Who wouldn't just love to be sitting on this beach right now?!24 February 2010
22 February 2010
Not Me! Monday!
Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by McMamma. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.
I did NOT turn the thermostat in my office up to 84 degrees yesterday.
I am NOT going to stress over today's METI experience in clinical... it could very well be a logical senario that could come strolling through the E.R. doors at my new job (see yesterday's post here), but I can certainly just wing it, right? Not!!
I did NOT spend a half hour blogging instead of studying.
I am NOT looking forward to warmer weather and the possibility of a Girl's Weekend in Chicago with one of my besties in April.
NOPE, NOT ME!!
21 February 2010
Where's the LOVE?!
Ok, so I have to say I'm a little disappointed that I only have ONE follower. Where is everybody?! Thank you, Jodi, for being my ONE and ONLY loyal reader, as far as I can tell. If there is anyone else out there who reads my blog, please please please show some love and add yourself as a follower... don't leave me hangin!!
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
I have been an STNA since October of 2001, and have worked in Geriatrics & Adult Rehabilitation ever since. But, things on the career front are about to get very, very different.
I have been offered a position with a (somewhat) local hospital's satellite Emergency Department as an E.D. Nurse Tech-- a great opportunity for my nursing career! I'm sure I'll still be assisting with an occasional bed pan or two, but this is a big step up from being an STNA. I'll be doing admission vitals, dressing applications or changes, inserting catheters, blood draws, assisting in codes, you name it as long as it's not within the RN or MD scope of practice. It's been a LONG time since I've participated in a code & had to do chest compressions on anyone-- working in geriatrics most of my patients have been DNR-- so I have been reviewing my CPR skills and just praying that nobody codes during my shift at least within the first week of working there.
The shift is a 12-hour midnight shift, 2 days a week--- actually, every other weekend and one week day. I used to work midnights before Claire was born, so it's not totally new to me, but I think it's going to take some getting used to again and some re-training on my part to adjust to the difference.
But at any rate, I am super excited about my new job and I can't wait to start! Hospital orientation is March 1st, and then my first day on the unit is March 3rd!
I have been offered a position with a (somewhat) local hospital's satellite Emergency Department as an E.D. Nurse Tech-- a great opportunity for my nursing career! I'm sure I'll still be assisting with an occasional bed pan or two, but this is a big step up from being an STNA. I'll be doing admission vitals, dressing applications or changes, inserting catheters, blood draws, assisting in codes, you name it as long as it's not within the RN or MD scope of practice. It's been a LONG time since I've participated in a code & had to do chest compressions on anyone-- working in geriatrics most of my patients have been DNR-- so I have been reviewing my CPR skills and just praying that nobody codes during my shift at least within the first week of working there.
The shift is a 12-hour midnight shift, 2 days a week--- actually, every other weekend and one week day. I used to work midnights before Claire was born, so it's not totally new to me, but I think it's going to take some getting used to again and some re-training on my part to adjust to the difference.
But at any rate, I am super excited about my new job and I can't wait to start! Hospital orientation is March 1st, and then my first day on the unit is March 3rd!
08 February 2010
Betty Crocker, I'm Not!
I don't bake. Really. I tried to bake peppermint cookies for Christmas a few years ago. They came out so hard and so flat that you could have played poker with them. They were a joke. So I don't really bake that much unless it's fool-proof, like a simple pre-boxed brownie or cake mix.I love watching the baking shows and I can only wish I had enough talent to make some of the things that I see on Cake Boss or Amazing Wedding Cakes (namely, the things that the Cake Girls make!).
A girl needs to start small, right? So, thanks to I am Baker, I have gotten brave enough to try something she has posted. Now, to a seasoned baker, this might not be anything major. But, don't forget, I don't bake. So attempting this recipe was a big step for me and it only dawned on me half-way through the experience that I really need to share this with all of you.
The recipe is for Coffee Sugar Cookies. I got the bright idea to make a tray of these in the heart cut-outs as shown on the original blog by "I am Baker", decorate them and take them to Claire's school for all of the teachers. Then I thought why not make a double batch, complete with names, for each of my 9 clinical classmates? I got all of the ingredients, a great heart-shaped cookie cutter, and even purchased Wilton meringue powder for the royal icing and a small package of Wilton icing tips.
So, I made the dough. Refrigerated. Rolled it all out. Cut it all out in the heart shapes. This is what they looked like going into the oven:
Pretty cute, right?And THIS is how they came out of the oven:
I'm not entirely sure what happened, but whenever I try to bake cookies, they NEVER hold their shape while baking! I wanted to cry. I had such a vision of how cute these were going to be and how I'd feel so great for being the one to actually make them. And then this is what I get?!
