tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53283729348276943762024-03-13T14:44:20.222-04:00amelia's plumAmelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.comBlogger490125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-69805228863462016882013-03-21T21:38:00.002-04:002013-03-21T21:44:35.900-04:00changesI don't know how to title this ending. Hello goodbye? Never say never, because I might be back? So long and thanks for all the fish? I must admit that I haven't read Douglas Adams or seen Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy but when my kids explained what this meant I <i>loved</i> it. I don't really have it in my heart to blog anymore. I haven't for a while. I still want to write, really want to write about the things that matter to me, issues in healthcare and trying to make sense of how I've gotten to where I am being paramount. I just don't think I do so well trying to search for the answers to these issues, or even just talking out loud (in a virtual sense) here anymore. I want to push out of my box more. Have actual conversations, get feedback, make changes, learn, grow and then go back to people again. I do plan to continue and expand on <a href="http://booandthebean.blogspot.com/">my boo and the bean blog</a> though so please, if you like my jewelry or just want to connect with me virtually, please keep checking back with me there.<br />
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I feel like I've lived so many lives since I first started this blog, way back when Oona was one and my Grandmother had just moved to Pittsburgh. Now I've been nursing over a year and am due to start school again, online through Drexel (I will hold back on the profanity laced vitriol directed against drexelone, their web portal) in April. I'm going to get a master's in nursing innovation, who knows what that will bring. I get so panicky just before starting big stuff like this because I feel like it's such a huge commitment (it is also huge financially when things are frequently stretched a bit thin). I always do an initial freak out once I choose a path, thinking I can't turn back or try a different path. It's never true. My body just overreacts to these things and I'm trying to be kinder to myself. <br />
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I am so thankful for the virtual space this provided me to grow and tentatively reach out to a new me really, that was stronger than I realized and who, for the most part, always kept her sense of humor. I have so much hope for the future. There is a man I met recently who, well to give you a wacky analogy, when my daughter woke up last Christmas she was so excited she was shaking, and my mom said 'Get her some orange juice'. Perhaps using the Dr. Mom logic that she might be so excited that she was hypoglycemic and could very well go into a Christmas morning induced coma? I don't know. I know Oona survived Christmas 2012. And I know, regardless of what the future holds with this man, I'll survive too. It is just really, really nice at forty-four (at any age really?) to feel so happy and excited you're fit to burst. I don't know what will happen in my future (thank God for that!) but I know that walking into the world with my heart open and always hoping that I can make things a little better is the only way that I can really be me.<br />
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Thank you so much to all who visited, to those who commented and, especially, to those who commented regularly (you know the two or three of you that I'm talking about). You virtually talked me off the ledge more times than you know, so thank you!<br />
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I want to bookend this with the first post so I leave you with Oona and monkey passed out in my bed. How can I argue with a seven year old that takes such comfort just by falling asleep in my bed?<br />
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<br />Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-60779610938750112822013-01-31T16:57:00.002-05:002013-02-02T21:08:12.509-05:00happy new yearYes I realize that wish for a happy 2013 is about 31 days late but damn, it's hard to commit to much of anything in the bowels of winter when all I want to do is burrow under my blankets until the crocuses come up. So it's a month late but it's meant most sincerely. I hope everyone survived the holidays with a minimal amount of stress and a maximal amount of good food and fun.<br />
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I think January and February are the two months I hate the most, followed closely by December but I can't completely hate on that month since my birthday and Christmas happen then. But it's so much anticipation and excitement which, it just seems like it can never live up to the hype, especially when I'm not able to even muster enough energy for the annual Christmas card. I promise one for next year, although sometimes I think it would be fun just to send out cards on some other random holiday 'Happy Tax Day from my family to yours, let's hope for a BIG return'.<br />
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I started the weekend program, which means I only work two days a week and get full time pay and benefits. I can't be thankful enough to my boss for making this happen, because I can now consider going back to school. Of course, I'm now panic stricken that I'm going to lose my job over a facebook post. Okay, I stress out a lot about work and I didn't name specific people or where I work and my facebook rant was really more of a frustration with the whole nursing culture in our country, which is incredibly stressful and masochistic. I was never in a sorority but it seems like a totally dysfunctional sorority and/or high school. I was pulled from my floor on Sunday to float on another floor that I've never been to before. I was terrified and overwhelmed. I had six patients, I'm used to 3 - 4 tops. I'm used to patients I know, like I know their first and last names, their spouses names, whether they have leukemia or lymphoma, where their central line is located. It's one of the things I love the most about my job, seeing the same patients. It's awful the circumstances under which I see them so frequently, but I truly feel I can help better people the better I know them. I'm a creature of habit, who isn't? I'm used to the standard med regimens for my heme/onc patient population, the hanging of blood, platelets, chemo, the daily stresses and issues that arise on my floor, they are trying but nothing compared to being on an unknown floor. This floor I went to was a disaster. Disorganized and dirty! Oh my word, I couldn't take the dirtiness. And two patients per room! So I quadruple checked meds because two people per room seems to increase the rate of med errors exponentially in my mind. I am going to loooose my shit with all the things I see in healthcare that seem so inefficient, that seem designed to frustrate and increase the time it takes nurses to carry out their tasks and that puts the safety of patients at risk. I am anal and look at the world in terms of how I can fix it, this isn't a winning trait to have, it's most likely disastrous from an intimate relationship perspective, but, it allows me to see a lot of things that people might not notice, the things people overlook or become inured to I can't help but see and get ready to hop up on a soapbox about. Because, when it all comes down to it, I want to help people. I want to make a difference. And after work on Sunday I was ready to weep but I was too tired from the day I had.<br />
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I am one of those nurses that sweats the small stuff. I am rule based and try to follow the rules I learned in school to the best of my ability. But I wound up in a room where I almost gave a patient the wrong med. I was in an unfamiliar environment. There was a therapist ready to take the patient for rehab, I was already over two and a half hours late getting them their morning meds so I'm rushing to get the medications ready and give a shot when I just felt something wasn't right. I looked at the patient's wristband and saw I had the wrong person. I was in the wrong room. I was so rushed I wound up in the wrong room. I can't tell you the depths of how ashamed I was, my face was so hot and red. I wanted to die. Thank God I caught myself in time but this was too terrifyingly close for me. I'm a checker, I am anal and fastidious and every other adjective you can use for being a pain in the ass perfectionist and I almost made a huge fucking error, which I blame on being placed in a situation that wasn't comfortable or safe. I talked to nurses from my floor at the end of the day and this whole floating/being pulled thing, it's almost like bullying the responses you get for not feeling comfortable about doing it. One nurse told me that she when she questioned being pulled to other floors she was told, 'It's within your job description. You're more than capable of doing this and if you don't feel able to do it than you need to speak up.' I get that this sounds relatively benign but it's like a pervasive, perverse culture of healthcare where you're indoctrinated to 'suck it up and do what you're told and don't be a baby about it' but then, if you mess up, it's all 'well why would you do that?! you should have said something if you didn't feel you could handle that?' Does anyone else think it sounds like a recipe for disaster?<br />
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Nurses and aides are placed in impossible situations almost daily. W'ere expected to take care of too many, that are too ill and all the while chart on everything we're doing and you can't do everything and chart and eat and pee, something has to give, which is why so many nurses are familiar with 30 minute lunch shifts that they skip or going 12 hours without using the bathroom (when, ironically, we're to call an MD if patient has urine output less than 30 cc's an hour). And you'll hear nurses swap war stories like it's a badge of honor, who had the sickest patient, the most grueling conditions, and I'm thinking, we're supposed to be considered professionals but we're going shifts without peeing? Haven't companies been sued for women going all day without using the bathroom at work? Why is our profession so intent on suffering in silence? Am I a wimp to think we should be in an environment that treats nurses better? If our critical thinking, moral and ethical code of conduct is so valued why are we swiping in and out, our minutes clocked and if too long they must be accounted for? It seems to devalue our profession.<br />
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And I've seen what happens when people feel undervalued and unappreciated. I've seen aides and nurses say woefully inappropriate things, to patients and coworkers. On this floor I was pulled to, there was a patient I had a soft spot for. He reminded me of David Straithairn, the same sort of rumpled good looks. The patient had left sided hemiplegia and needed two people to help reposition him in bed. I called for assistance from one of the aides and she's started muttering under her breath. She came into help me, all the while she's complaining, to the patient, about how he's continually slinking to the bottom of the bed and that he has to stop doing that. That she can't be in his room all the time, she's got a bad back. I was speechless, until the patient replied, 'Wow, I'm really sorry about your back problems' to which I stifled a laugh. Oh my I wanted to hug him for being so funny in spite of her.<br />
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I laughed but stuff like that makes me want to cry. Because I don't believe that aide is a bad person, or an unfeeling one. I think she's overworked, underpaid and maxed out on her stress level. At the end of the day a different aide was saying that another patient I had was lazy and that she could get up and use the bathroom perfectly fine on her own but chooses to pee in her brief. This patient had a midline abdominal wound about ten inches long. It was stapled at the bottom and top but the middle five inches were open. No sutures, the wound got packed with saline soaked gauze. Call me crazy but if you've had your rectus abdominis and transverse abdominis sliced through and not stitched back fully something tells me that you probably will need assistance going to the bathroom. I see the best and worst of humanity at work. I'd like to do what I can to help bring forth more of the best of humanity at work.<br />
<br />Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-15566363549777417142012-12-19T15:09:00.002-05:002012-12-19T19:11:56.862-05:00the twilight series as interpreted by Oona bean<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Back in September I wrote about my bipolar prednisone experience and my thoroughly bad decision to let Oona watch all the Twilight movies through Breaking Dawn Part 1. Hell, my decision was so bad we now own all the movies except the last one. Well, horrific Rosemary's Baby/Alien birthing scene be damned, Oona is hooked on the Twilight series. So much so that I bought her the boxed set for Christmas. And yes, I realize she's seven but she is a pretty precocious reader and with her Twilight passion I assume that might be even more of a reading impetus. Now I've read that Stephanie Meyer is a mormon so, I realize that I might be making a huge generalization, but I'm assuming there isn't a lot of sex in the writing. I haven't read these books so someone please correct me if I'm wrong in this thinking. And even if Oona is a good reader these are really fat books so I figure she won't get to Breaking Dawn until she's older, hopefully ten?<br />
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Anyhoo, I came across Oona's notebook, it's her diary of sorts where she writes all these brilliant stream of seven year old consciousness things that are really poetic, funny and lovely to come across. So I flipped open the book while cleaning her room the other day and came across her illustrative interpretation of the Twilight series and I couldn't stop laughing. I absolutely love these pictures and sort of stepping inside her mind and seeing what was salient about the films to her, apparently New Moon and Eclipse didn't register at all, not real surprising given that she's more into the romantic storyline than all the fighting<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The first film Oona watched, yes we did do things in order, and where her love for <br />
Edward & Bella began. To be fair, Oona also loves Alice, I think because <br />
she embraces all things girly, which is what Oona does too.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zv-Njnq9nDM/UNIT0SGySfI/AAAAAAAADAI/vQC4UrN4qcE/s1600/breakingdawn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zv-Njnq9nDM/UNIT0SGySfI/AAAAAAAADAI/vQC4UrN4qcE/s400/breakingdawn.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">She's really got Kristen Stewart's acting down here</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Probably my favorite, Bella attacks mountain loin, she's vamped her up with the red eyes. <br />
Although her thinking the daughter's name is Ranasberry is pretty great too.</td></tr>
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<br />Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-57582833938279751452012-11-05T23:16:00.001-05:002012-11-06T14:10:05.056-05:00dry spell<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Last night I dreamt that I was on The Late Late show with Craig Ferguson and it was very very casual, even for that show. I was half lying on the ground with Craig half lying in front of me and during a commercial break he turned around, lay on top of me and started passionately kissing me. The crowd somehow seemed unaware in the logical fallacy that is dreamland. The dream cut to me at home, opening the door to let Craig Ferguson in. I said to him, did you come because you couldn't resist me or because you knew you could have me? He replied, the latter. My heart sank momentarily, he was a really good kisser in my dream, but I said, oh no, you've got to go and showed him to the door and my kids suddenly appeared behind me. God knows what the fuck that means aside from, it's been a looong time since I've kissed someone, aside from my kids and that's obviously very different. I'm just glad I didn't have a dream about work last night. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Craig, how could you not find me irresistible?</td></tr>
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Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-17283156899429243702012-10-17T12:18:00.000-04:002012-10-17T12:23:46.013-04:00happy fall<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I love love love fall. My favorite season by far, too bad it's gone by in a blur, how did it get to be October 17th all of a sudden? There's a lot I want to write about; venting about work, the failings of our current healthcare system, my hiatus on looking for love (I'm just happy that my kids are so great and love me, it's enough for me right now), women in binders, you name it, my mind is always going, although most of the time I just feel like I'm cerebrally spinning my wheels. But right now I'm way too tired because I stayed up late watching the debate and then the post debate debriefing (I feel tight with Gwen Ifill and the PBS gang having watched them so much this season), Charlie Rose and Co.'s take on the debate and then a little Craig Ferguson to lighten things up. So yes, I did drop my kids off at school wearing the clothes I slept in sticking a winter cap on my head to hide how bad my behead looked, I was only partially successful in this. Then I ran over to the grocery store and who should I see strolling out, looking delectable with an ice coffee in his hand, but the hot guy from the gym. Note to self, make a concerted effort to wake up at least fifteen minutes earlier so you can look at least reasonably presentable and age appropriate.Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-41269806059684231792012-10-02T15:16:00.000-04:002012-10-02T23:29:10.348-04:00lively<div style="text-align: left;">
