amelia's plum

friggatriskaidekaphobia

2012-01-13T20:35:00.012-05:00

There are so many things that scare me but friday the 13th isn't one of them. Although it scares my children. My children are scared to even go upstairs and use the bathroom by themselves, or get socks, or be left alone upstairs. Or maybe they're just really good at working the guilt angle with me until I feel compelled to send them up in tandem or get the socks myself. I really need to work on making the gutted half bath downstairs into a usable bathroom rather than a storage catchall. But 2012 is bringing a lot of new, and somewhat scary, things my way. And I already botched my New Year's resolution to eat better after one ill-fated spinning class where I neglected to bring water and thought I was experiencing an asthma attack during - I wasn't I just needed a drink, desperately. I've been hired for a new job as a bone marrow transplant nurse, that will start the end of this month.

And today I received my decree of divorce on fancy tan paper with a raised gold seal. I'm officially an ex. Sigh. I can't encapsulate the separation and divorce into a sound byte. I'm not good at that and it just wouldn't seem respectful. Maybe I'm slow to come to this realization but I understand now that you can love someone deeply and still not be right for each other. I think being in a long term loving relationship can take work, but it shouldn't be difficult, it's one of those delicate balances that are only teased out by the two people in the relationship ultimately. My ex will be remarried soon and he's with the right person for him. And she's wonderful with our children. What more could I ask for really? I'm seeing someone too. I don't know what our future will bring but I do know that he can make me laugh out loud over the simplest, silliest things. He can drive me crazy at times, but, when I look at everything that truly matters to me, he is a very easy person to love. My children ask every day if he's coming over, not in an eye rolling annoyed way, they both look forward to seeing him. Owen and Oona are so different. Owen is too much like me, a people pleaser who tends to avoid the difficult talks by circling around an issue, trying to think of the right thing to say. While Oona cuts right to the chase, 'Is he sleeping over?' I want to be like Oona when I grow up.

I had saved a turkey wishbone from the Christmas turkey we had and Owen and Oona broke it last night. I've never seen this happen before but it split completely down the middle in two equal pieces. Oona told me she wished that I would never die. I try to tell her that everything dies and that that's okay but then she gives me her sad puppy dog face and I just hug her. Owen told me his wish was to have a regular life and be happy. It sounded pretty wonderful to me. So I leave you with what I saw on my walk today, although I had to drive to get to these pretty locations. I hope the few that stop on this blog are well and wish you all a most wonderful 2012.

I've never seen sap icicles before but there were some hanging on most of the felled trees I spied during my walk through Beechwood Farms.

This picture is sort of like a trick of logic. The pine tree looks like it's falling but it's suspended in that position, for now, at least until the spring thaw.

I found four cairns like this in the stream that wraps along Squaw Run Road in Fox Chapel. I want to know who's making this loveliness.

hope everyone had a lovely holiday

2011-12-26T12:40:00.005-05:00

and that you're able to relax and enjoy this time until the new year.

looted

2011-12-21T14:58:00.002-05:00

Oona made graham cracker houses in class this past week. I guess graham crackers are a lot easier to manage architecturally with a classroom than gingerbread. Thing is when I picked up Oona the day she made it she looked at me with these very large, very sad, very manipulative eyes and said that kids kept asking her if they could have the candy from her house and she readily obliged. Hmm. Kids. So when I saw her there was one lonely candy cane shingle that she plopped off with her fingers and popped in her mouth. She continued to drag her nail through the frosting remaining on the rooftop, the better to get her sugar fix. By the time we got home the orange jelly ring wreath that hung over a door that was gone long before I picked her up was also in Oona's stomach. So I've got the pilfered remains of her graham cracker house hanging out on top of our bookshelf. I think the only thing that's stopped her from the graham cracker structure is 1. it's hot glue gunned onto a milk carton and 2. it's probably not as sweet, and therefore not nearly as valuable, as the other parts of the house that are now long gone.

pass

2011-12-15T16:03:00.018-05:00

I took my NCLEX on Monday. 12/12 and I was supposed to take it at noon but I got there early so they let me start at 11:30 and spoiled my 12 cubed thing. I was shaking when I got there. Literally hands, body shaking. But after being fingerprinted and having my palm scanned. Being told that I'd be videotaped while taking my test and ushered into the testing room I got in my seat in front of the computer, put the earplugs in, took my boots off and sat cross legged in the chair. I went through the tutorial and then started the test in earnest, my heart thundering through my earplugged ears. But the first question was easy, and the one after that and the next. I was focused and doing what I do best (it is so sad that I'm such a good little test taker but I am. On paper, in theory, I excel). I wasn't focusing on how far I was in the test. There were a couple questions I didn't know but I didn't get hung up on them. There were a lot of 'select all that apply' questions, which I hate, because I'm always torn between adding one answer or not. But I was ruthless with myself and got through those. At 72 I started noticing what number question I was on because with NCLEX it's a computer adapted test and you can have anywhere from 75 to 265 questions (and any number in between). The screen just goes blue and your test ends when you have either passed or failed. And you can't find out whether you pass or fail until two business days later. It's a huge mind game. My worry had been how bad will my anxiety kick in after 75 if the test keeps going because you know then that you haven't failed but that you're also not in the successful pass zone yet. What a horrible way to fuck with a person's confidence. But I was feeling really good during the test, after so many weeks depressed and relentlessly studying, things were going well. I clicked my answer to 75 hit next and it went blue. I cannot tell you how happy I felt. I did the test in under an hour's time. I came out into a beautiful sunny day. I felt wonderful.

healthcare is a human right

2011-12-06T13:44:00.005-05:00

I'm down to the wire with my last week of studying before NCLEX. Still worried that reason will completely leave me the day of the big test and I'll draw a blank on everything or forget how to read or will be so nervous my blood pressure will put me into the hypertensive crisis range (which would be impressive considering my normal BP is like 80/50 when I wake up in the morning). Anyhow I was taking a study break and drove my recycling to a local place (because they do curbside recycling every other week here but there's one truck that collects everything and tosses it together and somehow I just question whether everything is actually being recycled or if this is some half-assed fabrication to keep Ravenstahl in office). But while driving I was listening to NPR and they had the former Medicare & Medicaid Chief Donald Berwick on discussing Obama's healthcare reform. Now I don't understand why people shake their heads and tsk tsk healthcare reform. I think they're either misinformed, because they get their news from FOX, or they're inhumane. It just doesn't really make sense to me. A friend of mine had to read the bill for work and she said if you're the head of Aetna or some other insurance company I understand you being against the bill but otherwise, no. The bill forces hospitals and doctors to be accountable, rewards preventative care, stops insurers from fucking over those with preexisting conditions by denying them coverage, seniors get more money for medications, young people can remain on their parents insurance until their 26. The only potential problem that I could see is nurses and nursing aids getting screwed because the focus on reducing infections and pressure ulcers in hospitals is wonderful yet there are many non-profit (yet highly profitable hospitals) that will put the burden of achieving that success on the nurses and aids, yet not hire enough nurses and aides to do that (and at the same time admonish those same nurses and aides for not using good body mechanics but not give them the time to be able to do that). But but but, sorry I tend to go off on my soapbox tangents, the thing that made me want to drive my car into a wall, was during this interview they played an excerpt from the Teaparty Republican presidential debate in Florida back in September where Wolf Blitzer posed a hypothetical question to Ron Paul asking what he would do if a healthy 30 year old who opted out of health insurance was gravely injured and fell into a coma, should the people not pay for his care. And he responds 'That's what freedom is all about, taking your own risks.' to which the audience erupts in applause, and Blitzer counters, 'So are you saying society should just let him die?' and at least three members of the crowd shout out yes. There are many things that I read or hear or see on the news at a local, national and global level that make me think things are very end of days lately - not that I'm particularly religious but things are just dire (although if you spend a weekend in NYC you would never know it). And when I hear people say shout out someone should just die because they opt out of health insurance, which I would think would be because they cannot afford it, how can any human being be against someone being treated if they're ill? It isn't humane and therefore I don't think the person against treating the gravely injured person is human. At least I view them as far less than human. I need to make a tee shirt, get a bumpersticker, wear a blinking hat that says 'healthcare is a human right' because it is and I'm more than willing to shout it from the rooftops, hop up and down and fight anyone who thinks otherwise.

nclex study update

2011-12-01T14:13:00.004-05:00

Still losing my mind studying for NCLEX. The thing that's really throwing me is that I keep arguing with the study guides and honestly how far am I going to get yelling at a book? But it really chaps my ass when I come across huge typos, like Parkland and modified Parkland formulas being the exact same formula (meaning someone got lazy with the cut and paste). One of my books had 6 comprehensive tests at the end and it was like they completely gave up on the last one. They'd have a question about sickle cell disease but then the answer would relate to cystic fibrosis. Two questions were supposed to contain rhythm strips to look at and they were missing. But the questions I save the most wrath for are the psychiatric nursing questions, which really make me wonder whether the 'clients' that flip out and get placed in seclusion might be the saner people there. Because when I come across a question where a man is suffering from depression and feels like a worthless father and husband and the correct answer IS NOT pointing out that his wife said he's a wonderful father and husband (no no no because that's too logical and therefore ineffective). No the book said the correct answer was to 'state that "you were able to shower and dress without any help this morning," points out a visible, realistic accomplishment and strength to the cient with self-deprecatory statements, thereby helping to increase the client's self-worth.' I would be ready to punch the nurse in the face that offered this gem of therapeutic communication. I can't think of answer more likely to increase my self hatred and push me further along the suicidal ideation path if I was this depressed man. Oh my. Please send out good wishes, cross your fingers, pray to God if you believe that I make it through this test without succumbing to hysterical blindness from the stress and that I pass the first time I take it. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease. With questions and answers like that I have my work cut out for me.

grainy blues

2011-11-10T19:36:00.004-05:00

Oh Lordy. I graduated almost two weeks ago and I've already spun into a spiral of depression and anxiety about the uncertain future in front of me. The high of graduation was getting an award for third highest academic achievement, for which I got a check for $150 that I still need to cash. But by the next day I was starting to feel the dark panic nipping at my insides about needing to study for NCLEX. On the night of graduation the president of our class joked 'Who here did their 60 questions today?' and, of course, I was the only one who had. And I continue to do at least 90 questions each day, like I was told. Because I'm very task oriented and good at sticking to rules that way. But every time I score poorly on a test it takes so much out of me. And I'm like, how can I know all this information? I've never even heard of vanillymandelic acid test but am supposed to be able to figure out the foods one should avoid before taking such test. I can't get over how much the test name resembles Milly Vanilly and how many mnemonics can I make and keep straight in my head? Christ. The importance of this test, yes my future, my paycheck, rides on my passing and becoming an RN are not lost on me. Nor is the director of the nursing program having told our class at the graduation luncheon, we've had a 100% pass rate with the last three classes. To my perfectionistic mind, the implicit 'don't fuck things up!' was added and it's all I can do to keep my heart rate below 100 (60-100 being the adult norm). So I've got five different books that I can study from but when I look at the tear out 'cheat sheet' on one that lists common lab values but they don't jive with the lab values I've already committed to memory it just sends my anxiety through the roof (maybe I can blame my profuse hair shedding on that). As does every question I get wrong and can't puzzle the logic out of, like a lot of the psychiatric related questions and yet I've thought of getting involved in that field? Goddamnit. Yes, panic brings sacrilegious profanity to such a high point in me you'd think I suffered from coprolalia. I've got to get down the dirty dozen that will most likely be on my test- anything related to renal issues, diabetes, COPD, cardiac disease, cranial nerves and functions, TURP, hip/knee replacement surgery, sickle cell crisis, Diabetes insipidus vs SIADH, therapeutic levels of digoxin, lithium, aminophylline and theophylline as well as potential interactions with each. And what you want your PT and PPT times to be in relation to the control. That's over a dozen. It seems easy enough when I type it out but with each subject it's real easy to go down the rabbit hole and get lost to the point you can't see the easy answer for what it is. And can I tell you how badly I want to take the baddest, brightest red pen to the study guides and copy edit every extra 'and' or 'an' or 'as well' but I don't because I hope to sell them once I've passed. I have all these free days until I test (I'm still awaiting my 'approval to test' because everything nursing school & NCLEX related seems to be a fucking mind game, I guess this is how they weed out those that will go crazy on difficult patients from those that will handle it -Me, I'll just beat myself up in the privacy of my own home and vent under a pseudonym). But it's not like I can really enjoy this time off because I need a job and health insurance by January and that's all dependent on passing NCLEX. So as much as instructors stress how important this test is yet, in the same breath, say don't lose sight of NCLEX just being a test, well it winds up being a lot more than that for me. I'll be so glad when I've successfully jumped through this hoop and can get a job. Really. I promise to stop my complaining. Okay, truth be told, I'll keep griping about my increasingly painful lower back and hip that are making me feel like my late grandmother, at least until they stop hurting all the time.

october

2011-10-22T18:11:00.004-04:00

First off, you've been forewarned, this post is gonna be all over the place. That's where, it seems, my mind is currently. I graduate on Friday about which I'm really excited and sort of disbelieving that it's already here. But that excitement gets tempered with nervousness (I know Quelle surprise for the few who read regularly) about passing NCLEX, which I need to do in order to practice as an RN, and finding a job, which I need to do in order to pay the bills, keep a roof over mine and the kids heads, eat. This need to find a job really weighs on me with every resume that I send off through the UPMC website, which, at times, seems akin to putting my resume in a black hole. I mean I've got previous job experience, I'm mature (at least that's the positive spin adjective for middle aged), I've got a 3.52 GPA in school (which is high honors in St. Margaret's land because they have a weird grading system that I'm still trying to make sense of, but I do know that school was ten times harder than being an English major at Syracuse), I presented at student nursing grand rounds which was hailed as the proverbial feather in my cap and supposedly this great thing to put on my resume. But I've only had one interview and that didn't go well.

It was at WPIC, a place I'd really like to work. I interviewed for two different units, the one woman was older and she went out of her way to introduce me to everyone even though I'd told her I didn't want think my skils were best suited for her unit (John Merck unit for those with mental retardation and autism). She understood why I didn't want to work in there, and as she sized me up and told me her unit is the most violent (staff has the highest number of injuries there) I think she questioned whether I could even physically be capable of being on that unit. But she still showed interest in meeting with me. The second woman, well I knew she wasn't interested in me 30 seconds into the interview, when I was trying to explain what telecommuting was and, no, I hadn't lived in Pebble Beach, California. I don't know if it was a generational difference (the woman was maybe 25) or something else but she introduced me to no one when we toured the unit and she didn't ask me any questions and the whole interview made me feel like I was failing with how little interest she showed in the whole process with me. And that was in a unit I'd like to be in. Oh well.

I finished up my last clinical day Thursday night, into friday morning. I worked on the liver and intestinal transplant unit at Children's and that unit is TOUGH but by the end of my stay there I really enjoyed it there and was finally starting to feel a bit comfortable. Maybe I am just a fucked up parent but I really want to work with transplant children or with the pediatric oncology population. You can build a long term relationship with the patient, and, for me, I think that's when you can be most effective because you truly get to know the patient and family and get a sense for their likes and dislikes, the nursing style that's best to keep them comfortable while they're in the hospital. My preceptor was young, 25, but a very good, very thorough and safe nurse who is absolutely loved by the patients and their families. It's a struggle for me, being the older one but a student learning, I don't have a problem with that but I can have a hard time reading certain people and the fact that I was working with this preceptor for 140 hours, I'm hypersensitive to my possibly driving her batty having someone following her every move, trying to help out but feeling sometimes like I'm just in the way. I learned an enormous amount from her, I just wish I knew whether she thought I was good, awful or somewhere in between. I frequently view myself as awful if a person says nothing, so I have no fucking clue. Getting a position at Children's is my first choice hospital and if I could get on the weekend program, because then I could go manage going on for my master's and not be stretched close to breaking, I'd be overjoyed then.

Being around sick children really makes me appreciate and love my children that much more because it's a very real reminder of how precious a healthy life is. There was one family I was involved with from October 1st through to my last day. Their strength and kindness in the face of such adversity is inspiring. The english major will forever be a part of me and some of the terms they toss out so quickly stuck with me, such as 'a hot mess' usually indicating a patient that's proving to be especially challenging from a medical standpoint. A 'rockstar' is the patient/family you want to have, very easy to work with, taking medications like a champ. And 'dirty' is used for patients with infections that they're trying to find a bed for, who tend not to be put on this unit because so many of the patients are immunocompromised. Like a ruptured appendectomy wouldn't be put on that unit - if it's really busy and you have the space non liver/intestinal transplant kids wind up on the floor but it would most likely be a T&A and yes, when I heard that I thought tits and ass? No it's short for tonsillectomy and adnoidectomy.

During my last week my back, groin pain, which has been a problem since June, reached new levels of pain. I worked overnight Monday with an icy/hot patch slapped on my back, popping 800 mg ibuprofen every 8 hours and still hobbling about like a none too spry octogenarian. When I got home Tuesday morning I called the doctor's office in tears and they called in a scrip for vicodin for me (because the ibuprofen and flexeril aren't touching the pain). I still can't sleep on my left side and haven't been to the gym all week, which is killing me because that's what keeps me on this side of sanity. I saw an orthopedic doctor Friday and need to get an MRI of my pelvis next week and he's scheduling me for a visit to the pain clinic because he said given my week it sounds like I need a shot of cortisone (I'm starting to feel like I need a half dozen shots of cortisone). He mentioned that I might have a labral tear (the labrum is sort of like a liner for the acetabulum, which is the socket the head of your femur goes into which makes up your hip joint). I read up on it and these injuries require rest, physical therapy (which I'd been doing in August and continued to do the exercises until this flare up) and if you still get no response then surgery. I think I rambled about this in an earlier post but this groin injury was from a massage. A masseuse told me I felt tight and manipulated my left leg and arm and both may hip and shoulder (consequently both are ball socket joints and can suffer from labral tears) have bothered me ever since. My arm doesn't bother me quite as much which I'm guess is because I don't walk on my arm but my leg, it gets me close to tears when I think about it. My range of motion is so limited now, I used to do the splits regularly when I cooled down after exercising no I'm lucky if I can touch my toes. And the pain, right now, as I type this, it's only about a 3 or 4 out of 10. But it never goes away. I feel it no matter what I do and I can no longer sleep on my left side. My Mom being my Mom had to tell me that she hasn't been able to sleep on her right side for years and then wanted to recommend another orthopedic doctor for a second opinion should I need surgery 'because he has this innovative technique and he's the best in his field when it comes to hips...' when all I really wanted to hear was 'That fucking sucks, let's go beat up that masseuse.' Why couldn't she commiserate with me without one upping me or trying to give me medical advice? I called the place I got the massage at and spoke to the owner, who hadn't given me the massage. She was very nice and concerned. She said she'd reimburse for what I spent for the massage (A LOT!) and offered to give me a massage to help out, I told her I'd hold off until I knew more from my MRI. I'm thinking of going on antidepressants because being in some degree of pain since June is really starting to affect me mentally.

have i mentioned how much i love stephen colbert?

2011-09-29T20:02:00.000-04:00

happy birthday oona bean!

2011-09-27T16:50:00.002-04:00

Oona's middle name isn't bean, it's Amelia. But somehow I've been calling her Bean or Beanie every since she was a baby and would arch her back, scrunching up her legs while sleeping and her shape would resemble an adorable little kidney bean. Apparently Google is having a birthday too, 13 to Oona's 6. She was very excited to see the Google banner today.
Brought pink and purple cupcakes to her classroom
The birthday girls this week. just fyi Oona is not petite (she's 75% percentile for height), I don't know what they're feeding these girls in Pittsburgh, there's fourth graders taller than me (I'm 5'6").

goodbye summer

2011-09-02T17:36:00.016-04:00

I have only gotten around to having a summer banner on the last day of the kids summer vacation. Oh well, it will be up until I get around to the fall banner which might take awhile given I'll be in the last 8 week stretch of school. The last day before school was quite lovely, up until Oona's meltdown when we had to leave the park. But she quickly turned it around in the car, thank God. Hope the upcoming school year is healthy, happy and fun for any (and all) readers of my blog!

Oona with Nacho, a chihuahua Owen bought Oona with the $20 he found on the floor of a restaurant (he also got himself a basketball, trick handcuffs and a cap gun with caps and had twelve cents left, thanks to 5 below)

The comedy and tragedy of Panera

Owen's friend Patrick making like part of the creek and trying to trick the fish into his net.

Owen's cave. He spent most of his time at the park building it and I hung out with him and Patrick while Oona was with the other children and Moms. Patrick caught a big frog twice but I didn't have the camera with me at the time to commemorate the event.

thought the color of this mushroom was lovely. made sure to wash my hands thoroughly after handling.

floor update

2011-09-02T12:58:00.008-04:00

These two pictures above show the worst area of my floors before and after, honestly I didn't think it would turn out as well as it did because this section of the dining room floor is very chewed up.

These pictures show before during and after the refinishing. I love the original light color of the red oak but the dining room floor had extensive water stains the turned the red oak a greyish brown which no amount of sanding could get rid of. So I had the floors stained a dark walnut and it blends the water stains in much better than had I just left the wood the original color. I was amazed to see all the different grains of the oak and am glad that shows up with the darker stain too. This is the bookcase redone and the sandpiper walls. I still need to polyurethane the bookcase and let it cure a bit. I think the bookcase will look better once books and baskets are on it. Hopefully then it won't read as overly distressed it will just sort of blend in to the background. And I'm going to paint the inside of the fireplace a darker grey because I'm that kind of anal. Meanwhile all my books are hiding out on the stairs to the third floor and in my room, which looks like I could qualify for a hoarding show right now, it's a disaster.

torture

2011-08-27T17:30:00.005-04:00

I have been staying at my mom's apartment since Monday while my floors were being refinished. Thank God my mom is away in Florida while I'm camping out there with Owen and Oona and my two cats. I knew that it wouldn't be the easiest thing, all of us in this small space, but I figured it would only be for a few days and that the pay off, beautiful refinished floors, would outweigh the short term stress of being sandwiched in my mom's place. What I neglected to consider is the fact that my mother is very fastidious in terms of cleaning, her house is always perfect. The thing that mystifies me is that with her zeal for cleaning, her home is jam packed with tchotchkes- artificial floral bouquets are everywhere. Any flat surface seems to be covered with a lace doily and then have little figurines or the fake flower bouquets or coasters (you'd think the woman entertained every night) on top of them. There are little faux candlesticks on each window ledge in her living room and stained glass animals suction cupped to her kitchen windows. Needless to say, the kids love visiting Grandma Cat's house because there is so much STUFF to look at and touch, where else can you find a copper lighthouse that plays music to harmonize with you while you tinkle in her toilet. Our home looks downright austere in comparison. But maybe it's a yin yang thing, my mother likes to clean to such an extent that she needs a lot of dust catchers in order to feel she's truly doing a good job. It seems almost masochist, but it's what makes her happy.

I've had to put every fake bouquet in her closet because my very poorly behaved cats were trying to eat them. They've jumped up on every surface they possibly can knocking over picture frames, getting their cat litter everywhere it seems- after having their litterbox in the basement for years it really seems that I cannot avoid stepping on cat litter, which really grosses me out. I am sleeping on a pull out bed with a very wiry mattress that is doing nothing to help my achy back. The only pot of gold is that Owen and Oona have been marvelous when it comes to bedtime. They're great for me at home but I thought it might be challenging with the two of them sharing a bedroom, but they barely make a peep and drift off without a problem in my mother's two twin beds, while I lobotomize myself with Law & Order reruns five feet away in the living room.