But, I got yet another bright idea. Since they actually came out bigger than they went in, the heart-shaped cutter still fit on the baked cookies. I let them cool enough that they weren't super soft but not all the way set up and re-cut them. Kind of a pain in the tuckas and a little bit of a crumbly mess, but it worked!!
That was all on Friday. Saturday morning, I got up and dutifully got to work preparing the royal icicng. Got it all mixed up and got my food coloring in it and the pink looked so pretty! Put my Wilton tips in the bag, added the icing, and...
Somehow the tip got drawn back into the bag, making it impossible to reach without splooging out a ton of icing. After fussing with it for a good five minutes, I squeezed the bag hard in anger (therefore losing most of the icing from the bag), forcefully pulled the now-pink gooey tip out, tossed the tip into the sink, and threw the freaking icing away. An innocent bystander said "Why did you throw it all away? You could have just iced the entire cookie instead of a decoration!"
Because that's not the vision I had. The vision I had isn't working but I still don't want to do it any other way!
I had this whole idea about how cute they would look-- the ones for my clinical group, with each person's name on their own cookie in red, with the cookie itself outlined in pink. And the ones for Claire's school drizzled as they were in the I am Baker post.
So what did I do? Loaded my happy self into the car to head to work, leaving an extra 20 minutes early to run to Walmart. I should have just bought the pre-packaged Betty Crocker icing to begin with!
After work Saturday night, I calmly decorated the cookies.
The finished product?
They still look pretty cute, right?
But will I be making them again anytime soon?
Negative!
06 February 2010
Motherhood
One of the mommy blogs I enjoy reading, Burried with Children, recently posted a blog about "Things I Didn't Know" about motherhood. I enjoyed it so much I thought I would share it with you:
Motherhood or parenthood, if you will, is a very strange thing. Raising children, guiding them and molding them into successful members of society and people is a very big and overwhelming job. It is also the most important job you will ever do in your life.
That being said, it is the only job that I can think of that doesn't involve or include multiple hours of training or schooling.
All you have to do is find a partner, get busy at the right time and poof! Nine months later, someone is handing you a little bundle (or multiple bundles) and says, 'here you go'. And that's it. You are off and running.
Does that seem weird to anyone? It does to me but yet everyone who is a parent has just excepted this, took the kid and went along their merry way. I did it. No questions asked.
So needless to say there are a lot of things that we don't know as we enter this parenthood journey. Here are a few that I had no idea about before I was a mom.
1. I had no idea about how often you were suppose to feed a baby or how much that you needed to feed them. Shoot, I didn't realize that they should be fed. Don't babies just self feed?
2. I had no idea that I would pray for at least 3 hours of sleep in a row and consider that a good night of sleep.
3. I had no idea that my pre-baby body was awesome. I would kill to get it back again but when I had it, I thought it sucked.
4. I had no idea how much poop a small child could produce. Seriously, where in the world does it come from.
5. I had no idea how annoying and mind numbing children's cartoons were. If I have to listen to Dora's map tell me how to get to Grandma's house one more time, I may just throw a child at the TV.
6. I had no idea how sentimental I would be. I have saved clothes that my children wore when they were tiny babies. These clothes are in perfect condition and someone could get good use out of them but I just can't let them go. Or my closet shelf in my room is over flowing with my children's art work. I have saved almost every piece and I can't bare to part with it.
7. I had no idea the lengths that I would go to to stop a crying fit. I prevent crying at all costs. I am willing to run up and down the stairs as many, times as it takes to get each child their precious toy.
8. I had no idea the crippling power of mommy guilt. I had no idea how it could eat me up inside and make me sick to my stomach.
9. I had no idea how judgmental other mommy's could be. It is so sad that we judge. We should not judge but offer compassion because we all have been there.
10. I had no idea that I would want to or be able to catch child vomit in my hands to save the carpet or a piece of furniture.
And so much more. I am pretty sure that in the years to come, even more things will prevent themselves as things that I didn't know before I was a mom.
Motherhood or parenthood, if you will, is a very strange thing. Raising children, guiding them and molding them into successful members of society and people is a very big and overwhelming job. It is also the most important job you will ever do in your life.
That being said, it is the only job that I can think of that doesn't involve or include multiple hours of training or schooling.
All you have to do is find a partner, get busy at the right time and poof! Nine months later, someone is handing you a little bundle (or multiple bundles) and says, 'here you go'. And that's it. You are off and running.
Does that seem weird to anyone? It does to me but yet everyone who is a parent has just excepted this, took the kid and went along their merry way. I did it. No questions asked.
So needless to say there are a lot of things that we don't know as we enter this parenthood journey. Here are a few that I had no idea about before I was a mom.