My daughter never ceases to make me smile. I know everyone with children is charmed by the things they do, well most of the things they do, I just love how creative and happy and industrious Oona is. She's very good at playing by herself, without a TV or other friends. She's one of those children with a great imagination who really sees things through. Last Thanksgiving she decided to have a pet show, after watching the Westminster Dog Show, so she roped the man I was seeing into being a handler for her menagerie of stuffed animals. It was quite adorable to watch him carrying a pink guinea pig (named Jellybean) around the dining room while she sat in a chair with paper and pen in hand judging them.<br />
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During my back pain debacle of August my judgement was rather impaired, I blame the steroids. Oona watched the first two Twilights (I own them because I think I got them super cheap at the grocery store) and she really enjoyed them so I decided to go out and buy the other two on DVD (at Barnes and Noble so they were like four times what I paid for the first two) then we watched them together. Now I'm one of the few woman that hasn't read any of the twilight series so I had no idea that part 1 of Breaking Dawn 1. contained very suggestive sex scenes for a 6 year old (I later learned some people jokingly called the film breaking headboards) it was much more than I was expecting from a Twilight film and 2. that the birthing scene was like Rosemary's Baby meets Alien? I was traumatized watching it and I kept having to stress to Oona that the film was nothing like what happens when you actually give birth to children. Holy shit it was awful.<br />
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Well, apparently I was the only one who was traumatized because I picked the kids up from school yesterday and Oona was begging me to make a count down poster to the opening of Breaking Dawn part 2 and that the two of us go on opening night. Oona is seven going on seventeen, wanting the older girls to like her, she is positively enthralled with older girls/women, especially if you have long, pretty hair. She gets upset at the farmhouse when the fifth graders snub her and my friend Kathleen is like 'If they only knew, Oona can talk Twilight with the best of them.' So I was straightening papers on my coffee table last night after the kids were in bed - my living room is a tornado of homework, mail and such, when I found a little booklet Oona made, she was imitating the camp flyers I get in the mail. Her booklet was 'Camps Magisene' I wish I could scan this 'camp' below, which was my favorite, because it had a cute red mouth with fangs on it, plus her fancy g's, her penmanship at 7 is better than I think Owen can ever hope his to be, alas my latest version of photoshop is snubbing my scanner.<br />
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Vampire Club!</div>
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Ragh! If you're scared, it's okay. </div>
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We're hunting for Vamps and even the Jersey Devil! </div>
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Sent by Camps.org $1 This is scary!</div>
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I just love her so much. I think it's adorable. All her enthusiasm expressed in exclamation points and her writing that it's okay to be scared. Here she is below modeling at the farmhouse last month. Mind you, this porch tends to reek of urine in certain areas during the warmer months so as soon as this pic was snapped I told her to get her head off the floor. Nursing has made me even more neurotic with germs. I wish I had my daughter's indefatigable energy and enthusiasm - the world could use more people like her. </div>
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Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-5453298429693191592012-09-27T21:27:00.000-04:002012-09-28T06:20:26.311-04:00happy birthday oona bean!I can't believe my little Beanie is seven. It seems like just yesterday she was in her crib scrunching her legs up and arching her back as she wiggled around while sleeping so that she looked like a little bean and thus her nickname was established. I frequently call her Bean, Beanie or Oona Bean, never Oona Beanie for some reason, it just sounds like heresy to me. She asked to sleep in my bed last night so she could be with like she was on the night she was born, bright and early at 3:16 am. We celebrated her birthday before school with a donut lit with seven slender pink candles on it.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kePXNxaHUZo/UGTxeyfZQ2I/AAAAAAAAC5E/b9jQa8krkuw/s1600/bdaydonut.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kePXNxaHUZo/UGTxeyfZQ2I/AAAAAAAAC5E/b9jQa8krkuw/s320/bdaydonut.jpg" width="241" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Since Oona isn't with me tonight so I made her a celebratory breakfast with a birthday donut</td></tr>
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I stopped by her school to serve brownies and cookies to her class. This serving the kids treats for her birthday didn't go off as seemlessly as last year. I let the secretary know my plan and asked her to check with Oona's main teacher, I heard nothing until I was called at quarter past two when the secretary called and asked if I could come in tomorrow. Um no because I'm working and it also won't be my daughter's birthday then. So then the she asked if I lived close by and would be able to come over now. So I drive over only to find Oona in art class and the teacher less than welcoming of me, the brownies, and cookies. Oona's music teacher took me down to Oona's main teacher to see if we could serve them down there. No go. Back upstairs and the art teacher said the children could get some treats right before class ended and they had to go to gym.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HbCBqm6ssoU/UGTxhQzXzOI/AAAAAAAAC5U/pUGIZ1tCXvk/s1600/lineup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HbCBqm6ssoU/UGTxhQzXzOI/AAAAAAAAC5U/pUGIZ1tCXvk/s320/lineup.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oona shows off her first present</td></tr>
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So I took out my Christmas napkins (sad I know but for whatever reason I have an abundance of Christmas napkins) and started doling out brownies and chocolate chip cookies. The cookies looked awful, they were flat but they tasted good. I lost half of my second batch of brownies to a fracture, it was like the San Andreas fault of baking, when I turned over the pan they were in. I don't know that that batch was thoroughly cooked anyway so I guess it was no great loss- especially since I can quickly envision worst case scenarios, I saw myself having to explain how a class had succumbed to salmonella due to my not thoroughly cooked brownies. What would the headline be? Mom Sickens School would probably be sensational enough for TV. I was silently lamenting how pitiful my birthday treats for Oona's class looked when I heard the music teacher walking behind me with an older student, 'Look at that. She is on top of it. Supermom.' Perspective changes everything. They weren't aesthetically pleasing, but the kids ate everything I gave them and quite a few wanted seconds. I didn't have enough for everyone so I said we couldn't do that. As far as I know at 9:18 pm, no one got sick. I let all the kids choose what they wanted and it was pretty much a fifty fifty split with the cookies and brownies, and then I brought the leftovers to my neighbors house with the caveat that the 7 brownies on the last layer closest to the plate might be a wee bit underdone. To which my neighbor replied, It's never good when somebody brings you food over and they're apologizing. Mom Sickens Neighbors! story on eleven at eleven. I might not be the best cook but I don't think that makes me a bad Mom, although with the pervasive foodie culture, I sometimes feel scrutinized as though I'm feeding my kids a steady diet of ho-ho's, coke and cheetos (for the record, no) because my culinary skills are, shall we say, lacking.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4d9pLyNLGk0/UGTxf0rrTfI/AAAAAAAAC5M/C4ZaPh2Z90c/s1600/dabears.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4d9pLyNLGk0/UGTxf0rrTfI/AAAAAAAAC5M/C4ZaPh2Z90c/s320/dabears.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Owen deciding whether he's interested in Oona's present</td></tr>
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I love Oona Bean for her endless enthusiasm, for her love of everything girly (she got a fancy leopard dress and black patent little heels with her birthday gift card to The Children's Place from Grandma Cat and she's dying to wear this ensemble to dress down day tomorrow at her school), for all the delightful drawings she makes, for her singing all the time, for her missing Grandpa Boo, Lily and Frodo, for how much she loves her brother and most of all, for her just being her lovely, slightly wild, self.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Rg9d7oEfZxk/UGTxiqHgj3I/AAAAAAAAC5c/gND8j53IpUM/s1600/rocknrunway.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Rg9d7oEfZxk/UGTxiqHgj3I/AAAAAAAAC5c/gND8j53IpUM/s320/rocknrunway.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rock & Runway was a hit with Oona, and surprisingly, Owen as well</td></tr>
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<br />Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-67250418568356164572012-09-08T15:14:00.001-04:002012-09-08T15:14:11.080-04:00while you weren't sleepingThe you being me and that will be the extent of my writing in the second person, which I think is one of the harder literary feats to pull off. So the steroids, specifically prednisone, don't think I'll be able to take that any more. I didn't put two and two together, shameful given that I'm a nurse, regarding my mood and lack of sleep until I'd already finished my course of steroids yet I was still staying up waaay too late and crying uncontrollably. And when I say uncontrollably it was about a half a dozen times a day, coming out of nowhere and it wasn't polite little tears but huge gut wrenching sobs. The final straw was when I woke up from a nightmare at 5:00 in the morning sobbing and Oona (the cunning devil that she is, she's been exploiting my ability to sleep like the dead when I do finally fall asleep, Vicodin will do that to you, and sneak into my bed) was like 'It's okay mommy. Don't be sad.' I called the doctor's office, in tears, yet again, and was told yes what you're experiencing is definitely related to the steroids and I saw the doctor the next day and was excused for yet another week of work, 'It's too bad, a lot of people get happy and have a lot of energy from steroids.' she told me. I had a lot of energy, at night, but I was in no way happy. I bought this amazing CD of <a href="http://www.liannelahavas.com/">Lianne La Havas</a> and listened to it nonstop (except track 3 which would make me cry as soon as I heard the first few notes) during my Prednisone haze. The album is amazing, but now that I'm finally clear of the medication induced craziness I can't listen to the CD, as good as it is, it's marked from that time, like when you get food poisoning and have a natural aversion to that food for however long. Hopefully I'll be able to play it again in a couple of months because it really is phenomenal.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AnhoGoi-hQE/UEuWkerqDKI/AAAAAAAAC1g/Qmr8478N2QU/s1600/liannen1+(2)smaller.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AnhoGoi-hQE/UEuWkerqDKI/AAAAAAAAC1g/Qmr8478N2QU/s320/liannen1+(2)smaller.jpg" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Isn't she stunning?! And then you listen to her voice, it's as beautiful as she is and the lyrics are great, can't say enough good things about her (& she's only 23!)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xU1krH6LwtI/UEuWl4067pI/AAAAAAAAC1o/-zU4H522Qpw/s1600/16_original.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xU1krH6LwtI/UEuWl4067pI/AAAAAAAAC1o/-zU4H522Qpw/s320/16_original.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Plus she includes a goofy picture like this on her website, I think she's adorable.</td></tr>
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So the kids are back in school and I'm doing a round robin between the gym, physical therapy and the chiropractor's office in order to strengthen my core and hips and avoid my back going out like it did. Because god help me if it does since steroids are now off the list of meds to help cure my back pain. I still have pain, thus the occasional Vicodin at night. The pain in the ass is that it's literally that, a pain in my ass, wrapping around my left hip and making an insidious path down my leg. I'm sitting on a balance ball now, trying to get my ten minutes a day in, trying to engage my<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transversus_abdominis_muscle"> transversus abdominis muscle</a>, where are you? I seem to be woefully out of touch with most of the muscles that make up my core.<br />
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But back/hip/leg pain and steroid insanity aside, I did actually manage to do something productive during my time off. I started working on a second website for the jewelry that I make. I've only been planning on doing this for over three years now. Oh well, I've got the ball rolling now, so please visit <a href="http://booandthebean.blogspot.com/">boo and the bean </a>and let me know what you think.Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-59167867654825073312012-08-26T22:48:00.002-04:002012-09-07T19:14:21.706-04:00vacationWell my vacation went up with the spitting remains of Isaac which caused my flight into Ft Lauderdale to be canceled yesterday, even though it seems the storm is gunning for Tampa and the RNC. Now this vacation was going to be 5 days in Florida when it's hotter than hell, my Mom was asking ahead of time about DVDs to rent for the kids so we could keep cool during the middle of the day. It was going to be me and my children in my Mom's two bedroom condo a block away from the beach and even if the median age in Lauderdale by the Sea is well, up there, it was going to be a break for me. From my fucking back pain that caused me to bloat 6 pounds of steroid water weight, and the pain pills and other stuff (read benzodiazapines) that make me feel entirely unmotivated for anything other than crying. And crying is a lot of what I've done the past two days. That six months of working to earn my 29.7 hours of vacation time - poof! and it's gone while I schlep around my house and try to find something useful to do. And my 30.1 hours of sick time for my back - poof! that's gone too. My back is still sore but it is worlds better than before, like I might be able to consider rehab next week. But this weepy, pill haze, maybe it's protective, to keep me from screaming.<br />
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I have not had a vacation since 1997. How do I know? I arrived home early from a writing trip to Italy, it was beautiful in Spoleto but I had night fevers that wouldn't go away, with weird rashes that would cover my body at night but disappear by morning. And then I started limping. Fortunately one of the poets on the trip was also an ER doctor who told me I needed to get back home right away. So I switched my flight around to leave early, no chance to visit Rome or Venice, awkwardly slinging my backpack across me because by now the ache in my hip had traveled to my shoulder. I had Lyme disease. Something else too, on top of the Lyme, those tics are promiscuous. And that was my last vacation. What I remember most vividly one late night out, once my Doxycycline had kicked in, and I was taking a taxi home (what a splurge for me) and the cabbie said that Princess Di was dead. This was big news to me because that Monday I started work at a new photo archive and we were inundated with requests for any and all images of the peoples princess. From a vacation cut short by illness to a new job where I was up and running before I finished taking all my Doxycycline. And I haven't had a true vacation since.<br />
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Sure I've been to Iowa for a friend's wedding and I went to Kennet Square, PA for my fortieth birthday. But that birthday celebration wound up making me feel bad; three friends and their spouses came and I learned from one of them that there was basically no way she was going to make the trip out to Pittsburgh for my fortieth being that it's in the middle of the Christmas season. It made me feel really shitty and I hated to feel not worth it due to where my birthday falls on the lunar calendar. I separated from my husband a few months later, and it's hard not to look back on times like that and wonder what I didn't see clearly or what I could have handled differently. In my heart I don't think anything could have been changed but it's hard to see so much anguish for naught.<br />
