way because of the flooding and as I exited O’hare several other options were closed due to flooding as well…sheesh…so for a short while we ended up going the wrong way. Actually, we ended up heading toward Wisconsin for a short while until we could find a place to turn around. It all ended well though, there was a lot of flooding though and many accidents. When we got to Juli’s (where the party was held) we had a great time. Food was good and it is always good to see our friends and after some laughs and cheer we headed home to the cats.
I got some great birthday cards, so THANK YOU everyone for your lovely thoughts.
TTFN
Today at work was crazy. Not in that it was super busy but in the type of patients I had. My first patient was this nice little old Spanish lady who is on peritoneal dialysis, she is the sweetest thing. She came to the ICU because her blood pressures had dropped dangerously low not too mention that she has had this powerful cough for three weeks. So powerful in fact, that she managed to break two ribs just from the coughing. This lady was a treat to take care of, pleasant, few medications, and respectful of the call light. At the beginning of the shift I was told I was getting an admission…sigh…”ok so what am I getting?” I asked. ER patient, 21year old female overdosed on Advil and Motrin after drinking about 10 beers and a bottle of wine because she got into a fight with her lesbian partner about who should get their haircut first. So obviously a nutter and on suicide precautions. Well to add to the challenge, my other patient is a 50 year old drunk who is going through the DT’s who came to the ER because his roommate kicked him out and because of that, wanted to kill himself….argh….another suicide precaution patient. Ok, so I’m whining a bit, however, the suicide precaution patients where four rooms apart. It was nuts trying to keep an eye on these two rooms. Thank God for “Captian Ativan” and his sidekick “Vitamin H” as we inappropriately call them in the nursing trade.
All in all it wasn’t a bad day, but it got busy because of how much help I had to give Karina, Betsy and Kim. They had bad patients. Betsy and Karina’s patient had a strangulated hernia repair and was in the poor me, oh god take me now mood. and Kim’s patient is also another detox who fell out the bed and then crapped all over the floor….sigh….why did I become a nurse again.
So although the day wasn’t too busy task wise, the patients were demanding and frustrating and presented a significant challenge in keeping them safe today.
oh well more later….and fyi tomarrow is my BIRTHDAY!!!! Yippee
TTFN
It has been awhile since I have updated the blog as you can plainly see. Life got really busy very quickly. Where to start. Well, first of all I had not intended to work Bristol this year but when our friends at Hearthstone Pottery put the word out for help, I figured this was a good way to get into faire to spend time with Gabrielle who still works for Camelot Enterprises (she is even pictured on the homepage), the feather store. You see our friend Mike, who with his wife co-owns Hearthstone with his sister Suanna and her husband, had a liver transplant this year. Due to the obvious, Mike has not been able to work faire…and NOR SHOULD HE (iffen he’s reading this) and so the shop is down two sales people when there is normally four. It was great fun working with Rich and Suanna and they really seemed to like me helping out in the shop, so much so they have asked me back next year. I’m 99% that I’ll be working the shop again. I was able to do some great silly stuff to sell the pottery. Everything from wearing a huge flower pot on my head and striking it to make it tone to using vases and mugs as “personal voice amplification systems” as I would hawk them, usually out voicing the candied nut seller at the top of the hill (heheheh). I was pretty proud of my selling ability. I actually sold my personal mugs that I had been using to even selling goblets to the security guards as they were walking people out of the faire and the end of the day. Of course, helping out with Wisdoms and Douglas’s was awesome but it is always fun to play with patrons. With the help of John Wohlers we set up multiple skits with the Sheriff of Bristol, who would sometimes come to the storefront and collect taxes…of course being the peasants we are we have no money and so he would take our pottery in trade and then because he is the evil sheriff he would smash the pottery in the storefront (they were already damaged pieces). The look on patrons faces were priceless, it is a great skit. The best parts were when the sheriff place a mug on the ground and he hit it with his staff and it only crushed out a dent…remember this is ceramic. He had to hit it several times in order to break it…a great testimonial to the durability of the wares. Another time the Sheriff threw a mug on the ground and it just bounced again the look on the faces of those watching was great. All in all a great season. Some of the best times is were of course at dinner after faire. One night a bunch of us got together for dinner and ended up singing and generally causing mayhem for the waiter who took it all with a great attitude. The night even spawned a new song, “What Do You Do With A Drunken Santa” a spin off of, “What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor.” We ended up with like 15 verses of which are in John Wohlers phone…a great night…a great season.
Other than faire, I was talked into joining three housewide committees at work so I am now on the Safety, Disaster, and Emergency Preparedness committees. I don’t mind but getting to the meetings can be difficult since I still have my regular RN duties and usually three patients. Work is going well, I am still learning a lot and in the next couple of weeks I start my Critical Care Classes which will cover hemodynamic monitoring, ICU pharmacology and Advanced Cardiac Support. I will also be taking an advanced cardiac life support class, which will be nice. Furthermore, I’ve been asked if I will goto a Bariatric Patient training class and then be the ICU trainer for that patient population. Life is busy, but at least the resume is filling out 
Lately, I have been helping out Gabrielle’s grandmother, Vivian by taking her to the doctors and then relaying what the doctors said at the appointment to the rest of the family. At her last appointment the doctor has a med student that came in first. After some talking, the med student and the doctor both said I should goto med school. Sigh…I just finished nursing school but that thought has been in the back of my head for a long time. Maybe after some good ICU experience I’ll consider going back for a MD or DO, but I dunno we’ll see.
Well time for bed, TTFN