Anyhow, regarding the torture post. I think almost everybody, well maybe everybody I know, engages in a sort of self-torture of one thing or another. In a way I think it can be extraordinarily helpful to know what your problem areas are, parts of yourself that you'd like to work on or improve. But I know for myself that there are many areas I feel bad about (parenting, not being assertive enough, lacking confidence, placing waaay too much importance on how others feel about me - to name the tip of the iceberg) where I feel like I don't measure up and it's so easy to beat myself up about these things, it's almost reflexive. I am fully aware of my need to break free from this way that I torture myself. But sometimes you can work so hard and then someone finds your weak spots, picks at that scab, and if it happens often enough a scar forms and the tensile strength of scar tissue is 80% of the original tissue, at least that's what I learned from the wound care lecture in school last year. That being said I truly hope there's credence to the cliche that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger. The past two years have really been a struggle for me in more ways than I care to enumerate. So I just might try to limit my self-torture to eating some heirloom tomatoes soaked in oil and vinegar even though my whole mouth is cut up pretty badly from these invisalign liners I've got on (to correct my crooked bottom teeth and, hopefully, fix the right side of my jaw which pops painfully when I yawn). The joys of getting old. Nothing like being forty-two with a lisp from the plastic in your mouth. Well as long as I don't sound like Truman Capote I figure I'm golden.

They finished my floors yesterday.The man who did them looked a bit like Sam Elliot and drawled out his words in much the same way. Perhaps even slower? But he was a bit inscrutable, rather cryptic with his answers, or lack thereof, to my questions about the floors, until I learned yesterday that I've got to let the floors cure for four to five more days before moving anything back into those rooms (living room, dining room, entry, hallway upstairs and Oona's room). So it looks like we'll be at my mom's until Wednesday. But, on the bright side, I can wash the three loads of laundry that accumulated at my mom's. And I have internet access (my mom took her laptop to Florida so my only access to a computer was two visits to the library this week). And wait until you see how lovely the floors look now. It's the best $1715 I've spent- and that's a flipping bargain for as bad as my floors were. He trimmed out the downstairs with new oak quarter round, he didn't do anything to the upstairs so I've got to call him about that. Well I'm off to vacuum the fine layer of sawdust that seems to be everywhere.

2011-08-19T20:54:00.003-04:00

Well the living room walls are sandpiper and it's just the warm griege I was looking for. Unfortunately 3/4 through the painting my back completely seized up on me. It was funny I'd bend over to put paint on my roller and I was like, why is it killing me every time I bend over to do this. Bending at all made me wince so I had to squat with my back straight to finish the last wall. I went to the gym hoping to stretch out the muscles that were seizing up in my back, on the left side from just under my rib cage to my ass, but the gym didn't help. I deliberated between going to medexpress or coming home and drinking enough Guinness that I didn't care that I was in pain. In the end I opted for buying a heating pad and popping some of the 800 mg of ibuprofen the doctor gave me for my back pain when I saw him a few weeks ago and hoping it would be better in the morning. It wasn't so I got a scrip for flexeril called in which is helping calm down the muscle spasms in my back but it also turns me into a complete zombie. I guess this is what people mean when they say don't overdo it. Total suckfest for my break without the kids.

2011-08-17T10:38:00.003-04:00

The kids went to Toby's parents (for the week!) on Sunday morning. And since their car left the block I've been tackling my living room; attempting to make the built in book case and mantle look nicer and repaint the walls before the guy comes to refinish my floors. I painted the room what I thought was a warm grey but once up on the the walls there's too much red and not enough yellow in the grey. Yeah, I didn't realize this until I painted the entire room. I'm very picky about my paint colors, so I got yet another gallon of grey paint (sandpiper, how I love the names for paint) that I'm hoping will look better. My current state of mind is a bit altered, which I'm going to blame on huffing miniwax wood stain fumes yesterday afternoon whilst doing my many layered distressed paint look on the bookcase. I should add frustrated on top of the altered mental status because I think I might need to put another layer of pain over the barn owl, grey sky & jacobean stain I've got on the built in so far. I had to sand the bookcases a lot, to the point I had phantom vibrations in my arm an hour or two after I'd stopped sanding, before starting the paint work. Toby built the bookcase and mantle shortly after we moved into this house seven years ago and I couldn't help but draw comparisons between it and our ill-fated marriage. Of course, it was easy to compare when that is sort of forced into my consciousness because of the complaint of divorce I received in the mail. Toby had called to let me know I'd be getting it and I don't blame him for my dark mood. I just blame the whole fucking process, the harsh wording of the complaint 'You are being sued' which caused me to panic momentarily, because when you don't have a lot of money financial stuff, specifically mention of being sued, can feel like a punch to the gut. I guess lawyers aren't emotionally ruffled by this legalease but it makes me bawl. The being sued, the 'you will no longer have health insurance once the decree is filed' the myriad personal stressors that have made the stress of nursing school that much harder to bear and the worry worry worry my mind the eternal problem solver keeping me up throughout the night on Monday trying to troubleshoot how to go about passing the boards, finding a job and getting health insurance in the sixty days between graduating from school and my divorce being finalized. Oh and botox! I must get botox so the abject desperation will not be quite so easy to read on my face. Too many stressors. It would be one thing if it was just one thing, the divorce, the need to find employment, the imminent threat of no health insurance, or if it was all of them, but I had someone super supportive to lose my shit to in private. Someone who could hug away the fears or be a sounding board or just make me laugh and forget all this shit for a heartbeat. But I don't have that, which is why I air my dirty laundry here. Well I'm off to sandpiper the walls.

vacation

2011-08-10T12:37:00.002-04:00

I am done with school until September! And, barring any fuck ups when filling in the scantron sheet for my final, I graduated with highest honors. AND I had a great final clinical evaluation with my instructor whom I'll have for PNR (my nursing intership which I'll be doing on the liver and intestinal transplant floor at Children's Hospital come this fall). I just need to get through PNR, pass my boards and find a job, then I'll be golden. But for the next few weeks I'm going to do the work around my house that's hard to do while I'm in school and relax when I can. Maybe find another non nursing related book to devour. Any recommendations?

owen's nine

2011-08-08T21:47:00.006-04:00

He officially turned nine at 6:38 pm. We were doing a countdown at Baskin Robbins but the time struck waiting at the light on the way to the grocery store for cat food, Sam and Frodo were hungry after going without this morning. Owen and Oona counted backward from sixty once they saw the car clock turn to 6:37 and I snapped Owen (really just turned the camera to the back seat and shot so I'm glad it actually turned out well) celebrating the passage into a new year.

This is the pose I got when I asked Owen to look sweet, meaning no gangster hands and or thinking he's doing the peace sign but his palms are turned in so he's really telling people to fuck off if they're English. Oh my, how to explain this without it becoming a loaded hand weapon.

Oona attacking her sprinkle waffle ice cream cone with true gusto. She gave up a couple bites after this though. They usually just get a kids scoop but for Owen's birthday I said they could have whatever they wanted, they each ate less than half of what they ordered.

Oona is just going to kill somebody when she's older if her eyes stay that big and brown and beautiful.

unaccustomed earth

2011-08-06T19:47:00.004-04:00

I had started reading this book last year and loved all the short stories but couldn't get into the last part, which was a novella centering on two characters, Hema and Naushik. Maybe I was put off because the story starts in the second person and I think that is a very hard narrative point of view to pull off. But I hate not finishing a book. It's just a compulsion of mine that once I start a book I have to finish it, even if it is over a year later (although I might have to break this compulsion with The Dinosaur Man, which I dread finishing). Anyhow I picked up Unaccustomed Earth to revisit the last part and I easily fell into the story and couldn't understand my initial hesitance to finish reading (although I know that how much I enjoy a book us has a lot to do with what is going on in my lives that might make the book resonate all the more powerfully to me). In fact, the last part is now my favorite of that book and I bawled on reading the last page, wept harder than I have with any other book I read, it killed me. I don't even know how to comment with respect to Jhumpa Lahiri's writing aside to say that I'm completely amazed at the command she has for writing where everything is distilled down to it's essence, she does not write one superfluous word in her books. And as good as her writing is stylistically, the level of insight she has into the intricacies of the human heart could put the best therapist to shame. I think she is, hands down, the best person writing fiction in America today.

black swan green

2011-07-30T19:19:00.002-04:00

So I finished Black Swan Green a couple weeks ago, read it during my two days home from school nursing pink eye or paint that got in my eye from doing the ceilings, still not sure which it was but it cleared up nicely after a steroid/antibiotic combo. I can't recommend Black Swan Green highly enough, it was such a wonderful book. I love coming of age stories. Even though I'm now middle aged I feel like I can relate to adolescent angst so well, probably because I remain as socially maladroit as a thirteen year old. There don't seem to be any memorable coming of age stories told from a girl's point of view but Catcher in the Rye, The Perks of Being a Wallflower and this book are my three favorites in that genre. Oh I can't forget part two of Michael Chabon's A Model World which is a wonderful novella about this boy Nathan Shapiro, after reading it I just wanted to hug Michael Chabon. I've been listening to Summerland in the car with Owen, Oona is staging a mild protest about the book on tape choosing select times to start reading her Highlights out loud to drown out Summerland. I love listening to Michael Chabon reading Summerland, he does different voices for the various characters. It just might be better than reading his books on my own, because I love how endearingly geeky he is and his writing is so funny and kind and beautiful. There's a comment about Michael Chabon by his wife, Ayelet Waldman in the back of one of his books. She talks about how brilliant, talented and handsome he is, but how he's also arrogant, a bad dancer, and knows far too much about klingon politics and the lyrics to Yes songs. Even that criticism is endearing. I do not know either of them, aside from interviews I've heard where they seem to have a loving repartee when commenting about the other, but I truly envy people that have that, where you truly love the person faults and all, in a sense love them because of those faults.

So back to Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. Maybe I love it because the narrator, Jason Taylor, is thirteen in 1982, the same age as I was that year, but he's in England when all the great British 80s music is going on. Maybe it's that so much change in this boy's life is encapsulated in a year. It could be that I love it because Jason stammers and writes poetry under a pseudonym or that it's written in such a engaging colloquial style where, at times, Mitchell will have triple contractions. He captures the feeling of not fitting and adolescent longing, which can bring up such confusing feelings of ambivalence, like he was just thirteen yesterday. There was one line, so brief, where Jason sees Dawn Madden wet from the rain and wants to go over and suck the water from a lock of her hair, it seemed so erotic and charged with that energy of when your body first hums over someone of the opposite sex. I'd really like to read his other novels too but I'm a wee bit worried because they aren't as linear, they'll shoot back and forth in time, place and can have up to nine narrators, it seems a bit daunting but if they're as well written as Black Swan Green it shouldn't be a problem.

stupid humor

2011-07-21T15:18:00.001-04:00

Saw this on someone's car and I laughed out loud.

pinkeye

2011-07-19T11:25:00.004-04:00

Can someone tell me how I wound up with pinkeye when neither of my kids have it and they weren't even with me this weekend? I woke up Monday morning to a pus dripping crusted over right eye, took my test at school, stayed to figure out my score (96!) and left to go to Medexpress. Got an antibiotic for my eye that caused it to get pinker, itchier and more swollen, this morning I was not looking pretty. So I stayed home again today and got a different eyedrop (steroid and antibiotic) that's much more bearable. Hopefully I'll look more normal, less infectious by tomorrow. At least I get two days off from school, I'm spending all this luxurious free time reading. I cannot stress how nice it is to read non-nursing related material. Heavenly.

ceilings

2011-07-17T21:46:00.002-04:00

A few weeks ago I had the ceilings replastered in all the bedrooms and the hallway on the second floor, the living room and they redid the finish on the dining room ceiling so that it's smooth and not textured. They did a fantastic job and I was really pleased with their work but dreaded having to paint all these newly plastered ceilings, not to mention all the rooms that need repainting. It's a lot of work and my lower back has been bothering me for well over a month. Plus after I went to get a massage to ease this lower back issue, which didn't ease up, I now have a pulled groin muscle and rotator muscle (to keep my miserable back company) thanks to an overly enthusiastic masseuse who was pulling at my left limbs while chiding me for being so tight. I've been hampered with pain for over a month now. From now on I only go to the kooky masseuse who talks throughout the massage but actually works magic on my tense muscles. So I really wasn't looking forward to painting the ceilings but I tackled all but one (the living room) this weekend. And I went above and beyond, two coats of paint that goes on pink and dries white, thank God for that or else I would have gone crazy trying to discern where I had and hadn't yet painted. And I'm not noticing the pain in my groin or lower back because my neck, shoulders and upper back are in agony now. Nothing like displacing the focus of your pain. I rewarded myself with a triple scoop sundae, hot fudge, dry malt and whipped cream on top - it's scary I think I'm the person that frequents the local Baskin Robbins most often, aside from the people that work there. And there have been evenings where I've gotten that and a Reese's peanut butter cup sundae - I can live off of ice cream in the summer. But my real question is do you think I can just dip myself in Biofreeze and all my pain will go away? Maybe I should rub it on my temples and try to alleviate my psychic pain.

Well speaking of pain, I have to go back to my powerpoints and study for my test tomorrow. Wish me luck. I'm already starting to panic over the idea of taking the NCLEX in the fall, my guardian angel/surrogate mother of nursing school tells me not to worry, that I'll do fine on it. But she isn't privy to the madness of my mind, that can over think the most obvious question when stressed. My God I'm going to need drugs to deal with the level of anxiety I'm going to get around that test come October. And then I need to find a job.

Deathly Hollows Part 2

2011-07-16T21:43:00.002-04:00

Owen and I went to see Harry Potter last night, I was at a bit of a disadvantage having not seen the first half of Deathly Hollows, although I did read the book, but that was years ago. We went to the 3D version and I was so frustrated with myself that I started crying during the movie- why I should have been frustrated or surprised for that matter is beyond me since I bought Deathly Hollows the day it came out, read it in one day and was crying throughout reading it. Then I looked over at Owen part way through the movie and saw him lifting his 3D glasses to wipe away his tears. My little buddy. He's going to be my date for tearjerkers in the future, I'll just have to remember to bring a box of Kleenex for us to split. He leaned over to me and I hugged him rubbing his fuzzy head from time to time, his Dad shaved it last week 'doesn't it feel like velour' Owen said when he showed me his buzz cut. We teared up throughout the rest of the movie and on the ride home when we rehashed the best parts of the movie. He's such a sweet boy, I know he's getting older but I was so happy that he brought his wand to the movie and held my hand as we walked to the car.

Oh and can I just tell you, what a difference adulthood has made on Neville Longbottom. He is now really good looking and crazy tall, I think he towers over the rest of the cast. It's an amazing transformation I'm so happy Neville blossomed into his looks or whatever the male equivalent of blossoming is. Still love Ralph in all his evil noseless, bald glory, that man just makes me drool even as Voldemort. I also love Alan Rickman but am a bit concerned, he looked a bloated in the face with this last Harry Potter - I can't tell if it was the 3D glasses (I can't deal with 3D, I'm too shallow I guess, the glasses reflect the exit signs and it drive me batty),age, booze or illness.

sting

2011-07-16T20:35:00.005-04:00

On Wednesday Owen got stung by either a wasp or hornet while at camp. He was near a piece of playground equipment where a hive was so he's lucky he didn't get stung more. It's the only the second time he's been stung and I didn't think more of it after he showed me his pinky and couldn't even point out where he had been stung. Then he woke me up at 3 in the morning crying saying his hand hurt. I was annoyed and about ready to tell him to just go back to bed but when I turned on the light I noticed his pinky finger was swollen. He stayed home from camp and my mom took him to the doctor's and they didn't seem terribly concerned, said it was a large local reaction and recommended Benadryl, elevation and ice to help with the swelling (the triage nurse recommended Benadryl when I had called in the wee hours of the morning but I didn't have any, having bought bottle a bottle years ago as a precaution for the kids, which I never used it and promptly threw it out and never replaced when it expired). I got home from Western Psych (my clinical rotation), got the report from my Mom and brought Owen with me (he had a dose of Benadryl in him) to get Oona from camp and then we had to stop at a mechanic's. All the while swelling continued with his hand (to continue with the Harry Potter theme his pinky resembled Dudley's Aunt Marge when Harry inadvertently blows her up while angry). His pinky was ready to pop. So I called the doctor's office again and went back over. I became more concerned when Owen started telling me his throat felt scratchy. They put a pulse ox on him that measured his O2 sats at 92% and it didn't go up- just for reference, the monitor limits (vital signs) at Children's Hospital are set to alarm when they go below 93% because children can desat much quicker than adults. So another doctor looked at the hand, was similarly nonplussed by the rash or for that matter Owen's O2 sats, but wrote a scrip for a steroid which he recommended on top of the steroid to help alleviate the swelling. This picture isn't the best because the flash wiped out the redness but can you see that the swelling went up to his wrist and across to the middle finger and that portion of his hand. I have never seen a twelve hour delayed reaction to a bee sting, let alone a reaction like this. The other picture shows a profile of how fat his hand got because he's pretty skinny so you can usually see the bones in in his without a problem, like how you can notice them in the right hand in the first picture. Now I don't know if I should have him tested for allergies to beestings or not. Most literature says people with large local reactions will be fine but they do mention that a percentage of those who have large local reactions can go on to develop anaphylactic reactions and if the large local reaction goes beyond 10 centimeters (almost 4 inches) that increases the risk. I'd hate for him to have a reaction like this if he got stung on the neck and call me crazy but I'd rather have an epi pen on me if he suddenly developed a systemic allergic reaction. Thankfully the steroids and Benadryl combo have made the swelling go down significantly. His pinky is still a bit red and swollen but nothing like it was.

batwings

2011-07-11T21:52:00.003-04:00

Over the weekend I took a brief sojourn from all things nursing school, I had a twelve page psych assessment to type up, two care plans and an OB presentation, I was feeling a bit slammed and needed a breather so I headed over to the Gap because right after 4th of July you can get some crazy good deals. My score was this raspberry swiss dot batwing top that I got in Gap kids (XL). Originally $24.95 I got it for a dollar. Yes, $1. I was so thrilled with my score I wore it to class today, all smiley and happy thinking surely someone would comment on the cute top and then I could tell them the deal I got. No one said a thing, I don't seem to register with my nursing peers when it comes to fashion... or politics, music, anything? sigh. it's hard not fitting in. Well I went to pick up Owen and Oona from camp later in the day, the weather was crazy, torrential downpours with wind gusts so strong the rain drops went horizontal on my windshield. I was at a red light sheltered by the sizable bulk of West Penn hospital and I could still feel the wind tugging my car. I was scared to go when the light turned green, I thought my car would get carried down Liberty avenue (although if it could be written off as totaled and I could get a new car that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing). Well I got to camp unscathed and as soon as Oona saw me she came running over at full speed, saying how much she missed me and I was putting my weight in my legs so she wouldn't knock us both over when she gave me a fierce hug. Then Owen saw I was there and ran over to hug me. The first thing he said to me was, 'I like your shirt.' so I let him know how much I paid for it and he was suitably impressed, 'Wow! That was cheap!' it was all the confirmation I needed. Between the hugs and Owen noticing the bargain shirt I felt like the luckiest mom in the world.

2011-07-11T21:01:00.005-04:00

With my zealous nature when it comes to cleaning I don't know how it took me so long to discover the power of OxiClean. Last week I washed my scrubs and forgot to take a pen out of the front pocket. There were pen marks all over my pristine white scrubs, assorted light colored shirts that I'd thrown in with that load and my beloved shabby chic via target sheets that are a pale pink with rosebuds scattered throughout. I was devastated. I squirted Shout on all the pen marks, I went through half the bottle with that endeavor there were so many marks, washed everything again in hot water with some type of Tide stain lifter and washing booster potion, it faded the marks from black to pale blue but they still weren't budging. I've been sleeping on the pen marked pillowcases and feeling rather tawdry, I'm too close to having OCD, oh I probably do have OCD to a certain extent, I have to arrange the crayons and colored pencils in my children's plastic bin just so, I feel feel drab and dirty sleeping on stained sheets like that. And I was loathe to shell out money for another pair of white scrubs, I think I've written at length about how much I loathe wearing white scrubs. So I was complaining to another student with children and she mentioned the OxiClean and that I should just let my scrubs soak in a water OxiClean mixture, that I could leave them in it up to a week and it wouldn't break down the fabric the way bleach can, and I would never risk soak clothes in bleach for a week, they'd be gone. Well that OxiClean got rid of all the pen marks overnight, my scrubs have never looked so good. I can't wait to soak my pillowcases. It's the little things in life that can make your day and I can't tell you how thrilled I was to see those stains go away. But then it rained and I was faced with the water making its way through my sandstone foundation and into my basement. A little thing that can ruin your day. Or the graffitied load of laundry, take your pick. It's the infuriatingly pedestrian ups and downs of being a grown up and owning a house.

2011-06-26T21:38:00.003-04:00

So my kids had their first week of summer camp and things went off relatively smoothly. No beads stuck up the nose, Oona's incident last year (which I somehow neglected to blog about, (she shoved a blue bead 'for honesty' up her nose and we had to take her to the ER, where she gave various not so honest stories about how it made it's way up her nose, to get it out) resulted in a policy change where they have a 'bead ceremony' but they give out stickers instead of beads. Sort of confusing I know. Owen and Oona are having some minor difficulties at camp because Oona idolizes her brother and wants to follow him everywhere and Owen is annoyed that Oona is trying to join drama club, which is Owen's thing. Being an only child I always feel lost with the sibling rivalry stuff, I just try to tell them both that they're going to be around each other for the rest of their lives so they might as well get along. But overall the week was a good one. They went swimming twice (I worry about them drowning even more now that I've been at Children's and since they don't really know how to swim, but it sounds like they have to stay in water under their armpits), went to the library and went to Soldiers and Sailors museum. I got Owen's report card in the mail and he did great, he got straight A's except for handwriting, where he got a B. Last term he got a C in handwriting. Truth be told he probably should get a D in handwriting because his writing is barely legible and this is only after we go over his homework repeatedly. The hardest part of his homework is being able to print well enough that someone can read it, we wound up having to erase and rewrite a lot. He gets so frustrated by this and it makes me feel awful, he'd be better off typing his homework. I just don't get how his handwriting can be so god awful, Oona's three years younger and her penmanship and drawings blow Owen's away. Oh well, what are you going to do, if that's his only trouble in life he's pretty well off. I still haven't gotten Oona's report card, don't know how to interpret this. Perhaps her behavior was so bad Mrs. M is at a loss for how many N's for needs improvement to give her? I'll leave you with Oona's article for the camp newsletter. I'm kicking myself for ever promising the kids a dog once I graduate from school.

About Dogs
Dogs are furry. You can play with them. I can play catch with them. They are fun. They live in your house. Dogs eat dog food and they can eat out of the garbage. They can sleep with you. They make me happy. Some are fast, some have no fur. They can be big or small. They can be nice or mean. And they are so lovable!

in no particular order

2011-06-20T20:31:00.005-04:00

I can miss my father so acutely on random days throughout the year but yesterday wasn't random. He always used to enjoy watching as much golf as humanly possible on Father's Day and gmail had this creepy reminder in the contacts to call Dad, and I say creepy because what the hell am I supposed to do when my father is dead? I don't like stuff like that, it just makes me hyperaware of how people can sort of take a lot of things for granted. I know I did. I wouldn't have thought twice about something like that until now. And yes, I feel more than a little guilt at the fact that my Dad ashes are hanging out in a box on the third floor, it's so hot up there with the windows closed and no a/c, I feel like I should put his cremains in a more comfortable place. I also feel guilty that I'm mad at him that he decided he wants his ashes spread out in San Francisco, rather than Moosehead lake, where his mother's ashes were spread and where he said he wanted his ashes spread years ago. But the man lived beyond his means in life so I guess wanting his ashes spread off the coast of Marin makes sense in a way. My father was far from perfect, but I know he loved me and faulted as he was I miss him. I miss playing Scrabble with him and how he could make me laugh and making him laugh, because he when he laughed he put everything into it so it was oddly flattering to get that sort of reaction from him based on something I said.