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I broke down when my Mom told me it didn't look good for us coming on Sunday, the gale force winds (60 mph) and that she already had all her patio furniture inside and did we really want to fly in weather like that. Well, hell no. But I want someone to take care of me. Just for a little bit. Occasionally. Like when I'm blitzed on steroids, vicodin and all the pain pills I'd like someone to do my laundry or just offer to carry the basket to the goddamn basement. For now, I'll settle on it being my Mom on annual trips to Florida if that's all I can muster.<br />
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There's so much I want to see Maine again, and Iceland, England, Scotland, France, Spain, more of Italy, and India too. So many places, too many to list, but I don't want to do it all alone. Or, if I have to do it all alone, I don't want to be at a point where I'm fucking worrying about eating into my vacation hours that don't amount to all that much in terms of my hourly rate. It can be very demoralizing.</div>
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But I can't end on a downer even if that's all I feel right now. So let me include this quote from T<i>he Curious Case of Benjamin Button</i>, which I never saw but I love the quote and got it from my favorite <a href="http://ignitelight.tumblr.com/">feed that sybaritic need site</a><br />
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Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-67579654922204821012012-08-22T23:22:00.000-04:002012-08-22T23:39:48.830-04:00what a difference a week makesI've gone from my endorphin saturated high of having completed the triathlon to the low of not being able to do anything without pain. A paranoid me could start ruminating about who stabbed the effigy of me in the back and leg. I hope I haven't pissed anyone off to such an extent they're reveling in the schadenfreude of my setback. I went with the kids this morning to get them school shoes and I was catching my breath from the pain in my back sitting up in bed, getting on and off the toilet, trying to put my clothes on (it was less painful to lie on my bed and get my pants on that way). I was hovering at a 4-5 out of 10 when I was standing or lopsidedly sitting, I couldn't put weight down on my left side. But if I bent in any direction the littlest bit it spiked to a gasp worthy high. The same goes for trying to lower myself and get my left leg into and out of the car, entering and exiting the car was my fucking cruciatus curse for the day. And then I would make some infinitesimal twitch in my body while driving and the knife in my lower back would twist to take my breath away. I probably sounded like I was in a porn film except my gasps were from the agony of my back spasming, knotting my muscles so much my left leg felt like a barbie doll leg that had been snapped on the wrong way. The pain ripped across my ass (I know I'm a nurse and should use proper terminology but I can't write buttock or say it for that matter, it just sounds long-winded and false to me) around my hip and down the front of my thigh.<br />
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This pain started Friday when my night rotation started. I don't think it was work related because there was no one heavy that I had to move that shift. I called my doctor Saturday morning to get an order for flexeril, so I could sleep Saturday, hopefully relax my muscles, and work that night. I slept without a problem but was still really sore that night at work and getting sorer by Sunday morning. I was due to work Sunday night too but told them that morning I didn't think I'd be able to because doing any bending was really bothering me, but that I'd come in if they couldn't find a replacement for me, fortunately they did. I slept close to twenty four hours hoping the pain would go away but by Monday morning it was worse. I called the doctor again for Vicodin, they didn't get back to me until Tuesday but finally called it in and I had a couple that day and it did nothing. The flexeril, vicodin, ibuprofen, heating pad, bio freeze, heating patches on my back and thigh - nothing helped even a little bit. So this morning I called and got an appointment for another doctor in the practice at 2:15. So we got school shoes and picked up school pants for Owen, who could wear size 8 waist but needs size 12 legs, my son with the model body. I tried to take it easy with myself getting into and out of car, so I resembled someone twice my age in desperate need of a orthopedic surgery, but there was no way to avoid pain. I figured walking should help out even if it hurt, I favored my right side because putting weight on my left side wasn't working for me, but all the studies say that you shouldn't lie in bed, that you should work through back pain. Fucking studies. Then I was waiting in the doctors office and Dr. D came in and shook my hand, said she'd reviewed my file and then asked 'why aren't you sitting on your left side?' 'I can't really, it hurts when I sit properly.' That's when I knew I probably had waited too long with toughing out this back pain. She asked me to lie back on the examining table and I couldn't lay back without starting to cry. Raising my legs while lying wasn't much better. It seemed so cruel to go from an event where I was really proud of what my body accomplished to being hampered to the point where I couldn't do basic activities without an awful lot of pain.<br />
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So I got a shot of depomedrol in my left hip and an order for prednisone and klonipin to add to my vicodin and flexeril alleviate my back pain cocktail (the doctor said there's another med much more effective than flexeril as a muscle relaxant but that most insurance companies won't cover it). Ahh the tangled web that is American healthcare. Here's hoping that my pain is gone before I'm due to go to Florida Sunday morning. Although the way tropical storm Isaac is developing it looks like my trip to Florida might be canceled even if my back makes a miraculous recovery in the next four days. Although it's almost worth the canceled trip to Florida if Isaac dampens the Republican National Convention. A little schadenfreude on my part but can you blame me with the dynamically out of touch duo that is Romney & Ryan.Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-81632650082429735382012-08-15T14:23:00.003-04:002012-08-22T23:45:05.142-04:00try hardWell, even though I had my period, could we pick a more inopportune time, and a belly full of dread about this triathlon, I went over Saturday afternoon to get myself bodymarked for the event. I figured going over a day early would give me a chance to finally survey the course and that there would be people to answer my myriad questions about the event. One remarkably good stroke of luck was that I got someone to work my Sunday night shift, and I'm eternally grateful to Kimberly for this (especially helpful given that my heat didn't start until 10). So I drove around North Park until I found the pool (could really use GPS), signed my waiver against injury and then waited my turn to get my shoulders marked with my race number (416) whilst my calves were marked with my age as of December 31st of this year. Yes, I was slightly chagrined to have 44 on my calves when I'm only 43 but I better get over it being that in four months I will be that age. So I was magic marked up and felt a little dismayed that I'd have to forego my nightly shower, I like to be squeaky clean before going to bed. I said that I had a lot of questions about the triathlon, this being my first time and was directed to speak to an extremely tan, blonde and fit woman around my age. She was very patient and super helpful in answering my questions, the best advice she gave me was to show up early so I could see how the earlier heats handled transitions between the events. This woman would be in the first heat and judging by her less than 10% body fat I assumed she'd probably fare very well. I checked out the pool and drove around the bike part of the course then went home and posted on Facebook to get as much virtual support as I possibly could given that no one would actually be cheering me on the day of this event. I don't know if anyone has read <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/is-facebook-making-us-lonely/8930/">The Atlantic cover story about Facebook</a> but I always half dread putting a post up there, it's like waiting to be picked last for kickball. It's an awful feeling to be ignored while reading others enviously rich lives, even if that's a lot of artifice or it's a richness that I in actuality wouldn't crave, it's just far too easy for the grass to always look greener in the world of facebook. But, lo and behold, I actually had a lot of people write back support, which really bolstered me. My summer has been looong. I promise myself I'll put my house in some semblance of order once the kids are back in school. My intelligence seems to have an inverse relationship with the heat and humidity. I've had one person call wanting to do something with me, basically my phone does not ring unless it's my ex husband calling for the kids. I'm either working or with my children and I love my children dearly but when they're your only source of social interaction, well, for example, Oona has an imaginary twin that's close to two years younger than her that she calls Melon, real name Melissa, clearly your perspective can get skewed if you're hanging out with Oona, Melon, the two invisible dogs, and my son who wants to recount every page in the many books he's reading, how to say I love that you read so voraciously but I don't need a line by line retelling of Diary of a Wimpy Kid?<br />
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I digress, maybe that two year long gestation of Oona and Melon has affected my attention span. I had all my stuff packed and ready for the morning. My bike had a last minute trip to Performance bikes when the chain came off and something weird happened to a piece I can't identify to save my life. Suffice it to say the bike guy fixed it and just shook his head 'don't worry about it' when I asked how much I owed him (I think he was trying to cut me a break given I was doing my triathlon on a twenty year old mountain bike). I went to bed early and woke up at 6:30, picked up coffee (since caffeine can enhance performance- yee haw) and a bagel and made it to the pool in a far more direct route this time. I got there just as the second heat was in the pool. Having the time to curb my butterflies watching the earlier heats compete was invaluable. It was also inspiring to see a man in his sixties, one of the first ones out of the pool, unzip his wetsuit and take a hit off his inhaler before heading to his bike. And he wasn't the oldest competitor. There were people in their seventies competing. A lot of people wrote to me about how they could never fathom doing a triathlon but there were people of all shapes, sizes and ages doing it and it's was truly incredible. There was a woman in my heat, the last one because I had no idea what time I'd come in at. I could tell she was 60 (or 59) by the number on her calves. She was slender but had very soft, dimply legs and a cute black and hot pink swimsuit with jolly rogers all over it. She was one of the first people out of the pool when my heat went, when I was literally sucking chlorinated water and still had 3 more laps to go.<br />
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So my performance. It wasn't pretty. I did finish, although when I was in the pool I wasn't sure that I would. Seven hundred fucking meters swimming. I swallowed and snarfed so much chlorinated water I fear my lungs may resemble someone rescued from a near drowning. The swimming was, without a doubt the hardest event for me, and I was a water rat as a kid, you had to drag me out of the pool, but I guess summers filled with Marco Polo don't qualify for triathlon training. I've since read that swimming should be the relaxing leg of the triathlon where you go at a steady pace, conserving your energy for the cycling and running portions of the triathlon. I was very scared about the swim because 1. It was outside and it was cooler this past weekend (in the seventies) and all my training has been at my gym and the pool water is the equivalent of bathwater. 2. I have raynaud's and was concerned my fingers and toes would flip out on me, especially since it can be painful in my fingers when they react to the cold so my hands would be like inert clubs. But here's where adrenaline was my friend. I jumped in the pool 30 seconds before the horn went off and lifted the left side of my bathing cap, I couldn't hear jack out the right side because I had a earplug in my breathing side. As soon as the horn sounded I took off swimming way too hard, just like I anticipated that I would. The pool was twice as long as the one I trained in and the sun was breaking through clouds and directly in my line of vision every time I lifted my head to take a breath. Ten feet into that first lap my goggles filled with water but I waited till I reached the end of the lap to adjust them. I think I did two laps freestyle, then switched to backstroke, whacked my head against the side of the wall doing backstroke on my fourth lap. Changed to side crawl for a couple laps and then half freestyle and then back to the backstroke and I finished the last lap freestyle. I wasn't the first one out of the pool but I wasn't the last either. I was right in the middle for my heat, which was fine with me. Honestly I just didn't want to get the shoulder tap that I was a 'slow swimmer' and had to move to the slow lane so the last heat (there were two last/untimed heats) could go. I ran along the pool corner (right where it screams in all caps, NO RUNNING) around the cone, down the stairs, across the parking lot (barefoot the whole time, just waiting to stub my toes) and over to my bike.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes I had goggle marks around my eyes two and a half hours after the swim and I won't be winning any awards for best hairstyle after a triathlon (or before one for that matter since I slather my hair in Kiehls silk groom prior to swimming and look like I haven't washed my hair in months)</td></tr>
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Now the night before I packed a nightgown, underwear and a sports bra to change into because I was sure I wouldn't be able to tolerate the last two legs in a wet swimsuit (I'm tactilely challenged) but everyone was doing it and, once again, the benefits of adrenaline, I just dealt with it, put bike pants and a top over my wet swimsuit, got my socks, sneakers and helmet on and ran towards the marker for the next leg. I had a chip around my ankle that went off when I entered certain zones of the event. I hopped on my bike and was just starting to peddle when a couple yelled at me 'your helmet's on backwards'. Truth be told I never used to wear a helmet biking back in college, twenty years ago when it seemed that no one did. But it was my nerves that made me put it on backwards, I honestly don't know how I got it on that way so quickly, but I straightened it out, the man shouted, 'Bet that feels a lot better' I smiled an okay I'm embarrassed enough smile and headed out on the course. Four and three quarters laps around half uphill and half down. This was the easiest leg for me aside from adjusting to the wee small bike seat that's nothing like the cushy seats on the stationary bikes at the gym and the ache in my lower back (this fall is core strengthening season for me). Oh yeah and that this was the first time I actually did the full twelve miles cycling, training I always stopped after a half hour, or about an eight mile ride. But another wonderful thing about doing this triathlon was that it made me realize how much more enjoyable it is to exercise outside where I can marvel over the simple beauty of sunlight filtering through the trees, where I don't need to hold my breath when someone squirts cleaner all over their stationary bike and half my face. Alas, hot Eddie Munster/Tim Roth man won't be there on the trip but that man <i>is</i> married, maybe I'll bike into a single Hugh Laurie doppelgänger on some lovely Pittsburgh trail. It was also fun from a competition standpoint when 49 year old male passes me on the downhill clip but then I pass him on the uphill portion. Or passing people in their twenties and thirties, although I had no clue what lap they were on. So all in all the bike portion went well. I just got a wee bit nervous about wiping out and losing my teeth on the steep downhill portion where you had to cut a sharp turn and then start cycling uphill. I have this same losing teeth fear watching my children cycle down softest of inclines.<br />