1. I had no idea about how often you were suppose to feed a baby or how much that you needed to feed them. Shoot, I didn't realize that they should be fed. Don't babies just self feed?
2. I had no idea that I would pray for at least 3 hours of sleep in a row and consider that a good night of sleep.
3. I had no idea that my pre-baby body was awesome. I would kill to get it back again but when I had it, I thought it sucked.
4. I had no idea how much poop a small child could produce. Seriously, where in the world does it come from.
5. I had no idea how annoying and mind numbing children's cartoons were. If I have to listen to Dora's map tell me how to get to Grandma's house one more time, I may just throw a child at the TV.
6. I had no idea how sentimental I would be. I have saved clothes that my children wore when they were tiny babies. These clothes are in perfect condition and someone could get good use out of them but I just can't let them go. Or my closet shelf in my room is over flowing with my children's art work. I have saved almost every piece and I can't bare to part with it.
7. I had no idea the lengths that I would go to to stop a crying fit. I prevent crying at all costs. I am willing to run up and down the stairs as many, times as it takes to get each child their precious toy.
8. I had no idea the crippling power of mommy guilt. I had no idea how it could eat me up inside and make me sick to my stomach.
9. I had no idea how judgmental other mommy's could be. It is so sad that we judge. We should not judge but offer compassion because we all have been there.
10. I had no idea that I would want to or be able to catch child vomit in my hands to save the carpet or a piece of furniture.
And so much more. I am pretty sure that in the years to come, even more things will prevent themselves as things that I didn't know before I was a mom.
03 February 2010
30 January 2010
27 January 2010
Wordless Wednesday
This is my mom, Claire & I at the zoo
this past summer- Claire's first trip.
Apparently that pretzel was extremely tasty
since she couldn't look at the camera!
25 January 2010
Not Me Monday!
Who? Me? NEVER!!As of 10:20pm last night, I certainly was not frantically rushing around to complete an online testing assessment, a 5-page worksheet for clinical and review for two quizzes, all of which are TODAY. Nope. I had all of this stuff done way ahead of time, completely finished by last week. Huh-uh. Not me!!
23 January 2010
The Journey of Caring
While working on the beginning of a project, I thought it might be interesting to share the project with you as it progresses.
I have a semester-long project to complete, called "The Journey of Caring". According to my syllabus: The "Journey of Caring" is an interactive approach to assist beginning nursing students to explore the art of nursing in addition to the science while developing clinical decision making skills. The journey will prepare you to recognize issues experienced by older patients and their families as they navigate the health care continuum. The project involves not only the art of nurisng but also addresses the general education skills of writing, interaction with the public, economics, nutrition, ethics, values, social issues, and problem solving. The project allows you to gain basic information about the health care environment outside the hospital while also building your time management skills. The project will include the use of communication tehcniques and understanding of yourself and how that knowledge might impact your relationship with clients."
The first part of the JOC project was to write a paper about "The Art of Nursing"-- reflecting on why we chose to become a nurse, our perception of what a nurse is, describe what caring means to us with a personal example to support the description, and to address how we feel about aging.....
I have a semester-long project to complete, called "The Journey of Caring". According to my syllabus: The "Journey of Caring" is an interactive approach to assist beginning nursing students to explore the art of nursing in addition to the science while developing clinical decision making skills. The journey will prepare you to recognize issues experienced by older patients and their families as they navigate the health care continuum. The project involves not only the art of nurisng but also addresses the general education skills of writing, interaction with the public, economics, nutrition, ethics, values, social issues, and problem solving. The project allows you to gain basic information about the health care environment outside the hospital while also building your time management skills. The project will include the use of communication tehcniques and understanding of yourself and how that knowledge might impact your relationship with clients."
The first part of the JOC project was to write a paper about "The Art of Nursing"-- reflecting on why we chose to become a nurse, our perception of what a nurse is, describe what caring means to us with a personal example to support the description, and to address how we feel about aging.....
Journey of Caring
The Art of Nursing
As cliché as it sounds, I still believe that nursing is all about “helping people.”
I was seven years old when I first decided what I wanted to be “when I grow up”, and I haven’t changed my mind even once over the last twenty years. My mother was in an extremely serious car accident, and when she was released from the hospital, she and I stayed with my grandparents until she was completely recovered. It was there that I dutifully helped my grandmother change my mother’s positions, clean her up, and change her bandages every single day. In the niaveness that only a young child can possess, I truly thought that I was solely responsible for her progress; and although I was saddened by her injuries, by the end of her recovery period, I had decided that I wanted to be a nurse.