In other news, my kids had their last day of school last wednesday, which was followed with a pizza party at the park I'll take them to when I'm able to get out of school early. They had a lot of fun, faces were painted, popsicles were eaten in bulk. My mom watched them on thursday and friday, since I was at the hospital, and they went to the zoo thursday. My mom told them that she would buy each of them stuffed animals but they had to find something under ten dollars. So Oona found a cute little macaroni penguin within the price range but apparently Owen's stuffed animal needs are so high maintenance that he just couldn't find anything he liked under ten dollars so she wound up buying him a really cool, over budget stuffed squid. Then we went to Burgatory for dinner on friday, it was Owen's choice, and I'll never go there again because it's so loud I can't hear myself think. And yes saying that I'm now officially ready for my AARP subscription. I played hangman with Oona and being the smart ass mother that I am said to my mom, 'What are the chances that Oona correctly spelled her clue?' Actually she did spell 'Hannah Montana' correctly but she didn't fully understand the rules of the game. Like when I said 'a' she only put one 'a' in and she did the same thing with 'n'. I tried to explain that it's like 'Wheel of Fortune' and you have to show all instances of the letter. To be fair though she draws a very nice interpretation of hangman where the person is jumping off a chair. Owen complained that that isn't how you do hangman but I think she gets bonus points for creative interpretation of the hanging.

Finally, I've been at Children's hospital for my clinical rotations the past two weeks and I absolutely love it there. I'm so confused. How can I love pediatrics this much when I'm not a fun parent, frequently feel inadequate and exhausted when it comes to being a mother? I don't get it. But I'm not going to analyze this too much, it's such a wonderful environment, it's 'my mother' in terms of a specialty in healthcare that fits.
Last day of school
Oona looks much better when her bangs aren't hanging in her eyes
Owen keeping the park safe

out of the mouths of babes

2011-06-14T19:44:00.003-04:00

I stand corrected. Owen sort of elaborated on his abilities, or perhaps had a different interpretation of what his math teacher said. It turns out it was within his grade level, he's still doing extremely well, but yesterday I was thinking he was some math prodigy and I wondered how he beat out fourth and firth graders if he hasn't even been exposed to the math they do. Well no need to wonder about that anymore. I mean for the most part my children are very accurate in the stories they tell me but yesterday Owen also said his one friend was really scraped up badly because he fell off his bike and then a cub scout rode over his friend on his cub scout bike, yeah Owen insisted it was a cub scout riding over him on the 'cub scout bike'. I'm thinking the whole cub scout part might need some reexamination. And then there was the time Oona told me her dad's fiance was pregnant, and yes, I'm probably a gullible idiot, but I did believe her until I asked Toby. I can only imagine what they say about me.

2011-06-13T20:28:00.004-04:00

So Owen just told me that his math teacher took him aside today to let him know that he tied for third highest score on his PSSA tests that he took a while back (I wrote about him taking a warmup run before the test, the principal encourages all the students to do this, where he wiped out and wound up scraping his nose up). So graceful he's not but smart yes. I mean, apparently he outscored most of the fourth and fifth graders, the teacher is saying he tied for third in the school, although I'm not sure if it was for the test overall or just in math. His math teacher is super nice and has mentioned to me before that Owen does really well in math. I was so happy for him, I had him call my mom and his dad to share the news. But then I started thinking, what can I do so he's challenged in school because I sort of get the feeling, based on what he says, that he's not. I'm wondering if I'd be able to get him into a private school on an academic scholarship (because God knows he will not be going to one on whatever I'll make once I get a job).

In other news, even though it might not look like it from the photo with the painfully prominent clavicle I promise you that Owen eats plenty of food. He just doesn't seem to put on weight, or he's growing too quickly. I imagine he'd look amazing in skinny jeans.

hotness

2011-06-05T17:45:00.008-04:00

Maybe it's the weather, being on match or going to celebitchy every friday to check out their hot dong friday but I keep thinking of what men I find physically attractive (ooh and especially at the gym when my favorite is getting his sweat on). Sure, there are men that I find physically attractive that I'm sure I would have felt the same way about twenty five years ago and then there are those that I find attractive that I probably wouldn't have looked at twice ten years ago. But this weekend I'm thinking of hot Scots (James Mcavoy who is lovingly covered in the hot dong friday link) and the very very young (20!) Aaron Johnson, who's engaged to someone older than me (Sam Taylor-Wood). At first, this seems a bit creepy, but then I'm like fuck it more power to her. I mean, God knows I'd be happy as a clam to have that face and body lying in my bed. And there are so many men that date people where the age difference is even more than twenty-three years between them. I mean my personal rule tends to be I want someone who can at least recall bicentennial because I remember leapfrogging over the fire hydrants in my town that were painted to resemble midget pilgrims. But I see that for the very arbitrary line drawn in the sand that it is. And, really, if James McAvoy (32) or Aaron Johnson (20) decided they simply must be with me I'm sure I'd be jumping right over that line in the sand in a heartbeat.

So James Mcavoy (above) is better known than Aaron Johnson. He was in Last King of Scotland, Wanted (which I rented just to watch his loveliness) and Atonement (which I own because I loved the book and the movie isn't as great as the book but the book didn't have James Mcavoy in it so it's sort of a tie). And, yes, I'll admit to renting Penelope under the guise of it being a family film I could watch with my kids when really it was all for me to lust after James in all his hotness.

Aaron Johnson was in Kick-Ass, which was actually a pretty good movie, and he's such an adorable goofball in it. I also watched Nowhere Boy over my break in April, which is where he met Sam Taylor-Wood since she directed the film. It's about John Lennon's years as a teen and the very very early start of his music career. She got amazing actors for her film, Kristin Scott-Thomas, who is always so incredible and James Mcacvoy's wife, plus that cute little Boy that played Liam Neeson's stepson in Love, Actually plays Paul McCartney in this (and he's actually older than Aaron Johnson in real life, wow this boy is crazy young). Aaron Johnson does a really good job in this film, it's a small film but I thought it was very well done (some of the shots in the film are stunning). And, so I guess the perpetual nineteen year old in me finds Aaron Johnson incredibly hot and just wants to have a makeout session with those full lips of his and run my fingers through his goregous curls (just look at how flipping lovely they are in that last shot of him with his fiance, how does she not have her hands in his hair?!). Okay, I'll stop panting now.

dilemma

2011-05-23T22:28:00.002-04:00

I don't know how to even go about explaining what happened today. I picked my kids up early and took them to the place we usually go to so they can play for an hour or so before dinner. One of the parents I know, it's not like we're tight (I'm not really tight with anyone) but we talk when we're up there, wound up backing into my car. I saw the whole thing from a distance of about 50 yards. The parent got out of there car, looked at my car and then got back in their car and drove off. Now it's not like my car sustained major damage, hardly, the paint got scraped where my bumper was tapped. It wouldn't be a big deal if this parent had bothered to walk over and say something to me. But they didn't. I don't know why I didn't get up, maybe I assumed they would come over to me? I honestly can't say. But it makes me feel so crappy. And I don't even know what to say to this person next time I see them. Thanks for the hit and run on my car? I avoid conflict like the plague, so I'm obviously not going to say that, but what would be a way to politely get the point across that it totally wasn't cool to back into my car and then drive off hoping that I didn't see what I did?

study break

2011-05-22T20:11:00.008-04:00

Damn, where has May gone and how did it get to be the twenty-second all of a sudden? So I'm doing my usual panic/procrastination dance. Have a test tomorrow morning and I really need to study but then I decide I need to recycle my glass and plastic even more, and it's off to construction junction. Or I simply must stop at Anthropologie NOW and buy a scented candle (oakmoss, it's yummy) to get rid of the spunky smell in my house (a fetid attar of stinkbug, cat, and rotting bananas). And can someone please explain to me just who is buying the handsoap at Anthropologie that's selling for twenty-fucking-two dollars?! So I ponder that insanity for a while and the unfairness that all I can afford is a scented candle, even their sale stuff is pricey. But right now I have a home and health insurance, I'm more fortunate than many in this country, in that I can afford an overpriced candle. Then when I get home and sit down with all my powerpoints, well, of course, that's when I notice how filthy the house is and start cleaning like a madwoman trying to atone for the vacuum neglect this house endures during the week. And just to go off on a side note I really need a new vacuum, like the perfect vacuum (I'm on a quest for the perfect vacuum, pillow, pair of jeans to make my thighs look slender, oh and man). Speaking of which, man have I had quite a few responses from match. It gives me faith that there are other intelligent, kind, educated people in Pittsburgh and they get bonus points for good spelling (you can't imagine how many people on match have trouble even constructing a sentence). Who knows how it will pan out, fingers crossed I can get a couple free meals at Umi if nothing else. I know what I want but if it doesn't happen on match, well at least I met some nice people. And I have to give my Mom (who is also on match) a special thank you because I can't just outright reject people I'm not interested in by ignoring their emails and I figured she would have a kind diplomatic way of saying 'I'm not interested' and she did. Plus we had a giggle about some of the stuff we've seen on match, she has a 36 year old who keeps writing to her that she's had to block. I was like 'imagine if we wind up having the same guy hitting on both of us?' I go out to dinner with my mom and the kids every week and we have some good laughs, in between my having to take Oona to the bathroom. The girl has a thing for public restrooms, it really pushes the limits of the latent germphobe in me.

Okay, now to find something to eat, I absolutely have to fold the laundry and then back to studying. Really and truly this time. Wish me luck.

biting the bullet

2011-05-15T17:01:00.006-04:00

Much like someone who holds their nose when taking a vile medicine I'm deciding to dip my foot back into online dating with match. My mom was the real motivator. She keeps emailing me profiles of men with graduate degrees and nice smiles that she notices on match. These men get bonus points, meaning my mom comments even more about them, if they are superb spellers (they've got spellcheck on match now so it shouldn't be that difficult). My mom means well and she knows I'd like to share my life with someone so she keeps trying to nudge me back into online dating, even offering to pay for my subscription, if money is what's holding me back. It's not the money that's kept me out of the dating pool. The whole internet dating scene is pretty much anathema to me but I'm looking at it as a necessary evil towards meeting someone, since I'm not getting any younger and I'm pretty much sick to death of spending all my free time alone. In some ways it's easier than meeting someone in person because I have no clue when someone is interested in me, I need the romantic equivalent of an anvil dropped on my head to get the hint. So in virtual dating I can get winks or emails and that's a hint even I'm not obtuse enough to be puzzled over. It's also much easier for me to flirt through writing than in person. But not on the phone, and unfortunately, some guys like to preemptively screen potential face to face dates with a phone call and if that happens I'll quickly fall out of the potentially date worthy pool. Phone calls when I don't really know someone make me feel as awkward and uninspired by just what to say as I was when I was middle school and the silences on the phone with boys I was 'going out' with would make me blush and stammer to find something (anything!) to fill that gap of nothingness between our ears. But another really tough thing with online dating is the need to sell myself in writing and, you know, if your skill is to pick yourself apart that isn't the easiest thing to do. So what do I write? How do I make myself date worthy? Well I can always hold off on that until I get a decent profile picture to put up, and with the way my hair is looking lately it might be months until I can put a decent profile up.

think up

2011-05-02T21:26:00.002-04:00

My forties have not been a decade that's welcomed me with open arms. I've gone through a separation, lost my father and grandmother, am reinventing myself as a nurse, which is no easy task in your twenties, let alone at twice that age. The past couple of years have been a bit of a suckfest for the most part. Financial struggles? check. Uncertain future? check. Middle aged and without health in 2012 if I don't find a job in the two months after I graduate? check. It is enough to keep me up at night and has sucked the fat right out of my face (but not my thighs, it's so not right). But there are a couple of things that continue to go right for me. In spite of me really. Owen and Oona. As bad as things get in every fucking arena of my life, my children are the bright spots in my life. The other day Owen heard me talking to his Dad on the phone about Oona's behavior at school. She is very bright and, I suspect, very bored, and winds up talking constantly in class. The teacher can't control her and I think it's gotten to a point where the teacher has sort of tossed up her hands and Oona controls the class. We get daily behavior chart updates and there are days where the teacher makes sad faces in the row 'I will listen quietly when the teacher is talking' that drawn so violently I'm surprised it doesn't go through the paper. What can I do? I've met with the teacher. I've suggested using Oona as a helper, which I think Oona would love, she plays teacher all the time, and with 25 other students in the class it might be in Mrs. M's best interests. I've said to send her to the principal's office when she acts out (if she isn't going to positively reinforce her than send her to a place she's terrified to be sent to) but the teacher does none of this. Just puts her on sad face and I get the daily update clearly showing how taxed the teacher is by Oona's loquacious nature. So after I got off the phone Owen looks at me and it's like I can see the lightbulb over his head. He says, 'I've got an idea for how to help Oona. Why don't we send her to the talk doc.' The talk doc being a absolutely wonderful children's therapist who helped out Owen when he was having a tough time this fall with all the changes that have occurred in his life over the past year or so. It just made me want to cry it seemed so sweet of him. Just like the fact that ever since I've been able to ask Owen what his favorite color is it's always been the same answer, 'all of them' because he doesn't want any of the colors to feel left out. I kvell over that sweet little heart of his. Or Oona coming over to hug me and pat my head, she can be the most maternal five year old, when I'm lying on the couch and can barely talk my head is hurting so badly. I love that my children are such kind loving souls. I just would like to find an adult version that I could wake up next to. It's not something I need but for fuck's sake it certainly makes life much more enjoyable.

hello, my name is

2011-04-30T14:24:00.010-04:00

Loser? Actually it's Kim, not Amelia, and I get that that might be a bit confusing with the blog name but that isn't really the issue. The issue is that I've had this lovely two and a half week break and just the word break, it usually implies all the fun things you'll try to fit into that precious amount of time, activities, seeing people, you know, something to make the transience of it jam packed with fun. And my break has just sort of stung for the most part. I had a couple days that I got to spend with two friends and they were really lovely days. But one friend I had to import from Philly and I wind up sucking the marrow out of my time with them like a starving person because I have so few friends and therein lies the problem. Now I'm not a person that needs to have five hundred close friends, or even fifty, I'd be elated with five people that I could consider true friends, but I'd be lucky if I had half that. My phone hardly ever rings and when it does it's either my Mom or my ex, who's usually calling to speak to the kids. So there's truly only one person who calls me on a regular basis and I love my Mom but I'd sort of like to have someone else calling to see how I'm doing, or want to do something with me. And even my Mom is counting down the days until I graduate so she can leave Pittsburgh because she doesn't like it here and then I won't even have her to go to the diner with on Sundays, which is the extent of my social life. And yes, I'm well aware of how cringe worthy that is. I know that I can be quiet and shy so I'm not one that people naturally gravitate to. In fact I seem to be the type of person that gets reintroduced to people because they just can't remember meeting me. But I have actively tried with some people, to get together for coffee, or a drink (I've extended invitations to my house since I'm a bit of a lightweight with alcohol) or dinner. And 99% of time I get blown off. Which really makes me feel crappy, like I must be incredibly boring or just not worth the time. At the start of this break I asked one Mom for her phone number because Oona loves playing with her daughter, she'll scream her name the way Marlon Brando screamed 'Stella' in Streetcar Named Desire when this girl isn't at the farmhouse to play. The mother wouldn't give me her number, which struck me as odd, but she put my name and number in her cell phone and said she'd get in touch over break. And I never heard from her. I just don't get it. Not only am I not friend-worthy but I'm not even playdate worthy for your child who, ostensibly, could have just been dropped off and it would have given the mom a free afternoon? I mean I don't think I look like a pedophile or otherwise sketchy and I just thought it would be fun for Oona. So I spent my break going to the gym a lot, which isn't out of the ordinary, since that's one way to pass the time. I watched season five of Lost and am almost done with my book, which is sort of petering out of its initial promise but I can't not finish a book. I start school again on Monday and my high from having done well the previous term is long gone, having a break without anyone to really talk to I quickly start feeling that I'm not really nurse material but just what material I am I don't know.

those pesky details

2011-04-28T20:00:00.007-04:00

Last week I decided to treat myself to having the interior of my car professionally cleaned and detailed, because the seats, which I've talked about in previous posts, are tan cloth and, impractically enough, get stained with water. The carpet is also tan and was pretty wretched looking and the car had an odor of dirty, sweaty child that always made me want to apologize when I drove other students to the various hospitals that we'd go to on clinical days. So the fellow that did the work on my car was super friendly. He even brought the car to my house when he was done with it, since it was pouring and I didn't want to walk with the kids in the bad weather to pick it up. I tipped him and thanked him and, at first look, everything looked really good, although I immediately saw that the major stains on the passenger seat weren't going to come out. The stains on Owen and Oona's seats, that I yell at them about for getting mud all over, those stains came out fine. But the passenger seat, the stains that I made by using that seat as a makeshift dining tray, were unfortunately permanent, and, also unfortunate, the stain really looks like someone urinates on that seat on regular basis. So I was doing this internal fight of, well it does look better versus maybe there was a better way to have spent $110? Although, to be fair to the detailer, the carpeting really looks amazing, it's just the passenger seat that still looked bad. And the driver's seat, where the right side is stained from my wiping my (coffee or cookie covered hand on the seat, in lieu of napkins, because I feel compelled to expose how filthy I am to you and how someone, my children perhaps? should yell at me). Honestly the amount I eat in the car is saddening and, frankly, disgusting. I've had to ask another student (female, I assure you) in the wee morning hours, heading to the hospital before light has touched the sky, if I have chocolate stains on the ass of my blindingly white scrubs (and how practical is white as a scrub color?) because I eat so many cookies in the car. Fortunately the answer has been no but I seem to have a problem walking in my shoes that causes me to kick back dirt on rainy/snowy days severely enough that I wind up with spots up to my ass, it's like I need mud flaps (chaps?) on my uniform when I'm outside.

But back to my clean, but not clean enough, car. It looked much better, although the seats were still damp from the cleaning. The detailer told me to just leave the car on and blast the heat but I felt really bad doing that on Earth day so I just turned the car off and cracked the windows a bit. I had brought in the car mats to dry in the hallway but after a half hour I realized I couldn't deal with the smell of them in the house. And that's when it dawned on me. The inside of my car reeked from whatever industrial crap he had used to clean the carpet and upholstery, an awful, cloying perfume smell that was ten times worse than the child spunk of before. So for the past week I've been driving around in my Mom's Civic while leaving my car with the windows at various stages of open depending on the weather (and the weather has not been making this easy, what with all the frequent showers) and time of day. I also put a box of baking soda and an odor absorber in the car. And the car still reeks, in a super strong, permeate your clothes, headache & nausea inducing way. Granted, I am really smell sensitive to begin with. Nothing like a bout of hyperemesis gravidarum in pregnancy to give you the nose of a bloodhound. I can't deal with my laundry detergent being scented and the only dish soap I can use is Ivory (Ecover's lemon verbena dishsoap is heavenly smelling, my favorite, but too pricy to justify using and Method's lemon verbena cleanser is horrible smelling, like it's hard to believe they're both aiming for the same scent). When Oona was a month old Toby decided to paint Drylock in part of the basement and the smell was so strong I stayed in a hotel for the night with the kids and then insisted we go to his parents for a long weekend because I was convinced the VOC's were going to permanently damage my children and their vulnerable, developing brains (this became an ongoing joke with Toby's friends that he played video games with online, where they saw the opportunity in it, a cunning way to carve out time for themselves, away from family, by offering to Drylock a basement). Yeah, so I sound more and more like Julianne Moore in Safe and I'm sure you can sort of sympathize with my ex at this point.

teeth

2011-04-26T12:54:00.006-04:00

I just went to the dentist and it made me sad. Don't get me wrong, needing a crown, a filing replaced and a new filing made definitely caused me to feel like my mouth might be comparable to Martin Amis's. And, yes, that was a bit disheartening. But the really sad thing is that my dentist retired (due to ongoing back problems) and has been replaced with a new uper-competent woman. There's nothing not to like about the new dentist. She was friendly, liked the title of the book I was reading (White Teeth, I know it seems like a joke that I would bring that to the dentist but I'm smack dab in the middle of it) and was lightning quick to work with me on any payment plan I might need to cover the expenses hemorrhaging from my mouth. No, the problem was that she's redecorated the place. Now my former dentist was in no way a bang up interior designer. His proclivity was to maximize the space of the place by packing as much crap as was possible to fit in it. The waiting area had at least 3 years worth of magazines, and you never have to even wait all that long there. The hallway wall was festooned with various diplomas and awards he had received in his career. The far room, where you got in depth work on your teeth, had professional portraits of him with his dogs. There was an honorary portrait of a cancer stricken dog, now deceased. And, my personal favorite, one of him on a motorcycle with one of his dogs in the sidecar and for some bizarre branding reason, 'Pupperoni Pizza' in a corner, what pizza snacks for canines has to do with motorcycles and sidecars I'm sure I don't know, maybe because I have two cats this photo passion with pets escapes me. But I loved the way his dental practice looked. The fact that it was such a cluttered mess and sort of reminded me of the benign chaos in some establishments I've worked at, people I know, Indian restaurants I love to eat at. There's something wonderful about the so not caring what the interior decoration rules are. And he had a massive wheel that you could spin if you recommended a new patient to the practice and you could win cool stuff, like a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble for $10. The new dentist has made things completely tasteful. The new waiting area has a cork floor with blue leather chairs and actually interesting small paintings of Pittsburgh. The hallway is clear of any clutter and was painted a pale neutral-ish yellow. The dental rooms no longer have tons of crap posted to the walls. I totally get why she did this. If I were her it was the first thing I would have done. But it makes me sad. All the front staff and hygienists wear the same ensemble of black pants and dark grey lab coats, nipped in at the waist. Even the dentist wears the same uniform. I just miss the clashing scrub tops, items I will never ever wear as a nurse but I secretly celebrate that lovely tackiness. Most of the staff stayed but one hygienist left, I think it was the one that dubbed herself 'the small fry' and had her room pretty much wallpapered in newspaper and magazine cutouts referring to small fry related stuff, like 'small is the next big'. I'll keep going to this new dentist, unlike my ex who was really rubbed the wrong way by her, but I so miss my old dentist, the eccentric Dr. Melnick. I can always keep my fingers crossed that he has some great recovery with his back issues and misses practicing dentistry so much he comes out of retirement. Here's hoping.

easter break

2011-04-22T10:36:00.007-04:00

This week the kids have had off and the week has pretty much sucked weather wise. One beautiful sunny day yesterday, although a bit chilly, drizzly every other day. So we have gone bike riding twice, gone to see Hop (a big hit with the kids, I liked hearing Hugh Laurie as the paternal bunny, imagining lurid fantasies of Hugh talking dirty to me as both a demeaning House and a bunny that will give me all the candy I want, I'm concerned that I find Hugh the sexiest when he plays an asshole doctor), Oona's made a mess load of Easter cards and drawings, and Owen has begged to go on the computer and watch TV daily, I've had to try and keep both to a minimum, which is no easy task with the crappy weather. During the times Owen isn't pestering me about the TV/computer he has been rereading these Translucent books which he loves (he's read each half a dozen times) and I find it sort of adorable because the books are manga romance. He's also been teasing his sister and refusing to play with her, typical sibling stuff but it drives me crazy because I was an only child and it just seems mean so instead of ignoring it I point out how nasty he's being to Oona. I don't know what to ignore and when to intervene, I don't have history with the sibling rivalry stuff. Elise came out to visit on the mega bus (which I keep calling in my head the magic bus but correct myself before saying it). Oona loooved Elise and was trying to craft a way to enjoy the girls weekend with us. Elise and I both had a religious experience going to Umi, which is the best sushi restaurant I've ever eaten at. It's the only place I want to go for sushi, the toppings they use, looking at their website is like food porn for me just fantasizing about the red snapper, salmon, sawara and tuna. They have really good riesling too. I'd just like to have a lost summer of sushi and riesling, mmmmm.