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For the running portion I grabbed my shuffle and my son's baseball hat from The Children's Place, because it's mesh in back so I figured I wouldn't get overheated in it and I didn't have a hat of my own, never mind that it's for a size 4-7 child's head (which makes me truly reflect on the size of my adult head) or that it has a skull and crossbones on the front. My triathlon style was ghetto fabulous, well more like phantasmagoric, it was a pastiche of whatever I could find or make do with. Running was yet another, ahem, adjustment for me since I'd trained on a treadmill (which has a lovely spring to it) at zero incline with a built in fan fanning me in the air conditioned gym. Triathlon reality, it was a trail that went up and down slight hills, very slight except for two portions of the run that were considerably steeper, but when you've done all your running on a flat surface that's more than enough for you to hit a wall, the steep grades were the two portions of the run where I walked. The real wall I hit was forgetting to take a drink of water when dropping off my bike and getting my son's hat. All I had had to drink was coffee and chlorinated water. I was parched. I was lucky to have two other women running with me (19 & 49) and we kept pace with one another which made the running portion a lot easier for me. There were a couple water stations set up and I took full advantage of them, but I would stop and drink the water then put the cup in the trash bin. The second cup I took with me but I couldn't just chuck it on the ground, even if I knew the volunteers would clean it up, I had it crumpled in one hand and my sunglasses in the other hand. The hardest part of the run for me, aside from being very thirsty and, at that point, slightly nauseous, was that I had no idea how far into the run I was or where the finish line for the run was. I didn't have a watch on for pacing myself, I just tried to gauge the distance based on the amount of songs I listened to - Snow Patrol, Beck, Moby, Eminem (the song where he disses Moby), Doves, Foo Fighters and I finished right when Lily Allen was starting to sing.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UuP3bER8JfI/UCvjwLyGuyI/AAAAAAAACtA/he7sAJrrpGo/s1600/hat-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UuP3bER8JfI/UCvjwLyGuyI/AAAAAAAACtA/he7sAJrrpGo/s320/hat-1.jpg" width="279" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I WILL find a hat that fits and doesn't look this ridiculous for the next triathlon.</td></tr>
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I finished! I might have looked like an absolute disaster in sneakers but I did it, I could 't train the way I wanted but I made it across the last chip marker. BEEP! I was shaking taking the velcroed chip off my ankle to put in the chip bucket. I went to the post race station to get a slice of orange and I cannot tell you how good that piece of fruit tasted or the bottle of water I had afterwards. I think the triathlon really helped me appreciate the challenge I gave myself, how totally inspiring older generations are to participate in this (there were older people totally kicking it time-wise in this triathlon, a fifty four year old finished in 1:03 while the winner, 18, did it in 57:56) and just being mindful of my body, what I do to it and what it's capable of. I didn't find out my time in the race until Monday afternoon, a volunteer had given me the wrong website to check my time on. I had wanted to do it under two hours, secretly wished I could do it under 1:45. And my time was 1:43:48. I did it, with one minute and twelve seconds to spare. Never mind that I finished in the bottom quarter I made my secret goal time and it's given me a shorter secret goal time to aim for next year. But I'm going to find someone who can help me with my swimming technique, the only part of me that ached the next day was my neck from swimming, I gotta fix the whiplash swim.<br />
<br />Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-84340667999424881862012-08-07T22:16:00.000-04:002012-08-07T22:16:18.132-04:00hubrisMy triathlon is this Sunday and as the date draws near this goal of mine is looking more and more like an impulsive and regrettable decision on my part to. I haven't had enough training, if I'm not working I have my children with me and I started out strong but I've sort of lost steam because I feel guilty having them in the care center at the gym while I do exercise, even if it's only for an hour or so. I can't pace myself to save my life with swimming. I always start out way too fast and by the sixth lap my lungs are ready to explode. They say that swimming is an excellent sport for asthmatics because it helps them with breathing. I think I sound like an asthmatic when I swim, I seriously sound like I'm wheezing or dying I'm swimming so hard. And then yesterday I switched to backstroke, to catch my breath, and my head was somewhere else while swimming (actually, I was ruminating over why they put me on to work Sunday night when this was the one and only weekend I requested off because my fucking triathlon is Sunday morning, which means I'll go from a triathlon, to bed, to working 12 hours overnight, incentive to do it in a good time at least) well I backstroked the back of my head right into the pool wall, fortunately I wasn't all that quick so it didn't hurt too bad. I've got my twenty year old mountain bike for the cycling part and my flat feet for the 5k which involves trail running (harder than pavement, infinitely harder than the treadmill) I haven't been able to train anywhere but inside the gym, since when I don't have my children I'm working and exercise is the last thing I want to do after 12 hours of work, sit in front of the tv and watch <i>Monk</i> or <i>House</i> while stuffing my face (drowning my emotional/physical/psychological stressors of the day) is what I'm more inclined towards. So if you read this before Sunday morning EST please send good thoughts my way that I make it through this triathlon and fingers crossed that I get downstaffed that night so I needn't go to work.Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-61941542930744831082012-08-07T21:58:00.004-04:002012-08-22T23:44:46.121-04:00good stick<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">picture from ignitelight.tumblr.com</td></tr>
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This is a picture that I've had on my desktop for ages. I've been wanting to write about it, there's so much I'm always wanting to write about, a constant dialogue I want to type out when I'm near a computer but creating time to do this is hard for me right now. Excuses excuses, from the little I've read of Outliers Malcolm Gladwell would tell me that I need to find the time, like 10,000 hours of time and then I will have mastered it. Ah, life gets in my way. But this picture I got from a site that I look at pretty much daily. I love to check in and see the pretty pictures, which seem to be anglophile heavy landscape wise, gorgeous pictures of green green mountains with lovely little cottages tucked into between them. Maybe I thought they're anglophile heavy because during the summer they were posting so many pics of women in hunter boots, looking impossibly stylish in rubber boots. They have great pictures of beaches, thoughtful quotes, stylish white kitchens, slender woman looking impossibly chic, it's an envy/inspiration heavy site for me. Except for pictures of England and Scotland's cliffs, which make my heart beat faster just looking at them online, because I fear my children leaping like lemmings off of them. Not because my children have no sense so much as my brain likes to torture me. Now this photo above showed up about a month or so ago and when I saw it I thought - 1. cute top, because I'm a sucker for heathered grey anything 2. interesting jewelry because that's a rather uncrunchy take on crystal jewelry, I like the simplicity of it 3. she has nice clavicles and what appears to be nice hair (the hair envy never ends for me) and 4. and what I really honed in on, she would be a good stick. I don't have to do many peripheral sticks on my patients because most of them have PICC lines or central lines but occasionally I do have to and I always get a bit nervous unless someone has a vein that is this obvious and easy. She doesn't even have a tourniquet on but you can see the vein clearly in her antecubital space, it would be a ridiculously easy or good stick. Angelina Jolie, Sarah Jessica Parker and Madonna all three of them are also very good sticks because they've got prominent veins all over their arms and hands. In nursing school a guy in my class that I first auscultated a blood pressure on had antecubital veins so good I could see them pulsate. Young men are in demand for bone marrow donations because it is so easy to harvest peripheral stem cells from their antecubital (a/c for short) veins. But when I clicked on the picture to see it better I saw all these other people that had reposted this picture and I can't tell you how many of them were people, I'm assuming young women, coveting her thinness (thinspiration, ameliaslowlydisappearing, keeplovethin, iwanttobetheskinniest, thinisthenewperfect, gracefullydisappearing) that's just a sampling. I felt sad seeing that, for those girls and for myself because although that wasn't what was entering my mind when I looked at the photo God knows I've been in that place before. And still am whenever I see someone with impossibly slender legs or the tiniest of stomachs. I mean I thought that she had nice clavicles but I didn't covet them, my clavicles are pretty prominent and my chest is pretty bony. If I need anything shot in heart, a la Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction (which isn't likely given I don't really even drink much anymore) no one would have a problem finding my intercostal spaces). But my chest is thin from age, from the chest up I've lost my youthful plumpness but from the chest down things aren't so bony. It makes me sad that so many of us women are expending so much fucking energy fighting with our bodies. If I had channeled that energy towards anything else, school, writing, medicine, anything positive, well it would easily exceed ten thousand hours and I'd have something to show for it.Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-5999334805361341632012-07-26T21:25:00.000-04:002012-07-26T21:25:24.721-04:00my little songbird<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I've got to work tomorrow through Sunday and I've got the familiar pit of dread in my stomach that comes every Thursday evening. I want work to get to a place where I don't get so stressed out about it, but I think that would entail having a different job. Nursing, permanently twisting the knife in my wound that is worry. My stress pit is larger tonight, I imagine it's blossomed beyond the tight fist the usually resides between my umbilicus and xiphoid process because I had to drop Oona off and I really had such a lovely time with her this week. She's such a sweetheart and we really bonded having four days where it was just the two of us. I loved listening to her sing; in the car, at home, in a store, she just sings her little heart out and she really has a beautiful voice. Her repertoire includes Adele, Lily Allen, songs from Mary Poppins and this week she added Juliana Hatfield to the mix. We had such a nice little routine, just the two of us and I let her and her favorite stuffed animal monkey, which is, surprise surprise, a pink knitted monkey, sleep with me. I'm going to miss her because she's off to the ex in-laws to have her own week in the country with them and her cousin, who's the same age. I'm sure Oona will have a blast but I'm going to miss my baby girl. She told me that monkey could sleep in my bed while she's gone, I think she believes we look after each other since will both miss Oona. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">the two of us squeaky clean from a shower after being at the pool</td></tr>
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<br />Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-77826919225286047642012-07-25T23:08:00.001-04:002012-07-26T10:48:25.361-04:00uncleYesterday I was beginning to think I might have been infected with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/28_Days_Later">rage virus</a>. Not that I was going off on anyone just that the littlest things would upset me. It was one of those days where bad things just keep piling up on you, and you're wondering if you should have just pulled up the covers and ceded that day. I went to the gym and as I'm getting stuff from my locker a morbidly obese woman sitting naked right next to my locker lets out a huge fart in my direction and absentmindedly says 'sorry'. I'm trying to hold my breath and collect my stuff when she lets out another, even louder and longer than the last one. She doesn't even bother to apologize that time and I'm thinking, is it really that hard to control your flatulence until no one's face is anywhere near the vicinity of your ass? It was just a day where the interior monologue is heavy on profanity with God and Christ getting thrown into that mix. I didn't curse out loud until an idiot in her CRV almost backed right into Oona and I. Even then I didn't curse at her, just said look where you're driving you almost hit us. But under my breath I muttered a fuck heavy diatribe getting Oona safely into the car. The way people drive in parking lots makes me rabid and it was just one loooong day where I felt like I was in a parking lot with bad drivers. And do I really need to be friend's with my ex on Facebook so I can see how wonderful his life is? And how everyone likes that? I mean it's great, do not get me wrong, it's not like I don't wish him well, I'm truly glad he found someone and is happy. But I don't need to virtually be told how peachy keen things are over there while I'm ready to a. weep b. pass out c. devour carbs d. join a cult. I'm just kidding with the last one since I'm not much of a joiner. Tuesday was just a fucking nightmare day filled with rage but always I rage hardest against myself. My insides feel clawed.<br />
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So I talked to Owen last night and had a nice chat with the ex mother in law, who apologized that Owen had hung up on me the night before and she filled me in on the fun Owen is having. Either everyone is reading my blog and correcting their behavior or I just took things too personally. Hmmm, wonder which one it is?<br />
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<br />Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-86848638153797088922012-07-24T00:53:00.001-04:002012-07-25T22:23:05.430-04:00lessons from my daughterSomehow I feel that Oona is on to something. Although this probably has more to do with genetics and the way her alleles lined up than any sudden realization that dawned on her at the time she started speaking. Both of my children have no trouble talking to adults, they're confident and comfortable speaking with them, something I never was at that age. I'm still probably working on this, which is why I'm writing about Oona.<br />
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But first I need to mention Owen. Owen is away for the week at his grandparents in the country. Oona goes next week. My mom will most likely never take them for a week because that would be too much for her, at least that's what I was told this summer. But that's a post for another day. So I'm calling the ex in-laws, and I dread calling there because, let's just say my ex-in laws aren't real interested in small talk with me. I called tonight asked how Owen was and if he had fun today and the reply was 'Oh yeah, here I'll pass you along to him and let him tell you.' Owen gets on the line says hi and then tells me there's a movie that just started on tv. I ask what he did today and his response is 'nothing much' then 'Iloveyouhaveagoodnight.' I told him he was being a turkey and that he'd have to talk to me more tomorrow. And then the phone just hung up. No one took back the phone to tell me what had actually occurred today or, God forbid, turned off the tv so he could focus for two seconds on a conversation with his mom. Mmmm, can you just imagine how much I look forward to calling them tomorrow. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oona got the one and only fancy pink chair</td></tr>
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So today was a day just for Oona and me. We went to get mani/pedis because Oona's never gotten one before and I must have mentioned this idea very briefly (like a nanosecond) in passing a couple weeks ago but Oona homed in on it right away and it's been mentioned frequently since then. So Oona was knelling over all the colors and it was tough for her to narrow it down to just four shades, two for the toes and two for the fingers, but she somehow managed. I think she had a better time than me. I put my feet in my boring unchanging water and was promptly scalded. Seriously, it was so damn hot I don't know how I escaped second degree burns, guess I got them out quick enough. Then I asked that they not cut Oona's cuticles or mine because, that's supposed to be an easy way to get a fungal infection, you don't want to break the skin's protective barrier. And yes having a fungal infection would suhuhck (have you ever seen how nasty peoples toenails get from them?) but the even worse thing, in my opinion, is that you have to take oral anti fungal pills for a long time (months) and they have horrific side effects just check out <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamisil">lamisil</a> here. A little liver failure for you? Or how about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporanox">sporanox</a> with the small but very real risk of congestive heart failure? To be honest the one side effect of lamisil that I learned about and which scared me the most was ageusia or loss of taste. I read an article somewhere or other about a woman that got a toenail infection from a manicure, treated it and wound up with ageusia. Fortunately it was only temporary but just reading how profoundly it affected her was terrifying to me.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">and yes not only is the chair fancy the water changes colors<br />