One of my first patients as an STNA was a 36 year old male who had been completely paralyzed from the shoulders down from a motorcycle accident. When he first entered my facility, he was a complete-care patient, requiring a Hoyer lift to transfer him and a very minimum of two staff members to assist with any type of care. He was at the facility for a full three months. On the day he was discharged, I wheeled him to the front door for his ride home. He stood up from his chair and WALKED to the vehicle with the help of walker. Although I know that the therapy department played the biggest role in getting this patient to that point, that moment to me was everything that nursing is about.
Regardless of what the task is, how long it’s going to take, or how difficult it’s going to be, we as nursing staff are there to help the patients who need us. It’s our job to accept them at their worst/weakest condition and to do everything in our power to either bring them back to their best or to make them comfortable and dignified until they can no longer survive in that condition.
As a typical person, there is a part of me who doesn’t have any problem with getting older. I welcome the Hallmark idea of growing old with my husband, having a large family of children and grandchildren who come over for Sunday dinner every week after church, and doing cliché “old person” things like knitting, playing bingo, and doing crossword puzzles.
And then I go to work. I take care of people as young as 60 years old all the way into their 90’s. I see the 60-year-old who looks like she’s in worse shape than the 94-year-old because she cannot function physically or very well mentally—she drools, she can’t speak, she can’t feed herself, her food is pureed so she doesn’t choke, her main source of transportation is a wheelchair because she can’t walk, she’s incontinent, and she can’t even do something as simple as scratching her nose if she has an itch. I turn the corner and see the 94-year-old walking down the hall without the assistance of even a walker. She’s walking to the dining room for dinner, except she doesn’t know where the dining room is even though it’s right in front of her and she thinks she’s going to her grandmother’s house to bake cookies. She’s rambling something to the effect of “Grandma likes when I help her bake cookies because the elephants can’t come into the bathtub and take them”.
It’s the lives I see when I’m at work that make me dread getting older. I like to think that because I take care of the people who suffer from Alzheimer’s and dementia, that God will never punish me with such a terrible mind and body stealer; that I will be spared of such a horrible experience so that I can live freely to experience those Hallmark moments in my golden years.
The Art of Nursing
As cliché as it sounds, I still believe that nursing is all about “helping people.”
I was seven years old when I first decided what I wanted to be “when I grow up”, and I haven’t changed my mind even once over the last twenty years. My mother was in an extremely serious car accident, and when she was released from the hospital, she and I stayed with my grandparents until she was completely recovered. It was there that I dutifully helped my grandmother change my mother’s positions, clean her up, and change her bandages every single day. In the niaveness that only a young child can possess, I truly thought that I was solely responsible for her progress; and although I was saddened by her injuries, by the end of her recovery period, I had decided that I wanted to be a nurse.
One of my first patients as an STNA was a 36 year old male who had been completely paralyzed from the shoulders down from a motorcycle accident. When he first entered my facility, he was a complete-care patient, requiring a Hoyer lift to transfer him and a very minimum of two staff members to assist with any type of care. He was at the facility for a full three months. On the day he was discharged, I wheeled him to the front door for his ride home. He stood up from his chair and WALKED to the vehicle with the help of walker. Although I know that the therapy department played the biggest role in getting this patient to that point, that moment to me was everything that nursing is about.
Regardless of what the task is, how long it’s going to take, or how difficult it’s going to be, we as nursing staff are there to help the patients who need us. It’s our job to accept them at their worst/weakest condition and to do everything in our power to either bring them back to their best or to make them comfortable and dignified until they can no longer survive in that condition.
As a typical person, there is a part of me who doesn’t have any problem with getting older. I welcome the Hallmark idea of growing old with my husband, having a large family of children and grandchildren who come over for Sunday dinner every week after church, and doing cliché “old person” things like knitting, playing bingo, and doing crossword puzzles.
And then I go to work. I take care of people as young as 60 years old all the way into their 90’s. I see the 60-year-old who looks like she’s in worse shape than the 94-year-old because she cannot function physically or very well mentally—she drools, she can’t speak, she can’t feed herself, her food is pureed so she doesn’t choke, her main source of transportation is a wheelchair because she can’t walk, she’s incontinent, and she can’t even do something as simple as scratching her nose if she has an itch. I turn the corner and see the 94-year-old walking down the hall without the assistance of even a walker. She’s walking to the dining room for dinner, except she doesn’t know where the dining room is even though it’s right in front of her and she thinks she’s going to her grandmother’s house to bake cookies. She’s rambling something to the effect of “Grandma likes when I help her bake cookies because the elephants can’t come into the bathtub and take them”.
It’s the lives I see when I’m at work that make me dread getting older. I like to think that because I take care of the people who suffer from Alzheimer’s and dementia, that God will never punish me with such a terrible mind and body stealer; that I will be spared of such a horrible experience so that I can live freely to experience those Hallmark moments in my golden years.
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