Elise with a recently converted acolyte, my daughter, just wait until she's old enough to read Elise's book, there'll be no bounds to her admiration.
Owen with his invention, the submafish
One of the bike days, Oona fell and scraped both knees shortly after this picture was taken putting an end to the biking for that day. At least she didn't knock out any teeth. I always see my kids falling off their bikes and knocking their teeth out. It's causes a physical reaction in me, like nails on a chalkboard, when I think of this, my mind is a horrible instrument of self torture.

vacation

2011-04-13T20:57:00.006-04:00

I'm done with my critical care term! I not only passed, I got high honors and I got the highest grade on the final! This is one of the advantages of having no social life to speak of, all I did was study, go to the gym, and rent movies. By the way can someone tell me what the end of Inception means? I have a feeling it's sort of like the end of Momento where I'm left wondering about the reliability of the film's narrator. I actually got a really nice final clinical evaluation too, where my instructor was proud of me considering how far I'd come this term what with dealing with my anxiety (she did tell me the first time she was my clinical instructor, way back in week five, that I should take a valium before coming to clinicals). I finally got to a place where I not only didn't cry but actually started feeling comfortable in the ICU setting. I loved the ICU in the not so great neighborhood, commute aside I'd love to work there. The environment with the nurses was really wonderful. I had two nurses thank me profusely for my help, the one I worked with the last week said it would be great if I wanted to work there. Oh and I got to change my patient's surgical dressing last week, she had gone to surgery on Tuesday for removal of a PEG tube due to infection (necrotizing fasciitis). I removed the original dressing, there's a pretty distinct odor that comes with an infected wound, but I felt like Jodi Foster in Silence of the Lambs when her fascination overcomes her initial squeamishness at seeing a dead body fresh from the water. The smell didn't bother me because I was fixated on treating the wound properly. I pulled out the original packing, which was purulent. I saw another piece in the patient and my instructor said, no that's her insides (because, yes, you could see her insides) but it turned out to be more packing, it resembled a shoelace, so I took a hemostat and pulled that out as well. And then I cleansed her wound and repacked it with gauze and an abd pad, using sterile technique. And I absolutely loved doing it, like I could totally see myself enjoying being a wound care nurse. When a wound care nurse came to speak to our class, way back in Basic II almost a year ago, I could never imagine doing that as a job because wound care nurses work quite a bit with ostomy patients which, when I first learned about ostomies, I didn't know how I could handle that, I had a hard enough time bathing patients and not feeling invasive. But after you have cared for a patient that has a urostomy or colostomy, well, it doesn't freak me out at all. And this tough as nails female surgeon once told me I should consider becoming a wound care nurse, that it pays well and you get to establish long term relationships with your patients. I have no idea why she told me this last summer, when I showed interest in an abdominal X-ray of my patient's that she was looking over.

One thing I'm puzzling over is that all my instructors write about how kind and caring I am in my clinical evaluations and I'm always wondering, do they really mean that or is that just the nice thing to say about someone who doesn't seem to have much else going for them in the clinical environment, aside from a propensity for tears? It makes me think of when I wanted to work for a magazine, back when I was twenty-five. I met with Marin Hopper at Elle (somehow my Dad knew her) and she was like 'You seem like a very nice girl, why do you want to work at a magazine? You are too nice for this business.' Sometimes I get that same feeling reading my clinical evaluations and then I'm like 'What the fuck am I suited for?' and, alternately, 'I'm not that nice. Just ask my kids or anyone who pisses me off while driving.' I still want to do psychiatric nursing first and foremost. But for PNR, my practical internship where I shadow a nurse for 120 hours before graduation, I'm not allowed to do psychiatric nursing (or, for that matter, OR or ER nursing ) so I'm thinking of the neuro ICU or possibly the NICU, I'll have to see what that's like this coming term. I'd almost like to work in the ICU just to prove to myself that I am capable of that type of nursing. And it's the best experience if I ever decided I wanted to become a nurse anesthetist (and if I became a nurse anesthetist I might finally be able to stop worrying about money). In terms of critical thinking, ICU nursing is the best specialty out there. Okay, but I'm officially done with thinking nursing school until May 1st. It should be a blissful couple of weeks. Hopefully I can sleep away the bags under my eyes that have been a fixture since October.

2011-04-12T14:59:00.003-04:00

So during my 'catching up on chores whilst studying for final' today i decided to put my down comforter in the wash. When I opened the washer there was a horrible smell and pulling out the comforter my basement quickly became a hen house, there were feathers everywhere. Nothing like catching up on chores to put you back in your studies. I think I'm quitting down comforters, the smell of those liberated feathers was too much for me.

2011-04-12T10:53:00.012-04:00

The past four days I've been studying for my final, which is tomorrow. I haven't spent every minute of the past four days studying, don't get me wrong. I'd intersperse it with going to the gym, renting movies each night (four! more than I've seen in the past four months) and catching up on errands I neglect while in school but I've looked over all of the eighteen powerpoint lectures I'll be tested on bright and early tomorrow, with such diverse gems as trauma, esophageal cancer, neuromuscular disorders, all things renal and disaster planning (if this last lecture had been given with the same passion that my favorite fire safety lecturer puts towards his work it would have been awesome, alas, he's a tough act to live up to). So today, my day before the final, I get to panic in earnest. To be fair my body is well acquainted with that panicky feeling, in fact it seems to be the mode it operates on most days. But what better way to calm that vertiginous feeling than with a little procrastination by blogging? So my friend Elise turned me on to celebitchy and I have to admit, I agree with her about how refreshing it is to come across a website that totally objectifies men with such gems as hot dong friday. They'll also have very funny posts like Michael Madsen owes $750k in child support, deadbeat Dad or victim of the economy? I am a sucker for a headline like that. It's a very nice place to click over to and indulge in all things insipid and celebrity oriented for a bit. A few weeks ago Elise and I were talking and she asked who my top five guys be. And I seem to be very uncreative because my mind won't even let me imagine random flings with famous hot guys. My fantasy goes poof if I can't realistically (well, really, unrealistically) see myself being able to get along with this person. But so here's my list of the top five famous people I lust after and it seems to show just how bad I am at this game, or perhaps what a geek I am.

No real surprise here given my Hugh wishlist that resides permanently on the right side of this blog. The past couple years of House have disappointed me but I still would rather watch Hugh Laurie in not so great House episodes than basically anything else on TV. If Hugh could just talk dirty to me with that British accent I'd swoon.

The real life doctor I fantasize about. Atul Gawande is my hero; he is just so smart and such an amazing writer and he's actually interested in making the world a better place. I mean he's a surgeon, he could just rake in the money and live some nice upper income life and not be bothered (trust me I see enough doctors like that at the gym I go to). But he wants to do more with his life and it makes him infinitely cool to me.

My dirty little late night secret. I do not get to see enough of Craig Ferguson because I can't stay up that late and I don't have Tivo (I don't even have cable, I just have basic access to get my public channels in clearly). But this man is so sexy with how funny he is. He's unbelievably clever and he has a good heart (this clip of him discussing his alcoholism is great) and I love how he flirts with the camera when he talks.

I don't know if Ralph Fiennes is clever or funny (hell, just pronouncing his first and last name properly is questionable) but he's sexy in spades. He is great at playing evil characters but equally good at playing tragic heroes. He is even sexy bald, noseless and snake-like as Voldemort. I might need to rent something with him in it soon.

Michael Chabon is the nice jewish boy I wish I married but Ayelet Waldman got him instead. I can't even fault her for it because their marriage seems so enviably beautiful I can't imagine wrecking it. Just thinking of Michael Chabon makes me smile. His writing is so exuberant and if you listen to him that exuberance comes across with every word he says.

team kathleen

2011-04-08T19:59:00.014-04:00

I don't have many friends in Pittsburgh. It's my own fault, I'm pathologically shy. But one person I am friends with is, Kathleen. Kathleen has a whole slew of friends. She is just one of those people that has a way about them that people gravitate towards. I think it's because she is one of the easiest people to talk to. She's smart, funny and incredibly creative but she never takes herself too seriously. It's a modesty that's baffling when I see some of the artwork she just tosses out so easily. Kathleen was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer this past summer. She's gone through a masectomy, chemo and radiation with a spirit and humor that is unlike anything I could imagine being capable of. She will make numerous jokes (very funny, very dark) in reference to what she's going through, but I never hear her complain. I honestly don't know how she does it. I mean look at the poster she made in an hour of goofing around on photoshop, it brings me to tears when I look at it and think of what she's been through but, at the same time, it's funny. It has an unsinkable spirit and that's Kathleen in a nutshell. She has one particular friend, Karen, that has gone above and beyond what one might expect in terms of help from a friend, Kathleen no longer considers her a friend as much as family because that's just what she's been to Kathleen. But there are others, so many others, that have helped her throughout the past nine months. When I see the love people have for Kathleen, it makes me think of Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life. She truly is rich with the friends she has. And her family is pretty great too, I love her parents. There is a group of us that is running for Kathleen this Mother's Day. I loathe hitting people up for donations, where you click on everyone in your email address box and send the prewritten spiel. And, honestly, I'd rather raise money to give directly to Kathleen than to Susan G. Komen race for the cure, not that I don't think they deserve money, they do, and I know it helps with research and all that, I get it. But I want to help my friend because she's incurred a lot of financial costs (those co-pays add up quickly) in addition to the personal costs she's faced with this health crisis.

So, if you are so inclined you can either donate here or contact me at plumamelia@gmail.com and I can give you Kathleen's address. The two images below are a couple bookmark ink drawings that Kathleen did. I so wish she would become the art instructor where our children go to school. She would be perfect. At the very least I'm strongly pushing her towards starting an Etsy site.

in the pink

2011-04-06T21:23:00.006-04:00

Back in early October of last year, after Oona's incident with 'the lice' she dyed her hair blue over at Toby & Sara's. Sara is Toby's fiance. She is smart, kind, pretty, incredibly funny and, most important to me, absolutely wonderful with Owen and Oona. So yes, this is a huge thing I've avoided posting any reference to but there's nothing really to say about it. They're happy and I'm happy for them (honestly). It's one more person to love my children and they adore her and her Mom, who might qualify for favorite Grandma, Owen calls her 'Grandma Awesome'. I just wish I could meet someone to share my life and be happy with too because it's sort of the whole point of life. But back to Oona. I guess Oona had been talking to them about dyeing her hair blue like Katy Perry for some time and after 'the lice' incident, and my horrible job of cutting her hair, and the beauty salon making the best of the hack job I'd done, well her hair was short and it seemed like a nice thing to do for the suffering she'd gone through because of 'the lice' (Oona always called them 'the lice' and that's stuck in my mind). Her hair actually looked quite cute blue. Especially as it was washing out, it became this pale teal that looked really nice with her eyes. So this weekend Toby called to see if I had a problem with pink, I said no, after all it washes out and she can dress however she wants as far as I'm concerned (especially since she needs to wear a uniform at school). As long as her clothes are seasonally appropriate. And hopefully this indulging in the hair colors might dissaude her from a future facial piercings, facial tattoos, or, god forbid, those earrings that stretch your lobe WIDE. And has some dermatologist/plastic surgeon found a way to remedy that yet because I think there could be a potential goldmine there in another 10 years or so? So she got deep pink hair and I think she looks adorable, it totally suits her personality and the best thing is it washes out after a couple of months, so thank you manic panic for letting my five year old realize her inner chameleon.

2011-04-05T19:48:00.005-04:00

This is a blanket that only took me over a year to finally make for Owen, it was supposed to be a Christmas present for 2009 but he got it around Chinese New Year of 2011. Oh well, at least he was appreciative. So appreciative that he even complimented the lavender satin blanket binding, my cheat for sort of eyeballing the measurements of the blanket. What 8 year old boy thinks to comment on how beautiful the light purple binding is? The jolly rodgers that face him are ultra cuddle fleece, very soft and yummy with the flip side being two different types of corduroy, top and bottom are, the awesome in its ugliness, chartreuse fine wale with maroon wide wale sandwiched in between. The only thing I didn't consider was how much Sam, our fluffy, lovable, fat in spite of throwing food up right after eating it, cat loves sleeping on Owen's bed at all times. So now I frequently have to hit that blanket with the power paw attachment of my vacuum to clear off the haze of cat hair. Nothing like making more work for myself.

I want to make a fabric headboard for my bed but that might have to wait until Chinese new year of 2013. I have just the vision of it in my mind though, lovely and easily removable so I can wash it if need be because I love my washable slipcovers.

2011-04-04T18:48:00.003-04:00

I am easily seduced by the shiny new things I learn in school. Knowing how to flush an arterial line or being able to obtain blood for lab tests from them. Putting in foley catheters. I've only done three so, yes, there is a definite thrill to doing that properly. And the last man I did it on was so kind, he said he didn't feel a thing. Of course he was also suffering from some confusion so who knows what the reality was there. Doing an EKG, it's deceptively simple but how cool that I got to do one in the ER. The fact I've now given so many shots it seems old hat to me, I never thought I'd feel that way. I'm still a bit OCD about preparing all my meds for patients and making sure I know as much as I possibly can because the game part of nursing school is knowing more about your patient than you're instructor does. If you're on top of that, and practice safely, and are friendly and take care of your patient, well then you're golden. But as much as I absolutely love learning all these new things I always come back to my first love, psychiatry. Whenever we have presentations where we're able to choose what we want to do I always pick the psychiatric aspect of what we're covering. I've presented on the psychological impact of burns. The fatal pull of the Golden Gate bridge, the world's number one suicide magnet. I had way too much fun researching that topic. Don't get me wrong some of what I read was heartrending but I just loved learning all about suicide magnets and whether deterrents are effective (they are). I've got a presentation due thursday where I'll be looking at substance abuse in the critically ill patient and I find the treatment of this patient population in healthcare really need of change. It's yet another area where healthcare is failing. It's all so flipping short sighted, treat the physical symptoms of withdrawal during the patient's hospital stay, possibly a five minute psych consult if someone is really on top of things and then the hospital sort of wipes their hands of the situation when the patient is discharged. For all that I learn about healthcare being an interdisciplinary plan of care it does a huge disservice to patients when it comes to mental illness. These critically ill substance abusers and the med seekers I saw at the ER, they need help. They need someone to be patient and to try to get through to them and get them set up in some sort of intensive outpatient program where they can work on their addictions. Otherwise they become frequent flyer's at the hospitals and just wind up costing the hospital so much more money in the long run. Why can the hospitals not see this?! Statistics say that 6 out of 10 substance abusers suffer from mental illness but I stubbornly refute that statistic. If you get addicted to substances you are not a happy, functional person. I think everyone that abuses substances has an underlying mental health issue. One really interesting chart that I found on one of NIH's websites regarding drug abuse is that those who suffer from bipolar disorder have the highest rate of substance abuse. No real surprise there but guess who comes in second? People who suffer from panic disorders with agoraphobia. They are almost equal to bipolars in the incidence of substance abuse. It fascinates me because those disorders seem so different but they both have really high incidences of self medication. And I just want to know the patient's background, to see where they're coming from in order to self medicate to deal with life. To me, psychiatry is the narrative aspect of medicine. Psychosocial care plans were my favorite to write up because I just like trying to understand what people do, functional or not, in order to cope. And this one psychiatrist whom I got to hear lecture and work with patients at the beginning of this semester (that I can't believe is almost over) he was like a rock star to me he was so incredible at his job. I want to be that good at what I do.

2011-04-03T17:37:00.008-04:00

Another Sunday and another test that I'm spending a little time avoiding studying for in order to post a birthday shout out for my Mom, who is officially a senior citizen today. I took her out for brunch this morning and it's only now, that I finally no longer feel stuffed, I think the long workout I just returned from helped stomach fullness matters along too. If you live in Pittsburgh or ever visit the area I highly recommend the brunch at Casbah, although for the prices they're charging they need to reupholster the banquette in the dining room because it is in sorry shape. Anyhow, let me rhapsodize about the food for a moment now that I no longer feel in imminent threat of bursting. It's actually not too expensive a brunch for the amount of food you get (beverage, appetizer and entree for $24). I got orange juice that was so good I was close to weeping. I don't order OJ that much because it rarely measures up to my finicky standards but this one did and more. My Mom and I both got the fruit and cheese plate as an appetizer. The midnight moon, which was exceptionally soft and stinky, was my favorite, and we also both got the casbah benedict (aka eggs benedict). I got mine with prosciutto, it was very yummy. Plus I had about four cups of coffee and they brought over a basket filled with mini muffins, scones and biscuits, of which I inhaled all of them (they were mini but the amount I ate this morning was sort of disgusting). And then the waitress asked us if we wanted dessert. I don't know who would have room for dessert after the size of that brunch. It is one of the handful of times I've passed on dessert.

So here's a photo of my Mom from when she was six or seven, she's the tall one in the back. I think this was taken one New Year's Eve many years ago, and I'm sure my grandparents and their friends, family tied one on even with young ones present because they never missed their cocktails. My Mom was so pretty as a child and was incredibly pretty as an adult, she still is. I remember looking at her yearbook when I was young and being captivated by the pictures of her as a cheerleader and with my Father as part of fall court (which I'm assuming were the runner's up to homecoming queen & king). I look absolutely nothing like her, unfortunately, physically I'm just like my Dad and his mother's side of the family (I look like my great grandfather and it was a face that worked better on a man). Oh well, you can't choose how the gametes fuse at fertilization. Just humor me for a minute and let me scratch that itch that is the science geek in me. Do you know that with the same parents there are 70,368,744,000,000 chromosomally different zygotes (aka babies) possible and that's without crossover, if cross over occurs there are 4,951,760,200,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible combinations from the same two parents. Genetics astounds me and I would not know how to verbalize that last number. But back to the birthday girl. Here's to my Mom for moving here last February to help me out with school, and my Father's death and all the other personal things that I don't write about here (it might surprise you but some things are off limits here) that have made the past year and a half especially difficult. There's no way I could have gotten this far in school without her help. I don't think I would have made it past my first term. She's a very good Mom and I learn more about her and love and appreciate her more with each passing year.

2011-04-02T18:05:00.008-04:00

My daughter Oona is not one for moderation. She feels things pretty intensely and makes no bones about letting you know just what she's feeling. Last night she quickly became Oona the fierce when I wouldn't go upstairs with her when she had to pee. Really this is my own fault, because I did gut the half bath on the main floor two years ago, and though it's all newly dry-walled now, I've yet to get a plumber to put new fixtures in because I want to make it a full bath, in order to make my house more sale worthy when I put it on the market, but money is tight. So it sits, the empty tease of tantrums deferred, if only I'd commit to getting it finished. I don't understand why my children don't like to go upstairs to pee alone. So Owen is on the phone with his Dad and Oona is hopping up and down on the stairs, which are really quite steep and I still want to carpet them with a runner but it's another thing on the house to do list. Anyhow I'm convinced anyone, child or adult, would die if they fell down my stairs, so I don't like to see stair related tantrums. I told Oona she was going up stairs to pee get a quick shower and then bed because when she does this on a friday at 7:00 it usually indicates that the week has exhausted her. I spent the next half hour enduring her screaming protests, on the toilet, off the toilet, hopping mad naked but for her socks, trying to be hopping mad in the shower but that's another potential disaster so I warned her not to hop in the tub, hopping up and down on the bath mat trying to run away from me but she was soaking wet and we've got hard hard tile in the upstairs bathroom, a horrible peach color to match the 1950s? tub and sink, the state of that bathroom makes my heart sink (oh gosh, if I get started on analyzing the myriad things to fix in my house it literally becomes a house of cards that collapses in front of me). Finally, somewhere in the middle of my drying her hair, her cries that were harmonizing with the blower dryer softened and then stopped. After that she said she was no longer sad, hugged me and I got a book to read to her in bed. I slathered her hands and arms with lotion and put a pair of my socks on her arms. We read the book, I lay next to her a couple minutes scratching her back and head, gave her a kiss goodnight and she was out less than five minutes later. I admire her resolve to commit so fully to everything she experiences; anger, joy, sleep, life.

Owen and Oona's school has a holiday store that is always filled with dollar store cast offs and I stress to them not to buy me anything! But they always do. I got a lavender soap from Owen that I had to pitch (don't tell him) because it was so strong I could smell it in the hallway, and it didn't really smell like lavender and every since my pregnancies I'm super smell sensitive. Oona got me two tiny worry dolls that are pinned to a business card that tells the legend of them. And every so often, if I'm having a bad day or have a big test, presentation, crazy amount of school related paperwork to do, she tucks them under my pillow for me. And one night she arranged a tiny arsenal of her toys at the top of the stairs to greet me before I went to bed. And sometimes she'll just come up to me and clasp my face with her two lovely little plump hands to give me a kiss right on the mouth. I named Oona after Charlie Chaplin's wife, Oona O'Neill, the it girl of her time who, unfortunately, in spite of her happy marriage did not have any easy life and died from complications of alcoholism. But my Oona is much more like Oonagh in the story of Finn MacCoul and his fearless wife. Because in that Irish folk tale Oonagh is the resourceful, clever wife who saves the day, and I have no doubt that my Oona is capable of just such feats of greatness, even if she doesn't have the silent 'gh' on the end of her name.

are you my mother?

2011-03-30T20:39:00.005-04:00

Just one last week of clinicals in the ICU for me and I have to tell you I sort of love the ICU we're at currently. It's in a bad neighborhood, a number patients of patients come in with substance abuse issues, and the hospital might very well close in a few years time. It's a longish commute, 25 minutes instead of 5, but this ICU is scrappy. I have always been a fan of the underdog, so it's only natural that it would extend to a hospital and patient population that I think many people would like to ignore. A HUGE part of my liking this ICU is that, with a couple exceptions, the nursing staff is exceedingly nice and helpful. I've had one particular co-assigned (nurse I work with for the day) twice now and she's great. She's so young but very cool, incredibly easy to talk to, helpful but quick to say 'let me know if you want help or if you need me to back off' and she actually seemed to appreciate my help at the end of the day. Most co-assigneds that I've had basically ignore me so the few that interact with me are worth their weight in gold. But this girl in particular, if I worked somewhere where most of the nursing staff was like her I'd be happy as a clam. After lunch one of the doctors stopped me and said, You look like you're the nursing instructor. And I sort of laughed, saying, No I'm just a student. So he stops me and asks, Do you know why I thought you're the instructor? Because I look so old? He smiled and said, No, you look like you know where you're going. Now this doctor wasn't your typical looking doctor, he was like 6''5", not wearing a lab coat but instead a polo shirt with a very large white flower in his chest pocket. And I just love eccentrics like that and this hospital, it sort of has an island of misfit toys vibe to it. It's more than capable medically, I'm not saying it's deficient in that respect at all. It's just that it's not snobby in the least and I really like that. Plus the boutonniere doctor wished me luck when he left the floor. I know that when it comes right down to it the environment I'm working in will determine whether I'm happy with my job or not. Sounds like a no brainer right? I think it takes on a new level of importance in extremely high stress jobs where it could quickly devolve into lord of the flies if the environment isn't supportive. And that sort of aggressive, backstabbing bullshit would ruin me, even if I stayed out of it, which I would, because I tend to strenuously avoid office politics and just do my work and be friendly but not get involved. So this will sound odd, but lately, when I go through each clinical rotation, that book 'Are you my mother?' pops into my head. I don't want a snort for a job. I want a nice place, the medical equivalent of that sweet worm seeking bird mom in the kerchief. And it's a bird in a kerchief so there is a bit of goofiness there and I want a place where people want their work to speak for them, not the way they look, or their car or that other status related crap. So if I can find that after graduation, and successfully pass my boards, then I'll be set. But first things first, one more week of clinical and passing this course. I'm done April 13th. My word, the past 13 weeks have been a blur.