from teal to blue to purply blue and back again WOW</td></tr>
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I thought I had a fungal infection on my big toes over the winter, it turned out to be the my clogs for work were too small and rubbing the tips of my toenails ($125 down the drain for those white patent leather Sanitas) And, if you were to ever get a fungal infection on your toenails don't use fungi-nail, which is like a nail polish thing. Because even though it says fungi-nail in big lettering all over the goddamn package and shows an awful fungus ridden toenail, you will find somewhere on the bottle, in 4 point font, that it doesn't actually work for fungal infections of the toenails. Seriously. I kid you not I returned a bottle for just such a reason. The lady in lace didn't do the cuticles on Oona but the lady in what appeared to be a knock off lacoste started on me and I said no and damned if five minutes later she didn't use it on my pinky toe when I had very clearly said 'do not cut my cuticles. no cut. I don't want that.' Then I get the manicure and she says I should save money and just get a polish change because I don't want my cuticles cut but I did want the flipping hand massage stuff, yet didn't get it. Fucking waste of my money, especially considering my thumbnail smeared before I walked out the door. Grrrrrrrrrr<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">supercuts for men, women & Oona mismatched socks, only Oona</td></tr>
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After the mani/pedi, if I get a fungal infection so help them, I took Oona to get her bangs cut because she won't wear them pulled back in a barrette and I can't stand them in her eyes. I cannot even stand seeing stars with bangs cut at eye level, it's a huge pet peeve of mine, hair in the eyes I think it makes people look at least 40 IQ points less intelligent, and with some of those said hair in eyes banged stars they don't have much to work with on the IQ front. But watching Oona at Supercuts was something to behold. She is more comfortable talking to those ladies than me. I could hear her chatting with the lady doing her shampoo the whole time, telling her about watching Rugrats, and that her brother is out in the country with grammy and paw paw, and that her best friend is Chloe and she wants her to come over for a play date. And the lady doing her shampoo, another customer, the guy shampooing that woman, they were all totally charmed by her. Oona just says whatever comes into her head and never thinks twice to edit herself. She doesn't have concerns the way I do where I will over analyze (nobody cares what you think) and edit (don't say that you'll sound dumb) until I don't say anything. And the thing is Oona is really bright and articulate when she talks and I think she has so much passion for life and all the stuff she's talking about, it just bubbles over and infects those around her in a delightful way. Everyone seemed happier when she was around.<br />
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And I looked at myself in the mirror and I just looked sad. Like that absolutely revolting drivel Cindy Crawford spewed about the face you have at twenty being what god or genetics (secular or non-secular, I can't be compelled to get the actual quote) gave you, but the face you have at forty being the one you earned. So she has earned an <a href="http://www.celebitchy.com/213948/cindy_crawford_looks_different_at_the_cliche_rum_launch_has_she_had_work_done/">overly tweaked look</a> that lifted the sexiness right out of her lovely ever so slightly hooded yet sultry eyes. But can that trite cliche be true? Had the past twenty three years earned me this face where my eyes always look sad and, yes, very tired. My previous post about the incident with the fellow last week. I came in friday and he was fine with me. Like it didn't even register to him and briefly my blood pressure spiked and I thought<i> I've got to delete that post! What if he finds it.</i> Because I'm sure my blog is something he's going to happen upon and read in his infinitesimal downtime. I'm taking things way way too personally, or I'm overly sensitive and when people flare up and get nasty but then cool down and are their happy go lucky selves five minutes later I'm still hurting from that flare up. Or it's some combination of the not registering, taking things personally, highly sensitive person perfect storm of melancholy. I feel like I try so hard at everything and it gets me nowhere near where I want to be. I wonder if I'm trying too hard. Do I have to let go somewhat? I wouldn't even know how to go about doing that. This is when I want some of what my daughter has, that innate confidence and fearlessness.Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-72788780457215814532012-07-19T14:16:00.003-04:002012-07-24T10:18:28.249-04:00play nice<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vy0pciceLSo/UAYTk51HekI/AAAAAAAACqw/G9zZJ-FK0hA/s1600/intothewoods.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vy0pciceLSo/UAYTk51HekI/AAAAAAAACqw/G9zZJ-FK0hA/s320/intothewoods.jpg" width="208" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">into the woods, this is how I feel facing each work week, except the woods are much more foreboding</td></tr>
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I have been so mad and upset for most of the week, still kicking around the hurt from work this past weekend. The odd thing is nothing absoltuely horrible happened. Friday the 13th sucked, I got an admission with change of shift which is always a huge pain in the ass. It's not difficult so much as I hate leaving my patient just sitting there wondering why it's taking me forever and a day to get around to them. But, this patient and his wife were understanding. Things went smoothly with them, the patient got a central line placed, foley put in (for continuous bladder irrigation because some chemos can cause hemorrhagic cystitis) and the chemo was up by 4:00. I got through it all without a problem. I had to deal with the rude IV nurse whose lack of industry and rudeness is such a slap in the face when the other two IV nurses are so friendly and helpful, seriously I sometimes wish I could find out this shrew's schedule just so I could make sure to schedule myself when she isn't working. But so I paged her about a patient and she did the absolute minimum, just slapped a dressing over the existing leaking one and didn't bother to change it, it's lazy and stupid but not entirely unexpected given who it was. </div>
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Saturday I had four patients. I was busy busy and one of my patients handles fear of the unknown by being terribly mean-spirited, making comments about basically everything I do. Saying 'overkill. overkill' when I'm examining their feet, palpating for the pedal pulse. Talking about how golfing is for fools that don't know how to fish and then saying 'Do you golf Kim?' I just try to deal with it and not let it take too much out of me, but I find behavior like that, well it's sort of like having a dementor for a patient, it can be wearing. My central line guy's dressing was leaking. Again. No surprise given the half assed way the dressing was taken care of yesterday. The IV nurse was on the floor and asked if anyone needed help before she left, behavior that was noteworthy for it's rareness coming from her. I said, yes my patient in room #- needs his dressing changed. To which she replied, what's the problem. Well it's starting to leak again and the dressing is coming up near the biopatch (an antibacterial foam disk near the insertion site to decrease the risk of infection). Her reply, if the biopatch is exposed it's your responsibility to change the dressing. I say but the line was placed less than 24 hours ago it was my understanding that only IV team can change dressings within that time. She makes some other comment about how she can't do this and how it's something I should take care of and then I say 'Didn't you just ask if anyone on the floor had anything you could take care of?' That silenced her and she asked what room number and said she'd look at it on her way out. Fifteen minutes later I saw her walking off the unit and I went in my patient's room to ask if she had checked in on him. No she hadn't. </div>
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I gave her another hour but she didn't come back and by that time I figured 'fuck it' I might not do these changes as often as IV team but I'm anal to a fault when it comes to them so I just got the supplies and did it myself, and as nervous as I get about doing the dressing changes I do really good work, lines that seem to have an issue with leaking stop when I change the dressing. It's like glorified cleaning but using sterile technique and being on a person. I'm good when it's very important to make something clean and neat. The IV nurse showed up five hours later to change my patient's dressing at which point he said 'no it's already been changed.' This nurse then tried to remove the dressing I had done saying I shouldn't have put gauze where his steri-strips were, that I just should have put the dressing directly on top, that it would heal better that way. His skin at that site was a bit boggy (soft and moist) and I figured that it would be make more sense to put the gauze there to get the moisture and feel much better and if that area was moist how good a seal could you make with the dressing without gauze and why are flipping showing up hours after the fact and then acting all righteous and indignant at the fact that I changed the dressing. The patient got annoyed with her and told her to just leave it, he was fine. This patient, my admit from Friday, got discharged early Saturday evening, he gave me a hug on leaving. He was such a nice man and so delightful to take care of. He was a much harder patient than my walkie talkie dementor but I will take a challenging complete care patient any day if they're friendly. I don't mind working I have a harder time with emotional vampires.</div>
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Sunday my patients were easy, no blood, platelets or replacements. I only had three after my discharge yesterday evening. I couldn't beleive my luck. Then I saw it was at the expense of another nurse who had an assignment from Hell. I told her I would help her as much as I could and I tried to do my best, to help her out. I was getting pain medicine for one of her patients when my day took a nosedive. I went in the room and the patient was bleeding from the mouth. I knew he needed blood and platelets so I became concerned about a spontaneous bleed and hollered for the nurse. My old preceptor, who I love, came in to help me out and she called for the doctors. The resident came in first and then the fellow, I was trying to draw up the patient's morphine into a syringe. Now the problem was the morphine wasn't in a regular glass vial (short and squat that you place an equal amount of air as what you want to draw up ) but in one of the long slender vials that's supposed to be used with a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhC3O8n_UJ8">carpuject</a> but no one does that they just draw it up with a syringe (my first night working during orientation I accidentally put air in this vial and the bottom exploded off, along with my morphine, leaving me panicked that they'd think I'd taken the medication. fortunately others have made this stupid mistake). So I'm trying to draw up this med and I hated doing it from these slender vials and the fellow is looking at me like I've got three heads and I don't do well performing tasks in front of watchful eyes. The fellow suddenly says 'How long have you worked here?' And tone is everything. It wasn't friendly, or conversational or even humorous, it was a wafer thin veil of contempt. He might as well have said 'what the fuck are you doing?' I said, 'I'm new here, I started in February. Why?' All the time I've got this fucking syringe in one hand and vial in the other still trying to draw up the med under his black eyed scrutiny, sweating in the gloves and yellow gown. His response was because I've worked here over three years. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rN7If8Wu-Ko/UAYThtP95sI/AAAAAAAACqo/a0SKZkf9R-0/s1600/beanscrunchynose.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rN7If8Wu-Ko/UAYThtP95sI/AAAAAAAACqo/a0SKZkf9R-0/s320/beanscrunchynose.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">perhaps I would have gotten a better response if I just looked at him like this? would go over much better if I was as cute as my daughter.</td></tr>
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That was it and for the life of me I started thinking. What did I do wrong? Did I accidentally touch the needle hub with my gloved finger (due to the patient being on contact precautions). Was he mad that I had emptied the emesis basin three times rather than save the bloody water the patient had spit out. What had I done that could justify incurring such invalidating behavior. And it wasn't even my fucking patient. I was helping out. Emptying C difficile bedside commodes (diarrhea heavy and a smell that can make even veteran nurses gag). What did I do? I felt unnerved the rest of the day. And when I went up to the resident, I avoided the fellow, about another patient, very tearful, very depressed, due to be discharged the next day but talking about just wanting to be dead. I'm like this patient needs help. We need to get a psych consult. The resident nodded and the fellow just looked at me with this smile like I was an imbecile unleashed on the floor and the attending, to his credit, nodded and agreed that the patient seemed much more depressed but I felt my wee bit of confidence in my work eroding with this fellow's reactions to anything I did. At the end of the day I steeled myself and asked him about a medication for another patient, and it became this cat and mouse game. I don't think the patient needs this med, perhaps colace but not miralax, he's had three bowel movements today and two yesterday. He told me he had no bowel movements yesterday. Yes, well he had two, he mentioned blood on the toilet paper when he wiped the second time while he was getting platelets yesterday, I talked to him about not straining. He had told me he hadn't gone. Yeah, well he did go, twice. We don't need the medicine. Which he hadn't ordered, I'd seen it in the progress notes but no order in the computer. I don't know it sounds so inconsequential but his tone, so dismissive and the way he would look at me, like I was an idiot or else he would avoid looking at me. But then the next second he's all friendly and chummy with the registry nurse sitting right next to me. It was awful, honestly I came home and cried. Why can't people be nicer. I so miss Aaron and Jason, two of the fellows from last year. Who were so easy to talk to and Jason went out of his way to tell me I was doing a good job. Now I get to deal with this guy until next July. Delightful. I hate that I get so unnerved by dismissive doctors. Please pray that next Friday through Sunday goes better.</div>
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<br />Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-72460398890836926572012-07-09T22:29:00.001-04:002012-07-10T14:16:14.060-04:00code rugrat<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">my little rugrat lover</span></td></tr>
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Oona is a very loving, intelligent and strong-willed girl. I don't worry about her the way I do my son, because I think she's got a strong enough sense of self that she'll never let anyone push her around. She is going to set the world on fire, I knew it as soon as her head popped out of me. I can swear that her body wasn't even out of me all the way yet and she let out a surprisingly hearty for a newborn cry. Is that even possible? I feel like the RN in me should know this stuff, it would seem unlikely but that's the way I remember things. Needless to say once I heard her cry a part of me thought, 'uh oh.' like what have I gotten myself into?<br />
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She slept most of the first year, slept <i>a lot.</i> We would wake her up, and she wasn't our first baby so we knew better than to chance things like waking a baby that might then be up all night but she was unbelievably easy and very well rested that first year. I think she was preparing. Storing her energy, like a caterpillar biding her time before she burst out of the cocoon of infancy. Look out.<br />
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She has a very different personality than Owen. She has been able to charm the pants off of anyone since she was two or three. She's got incredibly big, beautiful brown eyes framed by long dark lashes and the sweetest little angelic face, I feel like this is some genetic compensation that allows her to unleash her fury and not get harmed as a result. Oona knows how to throw a tantrum. Oona knows what she wants and when she doesn't get what she wants heaven help anyone keeping her from getting what she wants.<br />
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I talked to a 'talk doc', Owen's name for a wonderful therapist my ex and I took the kids to during our separation and when Owen had some issues after my dad's death and more recently with a kid whose a bit of a bully. The talk doc thought Owen was doing great so I asked her about Oona because, well certain women can take one look at Oona or briefly interact with her and see just what a challenge Oona will be as a child before she takes over the world as an adult and the talk doc had Oona's personality down from the first day she met her. The talk doc suggested getting a box or basket with items of Oona's choosing to help her soothe herself and preemptively avert a tantrum and I would then give Oona much positive feedback for deescalating on her own.<br />
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I discussed the self soothing box or basket idea with Oona and Owen in the car, it's seems we're always in the car, while bringing them home one day. Oona embraced the idea, if only because she was quickly filling that box or basket up with so much stuff that it sounded more like Martha Stewart's craft room. Kudos to Oona for at least thinking to put books in her self soothing container. Owen quietly asked if he could have a box and I said sure, knowing he would never have reason to need this box. When I asked Owen what he wanted to put in his box he said, a hole puncher. He didn't even ask for paper at first but after some prodding said he'd like paper and a hole puncher that makes special shapes. Then he said he'd also like a lighter, not because he's a 9 year old pyromaniac but just because he likes to look at flames but he also knew my parenting skills well enough to realize that there was no way I was putting a lighter in that box. I passed the idea along to Toby and his wife and she said maybe they could download the app for his iPhone (he and Oona have their older iPhones at their house). That sounded safe and clever.<br />
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So a few weeks later Oona, Owen and I are in the checkout line at Whole Foods and we're trying to figure out a code that I can call, sort of a secret phrase, when I think Oona's getting close to a meltdown. Oona loved this idea, while I was explaining about codes at the hospital and she kept rattling off every color in the rainbow and then it was code lemon meringue pie and then she hopped up and down (the checkout lady was an older non-tattooed whole foods employee, the less than 1%, and was having a good time just watching Oona in action with this idea and, fortunately, there was no one behind us) and said, I've got it! Code Rugrat! We made our way over to the orchid forest (aka the booths where the they've propped potted orchid plants all along the wall the cordons the section off) and I thought maybe this is just what I need to get us through Oona's next few years until the tantrums end, they have to end eventually right? To my way of thinking 6 seems old for tantrums but what do I know some adults continue to throw them and get away with it.<br />
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Thus Code Rugrat was born and damned if I can remember to call that code when Oona starts heating up, in her prodromal phase. I really feel that I need a code (code ennui? code apoplexy? code maladroit mom?) because after getting the kids today from Toby's house (they were away for a week in which I did fuck all around the house, aside from sleep in on the day or two that I could) Oona had like three meltdowns and when she wasn't doing that she was being disrespectful and talking at me with attitude, complete with hand motions and eye rolls, absolutely revolting behavior in anyone but especially my 6 year old daughter. And dealing with that all day all does not make me a happy or nice person so I'm definitely close to a meltdown of my own after enduring that all day. By 6:30 I was count the minutes until bedtime, a huge headache blossoming on the right side of my head.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">the unfortunate outcome if a code rugrat is not called</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-43561810815804856192012-07-04T18:09:00.003-04:002012-07-04T18:10:22.962-04:00independence dayMy children are gone for the week, out in the country at my ex in-laws. Last year, when I was still in school, I would have been able to take advantage of this time to myself and do stuff (being me, most likely it would have been fixing stuff up around my 100 plus year old house of cards that I call home). But now that I'm working any free time is eroded, especially working nights this week and last, I sleep fitfully during the day, wake up at noon and can't get back to sleep (which is really really bad if you're going to be working 7 pm - 7 am later that night). I walk around in the drunken fumes of sleep exhaustion, trying to function on four hours sleep, trying to find the right way to explain when I last worked, surprisingly confounding for one that's college educated, not yesterday but last night into this morning. I had a free Monday and I can't even tell you how I spent it except to say that I don't think I got enough done. Slept tuesday to work last night, in a hermetically sealed nurses station where I can't see the outside world. I didn't realize how bad it was storming until I went to get a coffee in the lounge around 1:00 am.<br />
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I'm back to work tonight, I'll be missing fireworks, which is no biggie for me since I used to be terrified of them. Seriously they used to render me close to catatonic as a child, way way too loud I remember my mom taking me to watch them outside, spreading a blanket for me and her date and I was five or so, very excited to see the lights in the sky and then it started and I had my first experience with absolute terror, I couldn't move, I might have started crying or screaming, I can't remember. My mom had to carry me to the car, guess I ruined that date.</div>
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I'll come home tomorrow and sleep then I get a free day for Friday and then it's back to work, mornings this time, for the weekend and then I get the kids Monday morning. My two free days I don't even know how to properly suck the marrow out of them because I'm still trying to get my body back to being among those who do stuff during daylight hours. How the fuck am I going to accomplish anything, going back to school, cleaning the house, having a life, on this schedule, it's like the employment equivalent of a death eater sucking the life out of me. </div>
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In other, match maker news, match continues to disappoint reaffirming my belief that my golden years will be spent with a vibrator and a stack of saucy erotica, if I can find erotic writing that I actually think is well written and erotic. I had a date last week with a man that I was really getting along well with through writing. He sounded very nice and we have a lot of shared interests and he's a doctor in a related field so I was like cha-ching, I hit the jackpot, a man I can use as a sort of medical pensieve (I'll try to limit the Harry Potter references from here on out). I should have listened to my gut (Malcolm Gladwell would be so disappointed with me) when there was only one headshot on his profile. Now, to be fair, this man was incredibly kind, unbelievably polite and really interesting. But, let's put it this way, he listed himself as stocky and he's probably a good seventy pounds overweight. Plus I think the headshot of himself was taken a good decade (maybe two?) ago. As soon as I saw him sitting at a table, not facing me, he had left the seat that faced the room for me, like I say unbelievably polite that way, but all my hopes sort of deflated when I saw his flesh straining at his clothing (just one more Harry Potter reference, like Aunt Marge when Harry puts the spell on her and she starts to swell). He made the chair he was sitting in look so tiny and he was only an inch taller than me. </div>
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And, one other sort of odd thing with the dinner. Well first, I can't believe I didn't post this on Facebook but I saw this slight, asian man with a pleasant face pop up in the doorway and I said to my date, 'Isn't that George Takei' lo and behold it was. Mr Sulu wound up sitting right next to me at a neighboring table. I didn't post it because I never really watched Star Trek, caught an episode here and there, I'm not a trekkie but I have many friends that are, although I'm a friend of George Takei's on Facebook because I love his posts, think they're great, very playful and liberal, he's done a lot for gays just by being his lovable self on Facebook but I'd feel like an imposter bragging about this sighting because, while I was happy I knew who it was in a heartbeat, it's not like I'm going to fawn over this man and disrupt his meal. My date stood up and shook Mr. Takei's hand as he was leaving and thanked him for his work (he's a trekkie). Anyhoo, so I had written that I wouldn't eat much the day of our date because I wanted to fill up on all the sushi at one of my f<a href="http://www.bigburrito.com/umi/">avorite restaurants</a> in Pittsburgh but this man ordered so much flipping sushi and kept holding off on eating certain pieces and kept encouraging me to eat everything, even though I was stuffed half way through the meal, it was sort of weird, like was this some feeder thing? I'm sure he was, once again, just being exceedingly polite and me, being exceedingly untrustworthy and bitchy, I go to feeder fantasies. I hate dating.</div>
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In other news I went to see a sports medicine doctor for my ongoing back and hip issues. This guy was funny. At first I couldn't tell if he was flirting with me because #1 I can never really tell when someone is flirting with me, my flirting radar is nonexistent but #2 he'd look, smile and interact with me in a way that made me think 'is there something on my face or stuck in my teeth? is that why he keeps looking at me?' Like I say my gauge for determining if someone finds me attractive, it's nonexistent. And, anyway the doctor is married because he answered a text while talking to me. OH NO YOU DIDN'T! Can I harp on how fucking unprofessional and disrespectful it is to even look at your phone while being with a patient unless you preface it by I'm expecting a call, with intonations of pathology results of the five year old whose life you're single handily trying to save. This doctor is giving the med student who initially examined me a hard time because she didn't make small talk with me and learn about my interests and then he's like, looks at phone, my wife didn't sleep last night, why didn't she tell me she couldn't sleep, she should have woken me up, that's why she wouldn't go to the gym with me, my wife my wife my wife, the uxoriousness he displayed, I'm thinking is this an act or compensation for a cheating mind, heart, penis? Once again displaying my untrustworthy bitchiness.<br />
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Well, as a doctor, aside from the phone thing, he was great. He said my situation is different because I'm so flexible, even being stiff and injured I'm exceedingly flexible, he seemed strangely delighted, like he was playing with a new toy, putting me through motions and moving my legs to see just how far they could go. He actually took the time to get a resident, who goes back and forth between this hospital and a competing system, to bring up my MRIs online and then point out to me what he thought was my problem. So after talking to him I decided to hold off on the steroid injection in my back, he doesn't think it will help, try physical therapy yet again to strengthen my core, being flexible (or floppy in my mind) is makes back issues likely because moving so easily it can cause the vertebrae to also move easily. And, my favorite part about the doctor, he ordered a mess load of blood work. But not without quizzing me on what one blood test was 'come on you should know this you're straight out of school.' To my eternal shame I didn't. I'd, in fact, never heard of the blood test (ACE) before. I know what ACE stands for and what ACE inhibitors are but an ACE test to see if I have sarcoidosis? I'm going to bet that test comes back negative. But he ordered so many flipping serum test, seriously they drew something like 7 or 8 tubes. I talked to phlebotomist while my right antecubital vein was squirting in the tubes (I'm sick that I enjoy hearing the blood spraying into a vaccutainer tube) and got info about which tubes do in fact need to have blood up to the black line and which can you cheat on and by how much. All in all that was a productive doctor's appointment. </div>
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I've got to iron my scrubs, I seem to be the less than 1% that do this, and get ready for work.</div>
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<br /></div>Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-87714109575935430922012-06-23T22:59:00.000-04:002012-06-24T17:51:48.638-04:00the unfairness of it allI was supposed to by working tonight but I got down staffed, which entails being called at the last minute and told not to come in because the patient census is low. Oh and yes I don't get paid, there goes a third of my weekly pay. So I'm at home, scarfed down some food (because I hadn't eaten since 1:30 last night, night shift makes me goofy in every way) and am watching <i>Pretty in Pink </i>with young, lovely Molly Ringwald and her full full lips and beautifully complex teenage characters. Andrew McCarthy looking impossibly young and earnest, and James Spader his perfect foil, the nastiest richie of 80s cinematic history. I just can't deal with Duckie because I never really liked that character in the film, found him annoying, and his current connection to Two and a Half Men, just intensifies my Dukie distaste. How do people enjoy that show? But I'm happy typing away while half watching and listening the eighties soundtrack of this movie.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8yRrG37CVJw/T-ZlmpjyLxI/AAAAAAAACog/Julfw2XrYJE/s1600/baconwarrior.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8yRrG37CVJw/T-ZlmpjyLxI/AAAAAAAACog/Julfw2XrYJE/s320/baconwarrior.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Owen is <i>the</i> bacon warrior<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So last night I got an admission as soon as I started my shift, I was working overnight. Admissions are time consuming and getting one when you first start work, it's like the kiss of death, it already made me feel behind in my work before I even started. My patient had a DVT (deep vein thrombosis) and would require argatroban (an anticoagulant) which would require me drawing blood two hours after I started treatment in order to monitor the patient's PTT and then titrate the Argatroban accordingly. Nightmare! I've never hung Argatroban, I've had a patient with a heparin drip once. I take any of these meds (insulin, anticoagulants, chemo) where you can basically kill a person by infusing at the wrong rate (one missed decimal point) very seriously. But when I looked on the computer to see what rate to start this medication at it required a dosing nomogram (meaning the rate of the medication is determined by the patient's weight, showing a formula of 2 mcgs/kg/min where the mcg/min = 0.01 mg/ml) I read that and was like what the fuck? Please tell me there's going to be more explicit information on how to hang this.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gw5sVeZ3yfw/T-ZlnkC9xyI/AAAAAAAACoo/fwjfEN-2Ws8/s1600/oona&me.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gw5sVeZ3yfw/T-ZlnkC9xyI/AAAAAAAACoo/fwjfEN-2Ws8/s320/oona&me.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oona & I working on her sticker dolly dressing book<br />
while waiting for the Dr to come and check out my back</td></tr>
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I had calculated the rate and determined it would be 12.68 ml/hr but I asked another nurse to help me out because I felt the weight of losing my license if I miscalculated on this, not to mention the patient I could potentially kill. Now this nurse I asked for help, she can be a bit passive aggressive, at least I think that's what she's doing I'm not quite sure. She said to me 'I don't mean to insult your intelligence' when we were going over the calculation, which I did correctly (although she has said 'I don't mean to insult your intelligence' to me before, also at times when I don't think I'm being outright stupid, maybe it's her version of a non sequitur dig?) Then she got short with me, like mother with kids having a meltdown short, because I was shaking my head in frustration at having to calculate this stuff, she was like 'You can't become this frustrated over this.' My response was 'I get worried when I could potentially lose my license and this isn't safe to just send up a label with a rate of 0.01 mg/ml and expect me to figure out the rate.' This belief that you truly learn and become better organized and handle stress well in these healthcare pressure cooker situations is absolute bullshit and I'd really like to see the culture change with the thinking. This nurse was very helpful in helping me call pharmacy to cover my ass and have the pharmacist verify that that was in fact the correct rate and then when he saw that the label didn't reflect this he said he'd correct that in the computer if I could get the doctor to resubmit the order so that it would reflect the patient's weight. Needless to say it got corrected and made a lot easier to figure out but yes I was very frustrated having to deal with that within the first three hours of my shift. Fortunately two hours in the patient was in the goal range for PTT and the patient was still in goal range with morning labs so I didn't have to titrate at all - phew.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AEDDCyrwCgQ/T-Zl5ByX9rI/AAAAAAAACo4/Vu04ao72pSw/s1600/robot.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AEDDCyrwCgQ/T-Zl5ByX9rI/AAAAAAAACo4/Vu04ao72pSw/s320/robot.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I am a robot, well really a dinamap at the dr.'s office.<br />