2011-03-24T12:40:00.003-04:00

Reasons I hate my car? The list is endless. The city MPG that is thirty percent less than what was the original estimate, the highway mileage is even worse, it's close to 40% below the estimate but I'm not on highways daily (well I'm on one daily but only for less than a mile). The tan cloth interior that takes every drop of water spilled on it and turns it into an ugly magnified stain? Water staining a car's interior, how unpractical is that? The loosey goosey chassis that makes me long for my old Civic, the list goes on. But this morning when I hit my turn signal to go right and the tempo was stepped up to the fast paced beat that let me know yet another turn light has short circuited I was ready to drive right past school and drive the car right through the front window of the dealer I got it from. This is the third time that a turn signal light has died on me in the four and half years that I've owned the car. I never had that happen to me on any of the other cars I've owned. EVER! And this is the third time and the people at the Ford shop insist that this doesn't indicate a problem with the Freestyle, and it's not covered under my warrantee and I'm not paying another $200 to get this fucking turn light fixed. Although I know that every time I inadvertently hit that directional and hear the tick tock'ing on speed or every time I don't hit it because I know I'll hear that is just going to make my anger at this car rise again. Grrrrrr... I loathe people who fail to use turn signals but I refuse to fix this problem. As soon as this albatross of gas guzzling is paid off in full I'm trading it in for a used civic or jetta. I will never buy a Ford again, this car, which I got for (#1) safety reasons and (#2) the gas mileage it was purported to get, is a fucking piece of crap.

mathlete?

2011-03-19T18:06:00.002-04:00

My son is many things, smart, belovedly goofy, kind, curious, very sensitive but athletic, no. Last month his grade and two above him went to Romp n’ Roll, apparently a roller skating rink that’s been a fixture of the Pittsburgh suburbs for ages. Owen spent the majority of his time at Romp n’ Roll skating on the carpet. He didn’t actually skate in the roller rink the whole time he was there. And he mentioned having to hang onto railings for most of his time there. But he had fun. He was especially thrilled that I gave him $10, he had mentioned wanting to buy a plastic sword, apparently those were all the rage at Romp n’ Roll last year when he was a second grader watching the cool older kids go there while he had to go to the Science center. This year the thing to have was the glasses you see him wearing. It was a set that also included a quasi bite guard mouth piece which also blinks in those different colors (I took many photos but couldn’t capture the mouth blinking bling on digital, you’ll just have to trust me on this one it’s in there.) Mmmm, a battery encased in plastic sitting in my child’s mouth. What do you think the chances are of a recall on that type of toy? Possible choking hazard? And they were a bargain at $5 so he spent the remaining money on little plastic parachute ninjas. I think he got over twenty of them.

In other adventures of inathleticism, this past week his school has been taking the PSSA tests (don't even get me started on how much attention is put on this test) and in the morning the principal has the classes taking the test run around the front of the school a couple times to get that blood flowing up to the cerebral cortex and invigorate them for test taking. Well Owen fell and did a total face plant the first day. He wound up with an abrasion on his nose, knee and hand. I am still trying to work out the physics behind the nose abrasion but am eternally grateful that he didn’t mess up his teeth at all. Between his falls running and Oona's predilection for head trauma given her being too top heavy it's no wonder I hover as a parent and quickly envision worst case scenarios (the nursing school lectures on head trauma have done nothing to help with this) when I watch them play.

AMS

2011-03-18T19:47:00.000-04:00

In other mental health news, I seem to have a sixth sense for neuro changes with my patients. I'm now 3 for 3 on knowing that my patient was suffering from altered mental status(AMS). The most recent patient was three weeks ago. I told my co-assigned I thought the patient was suffering from delirium and she said, try to hear this in the most patronizing tone a nurse in their mid-twenties, with their wealth of experience, could manage, 'That's not delirium. I know what delirium looks like and that's not it.' Well, lo and behold, two days later the patient got a psych consult and guess what? They said the patient was suffering from delirium. I'm not Sherlock fucking Holmes, if a patient doesn't seem altogether there what I usually do is ask a family member if this is the patient's baseline. If they say no then I keep telling those above me (which is everyone when you’re a student) that something is wrong. It's sad because what I do, which is pathetically simple and unskilled, just is not done or it’s not prioritized.

2011-03-18T19:46:00.000-04:00

Wednesday was quite a day in the ICU for me. New location, new ICU, longer drive, meaning I need to get up even earlier. The hospital is in a depressed area so things seem very different in terms of the patient population than the suburban more homogenous hospital where I've done all my other clinicals at so far. My patient from Tuesday was stable enough to be transferred to another part of the hospital so I came in bright and early Wednesday (6:30) and got a new patient. Now getting a new patient is very hard for me because I'm someone that likes to know what I'm getting into. As one instructor mentioned, I have a comfort zone. So as much as I loathe the mountain of preclinical paperwork I'm thankful for it because I spend at least five hours, usually closer to eight, the night before clinicals learning as much as I can about my patient. That way I can try and be on top of things, and try and calm my nerves, when I come in first thing in the morning. But I couldn't do that Wednesday. I also cannot do that in real life, there isn't time, so it was a good experience, if also somewhat terrifying. My patient on Wednesday was someone very young who attempted suicide. It was sad on so many different levels; the patient's age, the spouse at the bedside, who was so unbelievably kind to me, even in the midst what's happened to them, the kindness of other family members. These are the times when I get really close to crying (okay, if you've read any of my blog you realize that I get really close to crying or actually cry quite easily) because the whole situation is, obviously, quite emotional and the patient so young. There's a problem that I keep coming up against in nursing school. It's not so much caring for the patients, although I worry, pretty much constantly, that I'm not doing a good enough job helping them. But I can deal with beating myself up in that area because I want to help them. The thing I can't handle is the lack of sympathy, emotional hardening or downright meanness that I see in some of the other nurses. I do not work in an ICU and I have heard from numerous sources (a good percentage being those who have worked in critical care) that nurses in critical care can comes across as arrogant, in part, because the job is incredibly stressful. People say you have to emotionally distance yourself or you won't really survive in that field. But that does not make the nasty, demeaning comments that this one very seasoned nurse said about my patient right. I don't care if it was meant to be funny (it wasn't) or if it's how that nurse deals with working in the ICU. It was so fucking judgmental and small and outright mean and the patient might have been sedated and vented but that doesn't mean they can't hear you or understand what your saying. For a patient to have so much negativity directed towards them, by the person that's supposed to be caring for them, is unconscionable. Mental illness is so stigmatized and I guess I naively hoped that it would be different in a healthcare setting. From my brief experience it seems that it isn't,different unless you're at a psychiatric hospital, then they're very compassionate towards those with mental illness. And if mental illness is stigmatized, suicide is like the illegitimate child of mental illness that no one wants to talk about. And it's so wrong because for those who attempt suicide (or succeed) and the family members of these victims the grieving process can be far more difficult than for other people that get critically ill or die. There's so much shame, guilt and anger that can be attached to suicide, if anything the patient (and their family) need more care directed towards them, definitely more compassion, not judgment and jokes about 'these kids don’t know how to do it (kill yourself) the right way.' And that was one of the more tame comments. The things I heard just make me seethe. And then I start wondering where can I be nurse where I can make the biggest impact? Should I become an ICU nurse and do my miniscule part to put a compassionate, hand holding, if also very nervous, nurse in that field. I see so many problems within healthcare (and, to me, having a nurse that makes fun of a patient they're caring for is a HUGE problem) but I really want to try and help fix them. I just don’t know how.

disclaimer

2011-03-16T19:44:00.003-04:00

I am not as noisy as I appear to be in the pictures below. That's one place I'll draw the line at picking myself apart about. I'm not nearly that spotty. I don't know why the pictures saved that way, when I open them in photoshop they're fine. But I'm beyond hitting the gaussian blur a couple of times to soften them up for this blog. Although I sometimes wish I could hit gaussian blur on my real life face a few times. Imagine. Okay I'm done with the solipsistic self loathing though. The next post with be free of that. Promise.

continuum

2011-03-13T19:01:00.011-04:00

They say you can never be too rich or too thin. But I'm becoming the latter, at least in my face, and this is where my problem arises. I've got a twenty pound continuum. When I'm at my thinnest I look horrible pretty much everywhere, except my legs. At my heaviest my legs look horrible but I have a pretty good set of tits then. When I'm in the lower quartile of my weight, any semblance of breasts is all smoke and mirrors, thanks to american eagle and their paige bras, which can put my 34 A minus amply into B territory. When I'm ten pounds heavier than I am now my face usually looks best. Unfortunately I'm not able to cut, parcel out and repackage a me with my lowest weight legs, heaviest weight tits and 3rd quartile face. So what's a girl to do? I'm currently five pounds away from my lowest weight (I don't want to put numbers or sizes in because that just seems too horribly fucked up and, really, I'm just aiming for minimally fucked up with this post) and my face looks horrible. My chest is also rather ghastly. My intercostal spaces are clearly visible, and at times it looks my sternum is about to break through my skin, from the nipple line up I look a wee bit like I'm starving? I'm on Survivor? I don't know I never watched that show but I'm assuming they get rather gaunt. In other words I can sort of understand why that doctor thought me wan. But I'm actually not underweight, my BMI is on the low end of normal but it falls firmly within normal territory. And the way I carry weight, I'm more pear shaped than apple, so it's no suprise that I'm very thin in the chest and thicker in the hips and thighs. The first picture is of me four and a half years ago when I was, obviously, younger but also a bit heavier. I miss how much softer my face looks in the earlier photo but I don't think it's just the extra weight. Age plays a big, I don't want to think how big, part in it. I never thought I'd say it, because God knows I found plenty to pick apart about my face back then, but I miss my younger face. I'm sure stress plays a part on ravaging my face too and nursing school has sucked any remnant of happy, healthy plumpness right out of my face. So I currently avoid mirrors and other reflective surfaces in public to come home and furiously scrutinize my shortcomings in the privacy of my own bathroom. I sound like Greta Garbo without the fame. I know how vain this all sounds, but I don't want to look sick and I think that my face sort of makes me look like I'm terminally ill with something. Fatal fortysomething dysmorphia.

Okay, now this might sound like I stretch but I'm also wondering if any of my facial gauntness could be due to my ongoing headache issues. I've had a headache more often than not since October. I finally kicked that 3 month sinus infection in January but my headache hasn't really gone away and I think I'm suffering from pretty much daily tension headaches, which pain relievers don't do anything to alleviate the pain of. I wake up every morning to the top of my head hurting. By midmorning my cheekbones and everything north of them kick in with the pain. By dinner I have a helmet of pain, my head hurts everywhere except for my mouth, nose and ears. Don't even get me started on my forehead and how it feels like I'm frowning all the time, even when I'm not. That might not sound painful but when those muscles feel pulled in that position all day, it hurts a lot and creates this heaviness, it makes my eyes ache. So couldn't all this pain possibly result in a deleterious effect on my face? I know it probably makes me look even more stressed and tired. And it's sort of exhausting to have facial pain almost constantly. The only good thing I can think of is that at least I'm not suffering from trigeminal neuralgia which is a type of facial pain that is so bad it's nicknamed the suicide disease. There you go, I found the silver lining in my face hurting and becoming more gaunt by the day, at least I don't have trigeminal neuralgia. I'm off to pop some ineffectual NSAIDs.

kiss kiss

2011-03-09T19:20:00.005-05:00

Oh this week at the hospital was a blur. I had a very very sick patient. Sorting through my preclinical paperwork on Monday night, rumor has it our nursing school is the most exacting in terms of the sheer amount of paperwork we must have prepared for our clinicals the next two days, the school also requires the most clinical hours out of all the other in this area. I worked from 1 to 8 making sense of all the infomation, then went to the gym for an hour and a half to burn off my anxiety. I was really concerned that my patient might already have died when I came in Tuesday morning, because a diagnosis a severe septic shock is one you never want to have. But the patient was still there with a pulse and clear lungs, even if everything else was going to hell. The patient was scheduled for wound closure surgery which I got to go to. Down in the PACU, prior to surgery, the transport nurse started relaying information about the patient to the anesthesiologist but he had the wrong information and I was able to sound like I knew what I was talking about and tell the anesthesiologist the patient's story, so I'm actually quite grateful for all that grueling preclinical paperwork because I was prepared. The transport nurse was super gracious and thanked me, which was very nice of him but I get the feeling that transport nurse is never not nice, a very chatty and up fellow. So to the OR. I absolutely love watching surgeries, it's completely fascinating to me, the more open and exploratory the better. But I couldn't be an OR nurse. For one thing the idea of standing in place for longer than fifteen minutes sort of drives me crazy. Like I need a nursing position where I can walk, usually very quickly, and move around a bunch because I'm a bit of a physical spaz. If I decided to became a nurse anesthetist I'd probably need to do jumping jacks or something because it tends to be COLD in those ORs too. But watching the surgeons do their work is pretty incredible. Plus my favorite vascular surgical resident, who is most likely a few years shy of thirty, was there, making me rue that I'm not fifteen years younger. At one point he called me muscles because I had trouble snapping off something which is ridiculously easy to do. But he'd pat my shoulder and he thanked me a few times for my help, which honestly was minimal at best. Sigh. That attention creates those teenaged heart thumpingly good feelings until I'm like, 'Are you insane? You're 42! He's just being nice.' And he is nice. To everyone. He'll pat anyone, male or female, on the shoulder. Still that boy makes me goofy, like my Tim Roth/Eddie Munster man at the gym. But I digress... Unfortunately they started the surgery but couldn't finish the way it was originally planned, the patient's condition started deteriorating too much. But when your body goes into severe septic shock the choices are between bad and worse. What choice can you make? The patient was closed up and brought back to the ICU, it was touch and go as to whether they would live through the night. I had gone back to the hospital later that afternoon to catch up on paperwork because I was so busy watching what was unfolding during the day that I wrote down nothing. I stayed up until 9:30 last night doing my paperwork and got back to the hospital at 6:30 and, thankfully, the patient survived the night. I talked to their family and my heart goes out to them. It is hard to know what to say in a situation so grave, but I just try to be an empathetic ear more than anything. I don't have answers but I do care for how incredibly difficult a period it is for them emotionally, hopefully that caring is felt. The patient aroused more through the day (the previous day the patient was sedated the whole time) and got restless a few times. This might sound weird, but I find that I bond with the patient more then. I mean I guess it makes sense and it's not like I didn't care whether they died or not before I had that response. But the interaction, even if it's brief, it brings the reality of this person, you see them, and their struggle for life, home to you. I think that's another reason why I wouldn't like OR nursing, I want to interact with the patient more. I think there's a delicate balance maintained between caring for the patient and being able to do your job thinking critically. I know I care, I know I can think critically but I don't feel incredibly skilled doing them at the same time. Do I get too emotional. Oh yeah. Does my anxiety cloud my judgement. Definitely. But my hope is that it's on the smaller things (shaky hands, little fumbles like that) that I can calm down about when I do it often enough. So I really struggle with this balance. Especially since this is a person who probably is going to die, unless some miracle occurs. And what can you do? The surgeon can't operate on them again, their condition is too grave. They've got more drips going than I could have imagined possible. Tuesday I was shellshocked by the amount of care the patient needed. But today I was actually able to help a bit, and even if it is in my awkward student nurse way, it still felt good. And when the patient roused and was anxious I'd hold a hand or stroke them along the forehead and tell them it's alright. I'm almost certain that it won't be alright but you can't let them lose hope. The patient and their family will be in my prayers.

So as for the kiss kiss title. The nurse I was working with today, an instructive co-assigned who also did this as a career change, was trying to squeeze the patient's two JP drains to close to suction properly and when he popped open the cap on the one a tiny spray of serosanguineous fluid hit me across the mouth (which was thankfully closed) and bottom part of my face. You couldn't even see it, it was like when someone accidently spits on you when they talk. Except this wasn't spit. It was a septic cesspool positive for Klebsiella and God knows what else, that has the patient literally at death's door. Needless to say when I got a chance to leave the room I went straight to the bathroom and scrubbed my face, especially my lips with the antibacterial soap. Ugh, I wanted to drink the soap. Sort of ironic this would happen when my last post made mention of my kick ass physical health. Let's hope it stays that way.

dark alley

2011-03-06T16:13:00.004-05:00

The corner I turned just led me into another dark alley, something that seems to be happening a lot lately. Like pretty much since this fall. It makes me question what I'm doing in nursing school? What am I going to do with my life? Can I get a job and health insurance before my divorce is finalized? Because the idea of being without health insurance in my forties could, in itself, push me into a breakdown and how would I ever afford that, you know, without health insurance? So another Sunday creeps up on me, sticking it's tongue out at me from the moment I raised my blind to find snow falling. Another test that I'm studying for. And every Sunday my belly is filled with this acidic stomach churning panic of a new round of clinicals to face for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. How am I ever going to work in a hospital if this is what 'play work' at the hospital does to me? Five more weeks of critical care to go. Our instructor talked to us about workarounds at post conference (the end of clinicals) last week and asked about workarounds we have we noticed. And why is it I see, not workarounds, but outright errors, lies, stuff that makes me thank God for my kick ass physical health and hope that I never have to spend time as a patient in a hospital. I can't say that I entirely blame the nurses I see doing these mistakes, although I see some things, and as a student I am in a position of no power, that make me feel very uncomfortable. Like come home and bawl uncomfortable. The hospital healthcare system doesn't work. Neither for the patients or the employees of the system. And I want to hop up and down and point it out and try to make a difference. But my instructor, the very first week she met with me after clinicals said, 'You are a very kind person but you have this attitude like you want to save the world.' She didn't see it as a good thing. More as something that was going to make me depressed and cause me get burnt out early and she was sort of like 'you have to accept that you can't make changes in that way.' But I don't think it takes genius, the biggest impact can be made with simple stuff. And the biggest thing I see, that leads to the most problems, is the lack of time. Being rushed to multitask to the point of mistakes and decreased productivity and getting a sort of tunnel vision so you can't even see the patient in front of you for the person they are and not just what's on their medical chart (which is on a computer, which just makes me think that Paris, Texas is one of the most prescient films about technology and isolation). Ugh. Guess, I'll hop off my soapbox of despair and get back to studying.

turned a corner?

2011-02-22T17:47:00.003-05:00

I did MUCH better than I had hoped or expected on my midterm. And the nurse I'm working with in the ICU was super nice to me today. So can I just recant on my previous post. I don't know. The ICU is definitely interesting and an incredible learning experience. It's just so unfuckingbelievably overwhelming at the same time, all the meds to know, the hourly charting on vitals, hemodynamics, intake and output, the fancy pants monitor for reading central venous pressure and mean arterial pressure, the pressure bag, the tubing going all over the place and needing to keep on top of orders (for new meds, tests, procedures, yada yada yada). I feel like I could actually get my groove and learn to enjoy ICU nursing if I ever had the chance to get my bearings without feeling like an idiot and/or asshole (disclaimer: this could entirely be me misreading people's shortness, not wanting to be in my presence, comments on my anxiety ad nauseam and taking it personally). One thing I do like is that the doctors actually ask you things, like how your patient is doing. And what you say matters. And if I can manage to keep my shit together I might one day come across like I know what I'm talking about. Like to the very handsome vascular surgeon (like Atul Gawande but much hotter), surely much much younger than me, but very friendly, he patted my shoulder when I made an idiotic mistake trying to let him access the computer to place an order (I was logged on and as a mere student of nursing, obviously they aren't going to allow me to make any orders). Oh well, live and learn. With all this learning I should be 120 (in nursing student years) by April.

I'm not stressed - beyond the stress induced by your telling me how stressed I am

2011-02-20T17:21:00.003-05:00

For some curious reason I thought that Adult I, the term I endured last fall with my father's death three weeks into the term, would be my toughest one. The tests were hard, the midterm brutal, a quarter of my class didn't pass the term, but somehow I got through on emotional fumes and managed to get high honors. Well this term, which is my critical care expereince, is kicking my ass and making me long for the seemingly easier pains of fall. I don't know what has gone wrong for me mentally, emotionally but I'm doing so poorly this term and it's killing me. Okay, now I'm not failing but my grade it's nowhere close to that high honors zone I usually shoot for. And I do that for a reason I need a huge cushion from being near the failing zone so by my final I can be like, I can miss 60 questions out of 120 and still pass. And the thing is, having solid footing with the academic, testing part of the schooling, well it made clinicals (which fill me with panic) bearable. Like I didn't worry quite so much because at least I had the 'I'm doing well with my tests' in my back pocket. Now I have nothing. I have cried way too many times at clinical already this term. All my clinical instructors keep talking about is how I need to relax which brings to mind the house quote I titled this post with. I've cried too many times in front of too many different instructors. I feel like I have no reserves to put forth in terms of getting through this term. I have a midterm tomorrow which I've been studying for but part of me wonders if I should back off on the studying because I usually get many a question wrong by completely over thinking the answer. Going above and beyond the black and white type in front of me. I don't know where my head is lately, just know I want to successfully complete this term and have it behind me already. And the ICU experience, it's killing me. I feel like an alien with all the nurses there. Almost all of them are in their early to mid twenties and have the type of personality, well I doubt I would have fit in even at their age but now it's painful how different I am personality-wise from everyone else and then there's the 15 + year age gap on top of it. I just don't think the same way. I don't find the ICU thrilling, I think it's terrifying and dehumanizing. My patient would have painful things done to her (procedures, nothing intentionally painful) and no one even looked at her or really talked to her, aside to make a joke like 'oh that must have hurt, like a bikini wax.' I held her hand and would look in her eyes and squeeze her hand gently when I could see that she was scared or in pain because God knows I'd want someone to do that for me if I was in the ICU and my family wasn't around at the time. And why do I wind up feeling like I'm the only one who thinks that stuff matters. I'm good at hand holding and listening, not so good at the other stuff. It's so fucking lonely. Like being an outsider in high school without a friend to commiserate with over how fucked up things are. All the other students are just loving this term, I guess when you're young it's sort of an adrenaline rush. And yes ICU is a great place to be in terms of increasing your critical thinking and the skills attached to reacting quickly to crisis situations. But all of that completely enervates me. I just want to help the geriatric (or possibly pediatric) community with mental illness. For whatever reason the psych stuff doesn't scare me and I understand the information I learn very easily, I just get it. Fortunately there are instructors who look out for me, one in particular helps me feel better when I'm teary and overwhelmed with not fitting in. I'm sure she thinks I'm neurotic as all hell but she's very nice to me and helps me out. Keep your fingers crossed. Seven weeks down, seven more to go.

thigh envy

2011-02-13T18:37:00.006-05:00

I would kill to have thighs that looked like this! Good lord to be 43 and able to wear a skirt that high? Although there's another couple photos of her straight on and her thighs are so thin I think you could throw a baseball between her legs without hitting them,. Honestly. And with her feet together. She's got the body of a teenager with nary the littlest dimple of cellulite. On top of that this CD is very good. I got hooked with the song, Lonely Love, that has Richard Butler singing backup. I had her first two CDs, well copies of them from an old boyfriend, and I'd sort of forgotten about her until a friend picked this up and I've been listening to it ever since. I'm on a nostalgic music kick. Listening to psychadelic furs, love spit love, well anything with Richard Butler and the Fixx on my shuffle for the gym. Okay, I've got to go back to studying. Had my presentation on Friday, I wish I didn't get nervous speaking in front of people. Test tomorrow, then the hospital and then my midterm next Monday. So please, send prayers, cross fingers and/or toes, good vibes, anything positive my way that I get through this term without failing, or succumbing to heart failure from the stress.