Owen loved this contraption and took many a pic of it</td></tr>
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I think all of my major issues at work are things that can affect patient safety and what I see as ambiguity or unclear things that can affect the nurse, especially the very busy overworked nurse, why not make sure the the actual rate is calculated and very clearly labeled on said medication rather than send it up and leave it to the nurse with four patients, one an admit, another about to get chemo and a third needing constant pain management to figure it out?! Let me go back to my Amazon example that I beat like a dead horse, they make it basically idiot proof to order a book and I think the same sort of idiot proof steps should be used in healthcare software systems, especially when it comes to high risk medications (meaning you have to have another nurse look at the meds with you). I know that we as nurses have to think and be able to do math but for God's sake make the job a wee bit easier considering the stresses we're under every day.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SNMIa19VGS0/T-Zl368XGOI/AAAAAAAACow/b5ZlQe5I92I/s1600/redwhite&blue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SNMIa19VGS0/T-Zl368XGOI/AAAAAAAACow/b5ZlQe5I92I/s320/redwhite&blue.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">Red white and blue day at school and I had nothing patriotic for my kids so <br />
Owen decided to use a soiled cloth napkin as he red around the neck<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In other unfairness news. Last week I came home from working night shift to be greeted by cat puke as soon as I opened the door. My cats are trying to kill me, with each and every darting step in front of my path as I walk downstairs. They are trying to break me. Not really but I am really having a tough time having them of late and am counting down the days til they expire. Cruel? Yes but I just don't have the energy for them with my present life, which feels a blur.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ggmoNBVDzSo/T-ZmFdG7a3I/AAAAAAAACpA/bnudjhqdlfQ/s1600/winterwonderland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ggmoNBVDzSo/T-ZmFdG7a3I/AAAAAAAACpA/bnudjhqdlfQ/s320/winterwonderland.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oona's Winter Wonderland game, land on a yellow snow square and you lose a turn</td></tr>
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Ooh, it's just at the end of <i>Pretty In Pink</i> where Andrew McCarthy spies Molly Ringwald across the room over the strains of OMD 'If You Leave' and all will work out in the end even if that pink confection of a dress Molly designed is a nightmare, hopefully she didn't get the scholarship for fashion design. And Andrew McCarthy tells her he loves her, what did they have two dates? Ah, impossible young teenage love.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Bh2hqZwJvV8/T-Z46bnOeVI/AAAAAAAACpM/EXg9iyDge8s/s1600/hairenvy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Bh2hqZwJvV8/T-Z46bnOeVI/AAAAAAAACpM/EXg9iyDge8s/s400/hairenvy.jpg" width="248" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">my never ending hair envy runs deep</td></tr>
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There is other unfairness that I want to write about but can't. Unfairness isn't really accurate more 'the hurt of it all'? I have a very hard time if anyone thinks badly of me, strangers, friends, coworkers. I want people to like me and think good things of me; that I'm nice, bright, pretty, funny, helpful. I don't think this terribly strange, don't most people want to be viewed favorably by others? And the way I want to be viewed, well none of it implies power, or trappings of wealth, I think it's all pretty tame. My hair envy, yes I covet that blonde twisted hank of beautiful hair on the girl above but I would be pleased as peach just to have a decent head of shoulder length hair instead of the mange on my head. But then I look at the patients I work with and think maybe I should be happy with my dishwater mange.<br />
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This all skirts the real issue that gnaws at me, my quest to attain a body like <a href="http://www.celebitchy.com/234933/doutzen_kroes_in_a_bikini_might_ruin_your_whole_summer_links/">Doutzen Kroes</a> (I think the genetic cards are stacked against me). No, what's really gnawing at me is more reflective, scab picking maybe? I think the dissolution of a marriage is never happy, even if it is amicable. I think things are always viewed from two (usually very different) points of view. He said she said, he did she did or didn't do. There's going to be a world of hurt when people fall out of love. Anger, rejection, criticism, contempt. None of that is happy stuff. There are many extremely positive qualities to my ex, even if we didn't work well together. John Gottman, who's mentioned in <i>Blink</i> and this <a href="http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/261/the-sanctity-of-marriage?act=1">This American Life link</a> is great at cutting to the heart of doomed marriages, but the inevitability of continuing to interact with that person you failed with when you have children, it isn't always easy. I think if you have children and once loved this person that you have to keep in touch with that, but this can be incredibly hard, perhaps impossible to do if you can't let go of your anger or hurt. I don't have answers. I just know that it makes for many messy, conflicting, strong emotions that might be good for writing fiction or poetry but are incredibly hard to sit with when they're not on the page.<br />
<br />Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-41961166122176343512012-06-11T23:30:00.000-04:002012-06-12T21:31:12.802-04:00flip turn<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wtDhHODSLa0/T9a1U3MLkMI/AAAAAAAACoU/au5v5LeqMjI/s1600/IMG_0158.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wtDhHODSLa0/T9a1U3MLkMI/AAAAAAAACoU/au5v5LeqMjI/s320/IMG_0158.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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I'm sorry but I'm not one for moderation and once I get into something I tend to get tunnel vision and just focus on that thing for a while, which is why I can never ever play Sudoku because the one time I gave myself fully to that brain teasing experience (5 years ago over Thanksgiving weekend) I was ready to ignore my children and just focus on completing my boxes. I get driven in a borderline pathological way when it comes to sudoku, puzzles, well really anything where I feel I must finish it, the pressure I put on myself on things that don't really matter it's just sort of bizarre.<br />
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But anyhow, I am officially registered for my triathlon, which will occur on August 12 at 7:30 am - I'm gonna have a real hard time functioning athletically that early in the morning. My knees, ankles and feet have quickly adjusted to my running. I'm getting better with the swimming too. But my hips are in agony right now. I think it's all connected to my lower back pain, because it will radiate out toward my hips, it's like it rides an angry wave across the top of my ass and then veers sharply and goes down my hip and outer thigh, it is really uncomfortable today. I've taken ibuprofen and it isn't putting a dent in the pain so once I'm done typing this I'm going to slather my ass and thighs in biofreeze and go to bed.<br />
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A big adjustment for me with swimming has been learning how to do the flip turn, where you approach the wall and somersault then twist yourself back into position so you can swim yet another lap. Now three weeks ago when I decided to start this training I didn't even know how to do a flip turn, well to be honest I wasn't ready for a flip turn because I was catching my breath after each lap, but you can sort of intuit how it should work. None of reading about it on swimming related websites helped me glean more ideas about it. At first I probably looked like a deranged penguin. I was not graceful by any means, trying to guesstimate when I was close enough to the wall, pacing my breathing (that's the absolute hardest thing for me with respect to swimming) and trying not to get water up my nose. My left big toe still feels funny because I think I jammed it pushing off the wall a week or so ago.<br />
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But today I felt my flip turns coming together. I'm able to go back and forth four laps before pausing for a quick breather - I do realize I'm not supposed to pause for breathers in my triathlon so I hope to increase the laps I can do before breaking. I no longer hedge in the water wondering am I close enough to the wall or too close. And the very simple but incredibly rewarding part is when I do it perfectly and my feet push off the wall strongly and I'm not too deep so it's easy to break to the surface. It brings me back to the joy I had about swimming when I was a child. I love how quiet it is underwater and the weightless power I feel darting through the lane before coming up for air.<br />
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In totally unrelated news I'm already ready to call it a day with match. I went out to dinner with a very nice man who took me to a very nice restaurant (Umi, my Pittsburgh favorite) and he texted me after the date saying very nice things and how he looked forward to meeting me again. But, this will sound silly perhaps, but the man is conservative. I don't know how I can possibly get along with someone conservative, whose ideology is completely counter to mine. I support gay marriage, the right to choose, universal healthcare, assisting the nation's most vulnerable, not ravaging our natural resources by drilling, fracking or anything else that seems focused on short term gains and fucking our future generations. I know this is an incredibly simple way to look at it but conservatives seem inherently selfish to me, there's that inherent 'hands off it's mine' way of looking at life, or looking the other way when those less fortunate come into view. Like they'll blame them for the choices they made that got them into an unfortunate situation, and yes some people just make stupid choices or fuck up royally and repeatedly. But life isn't a level playing field. Some are born with advantages based on race, class, sex or intelligence. I mean Oona is six and she realizes that some people just don't have it as good or as easy as others and is it really fair to treat them poorly when they can't help being the way they are? Like I said before very simplistic but I don't know, what am I going to say on this second date? How will I broach the minefield that is politics? I get exhausted just thinking of it. Whenever I get a response for match it fatigues me. Not a good sign right?<br />
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And I started seeing my previous kind, smart, gentle but very passive fellow again. I don't know. I hate that he can lack confidence and basically be a doormat and let people take advantage of him but I feel like the reason I loathe these qualities in him so much is because I see these qualities in myself and I don't like to look at that. Who the fuck would honestly? So is that really fair? I don't have any expectations, in fact I've been explicit with him on how little I don't expect but that I want to remarry and share my life with someone, so tick tock if he's gonna get his shit together it better be sooner rather than later. But he can make me laugh like nobody else can. And he sees me in this light, well it's like he sees this beautiful, idealized version of me, he imbues all my actions with positivity, he doesn't criticize, he sees a me that I want to be, my best self, if that makes any sense. And I'm sort of like doesn't being in a relationship with someone who brings the best out in you trump everything else?<br />
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You still with me? So the picture which has nothing to do with what I wrote above. It's the light hitting my wall. It's like an ephemeral rothko, I love the blurry play of colors with the two weird parallelograms of screen. I wish my iphone had caught just how lovely this temporary play of light was on my bedroom wall. It was heavenly.Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-57191757344804330372012-05-30T22:26:00.001-04:002012-06-06T21:45:31.430-04:00swimmingI passed the chemo test but I'm a bit disappointed with how I did on it. I should have done better and I messed up on a couple easy questions just by misreading them, I hate when I do that. Oh well.<br />
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In other news I've taken an ibuprofen and am getting ready to do my nightly ritual of biofreeze on my hips and thighs because they are aching. Why you might ask? Well because I've decided to start training for a triathlon. It's happening here in Pittsburgh in August so I'm giving myself almost three months to prepare for it. I started swimming again a couple of weeks ago, swimming I've missed you so much and I never remember getting this winded swimming as a child. Although when I was a kid I also wasn't swimming laps. I'm planning on signing up for a mini triathlon which will entail a 700 meter swim followed by a 12 mile bike ride, and a 5K run - why do they go back and forth between metric? I thought it was a 12K bike ride, my thighs are quivering just thinking about the extra distance. I also thought the swim was 600 meters not 700. Well I've been training doing blocks at the gym where I go from swimming to biking to running, which makes for a very sweaty and smelly me even though I shower after swimming so my hair won't be straw form the chlorine. I'm planning to buy a bike next month and get outdoors on some trails, I won't ride in the street what with the way people drive these days - yes I sound like a total curmudgeon, like I could be Ed Asner's character in Up. I'm hoping I don't make a fool of myself and drown in the swim part of the triathlon, that would be embarrassing. I really wanted to do it because I'm sick to death of doing the same old thing at the gym every day, especially when the hot guy has been MIA so long, well I've switched to the other gym location, where there's a pool, so I can focus on this triathlon goal. I've supplanted my eye candy fantasies with a goal, it's so healthy it's gross. I miss you hot guy.<br />
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In yet other news, on the romance front this time. I've joined match yet again. Third times a charm right? I'm thinking it's more like three strikes you're out and might as well depend on a battery operated toy for fun from now on. No. I don't know why I even signed up again. I have no free time to date. Really, if I'm not working I have the kids. I mean I have my days free right now but come summer that's gone so there's really no time to meet a potential match. After work you might say, well I'm basically an overtired, blathering idiot after 12 hours shifts, given to vitriolic diatribes on healthcare - not really gonna go over well on a first date. And my ideal match would be a doctor. Not because I want to be married to a doctor, and all the sort of social prestige that goes with that. No I want to get the MD through osmosis by being with a doctor, even if I know I won't really have an official MD. I just want to understand more parts of the massive puzzle that is medicine. Really healthcare is a such a huge part of my life now and I want to learn more so I want to date someone that I can learn more about medicine from, and who better to do that than a doctor, well at least a doctor that wants to talk about his job when he's not doing it, I don't know what percentage of doctors are like this (probably less than 5%?). Oh yeah and I need doctors that excel at their job, you know the outliers on the right side of the bell curve. I'm making the percentage of doctors who meet my criteria even smaller (<1%?). Oh yeah and they have to be compassionate, articulate and attracted to me. Now you see the seemingly impossible dilemma I face. In the interim I can reread Atul Gawande and dream.<br />