2011-02-09T18:53:00.004-05:00

My Grandma died yesterday morning. My Mom called me at 5:20 before I went to the hospital for the day. Not the best time to let me know but I guess there's never a good time for learning someone you love has died. She had just been transferred from the assisted living facility she had been living at for over four years (over two of them while on hospice) to Forbes regional hospice located within West Penn hospital. At least her last hours were in a facility that provided her peace. Unlike the assisted living facility where she would get agitated at night and no one would give her medication to alleviate her pain or anxiety because there was no LPN or RN on staff at that time. So she stayed up all night and suffered, we found out last week. I know it's a looong way off but please think of your parents, your loved ones, yourself. Consider a skilled nursing facility before you go to an assisted living center. Over the past week my grandma would keep repeating 'please don't hurt me.' it's not a memory you want, worrying about who might have hurt her or what exactly happened to scare her so. And hospice, be careful which one you choose, more than that, ask for another nurse if you get some religious whack job taking care of you or your loved one who doesn't believe in being liberal with the morphine or thinking it's premature to put someone on continuous care, because when a person is actively dying they are in a lot of pain and agitation and for God's sake be a wee bit compassionate and give them the morphine and ativan they require. My Grandma was under 80 pounds and a month shy of 96, that her life was dragged out to literally dying bit by bit is a travesty and something I hope no one else ever suffers through or watches a loved one suffer through. I love you Grandma. I hope you're finally at peace now. You were so darn nervous but such a dear sweet, smart beautiful lady. I truly hope you realize the gift you were now.

2011-02-05T19:32:00.009-05:00

I have to give a presentation on Friday about noxious stimuli and maximizing stimulus response. If you don't know what I'm talking about don't worry, I didn't either until yesterday in class during my neuro assesment lecture. It's basically about eliciting a response in an unresponsive patient with the last resort, pain. And the instructor kept stressing how we should be creative with our presentations. And me and my sick mind I instantly went to Marathon Man with the dental torture scene and then to the whole S&M scene. Especially since one of the pain responses I remember seeing, and actually blurted out in class, was pinching the nipples. Which I think caused more than a few of the nine other students in my class to raise an eyebrow, my instructor somehow managed to keep a straight face. But when she mentioned it again I said that I remembered that from an episode of House and then, everyone was like 'oh, of course' and went off on how House makes all these medical gaffes, like I've mentioned before. But the thing is I'm trying to look up these various methods of arousing a response. And a lot of people say never do the nipple twist (apparently it's a twist, not a pinch, and that is what Foreman did to House when he was found not breathing) but then these online forums say that's the one things that elicits a response when all else fails. What are the other methods of noxious stimulus you ask? pressing down on the nailbed with the side of a pencil or pen (one commenter recommended a tongue depressor instead of a pen to avoid cross contamination), sternal rubs where you press (some say use your knuckles, others the palm of your hand) along a patient's sternum and firmly rub (this is supposed to be unbearably painful), pinching the trapezius muscle (not easy to do with a petite nurse and a larger patient), pinching an ear, pressing a finger firmly on the supraorbital bone (which can give a nasty headache but you can't do with a suspected face, skull fracture), and ... the Liverpool health service policy says 'genital pain may be used when other forms of recognised painful stimulus have failed to elicit a response from the patient. It is not to be used as a first line assessment of patient response to stimulus by staff.' How in the world am I to give this presentation with a straight face? I mean it would be 'creative' if I dressed up as a dominatrix but then we get graded on wearing appropriate attire for the presentation so I think that's out. The odd thing is why is the nipple twist so vilified when the other methods can also cause pain and bruising, the sternal rub is just as painful if not more so. It's like the parent that is vehemently against spanking but has no problem pinching their child or digging their nails in the child's arm hard enough to leave a mark. Now I'm not advocating spanking, pinching, nipple twists, any of this stuff! And God knows I'm not looking to have my nipples twisted if I was a patient in the ICU. Why couldn't I have gotten a cranial nerve for my presentation. WHY?

2011-02-03T16:52:00.005-05:00

Soo i have had these bags under my eyes since i was riddled with a sinus infection that lasted two months back in the fall. It took 3 rounds of antibiotics plus a steroid to finally kick. And yes I did wind up getting a cold two weeks after kicking that lingering infection. Go immune system! It's down the tubes thanks to stress, school, going to the hospital and caring for sick people... Anyhoo, these darn bags will not go away. It could be age, it could be stress or it could be allergies, which might have precipitated the sinus infection. And since you can treat allergies I met with an allergist today to see if that might be the reason behind my bags and annoying annual sinus infections. I wound up being there close to two hours because they put serum on my back, then pricked it and I waited around reading an old copy of Time which has me really wanting to run out and rent The Social Network until it was time for them to come back to see if I reacted to anything (one type of mold and one type of dust mite). I can go back in a month and get shots, which are stronger dosages, and I might come up positive on more. But... I saw my chart and what the doctor wrote under general appearance. Wan. My heart sank so low when I saw that. And to drive the nail a little deeper into the coffin of any remnant of self esteem I had left I looked it up on merriam webster so I could get the exact definition and commit it to memory. wan - a : suggestive of poor health : sickly, pallid b : lacking vitality : feeble. Okay, now it's not ugly, but that wouldn't be a medically appropriate adjective. Having any confidence about my appearance. Poof, and it's gone. With that one wee word. I won't even fill you in on the mortifying clinical week I had aside from telling you that I bawled on leaving the hospital Tuesday and wound up crying twice while at the hospital yesterday. And wound up crying again this morning when I ran into one of the instructors that I saw at the hospital yesterday. She's very kind to me and sometimes seeing that little door of kindness open when it feels like everything around me is going to hell, it's all I need to start the tears. Because this program is so fucking hard and it's not exactly like I have a partner to talk me off the cliff when it's all overwhelming. I come home to a cold, empty house, and one thing or another falling apart in it. And when the kids are here it's even worse because the weight of the guilt at how unavailable I am to them, while trying to keep from drowning in this program. Oh my. And I went to visit my grandmother with my mom after class today. My grandma is under 80 pounds, she looks like she's dying (now she looks wan) she could barely open her eyes, yet she keeps on going. It's like she's someone who actually might cheat death. Not really, but it's maddening to witness because her appearance alone can bring you to tears. She is literally dying piece by piece, she's been on hospice for over two years, which must be some kind of record. It's horrific. I think I'm ready to go to bed and just have this day be over. I'll dream about having enough money to shoot stuff in my face and plump the wanness right out of it.

finally finished nightstand

2011-01-10T16:34:00.009-05:00

Because I am CHEAP one of the Christmas present Oona got from me was a nightstand that I finally got around to refinish, one year later. I got the piece for $10 at a yard sale, unfortunately when I stripped it the wood wasn't in good enough shape to stain so I had to repaint it. I love working on furniture, aside from the paranoia of inhaling lead paint fumes which I'm really hoping my green stripper that I use sort of neutralizes. See during my breaks from school is when I start fantasizing about owning a store where I sell furniture I redo and jewelry I make and crafty items I find. I just love crafty stuff and maybe this fantasizing is a good way to handle my stress with school. Good lord we have a test next monday where a good third of the test is understanding various heart arrhythmias (atrial and ventricular) and being able to figure them out from EKG readings and it is a lot to digest, not to mention knowing the medical conditions that correspond to said arrhythmias AND the medications you then use to treat them. My mind just doesn't latch onto this information the way it does other medical stuff, it just feels too abstract to me right now and if I can't contextualize my information I'm sort of a goner AND (once again, the panic inducing all caps and) it's twenty-five different rhythms! So... here's hoping I can make it gel this week. Wish me luck. Just in case you want to try you hand at understanding EKG rhythms you can go here and learn more, I'm sure you're all just dying to check out this site.

2011-01-06T15:41:00.003-05:00

I was walking through Highland Park around dinnertime the other day and just liked the way the dormant hydrangea looked next to these puplish black pods thingies. Yes, obviously I am no master gardener. I have no idea what type of plant this is but I liked the contrast of the colors and that it was dark it made the contrast even more vibrant.

Off on running with school. Have had two full days learning to read EKG rhythms. Oh my it all makes sense until we go on to the next section of abnormal rhythms and then I'm like, wait I still have to remember all those ones before that I just learned. Gotta make space in my brain for this stuff to sink in. On the plus side Monday, after our lecture I caught a House episode where the patient went into super ventricular tachycardia and they need to cardiovert her and I understood what they were talking about. If nothing else, it makes my House viewing that much more enjoyable. Oh and one helpful bit of meaningless house gaffe trivia, they almost always put their stethoscopes on backwards on that show.

2010-12-31T14:05:00.012-05:00

I hope everyone survived their holidays. Well I really hope people actually enjoyed their holidays, but I find this time more than a little stressful, so sometimes, just getting through them emotionally/psychologically intact makes them enjoyable. I not only got through adult 1 without winding up in the local psychiatric hospital (no small feat there given this fall) but I got high honors to boot. I don't like to toot my own horn but given the past few months I've had I'm very happy that I got through. A quarter of my class wound up with a D or worse, which means they have to retake the course again, and my heart breaks for them. Maybe it shouldn't, maybe they're not so upset, but I find this whole nursing school experience so unbelievably stressful, rewarding too, but man it really takes you to the brink in terms of seeing what you can handle. Let's see good things that have happened this past term. I had one horrible clinical instructor and two wonderful ones, one of whom I got along with especially well (when I started talking about how the computer system at the hospital drives me crazy the instructor was like 'I'm so jealous you're going to get one of those jobs in nursing with computers. Please take me with you if you do.' And as I look into nursing informatics, I don't know, it's like it would combine all the apparent dead ends in my life career wise and it would make sense and if that could work and I could get paid well and make a difference, oh my I would jump up and down with joy every day. Seriously.) I sort of collect, in my heart and head, these instructors who nurture me, because I need those good feelings to look back on during the very tough times. One charge nurse took me aside at the hospital one day, my stomach instantly dropped and I was trying to recount what I might have fucked up on, but she said that Mrs. G's students are always very good on the floor (medically complex floor) but she wanted to let me know that I was going to be paid very well and make an excellent nurse. That I was very gentle with the patients, asked questions of the staff in an assertive but gracious way and was quietly confident, she stressed that my not being loud was something her floor greatly appreciated and, unfortunately, I know what she means because I've heard other loud nursing students. I kept saying thank you and I swear I was close to crying what she said made me feel so good. Of course the next day my patient had altered mental status and insulted me most of the day, she didn't know better, but after my father yelling at me the day before he died, it cut a little too close to home. Then my instructor got upset because I was trying to fill out a pain reassessment (to document how the patient has responded to pain medication) and I didn't know what to put because she was so out of it she thought I was talking about paint not pain. And my instructor was mad at my dithering and I just burst into tears, not my finest moment. I'm telling you nursing school is like this emotional roller coaster but I made it through this term. I just need to think of Dory in Finding Nemo 'just keep swimming' and sort of maintain that attitude through the next 38 weeks of school. This term will probably be my toughest because it's the critical care term, so I'll be spending my clinical days in the ICU for the most part. God help me. I have clinical nightmares, where I forget to give medication or do the wrong thing, make horrible mistakes and feel so bad and guilty. I wish there was a drug I could take that could eliminate those bad dreams from my subconscious and put confidence boosting ones in their place. Anyhow I had such a long 'things to do' list that I wanted to cross my way through over my two and a half weeks off. I didn't cross off nearly as much as I would have liked to but I did read Freedom, which I highly highly recommend (I had to put the NPR link because he makes so many hysterical comments about NPR listeners in the book). I saw Black Swan which was good and The Fighter, which was better. I got some things done around the house but the stuff that needs to be done around here is like an avalanche I'm always running three feet in front of. I so look forward to the day when I no longer feel like there's an avalance behind me.

My resolutions for the New Year are
1. to wean my coffee intake to one large cup a day and drink water for the remainder of the day, eat more fruit and vegetables, limit my sugar and try to cut down on the processed food. yes i make this resolution every damn year but hopefully one of these days it will happen.

2. hula hoop everyday for fifteen minutes in addition to my usual gym routine. do not underestimate the enjoyable exercise that is the hula hoop.

3. try to get more friends locally, because I really have next to no social life in Pittsburgh (pathetic I know, but I'm really shy in person) and sure school is busy but it would be nice to go out for coffee or a movie or breakfast with someone aside from myself, my mom or my kids.

4. post more on this blog, even if it's just random photos.

5. do more creative stuff while in school, it's hard to carve out that time but I think it might be critical for my mental health to avoid becoming totally consumed with being a nursing student and only measuring myself through that lens. (wow! and I thought the mom lens was a particularly self critical one, nursing student is right up there with it).

To the few who read this I truly wish you all the very best. My old friends that I've loved for years and had wonderful experiences with and the new friend I met through the blogworld who I've never seen face to face but who fits right in with those I've known forever. Happy 2011!

christmas booty. the tree is topped with a fleece kitty that my kids got me for my birthday, oona said it was for me to sleep with when they aren't at my house. she's very sweet about worrying about me sleeping alone and will put her stuffed animals in my bed to keep me company. the tree ornaments are incredibly kid friendly thanks to my aunt joy sending me new ornaments every year.

oona never met a pattern she didn't like, or one that didn't go with another. i think if you asked her her favorite color it would be some pattern.

see that lavender tower in back, in the living room? the elves must have been drunk making that, at least that's what I told the kids, between muttered curses trying to snap the not quite right plastic parts into one another. what a flipping nightmare.

this picture cracks me up because owen sort of looks like those photos of politicians in the middle of making some crucial point about how they're right.

my kids love washing the dishes. the gloves are comically large on oona.

pictures of the highland park reservoir. for some reason this last one looks almost like it was taken with a fish eye lens to me. and it sort of looks austere and a bit melancholy

2010-10-25T19:07:00.003-04:00

For close to three years now I've had a secret crush on this man that goes to the same gym as me. He looks a bit like Tim Roth and Eddie Munster. Oh, how desirable you say. Well he's like 95% Tim Roth and 5% Eddie Munster but I just can't deny that 5 %, although I'm sure he would. If I were ever to talk to him say. Yes this is someone I see pretty regularly, before school started almost daily. And in those three years I've maybe had three conversations with him. Two painfully awkward ones, in the presence of my children, in the elevator and one equally maladroit attempt at chatting when I saw him by myself. Oh and two and half years ago he smiled at me in the parking lot, I had driven back to retrieve my gym bag which I had left in the parking lot. So what do I do? Smile back? Hell no. I made this strangled gasp, grabbed my bag and ran around my car in a circle (it was like a chinese fire drill with myself) . Honestly it would have been harder to look more laughable. I mean he's married with two children, so there's no reason for me to be such an idiot around him, he's not even available. But I don't know what it is, some people just turn my insides to mush (brain included) and I become this middle aged infatuated moron. How attractive. On one hand I realize that if I were to talk to him, at length, like get to know him, this whole crush might be dispelled because he could very well be dull or dumb or close-minded or not funny, so in some incredibly bizarre masochistic sense it's good that I don't talk to him. And honestly what's the likelihood that I could talk to him without potent pharmaceutical intervention? But this way he forever maintains the status of being the man at the gym that makes me weak in the knees.

2010-10-24T11:23:00.008-04:00

so with school and my avalanche of stressors (situational and self induced) which shows no signs of slowing i don't get much quality time with the kids so i'm going to start taking either owen or oona for a few hours on saturdays so i can just have fun time with them and reconnect because i'm feeling really lost from them since school started and it's a horrible feeling. yesterday i took owen biking (that's zoo traffic in the background, don't even get me started on that since the easiest way to my home is taking the same street zoo parking is on.) and then we had hot chocolate and brownies together and it was really nice and such a welcome break from my life of late.

has anyone seen a tree with these type of thorny growths on it before?

owen and i kept talking about how nasty looking it was and he was saying if the womping willow in harry potter had these type of thorns on the ends of it it would be even nastier a tree than it already is and no amount of pumpking juice could heal the wounds such a tree might mete out.

here's owen poking at one of the more benign thorn growths.

owen's making a peace sign which you can see on the large version of this picture, probably not so clear scaled down this much.

setting the bar low

2010-10-21T14:51:00.009-04:00

Well, lower. I've gone from needing to be the top student in my class, to needing to get high honors this term, to maybe honors is enough, to why don't I just try to get through the term where I only visit WPIC (the psychiatric rotation in our clinical term) as a student observing and not as an actual patient being admitted. I know I am setting the bar real low here but i'm sort of crossing my fingers, hoping I can do it. I have a midterm on monday which I'll be studying for in every spare minute over the next three days (when i'm not procrastinating by writing or cleaning) because the tests this term are kicking my ass! Of course, it would help matters if my heart would comply with my body when I try to relax and focus but no. Thank you very much for the support in my previous post, you don't know how much that helps right now.

american beauty

2010-10-17T19:15:00.005-04:00

I have wanted to write for so many weeks but I don't even know where to begin. I feel so raw from everything I've been going through for the past month. My father died on September 18th. I'm thankful that I was able to see him before he died and my children got to see him too. Owen was sensitive, as usual, and frightened by my father's appearance that had become horribly distorted from the cancer and medications. Oona was unfazed and ran up to hug him then twirl through the room. I spoke with my Dad on a Monday and he was fine. By Tuesday he couldn't talk clearly to me, the cancer took over his brain that quickly. Of course it also attacked his liver so the toxins in his body just went up to the brain, adding insult to injury. Death is not tidy. I just wanted to say goodbye to him and tell him not to worry, that I loved him and I would be okay, that he didn't need to worry about me. He yelled at me when I tried to feed him lunch the day we left. I know, intellectually, that it wasn't him. He was out of it cognitively, even when he yelled it was that he didn't want that medication that he thought I was giving him. But I bawled. It was the one time his eyes were open, bright blue and seemingly clear even though what he was shouting about made no sense. It was horrible. And I don't want that to be what I remember. And his siblings keep telling me not to worry about the 'cross words I had with my dad at the end' which isn't even accurate and that I was his pride and how much he loved me and it just feels so empty. And is it just bitchy of me to feel that way? Oh and to top it off, the last day we were in Cleveland I discovered that my children were completely infested with lice. I'd wanted to stay until Saturday, which is the day my father died, but I couldn't see how I could do that with the lice in a hotel. I was overwhelmed. I came home to start the nitpicking and laundry (which took on Fantasia proportions). My first test in school was that Monday. I'm phoning it in with school, I mean I'm trying but I get these waves where I'm just crushed with how bad I feel. I have trouble eating (so I look horrible!) the past month I've been feeling like my body is in a state of a permanent panic attack. Oh and did I mention that the bulk of my student loan went towards paying for my father's cremation? I just want to sleep, if my racing heart will let me. But actually I really need to study because I've got another test tomorrow and a midterm next Monday, nursing school doesn't stop and I'm not supposed to either.

So... I started writing poetry.. Because isn't that what everybody does at a point of crisis in their lives? Someone I love gave me this book over the summer and I loved it and it made me want to write again. Even if it winds up being the poor man's version of this book. I can just write my poetry memoir, minus the anorexia, plus the bulimia and with a lot more alcohol consumption (and boyfriends!) and file it away and not have those memories gnawing at me. This poem isn't breaking properly on the blog but I can't figure out how to make that work right now. I'm just happy I was able to type a somewhat coherent post at this point.

American Beauty

My dress for prom was shiny satin, sweetheart neckline, the color
a deep fuschia. The lady at the store wore a corsage of pins on her wrist
that she plucked from to take in my waist
She deemed it amercian beauty rose through lips pressed tight
over the steel petals in her mouth. I fell for the fancier name.
My shoes were dyed to match. Junior prom and I was bringing him.
But I had on the necklace you gave me, a synthetic stone hung
from the thinnest gold chain. I never found it pretty.
But it was enough to remember the smile on your face when I opened the box
that was enough to make me happy. So Christina borrowed my pearls
and they looked lovely on her. And I became cozy with regret.
Slipped away from his hand as it climbed higher along the back
of my satin thigh as we stood under an arbor weighted
with fake roses waiting for the flash to go off.
It wasn’t fair. I’d had no shame about making out
in front of the group that shared our limo. The badness I’d been so intent on
erasing was becoming a bigger, darker mess. My handiwork
only made things worse. I realized too late that I was in
over my head. I laughed it off when he told me
once the best time in his life had come and gone
he was going to start taking chances. I couldn’t truly respond, fear
took my voice away. Later as I drove him home he wouldn’t stop.
Kissing my face, my neck, buried his face in my shoulder
to nibble at a clavicle. I took my hand off the stick, pushed him back
and chided you can’t do that or we’ll get ourselves killed. Undeterred
he continued up to my ear whispering but wouldn’t it be a great way to die.

first day of school

2010-09-02T21:22:00.002-04:00

For owen that is. i have to wait until next wednesday for Oona's first day of kindergarten. But Owen was very excited about his first day and his new 'snazzy' pants for his first day of school. Another couple of weeks and those snazzy pants of his are going to be snazzy floods what with the way he's growing. I call him cricket and hopper lately, when I look at his long slender sticks for legs, he weighs in at 60 pounds after eating a very large meal. And the slick shoes that were dressier than his usual run of the mill velcro sneakers. Owen is a boy who likes to dress up for the occasion, whatever it is. He's actually talked about owning a tux in some not to distant future in his 8 year old head. Of course I've also come into his room, waaay past his bed time, to find him bawling worried about college, getting a job, affording a house. Yes the boy clearly takes after me with respect to spiralling out of control with catastrophic, crippling anxiety at inappropriate times (although I'm not sure if there ever is a truly appropriate time). But I don't know where the dandyisms comes from, although, now that I think of it, my Dad, his Grandpa Boo, was a bit of a clotheshorse. The man had bespoke shirts, suits and coats when he was traveling to the Far East every six weeks for work, back when I was in middle school. Those were the days.

2010-09-01T14:28:00.003-04:00

Maybe it's just me but i think Owen's belly button bears more than a passing resemblance to a yin yang symbol. That and being born on August 8th (8/8) I think Owen would be very appreciated if he took a trip to China and, you know, went around flashing his navel and shouting out his birthday. Apparently in Chinese numerology 8 is a very auspicious number, one reason why the beijing olympics started on 8/8/08, and yes they carried the 8 to the limit with the official starting time having been 8 seconds and 8 minutes past 8 pm. I also just learned (thank you wikipedia!) that 88 is bears a visual resemblance (when you look at chinese characters) to 'double joy' which is a popular decorative design for joy or happiness. But that belly button, if you can look past the bit in the middle which makes even me, his own mom, squeamish at the resemblance to brain, the outer part looks like a yin yang.

august

2010-08-15T22:37:00.003-04:00

Owen turned 8 last sunday, on 8/8 no less. If i had my shit together a little better I might have posted something earlier but this past week I had my final in school and was sort of overwhelmed with the whole nursing school shebang. Oh, by the way, many posts ago I bemoaned the state of my hair, or lack thereof. Well I had a scalp biopsy and it turns out I have telogen effluvium which is a condition that can be brought on by stress and usually winds up correcting itself once the stressor is removed. I'm just hoping that nursing school isn't the stressor otherwise I might be profusely shedding for the next couple of years, since I'm assuming my first year on the job might be a wee bit stressful too.