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But can I tell you a friend, who doesn't know of this blog (not many people do know of this blog) who I knew liked me but, well, I'd told him a while ago, very clearly, that I didn't have romantic feelings for them. Well this friend wrote me a very long, very detailed letter about how he's liked me so much for so long and that I make him feel like a teenager, all very flattering stuff that was written to me. But what do I do, I do not feel that way about him at all. And I can't make myself feel that way. I wrote back right away explaining as much, because there's no way I'd ever leave anyone hanging after putting their heart out there that way (I mean I write back to everyone the writes me on match, even when I'm not interested to just say I don't think we're a match). It makes you very vulnerable putting yourself out like that, I get it and I wanted to acknowledge that while still staying true to my own feelings. So I wrote Thursday night when I saw the message and then again this morning (because recovering from work takes me days). And he won't write back. And I take it I won't hear from him and I guess he really wasn't a friend but just someone waiting for something more to happen between us? I mean I feel bad for him but I'm also sort of hurt, if I don't like you romantically then you won't interact with me? I know I'm not hurting as much a him but I guess it just makes me feel like I was almost lied to in a way. Like there was a duplicity beneath the friendship if he had an ulterior motive and won't be a friend unless that's fulfilled. Does that make sense to anyone?<br />
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I don't know why my romantic pursuits are so abysmal. Honestly the nicest, sanest, most normal boyfriend I ever had was probably the boy I lost my virginity to, my junior year of high school, he was ayounger man, a sophomore, a young born in August sophomore. A younger man who had an incredible five o'clock shadow at fifteen?! Eric was an absolute sweetheart of a boy and I fucking dropped him like a hot potato one drunken night and damned if I can find anyone that can hold a candle to that boy back in 1986.<br />
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Please don't misunderstand me and think I'm still carrying a torch for him. I've moved on and out of the eighties and he's a very lovely memory. I just wish I could meet someone I fit with so well who is also, well, solid, functional, emotionally healthy. I met a man I loved so dearly. Someone who was an incredibly good fit for me. He was what I always wanted in a man; someone equal parts funny, smart and kind. He was so loving and gentle and that was incredibly important to me during the point in my life that I met him. But it wasn't enough. His circumstances were, well convoluted might be the nicest way to phrase it. But I also realized after being with him that it's important that I'm with someone who's assertive (not aggressive). I also have to be with someone who is driven. Driven, to me, is passionate and I can't be with someone who is scared of living. I realize there are people who might view me that way, as scared of living, based on my rather high strung nature but I actually face my fears head on pretty much constantly and doing that consistently has made me incredibly resilient, even if I don't necessarily present that way. I just need to find a kind, funny, smart, assertive doctor that is like tops in their field and thinks I'm the best, and I'm similarly smitten by him. How hard can that be? Until I happen upon Dr. Unrealistic I can fantasize about him while I'm swimming laps in the pool.Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-45467878079273032562012-05-29T21:59:00.002-04:002012-05-29T22:01:03.657-04:00i've been remissI've got all these blog posts swirling around in my head but I haven't had a moment to type them out. Life is getting in the way, I'll butcher John Lennon's lovely quote 'life's what happens when your making plans' and say 'life's what happens when I'm thinking of blog posts' but the post are about life so it gets very meta? I don't know something that would have been masturbatorially discussed in one of my English theory classes in college. The endless litany of semiotics, signifier and signified and I just wanted to read and not let my love of reading be squashed with all the modernity bullshit.<br />
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Anyhoo, I've got big things to write about, not really BIG but the little big things of every day. But I can't do it tonight because I've got to take a chemo test in the morning so I'm chemo certified for hanging said cytotoxic agents.<br />
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But but but, I worked nights this weekend, trying to help out the team I switched from days because we were short staffed and let me tell you I had a moment on Sunday. I am no longer intimidated by the residents, in fact I had one arrogant son of a bitch resident that was giving me a hard time every time I paged him, which was often because I was having some issues with my patients. One patient told me they were hallucinating and I asked him to come up and assess her, 'What do you want me to do just sit with her? I can put in an order for Haldol.' No I told him I want you to come up and assess her before you decide to put in an order for Haldol. And I was firm without being bitchy. And he came up and wanted to give her Ativan, even though the nurse from the previous shift believed this medicine had caused her hallucinations. So I told him, no we're not giving her ativan. And then he's arguing with me that she can't possibly be hallucinating from Ativan and it must already be out of her system by now, blah blah blah I'm an MD. I agreed that it most likely wasn't the Ativan but the Ifosfamide that she had received as part of her chemo regimen (salvage ICE) because Ifosfamide can cause neurotoxicity. 'How do I treat that he asked?' Methylene blue I replied. And then he got mad because I had an answer for something he didn't know but I was quick to say, listen I'm new to this unit but I had a patient with Ifosfamide induced encephalopathy and he was treated with methylene blue, it's an MAOI strangely enough but does something very convoluted involving acronyms CAA & NADH that you can read about if you type methylene blue into wikipedia. I didn't tell him the bit about the CAA & NADH and to look on wikipedia but everything else I did.<br />
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And then I called pharmacy, poor J- I was pestering him nonstop Sunday night, when he put in the Haldol order to find out just what the dose he put in was going to do to my patient, snow her which concerned me because then how would the morning residents, fellows, attending assess her for the neurotoxicity if she's out? I went in and she said she felt better and didn't want the Haldol so that solved that problem for me. But it's such a balancing act, nursing, ugh it's frustrating and annoying as hell sometimes. And I don't know if this patient's baseline was goofy (my euphemism for possible psych issues) to begin with, were there really hallucinations or was this attention seeking, maybe she needed a psych consult. And then there's the patient in another room that's had encephalopathy for how darn long and it still doesn't seem like it's being addressed, it was being blamed on acute kidney injury but that has since resolved but the patient, still very confused. And I'm thinking should I put a post it in the chart for the doctors to see saying 'Do you think an ammonia level might be a good idea?'. Because I don't have the patient right now but please they're testing for everything else maybe check to see if the ammonia is high, it could explain a lot. Well I've got to take my chemo test on the floor tomorrow at ten. Maybe I'll stick a note in there if I get a chance. They'd never know it was me and maybe that's the probably I could be the nurse equivalent of an elf, fixing things when others aren't looking. We'll see I've got to work on my math for this test first.Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-46442514666583088012012-05-15T23:37:00.001-04:002012-05-15T23:39:24.537-04:00full<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Totally wish I could go through life as exuberantly as my daughter does</td></tr>
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Right now I'm typing with my belly so swollen and tight as a drum from having gorged on food as a way of stuffing down my myriad work related worries (and I'm off until Friday). I'm adjusting to work and it's getting easier but healthcare in general is a super duper stressful field, why else would there be signs for workplace counseling everywhere. I've gotten some very positive feedback but my mind is one that hones in on problems to fix, mine and system wide ones, which means I spend a great deal of time frustrated with things I think should be better. And then I'm attending to my patients needs, which I am happy to do. I haven't been getting so emotionally overwrought from a patient end because I can say with a clear conscience that I do the best I can for my patients in terms of care. This is when being a nervous, borderline OCD person works to my advantage. I am on top of my patients issues and make sure the doctors are aware of any problems too. I've become more confident talking to doctors (well the residents and fellows, I still fly under the radar with the attendings). But this line of nursing, while being incredibly rewarding, also sucks the marrow out of me, so then I feel bad and want to treat myself, even if it's ultimately detrimental for my health. I see so many overweight people in healthcare and now I truly get why they are overweight or smoke or become addicted to drugs or perhaps some combination of all three. I need to develop healthier coping strategies, and my car needs me to because my car seat looks like I'm incontinent of bowel and bladder with the many stains on the tan upholstered seats. The result of too many, cookies, brownies, or other chocolate treats and spilled caffeinated drinks marring the seat until it is now shamefully soiled, in a way no amount of OxyClean can remove.</div>
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So I'm an addict. I readily admit it, I'm a slave to sugar and chocolate. I've worn clothes from size 0 to size 12 and even when I'm my skinniest (at least with the sagacity of middle age I do realize, objectively, that I can get too skinny) I always feel and see myself at my heaviest. The fact that I eat in my car often enough to have destroyed my car upholstery, well it's a behavior overweight people do, shameful, 'closet' eating, although I know I'm not in the closet but metaphorically it's the same, in that it's sort of hidden in plain sight, but no one in the mile and a half drive notices how much I'm consuming. I hope to some day have a healthy relationship with food but I don't think I have since I was twelve. I peaked at twelve. I was cute and really very bright at that time. It was a brief sliver of time when my happiness far outweighed my worries. I spent all summer biking, swimming, playing gin rummy by the community pool, running around. I was on the diving team, eating huge lunches of cheeseburgers, fries and sodas and then having room for ice cream. I didn't think about what I ate or that amount, I just ate for pleasure or when I was hungry. And I physically was in the best shape of my life, my body was insanely fit, there wasn't an ounce of fat on me aside from my miniscule preteen boobs. I wore a string bikini and didn't think twice about it. That time was so idyllic for me but even back then I'd feel the worry nipping at my insides, I try to remember a time when that nipping wasn't there but I can't and that's not due to my memory being poor.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">hipsta-love, posing in the sculpture garden on our walk to pirates game</td></tr>
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I don't want to be a reactive eater but from the moment I wake up in the morning I'm thinking about food. Should I have coffee or try to wean myself off caffeine? Should I give up wheat and dairy because my eosinophil count is high and an allergist checked me but I have no allergies (really?) so could it be a sign that I'm intolerant of some food group? Should I try a juice fast for a few days and how would I survive said juice fast and work at the same time, it wouldn't be pretty. I'd been doing sprints up a hill in my neighborhood to try and strengthen my knees and hips in hopes of alleviating the back pain I've had for a year now, it's mild but it's always there and do you have any idea how annoying constant pain. It's more annoying than painful but that annoyance, well it's enervating. So I've been doing these sprints and feeling better until I decided to go to lulu lemon and try on the clothes there. Why I did this I can't explain since I really can't afford $82 work out pants and even if I could afford them, well it just seems wrong to buy stuff that pricey unless it makes me look like a goddess. But it didn't. The mirrors in that store were like some cellulite equivalent of a fun house mirror. I saw dimples places I didn't even know you could get cellulite, it was horrifying. I walked out and the sales girl asked if I was getting anything and I'm like hell no, I'm going to the gym that clothing session was thoroughly sobering. She said the lighting is awful there. Hmmm, lighting. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">my insane daughter looking like a muppet at the pirates game</td></tr>
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I've gained ten pounds since starting work (3 1/2 months ago) and I know I need some 'get real' moment soon or I'll be heading towards a gastric bypass this time next year. My boobs and face look better fuller, everything else is looking not so good. And I feel awful. I'm so fucking tired. All the time. My vitamin D is low (12) so according to wikipedia (what did I do before wikipedia?) I'm falling into the rickets category or severe deficiency. Maybe this is why my back hurts. I don't know. I've got cod liver oil but I tend to forget to take it because I'm too tired in the morning or at night. The allergist was very serious and involved with me when I went to him, on my PCPs recommendation, because of my elevated eosinophil count (since March it's been twice the norm). But when he did the scratch test on my arms and I didn't react to anything, except the histamine control, which you're supposed to react to, well he couldn't explain why my count would be high, and then became dismissive, suggesting that maybe it meant nothing. </div>
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Can I tell you how much I dislike doctors that become dismissive once they don't have an explanation for an aberrancy? Like they get mad at you that you and your problem won't fit into the expected norm for medicine? And maybe it's a result of starting Blink and reading about the fists or tiny slices that reveal a whole but I need a new Dr because when I'm explaining a problem that I'm dealing with all I feel is that this doctor doesn't want to take the time with me, like I'm the easy patient he can zone out on, or easily dismiss. My problem isn't a 'real' problem because I'm not hypertensive, obese and diabetic at 43. Because I present well and my issues are nonspecific there can't be anything seriously wrong with me, like it's normal to have a severe vitamin deficiency, have your eosinophil twice the norm, be in pain for a year and be exhausted. Sometimes I fucking loathe doctors. But I'm planning on healing myself for now, meaning I'm going to try really hard not to sweat the ten pound weight gain, with the window to weight gain (how I love The Simpsons) foods I've been eating with abandon I should be happy it's only ten pounds I've gained over the past three months. I'm going to exercise in ways I enjoy (aside from core strengthening, which I hate, but have to do for my back) and not solely from a I need to lose weight perspective. I'm going to try and listen to my body and feed it healthy foods, which in all honesty I don't think I've ever done. I've got my work cut out for me but I'm up for a challenge. I can look at it as my full body spring cleaning. I love to clean.</div>
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My daughter has nothing and everything to do with this post. Her personality is such the polar opposite of mine. I hope she never has these issues, that she continues to be so confident in herself. She's a very picky eater now, and she loves her sweets, but I don't think that means she's destined for food and /or body issues. I think many picky eaters grow out of it and are fine. I think food issues have much more to do with self esteem than pickiness. </div>
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</div>Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328372934827694376.post-21184929624350762292012-05-01T13:12:00.001-04:002012-05-01T13:12:20.884-04:00ilove<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I am having major iphone love. One because it took me long enough to buy a smart phone and now after having one for less than a month I don't know how I managed before. And two because I finally figured out how ridiculously simple it is to sync my iphone with my macbook air through itunes and now I've got my icalendar synced to both and I am high off of organization fumes. I can quickly figure out the days I have free, when I'm working and schedule appointments without relying on my memory or my scribbles that I put on various bits of paper, which I then run around trying to find where they are or sometimes dumping my paper recycling to see if I inadvertently recycled them prematurely. This makes my life so much more manageable. And my third reason for loving the iphone, the camera, that was my main reason for buying it, and now my hipstamatic envy, well I no longer have to be envious although I do need a tuturial for the various lenses, I'm stuck in a green hued one. Now if I could only figure out what how to make the cute little black hearts on facebook. Or what pinging is.</div>
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<br />Amelia Plumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10657299431819650897noreply@blogger.com2