But back to Owen, his birthday and that enviable torso with nary an ounce of fat on it. I had custody of Owen for his official birthday. Just writing that sentence is so sad and let me tell you if you beat yourself up or question your parenting as a stay at home mom being a single parent kicks the parental self flagellation to a whole other level. Well I got Owen and his friend E saturday evening to take them to see Sorcerer's Apprentice. Originally E was going to sleep over at our house and go to the wave pool in the morning with us but he was a little nervous about the sleep over idea so we dropped him at home and picked him up in the morning. It was a really nice birthday with Owen and his friend. They get along swimmingly and they were so cute to watch in the wave pool, bobbing and plugging their noses against oncoming waves and, my word, how did my son get so big overnight? It was nice to spend the day with just Owen and his friend. That's the hardest thing for me with single parenting. I miss out on the one on one time you can have with your children when there's another partner in parenting. It's especially hard because Owen and Oona will fight for my attention and then I yell at them to stop the fighting and my time with them has changed so radically in the past year and a half as it is. And now being in school, I love learning all the new things about medicine but the time taken away from my kids. It kills me in a very soul sucking at any remnants of self esteem I might possess sort of way. But I need to think positive. Owen and E really enjoyed themselves at the wave pool and after dropping E off in the late afternoon we came back home and played Operation. Owen was most impressed with my surgical skills. I think he thought I did so well due to being in nursing school. I got Owen a bike because he still doesn't know how to ride a bicycle, little knife of parental guilt with that admission. He's a bit nervous about the idea of falling but, well I got Oona a bike too, because she's braver and I thought that might help with Owen's nervousness. I'm hoping to get them riding by the time school rolls around for all of us. I'm also hoping that this idea isn't a recipe for disaster between the three of us; frustration, fear, new skill and easily overwhelmed parent... I'll keep you posted.

fledgling

2010-07-22T11:55:00.003-04:00

Awesome clinical week. I got to put in a catheter on a patient yesterday, smoothly and successfully, of which I'm eternally grateful for. My patient had a significant change in mental status from tuesday to wednesday and someone I was working with ignored my repeated concerns about this. Being the lowly nursing student it is very easy to be blown off. Fortunately my instructor listened to my concerns. She got involved, a request for consult from a doctor or nurse practitioner was put in. I overheard the nurse practitioner on the phone after meeting with my patient, she didn't see a significant problem but was ordering additional blood work. When she got off the phone I mentioned that I was the student working with said patient and that there was a marked difference in mental status from tuesday to wednesday. It turns out I was very right about being concerned with my patient's altered mental status. Based on the lab results, which I looked over today, I'm pretty sure the link in the previous sentence is what afflicted my patient. They wound up transferring my patient to another unit (a step below ICU but a step above where the patient had been). I hated to see a patient's condition deteriorate but I am very happy that my assessment skills were accurate and that it resulted in helping my patient. Being so new at this I doubt almost everything I hear, see or think on the floor. I want to go with my gut but I frequently feel like I'm too inexperienced to go with the gut since I don't know what I'm doing. It's on the job training in the most terrifying sense when it's the health of people on the line. But I was right! To make a difference for the better by using my nursing skills, is infinitely better than acing any test. Plus I got to hear an amazing heart sound with my patient both days. A swishing sound, which made me question my hearing but after researching my patient's chart more and looking (and listening) to stuff online I was right with what I had heard. It's amazing to develop these skills. Well, back to reality I've got a killer test and diabetes presentation to study for.

2010-07-20T19:35:00.015-04:00

I've been remiss. Actually I've been sucked into the quicksand that is nursing school. It's affecting my dreams, or I should say nightmares, because I have many a nightmare where I'm working in some completely unsanitary hospital trying to load and administer a heparin shot and I just can't get it right. Oh my. And I thought it was bad when I had nightmares about waitressing when I worked at a diner during my summer's home from college. I'm buoyed on by the fact I still love medicine, the more I learn the more I love it, it's endlessly fascinating to me. My patients are so wonderful. I don't really consider myself a people person because I'm sorta introverted by nature and can get painfully awkward trying to make small talk with people. On a side note someone I see all the time at my gym but never talk to given my shyness was in this small computer room with me just last week and I wanted to disappear that's how bad my shyness is, especially when this guy sees me sweat profusely in clothes that leave little to the imagination. But he actually came up and introduced himself and was really nice, which restored my faith in physicians. I being an idiot and caffeine deprived (never good to go from 5 am to 11 am without coffee) asked him nothing about himself and wound up kicking myself for being such a social idiot as soon as he left. But back to my patients. The patients I've had reaffirm my belief that most people are inherently good and kind and that they reaffirm this belief in me while they are in a position of physical vulnerability, I am indebted to them for what they teach me. My favorite patient so far, I had her a couple of weeks ago. She had a name as inspirational as her outlook on life. This woman had been through a medical nightmare and yet she was so well adjusted and emotionally sound it was dumbfounding to me. She was a retired teacher though and it came through in the how kind she was with me. At one point she commented on my photo ID being a nice picture of me (remember the drama I went through for that picture) and then she's like, 'It looks like you've lost weight.' I started saying no but I guess I have, the stress is wrecking havoc on my body, my hair, my face (I'm aiming for fixing my face with graduation, passing NCLEX and a job in hand). She was funny and smart and gentle and when I work with patients like her I'm so grateful for this career I'm choosing. I just tend to get very hard on myself for any mistake I make because, well peoples lives are on the line. But this woman told me as I was finishing my shift that I was going to make a heck of a nurse and I felt like the grinch when his heart swelled to three sizes to big. It made me feel like all the hair off my head and on the floor might be worth it in the long run.

So yeah, these pictures have nothing to do with nursing. I had the kids on sunday and wanted to take them to a wave pool but got horribly lost for an hour and a half, wound up bawling and settled for Beechwood farms which I know how to get to. It was a pretty day though and I got to take some pictures of them, it's been too long.

I'm in love with my daughter's profile

okay I've got to admit I get very neurotic when I see feathers in kids hands, especially my kids hands, when I think of where that feather has been, like on the avian ass of a carrier of a potential killer strain of influenza. Lots of speculative ofs in that sentence. Even if that's not the case it was probably lying in goose scat moments before.

I don't know what has happened to the bottom half of my face but I want it to stop NOW. I tried to crop myself out of the picture, because Owen and Oona look so cute in it, but it looked too odd cropped.

This picture was a happy accident but I liked how it looked like evening when it was the reflection in the water.

just a little pinch

2010-06-22T20:17:00.003-04:00

I gave my first shot today. Subcutaneous heparin in the abdomen for DVT prophylaxis, since surgery can put you at risk for DVT and my patient just had a gastric bypass. She's nice as could be, doing remarkably well for her first day postop. And when I gave the shot I didn't hesitate and I didn't hurt her, aside from the pesky pinch. Thank you God! I get to do another tomorrow. Subcutaneous shots seem relatively easy. Honestly if I can do it, and I worry about everything, then they're relatively easy to do. The real challenge will come with intramuscular injections, which are your immunizations and flu shots. Longer needle, a little bit trickier in terms of the areas you inject in and apparently some nurses and nurses in training have hit bone. The person receiving the shot never realizes this because the bone has no nerves on the exterior. But for the person giving the shot, it's a feeling they never forget (one student said it's like putting your needle into a rock). Our instructor said she could always tell who hit bone during flu clinic by the look on the students face, they get wide-eyed real quick. So I've removed an IV, removed 2 foley catheters, given the subQ shot, emptied a Jackson Pratt drain and flushed an NG (nasogastric) tube. Oh and I started passing oral meds last week. It's hard to believe I'm doing all this stuff four months into school! And I've been up since 5 this morning and have to wake up at 5 tomorrow so I better stop blogging and start winding down for bed. Hope you all are well and that no one needs a catheter anytime soon.

2010-05-29T20:56:00.003-04:00

Oh my. That seems to be the phrase that best sums up my life right now, at least the best profanity free phrase. So in this picture to the left I look like my normal self, aside from being a little glum, since stress seems to be a permanent state that I'm in lately, and a little bit skinny, side effect from all that stress. You might have thought I was joking with the losing my hair post. I have complained about my baby fine hair quite a few times before. But what I would give to have that baby fine hair of two years ago. I went to the dermatologist on friday and had a messload of blood drawn to see if there is a medical reason for my hair loss. In the past month my hair has become so thin that I spend most of my weekends crying about it. Yeah, I probably should buy a few scarves and get out more. But I cannot stress to you just how devastating this is. I mean I never had nice hair, aside from when I was a child, but at least I had hair that covered my head.

In the two weeks since my last hair rant post I've lost enough hair that you can now see my scalp pretty clearly. And if I push the hair to the other side, well it's just as obvious. It's thinning everywhere. Never before have I prayed so hard that there is something seriously medically wrong with me. Hyperthyroidism, lupus, brain tumor. I don't care how bad it is, as long as it can be treated and this hair loss can stop. I keep thinking, it would be one thing if this was happening to me but the rest of my life was not in the crap maelstrom it currently is. Okay, I know I'm not dying. But I don't have a husband or boyfriend that loves me no matter what and really how much more difficult is being bald gonna make it to find that. What the fuck did I do in a previous life (or this one for that matter) to deserve this kick in the ass of the little self confidence I possessed. I'm embarrassed to even go out. I only go to school and the gym. And I'm starting to worry about how to cover up my scalp. I so don't want to be the person people gawk at because of the way I look. Okay and on an aside, because you know I've become an alopecia expert in the month I've noticed this problem, it seems unfair that there are programs to give woman undergoing chemo wigs but nothing for people who lose hair due to other conditions. Locks of love helps children who lose hair for the many different medical conditions but there doesn't seem to be an adult equivalent of locks of love and let me tell you some of the high quality wigs can get really, crazy expensive. There are laser treatments for hair loss too, and some that get really fancy where you can add your own plasma rich protein to the laser treatment but I'm pretty sure that's waaay outside of my price range. When I think of all the expenses around this house that I can't afford how the hell will I manage to get a decent looking wig? If it gets really bad I'm just gonna shave my head and charge a really nice wig to my credit card. I'm not asking for Rapunzel locks I just want hair that covers my head.

clinical inexperience

2010-05-25T17:36:00.004-04:00

I keep hoping that I'm eventually going to feel more comfortable during my clinical days, but so far it has yet to happen. Fortunately I actually got a good night's sleep last night, went to bed at 9:30 for my 5 am, it was dreamless, deep and blissful. But as soon as I set foot on the hospital floor this morning my body is in a constant state that I can only liken to a panic attack. But prolonged, like 7 hours prolonged. I actually did better last week when my patient was rather needy and I had to help her pretty much my whole day. I didn't realize my panic then, the day was just a blur of brief and bed changes. But this week I have a very easy patient and I'm losing my mind. How do I look busy when I have nothing to do or don't know what to do? I ask other students if they need help or else look stuff up on my patient, trying to figure out the various lab tests, burrow in my chair. I just want to disappear. I can't emphasize how dumb and out of place I feel and it's a horrible feeling to have, which it looks like I'll be having for at least another year and a half. I practically jumped up at the end of the day to help a student clean his patient, who had an episode of urinary and bowel incontinence, apparently she didn't feel right have a male student nurse clean her up. I was happy to help, after last week that's something I now have plenty of experience at. The past couple of weeks I've even seen my primary care doctor on the same unit as me but I won't even say 'hi' because 1. I've only seen him 3 times before and don't think he recognizes me and 2. In my heightened perpetual panic state I don't think I'd make the best impression. I swear they're gonna wind up calling a code on me because I'll probably drop dead of a stress related heart attack. Maybe I'm going through perimenopause right now and that's what's giving me the insane level of anxiety with this? I just keep praying that something is going to reveal itself to me, in terms of a clinical experience that I actually feel comfortable in. Keeping my fingers crossed that it's psychiatry or the OR rotation. My God what am I going to do if I get through all of nursing school and have yet to find my niche and still feel the same as I do now? I wish I could write more about my experiences but I'd be violating patient confidentiality, can't break HIPAA privacy. Well, keep your fingers crossed for me that I get a good night's sleep tonight.

2010-05-16T15:14:00.003-04:00

Comments that I don't find all that helpful

'Don't be so nervous.'
'Don't worry.'
'You need to be more confident.'
'You look tired.'

I have spent the weekend looking up hair loss treatments instead of studying for my test tomorrow. My hair, which has always been thin, is now anorexic. The one part of my body that I've never wanted to be thin. When I put my hair up in front I'm able to see my scalp more than I used to. If my hair gets any thinner it's gonna disappear that's how thin it is. Not a lot of sure fire options, aside from wearing a wig and I think that might be problematic with the amount I sweat at the gym. Although with a wig I might finally be able to have hair past my shoulders.

Oh God. Honestly, I don't need this on top of everything else. My mom, in trying to help me out, said that you can lose your hair from an emotionally stressful event, although the hair loss usually occurs 3 - 4 months after the event. If that's true I'm gonna be hairless by fall. If I looked like a young Sinead O'Connor I could totally rock that look. But I don't and that look only works in certain circles, not good for middle aged nurse.

Okay I'm going to really make an attempt at studying now.

since i've been gone

2010-05-13T20:24:00.007-04:00

It has been months and I've wanted to write, had so many ideas flitting through my head but, life has sort of kicked me in the ass of late. So... to update you.

Three days before my final in Basic 1 (which was back in mid-april) I learned that my father was in the hospital. My aunt Maren called me on Sunday to let me know that on Friday my dad had told her he thought he was having a stroke. So she called an ambulance and when they arrived my dad had a seizure. And I get called a couple days later. I love my father but he is an alcoholic (and a chain smoker of 46 years) and our relationship is somewhat dysfunctional, so when I got the call I was angry, upset, guilty (why do I always feel so guilty?) and very 'why couldn't my dad wait until I was done with my final to have this happen to him.' Totally irrational I know. They found a growth in his lung and brain, which they suspected was cancer but the bronchosopy was inconclusive. They needed to remove the tumor from my dad's brain because it was close to his motor center and giving him a lot of problems with his right side. That part of his body wouldn't 'listen' to his brain. So he had a craniotomy and they learned that he did, indeed, have cancer and that it's stage 4. I talked with his oncologist and found out his prognosis was 4 - 10 months. I went up to visit him while on my two week break in school and it was hard. Not only because he's dying and there are so many loose ends in our relationship that I know will never be resolved. But also because everyone in my father's circle in Cleveland is an alcoholic; my aunt, all his friends that visited him. I don't mean to be judgmental but it makes me sad to see the potential in my father, because he's so so smart and has a really engaging, charismatic personality. What demons in his head have tormented him that he chose to self medicate to the extent that it has wound up being his death sentence? And when I saw the one bedroom apartment that my father and aunt have been sharing for the past 7 1/2 years. It was shocking. I went to visit my dad for a few hours at the hospital, stopped at a grocery store and bought $30 worth of cleaning supplies and then went back to the apartment and spent close to FIVE HOURS cleaning, and I only tackled the bathroom in all that time. It was squalor. I had planned on sleeping there but wound up getting a room at the Days Inn down the street. My aunt was mortified that I was cleaning. I didn't mean to make her feel bad in any way but, I don't live in Cleveland, I'm thinking 'how can I help my dad?' and the one thing I know I can do well is clean. My aunt is a very smart, very kind woman. She offered her apartment to her younger brother and he came and took her bedroom! I love my dad but he's such an asshole in so many ways. His poor sister has been sleeping on a fucking twenty year old sorry shape couch! For seven and a half years! He didn't even offer her the bedroom when she had shingles. What the fuck?!

The next day I went to see my dad and we played scrabble a couple of times, for someone who just had brain surgery he did amazingly well. I went back to his apartment and spent the rest of that day cleaning his bedroom. There were clothes with dust piling up on them. And so many bills that he doesn't even bother to open. Back in November of 2001 when I went to visit my dad for thanksgiving I found a sheet detailing the extent of his debts, to the IRS, friends, his boss, various doctors and dentists, Indian Valley country club. $492,757.07. And let me tell you that number has grown higher since he moved to Cleveland. I tried to sort through his bills, thinning out mutiple notices of the same bill. I mean I'd think it would make you feel better, psychologically, to see just one bill from Cleveland Cardiology Associates for close to $700 than six notices of that amount. Sunday morning I went to visit my dad before I left to go back home. It was so cold and grey and all I could think was that I just wanted to get home and go to the gym (because my body has become addicted to that physical stress release).

My dad is currently in a long term care/short term rehab facility while he undergoes radiation on his brain. They moved him there because he is to weak physically to manage getting to the radiation appointments on his own. A social worker from the facility called me last because she wanted to try to talk to my dad about his full code status (which means taking all measures to keep him alive) because given his cardiomyopathy and the cancer, he's doing very poorly physically and emotionally. Apparently the radiation is taking a horrible toll on him, they bring him to his radiation treatments in an ambulette by stretcher because he is so weak. He is so weak he can't go by wheelchair anymore. When I talked with the social worker it sounded like he probably won't last for four months. She wanted to talk to him about hospice or having him sign a DNR which would be more realistic than the full code status given his health, or lack thereof. Toby very generously offered to drive the kids out to Cleveland this weekend to see my dad. I've got my first big test to study for and plan on going out to see him next week.

So school started up again on May 3rd and it was full speed ahead. Two full clinical days at the hospital and we stop over the afternoon before we start the clinicals to meet with our patient and start our paperwork. You have no idea the extent of the paperwork we have to do and hand in at the end of clinical on wednesday and after two days of waking up at 5 a.m., putting the full 7 - 3 shift in, post conference, completing two care plans, and a medical surgical database and the blue card and the pathophysiology -I can barely function. Oh and during my first week my patient got transferred at the end of my first clinical day so I got a new patient and had additional paperwork to do. I went back to the school to access the medical charts and got a text from a man I've been seeing and the message he sent was not good. Yeah, I've been in a romantic relationship of six months that no one but Elise, my mom and my therapist have known about. So I was already close to tears after talking to him on the phone. Hell, I was close to tears when I found out I was getting a new patient. But then I went to the computer lab and there was a problem accessing my new patient. I went to get the woman who deals with the computers and as we were walking back to the computer lab together I just started bawling. It was more than I could handle at that point. That night I was so strung out on nerves I didn't get to sleep until 3 a.m. and yes I had to get up two hours later.

So back to the bunny I pulled out of the hat, the clandestine relationship. I'll spare you the dramatic, dysfunctional details but basically a rubicon (his word not mine, I didn't even know what it meant until he said it and I looked it up to make sure I was inferring correctly) presented itself and he failed to act on it. And I told him I couldn't be with him anymore. But not without a week's worth of protracted roller coaster emotional emails and texts that culminated in a two hour phone call at three in the morning two days ago that ended in my heart breaking, which I didn't think a possibility at my age. Oh my. I had to take a test the first day of nursing school, where they look at your critical thinking skills (they have you retake the test at the end of school to see your progression). I aced the analysis, explanation and self-regulation. I got the highest score you could get in these areas. Why, oh why, can I not apply those skills when it comes to matters of the heart? I fell so fully, utterly, completely in love with this person and it's not that he wasn't worth it, he was more than worth it, but my love was so misplaced.

So from that break up I went to clinicals, on four hours sleep. I cannot tell you how close I was to just dropping out of the program that morning. It isn't enough that I'm overwhelmed with the clinicals on 8 hours sleep, with half that I was fried. I get so nervous with these clinical experiences, knowing I'm so inexperienced with all of this. I can't find pulses to save my life, the radial is easy but posterior tibial? dorsalis pedal? popliteal? It's maddening how hard they are for me to find, which just makes me nervous, which just makes it that much harder. It's a vicious cycle. When I came home that night I was beyond tired and beyond sad. I've cried more in the past three weeks than I would have thought possible. I am so spent. But when lying in bed praying that sleep would come, I prayed for God to help me (yes, I am agnostic and I talk to God a lot in my head but it's rare I pray out loud). But I actually got a good night's sleep that night and the next day I was a bit calmer. That morning I chatted with my patient's physical therapist, at lunch I talked more with the other students, sometimes it's hard for me because I'm at least ten years older than most of them. But the thing that really saved me that day was a conversation I had with my instructor. We talked about a lot things, being a single parent, my dad's dying. She really connected with me and took the time to help me out so much emotionally and in terms of supporting me when I voiced my concerns about whether I'm even cut out for nursing. There were a couple times when I was about to cry and I still get teary thinking about it. Now she might have just read my face (it is transparent), realized how depressed I was and thought, she had to do a psychosocial care plan on me that day. But I really felt my prayers were answered with her reaching out to me. I don't know what my concept of God is, I like to think it is the goodness inherent in everyone. I still get butterflies just thinking about clinicals but I just have to push through it and have faith that I will get better at this. There's a place for me somewhere out there in the field of nursing. Hopefully.

So I'll try to write more when I can. And I need to change that banner to spring before summer rolls along. I can take a picture of my backyard after I have mowed it with push blade reel mower, it is comical how much it resembles a bad buzz cut, what with the weeds that refuse to be cut down.

yikes

2010-02-23T21:59:00.003-05:00

I'm into my second day of nursing school and already have a headache, but I think this is more due to the pillow I slept on last night. Trying to adjust to the new routine, up early, drop the kids off, in school a really long time (oh those lectures are killing me to sit still that long, I'm jiggling my legs constantly and I'm right up front. the teachers must want to kill me, the mature student acting like a teenager) Yes, that's right, I'm 99% sure that I'm the oldest student in the class. But I don't know that my age brings any wisdom and I'm probably more insecure than half the students there, I constantly overanalyze and doubt myself. Well I'm going to be so busy that might fall by the wayside due to sheer exhaustion. I should also take a picture of myself now and at graduation to see just how gray my hair goes in the next 18 months. Well, I'm not going to be able to write as many posts but I'm going to bring my camera with me and try to put pictures up, it will force me to get outside and walk which I really need to do during those brief breaks in lecture. Still I'm really excited about learning all this information I'm such a geek when it comes to medicine and learn the skills necessary for nursing (I just hope I'm one of those nurses that can give shots and put IVs in without hurting the patient, we all know those nurses that can leave you battered and bruised from a simple blood test. Please God let that not be me!) Wish me luck, say a prayer, send a good vibe my way. I can use all the help I can get.

snowgate

2010-02-13T14:47:00.010-05:00

I haven't taken any pictures of this epic week of snow. I think it's my way of trying to make it all go away but fat flakes continue to fall. Yesterday it snowed in every state but Hawaii, if that isn't a sign that the end of days are near what is. I guess another sign might be replaying the tragic video footage of the Georgian luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili, again and again and again on the news. I find the constant replay of footage like this and other visually disturbing images so horrific. It seems to remove the humanity from the victim. That is someone's child, brother, boyfriend, friend. Who'd want to see a loved ones death replayed ad nauseam in some sensational attempt to what, inure the public by the constant repetition of tragedy?

But I digress from my whole point of this post, to whine about the weather and having children home from school all week and to complain about facebook comments. There should be some sort of unspoken etiquette that if you don't really talk to a 'friend' all that often, or even email them for that matter, you should probably refrain from leaving sanctimonious comments to someone's post. I don't even go on facebook that much anymore, aside from noting the statuses of the other parents of my kids school or to see if anyone is planning sledding or something like that. So... I put a comment down about being so sad to see snow continuing to fall because Pittsburgh's handling of all this snow has been horrible at best, thus the snowgate title which I'd like to trademark. Our young mayor totally dropped the ball, it took forever to get the city streets to a point where they were drivable while people in the suburbs were able to get around without a problem. I understand that it's difficult; city streets can be narrow and people park their cars on the street instead of in a driveway or garage but the mayor really bungled the whole handling of this snowmaggedon event. But I'm getting off track again... so I put the comment about being upset with the snow continuing to fall because some days it was too cold to take the kids outside and damn I just find it hard to think of entertaining things to do when cooped up in a house so long. But a 'friend' whom I haven't talked to in years and haven't even emailed for months writes 'it's snow, it will melt. take the kids sledding.' How is that helpful? And because this friend is a man, this will seem terribly sexist, but it annoys me even more. He is not a stay at home Dad so I don't think he gets it. And then that gets me thinking how it drives me crazy when you come across parents who are so outwardly demonstrative about how much they love parenting and spending time with their children but, ironically, these are usually the types that spend very little time with their children. I don't know, maybe it's the schism between working parents and those who stay at home. Maybe the comments are perpetuated by guilt that they don't get to spend enough time with their children. Or maybe the truly feel that way since the time with their children is so short they focus on making the best of it. Maybe I'm just a reactionary to this 'every moment is a joy' sunshine and rainbows type of parenting. I mean you can be happy about parenting, don't get me wrong, but when all you do is say positive things and never complain or admit that it can also be really hard I just wind up thinking you're either full of shit or a Stepford parent. Gosh, it would probably be easier to just admit that I can be an outright judgmental shrew at times, no?

So I'll leave you with pictures of Oona's room, three pillows, bedspread and curtain down. Just two more square pillows to finish and I might get another long rectangular one too.
the room has a red glow when you draw the curtain, perhaps not the best thing for a high spirited girl but the curtain is usually only drawn at night.

she has a verrrry small room. she's got the bare minimum in this room. the curtain fabric is hard to see. it's two prints, for the front and back, of tiny flowers that matches the bolder prints on the pillows, very cute and spirited, like Oona.

I got her the indian style banner(?) to hang above her bed back in the fall, gave it to her for christmas and finally got around to hanging it up today. progress!

Lucky me! Water seeping in and yet more cracks in oona's ceiling thanks to all the snow. So it looks like I'll be dipping into my home line of credit yet again to fix this come spring.

Close up of the bedspread, with flannel on one side and the pink dotted velour scrumptiousness on the other it's a tactile wonder of a bedspread.

cabin fever

2010-02-09T21:47:00.008-05:00

Oh my. Well anyone between Chicago and New York, Boston to DC knows of the hellacious week that has been snowmaggedon. Now I am very fortunate in that I do have power in my home, when over 37,000 in Pittsburgh don't and haven't had electricity since Saturday! I'm also incredibly fortunate in that I don't need to be somewhere workwise, like I'm not losing income because I bartend, like my neighbor, or waitress or do anything else where my income is dependent upon being someplace during the past 4 days. But it is insane that this city, I know it's small compared to some but it is a city, seems to have completely botched cleaning the streets, especially given that more snow is falling now and by thursday we're supposed to have another 6 inches. I'm 95% certain the Owen and Oona will not be going to school at all this week. And if I am trapped at home much longer I'll be crazy, stupid and, most likely, psychotic.

Today I had the kids do a scavenger hunt up in their bedrooms, which quickly devolved into tears and screaming from both which led me to holler upstairs that I'd never orchestrate another scavenger hunt again. They stuck a bunch of oona's barrettes in my hair and had me do a fashion show for them. Then they both did a fashion show (the catwalk being the completely toy cluttered path from the kitchen to the living room) for me where they dressed up like cowboys, which consisted of using my cloth napkins for bandanas and my sun hats for cowboy hats. Let's see, a lot of tv watching and eating of junk food has occurred throughout the day, well really since this snow all started, but what can I do? Please, other snowbound moms, tell me you're doing the same. We do go outside, to play or walk to the Rite Aid (what would Morningside do without this store, which has been a beacon in this awful weather even if they totally price gouge when it comes to cat food) but there have been times when I've asked the kids to go out and they both protest saying it's too cold and they want to stay inside.

At least my house is thankful for my being snowbound. I have done an awful lot of those projects that I had lying around the house for months. Lots of sewing projects, which I always put off since it's such a pain in the ass to spread everything out to measure and pin. Sewing doesn't take much time but the prep work before sewing is very tedious. So now Oona has a proper bedspread, curtains and I'm going to whip up a bunch of pillows for her after this post is written (photos to follow). With her antique bed frame there is a large gap between her matress and the wall, which has been stuffed with a queen sized comforter rolled up and wedged in the gap. I've only been meaning to do something prettier for about a year now. But, in my defense, I've only had the fabric since September.

Owen takes himself so seriously with these fashion shows. I love his earnestness even if I laugh at it, essentially it's like laughing at myself because I'm just like him when it comes to trying too hard and being earnest.
I can't resist the sweetness of a knock kneed girl. The little legs kill me.

patternmania

2010-02-02T13:12:00.007-05:00

Yes, I let Oona dress herself and the girl has a mad sense of style. This pattern resplendent outfit is her go to top choice for dress down days at school. One would think it hard to add any more pattern to this ensemble but she does top it off with a camoflauge bomber hat. I'm wondering if all the colors and pulsating flowers could trigger a seizure in an at risk individual. Even when she has to put on her uniform she adds her own special panache to it. Last week she put on her madeline-esque blue dress uniform with pink leggings (covered in different colored polka dots) and a ruffled pink mini skirt with plaid stripes in white and purple. The skirt was a bit like a petticoat, bumping out the lower half of her dress and giving a slight peek at the pink ruffles underneath. I'm so in awe of her utter fearlessness with the way she approaches sartorial choices and life for that matter. Oona's motto could be I'm a girly girl, I love pink, hear me roar, quite literally with the roar part. The other day she told me she wants to be a tyrannosaurus rex if she could choose to be any dinosaur, because that way, in her words, she could run around roaring all the time. But she told me not to worry, that she would put me on her back when she ran around roaring and scaring people. That she would protect me because that's the kind of person she is.

Fierce as she can be she'll give a loved one whatever they want, toy, food, last piece of candy, without a second thought and she gets very upset if anyone she loves gets hurt or even appears to be getting hurt, she burrowed her head in my arm very upset when I had to get blood drawn for a life insurance policy. Don't even get me started, oh it's too late, I've started...they're charging me a lot (standard rate instead or premium elite) because I take medication, for my anxiety, which god knows how bad I'd be if I didn't take it given my propensity for words like, cry, breakdown, stress, fear, worry... It is completely insane given my overall health, my cholesterol is so good the good cholesterol is out of range it's so high and the bad one is out of range it's so low. my triglycerides are 37 and if a doctor hears that they're amazed. I think the only way I could have a heart attack is if I get scared to death, which if I haven't already what with my worrying I think I'm in the clear. It seems rather discriminatory given that a lot of the nervousness is about doing the right thing or hoping that people like me. Meanwhile many people choose to ignore their mental health issues and instead self medicate with alcohol, and lie about how much they consume and they probably pay half of what I've had to pay - grrrrrrrrr. I need to go sick Oona on some of these insurance underwriters.

in the pink

2010-01-23T22:53:00.004-05:00

You might not have known this but my son fancies himself a pirate, as many a seven year old is wont to do. Thing is he puts on Oona's one clip on earring, a gift from Abbey (now known to Oona as 'Nice Abbey') who so sweetly played dress up with Oona when we went to her house for Thanksgiving. Now I don't know how well you can see the clip on earring but it's a hot pink faux jewel, not really what you'd find on Jack Sparrow. But this doesn't deter Owen and he wears it most days as soon as he gets home from school. I'm wondering if he was inspired by this boy who's a few years older that goes to Owen's school, he actually might be in middle school now. Very cute boy. Sort of like an older, possibly european?, version of Owen. He had a pierced ear and wore various earrings that appeared to be lego heads. So I found Owen with the earring on before bed the other night and had him strike a couple fierce poses for me. This one was by far the fiercest.

and so it goes

2010-01-20T12:15:00.001-05:00

Owen's entered a new developmental stage where I am now capable of disappointing him in a very real, adult way. I'm used to his whining, pouting and occasional tantrums but just recently he's learned how to give me a very grown up sigh, heavy with all the accusations left unsaid. So what precipitated this seminal event? That bracelet that you see, dangling from my rear view mirror. The school my kids go to has the annual hoiday shop full of schlock to try and raise money for the school and I gave each of them money to buy something for each other, themselves, and their dad. But Owen, being Owen, which makes me love him all the more and worry for him daily, well he also had to get me something (there was a reason I left myself off that list) and had to have me open it immediately, no I couldn't wait until Christmas. So I opened the filmy bag and saw the cheaply made bracelet and my heart broke a little, it was so sweet of him and so flipping tacky. And the bracelet remained on the computer table for weeks until Owen asked me if I didn't like his present he got me because he knows I didn't want him to get me a present but he got one that was really cheap just because of that reason. Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if we just went around being completely transparent like that always. I told him I loved the present and that it meant so much to me that he thought of me but that I don't really wear jewelry (which is true). I even make jewelry but don't wear it. Aside from 'fancy' occasions where I might go out to dinner and, (gasp!) wear a skirt, lipstick and possibly a ring and a necklace, the only thing I used to wear consistently was my wedding band, which was the thinnest sliver of gold. But I felt really bad disappointing my seven year old son so I tried it on after he went to bed. It was too large for me so I was wondering how else I could use it - key fob perhaps? Then I thought of the rear view mirror dangly thingy ,which seemed perfect because I could look at it all the time and Owen could also see the present he gave me, we all could appreciate the bracelet in it's base metal glory. But when I pointed it out to Owen before karate the other day he just sighed. I am so used to disappointing adults but not my children, not like that. I asked him what was wrong and he said 'it's fine mom' in a tone that let me know it was not fine at all. And then, to add insult to injury, I asked him to go into karate by himself for twenty minutes because Oona was passed out in her car seat and I wanted to let her sleep for a little bit. So I sat in the car my heart doing a ping pong between Owen's disappointment and Oona's need to sleep (you know the sleeping cerberus in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone? That's what waking up Oona can be like). But wanting Owen to be okay trumped Oona's nap, so I woke her up and brought her into class only to have to carry her back out two minutes later because she started screaming and writhing all over the place. I reasoned with her in the car and she calmed down enough that we were able to watch the last five minutes of class. It's amazing how that tiny hour of interrelations between my children can be so emotionally and physically draining, I just ready to pass out afterwards. But then it was dinner, baths, story time and bed. By the next morning Owen hopped into the car leaned forward to fondle the bracelet then plopped into his seat smiling, the disappointment of yesterday completely forgotten.

on vanity

2010-01-19T12:44:00.006-05:00

Today I had to go the hospital to have blood drawn, pee for drug testing and get my photo id taken before school starts. Now I have taken many a bad photo in my lifetime but the photo id I got today was a new low. To be fair to myself. I was standing against a white wall while the woman put a camera within a foot of my face, then took a picture without letting me know she was about to take it and headed right over to the computer to put my pertinent information in and spit out the photo id card, all without letting me look at the picture or her even seeming to look at it. I mean even at the DMV they let you look at the photo and retake it if you'd like, and yes I consistently need it to be retaken. I don't understand how a picture could manage to simultaneously age me 10 years, shave 40 points off my IQ and give me a substance abuse problem (I must have been about to close my eyes which made me look like a meth addict). I was puffy yet haggard, blotchy yet pale, sullen yet scared, the horrible list of dichotomies could go on. It made me wonder if the woman at human resources had a talent for taking a portrait that truly revealed the depths of just how physically unattractive a person could be. I have a hard time posing for pictures at all. I am incredibly self conscious which causes the muscles in my face to suddenly feel funny and unnatural. I have a friend who collects my bad photos, delighting in laughing at them and given her beauty, well, let's just say it does nothing to boost my confidence about my looks. But today's picture was bad enough to make me cry in the parking lot and question whether I truly saw myself physically the way other people did. Realistically, I know I'm not a great beauty but I'd like to think I'm at least halfway decent and I guess getting older can make those bad photos sting all the more. I drove out to Ikea to get some curtains and picture frames and get my mind off the id but I kept taking it to look at, it was like picking at a scab. How could I go through a year and a half of school with this photo clipped to my uniform? I would die a little death every time I looked at it, it was honestly that bad. On a scale of 1 to 10 I would be a 2. I kept thinking, well, I can go back when I have my arm checked for the TB results and then maybe I can have another photo taken but the more I thought about it the worse I felt waiting three days before resolving this photo id issue. So I drove back over straight from Ikea hoping I'd get a different woman from HR but no such luck it was the same woman. I sucked it up said I'd just been there earlier to get my id taken and was there any chance I could please get retaken because I looked like a drug addict. I even offered to pay for a replacement because I'd noticed the sign earlier mentioning the replacing photo ids was $10. She looked up at me and smiled a smile that was not happy at all, I've been receiving a lot of those lately, but she got up and took me back to the room for a redo. This time she mentioned that my head was tilted to the side and she asked me if I wanted to smile (while smiling at me through clenched teeth) which I did. And then she let me look at the photo before heading over to the computer. There was no hiding my baby fine hair or, um, prominent nose but it didn't matter, I looked reasonably intelligent, my smile looked genuine, I'd gone up to a 5 out of a 10. It was infinitely better than the drug addict photo. I looked like I should be working at a hospital and not be incarcerated. I thanked her for doing that for me and tried to explain that I wanted to start school on the right foot to which she gave me the forced smile and said nothing. Why is it when I think of HR departments I think of the secretary from Brazil? Well, nothing like an ego leveling bad picture to humble a person.

rattled

2010-01-14T21:41:00.003-05:00

Yes, I've felt a bit like a pinball lately. I fear that if I had some program to highlight the text in my blog and typed in 'panic, worry, fear, guilt' that most of the blog would come back highlighted. I blame that damn mirror for breaking. No, right now I'm going to put the blame squarely on the shoulders of raging pms that makes me mental in a way I always seem to forget the sting of the other 20 or so days. I'm sure that it doesn't help that I've been eating a lot of donuts, hot chocolate and coke. I ate more vegetables today (a yummy antipasti) than I probably have in the past month. But I was late picking up Oona from pre-k today. Really late, like twenty minutes late, which I couldn't really do anything about. I was stuck in the middle of a tunnel, traffic had slowed to a standstill and I couldn't get my cell phone to work, it died on me twenty feet into the tunnel as I was on the phone with a friend trying to get her to pick up Oona early for me. That didn't work out and I showed up to find her teacher and teacher's assistant with the pained smiles of the deeply annoyed. I was close to tears walking in and apologized profusely saying I was stuck in traffic, you know literally stuck in a tunnel. They weren't moved and I walked out with Oona shaking my head to stop myself from crying while Oona asked what was wrong. I'm sure it didn't help matters that I was at least ten minutes late just two days earlier but, once again, I have a good excuse for that in that I saw my neighbor (who has had a number of health issues of late) precariously standing outside the Rite Aid (where I stopped for a pre-gym Coke). She was about to fall over and I helped her to her car and stayed with her until she felt a bit better. I'd like to feel a bit better. I feel like I've fucked up my daughter's future because I asked her teacher about the kindergarten enrollment process, she's born 27 days after the school deadline so it's a bit tricky. Okay her future might not be completely fucked but I don't want her in pre-k three years. She's academically ready and if she waits an extra year I just fear (there's that highlight ready word) she'll try to coast through academically (I know it sounds insane at the kindergarten stage, just bear with me) and might be a bit of a discipline problem because she'll be bored. I'd rather she be challenged, well as challenged as she can be at kindergarten. Her pre-k teacher has been aware of my concerns about getting her into kindergarten ever since she started school. But I wound up being given the wrong information, by her, and missed applying by a month. So yes, after dropping the kids off at school tomorrow, I'll be going to the magnet office tomorrow to hand in my daughter's born after the deadline month late magnet application. Wish me luck! Then I went to the gym and committed a cardinal sin in asking a woman who wasn't pregnant if she was expecting. I felt so horrible. She didn't look overweight at all I just thought I noticed a bump, it must of been the way her shirt was, but then I had to explain myself and I was mortified! My word, how do you take something like that back? I still cringe just thinking about it. And last night I wound up bawling while on the phone with my Mom because I felt so bad that I've been so mean to her lately when she's going through a really difficult time (broke up with the man she was living with, which is really a good thing because he wasn't the right man for her, but it's tough and now she's moving out here, which is wonderful for me but, uh, a bit stressful too because, you know, if it's not one thing it's your mother). She needed me to help her out with finding a place to live and I wasn't at all helpful I was bitchy and mean and I deeply regret it, fortunately she is a wonderfully understanding mother and told me not to even worry about it (in an entirely sincere deeply selfless way). Clearly I need to get my period and become a little more even keeled! Anyhow, I'll leave you with two links to articles that I thought were very funny and humane and struck a chord with me given the year I've had, hopefully you might like them too.

Let's Call the Whole Thing Off (the author is ending her marriage. Isn't it time you did the same?) and On Being a Bad Mother

work in progress

2010-01-12T20:39:00.009-05:00

The kitchen it's come a long way since it's before incarnation, although it still has a ways to go. I'm currently in the delightful, deleterious process of removing the linoleum and mastic (how I love stripping mastic!) from the kitchen floor. But I am truly amazed at what a difference raising the roof (well ceiling) and a new color paint made in brightening the kitchen and making it appear much larger. Still on the 'to do' list
1. put down new linoleum floor squares
2. distress paint existing cabinets and get more cabinetry (or work with existing ones currently hanging out on my back porch and basement, maybe switch doors and also distress paint) to go above stove and frig wall.
3. put open shelves above sink wall
4. trim for windows and new baseboard trim
5. new appliances and
6. when i have enough money turn sink parallel to stove frig wall to set up galley style kitchen are and add dishwasher and countertop seating.

Big plans I have but right now I'm still hung over from the one two punch of 1. needing to give my brickpointer the rest of the money I owed him 2. having my furnace die on me yesterday (it got down to 41 degrees in my house, aside from my bedroom where me and the kids burrowed under many a blanket and had additional warmth from an electric heater) and just shelled out a couple grand to replace that. I'm telling you I shouldn't have broke that damn mirror on new year's day! Now where's that bag of ten thousand that I'm waiting for? You know, the one I need to drop out of the sky and land at my feet.

snow

2010-01-10T15:41:00.009-05:00

This week in a nutshell: one delay and one snow day, frigid weather all week, sledding , hot chocolate and one dramatically major meltdown from oona at my favorite indian restaurant.

2010-01-04T19:06:00.004-05:00

I am so so glad December is over. The whole time from Thanksgiving through New Year's I find more than a little stressful and this year it was compounded with the roller coaster of grandma seeming to be at death's door and rallying yet again (I can't emphasize how stressful the year and a half roller coaster with her about to die and then miraculous recovery is) and all the home improvements during the holidays and the first big holiday being separated. Ugh. I am so so glad it's all over. My new year started off with a bang, literally. I was doing last minute cleaning around the house once the kids went to bed new year's day. I decided I could bring the rolled up 8 x 10 wool carpet down from my bedroom to the living room. It is heavy as all get out but I figured I could manage if I dragged it. At the top of the stairs I started it off, thinking it would sort of go a few feet and then I'd have to nudge it along, because it was heavy but very floppy. Well, that rug took off like a runaway train, poor Sam was at the bottom of the stairs and I think I would have a dead cat on my hands if he hadn't bolted out of the way at the last minute. The runaway train rug crashed spectacularly into the table I spent a LONG time distressing over the summer and broke the leg right off of it. Then the large hexagonal mirror resting on the distressed table, which I also spent a LONG time distressing, flew up in the air and crashed into many shards. Nothing like starting the decade off right by breaking a large mirror, not very auspicious. This whole incident was so dramatic and so loud, I was sure the kids would wake up but, no, they slept right through it. So that foolishness, thumbing my nose at physics, added another half hour to my cleaning by picking mirror shards off the floor. I made the same resolution I've been making for the past twenty years (to eat healthier) and I never make it through new year's day without breaking it (I ate caramel popcorn, donuts, hot chocolate and coke new year's day and I am not an elf!). The upside, if there is one, to the stress filled December is that it had some massive metabolism boosting effect and I lost any weight that I had gained in the past year. Here's hoping January is easier but the teenage boy metabolism stays.

last day of the year

2009-12-31T10:35:00.006-05:00

Wishing everyone a happy, stress-free wind down to the holidays this new year's eve. May your 2010 be happy, healthy and may you not lose any teeth unless, of course, they're baby teeth.

dining room update

2009-12-29T23:04:00.005-05:00

Currently battling my own personal dementors. Nothing like a little stress for the holiday season no? What December would be complete without it though, honestly? I don't want to elaborate on the soul sucking dementors just need to figure out my own personal patronus, a sea otter would be lovely.

My dining room ceilings have been denuded of stalactites and painted white. I painted the walls a soft fern (nice muted green) on Monday but soft fern looked more like mint chocolate chip ice cream and soft fern on the walls. So I trudged back to Home Depot, where all my money goes lately, and took waaay too many paint chips to looks at what looked best in the dining room light. This can be very difficult because the frontrunner in daylight can quickly lag to last place by evening light. I'm very on top of this since painting my living room a color that I love by daytime but that I abhor by night. I was thinking of sueding the walls, Ralph Lauren specialty finish, because I thought my 100 year old plaster walls could use the equivalent of, I don't know, mederma? fraxel? but none of the suede swatches looked good by evening. So I settled on a nice light beige/grey/with green tints called cotswold breeches or some godforsaken crazy angophilic name like that. Ralph Lauren and his wasp envy. Let me tell you Ralph Lauren's paint blows. Blows I tell you! How can a paint be simultaneously of skim milk like consistency yet get those skins of clotting paint in it. Lovely colors horrible horrible paint. You been forewarned never buy that crap. The only downside is you can't get them to use the Ralph Lauren color formula on Behr paint. They have to color match it and it never winds up matching completely (it's the photo retoucher in me I see the hint of blue that shouldn't be there that made my soft fern not so soft, nice or muted). So I sucked it up and spent 50% more to buy Ralph's beautifully colored crap ass paint. I still need to do the trim, clean the floors, put the furniture back in there and hang some pictures, oh and finally put up some curtains which I haven't had up since (gasp!) July. I'll do the big reveal in a week or two, to build up anticipation for the big day in blogland.

I've included that picture of me, which has nothing to do with the post aside from showing my exhaustion on repainting said dining room, because it's funny how large my lips look in the photo, Angelina Jolie eat your heart out. I think it's the lighting (which is obviously lacking) and the fact my lips are really chapped from the winter weather so probably a good half of my upper lip is really chapped red skin above the lip. It looks better than normal though, maybe I should consider restalyne or perpetually chapping my upper lip.

christmas eve

2009-12-24T21:50:00.005-05:00

What am I doing blogging at this hour on Christmas eve? I'm waiting for Owen to go to sleep so I can bring down the presents from the third floor. Poor little Oona is sleeping in my bed, for the fourth night in a row. She's been sick with a cold that this afternoon kicked her butt, she lay on the sofa and at one point this evening just fell asleep on the living room rug. Now it seems her cold finally devolved into an ear infection. It just sucks to be sick when you're a child at Christmas. Well, here's a picture from earlier today when I filled them up on bagels and chocolate milk at Panera. The last picture, where Oona looks like she's been goosed, is what happened when I asked Oona to sit up and open her eyes. We couldn't stop laughing over that picture and she spent the rest of the day walking around with her eyes like large saucers of surprise.

2009-12-22T16:31:00.003-05:00

No longer need to really and truly study for, which I was really and truly doing in a half-hearted, procrastinating, what else can I do with my precious free time type of way. I passed! It's all the Christmas present I need. That and for Hugh Laurie to leave his wife, hit show, and move out to Pittsburgh to be with me, hopefully he's handy around the house too.

2009-12-20T17:29:00.006-05:00

Remember when I wrote this in my previous post

my mantra is 'it will get better' because, honestly, how much worse could it get?

Well, that was like tempting fate because worse it got. They stuccoed my ceilings. A very sloppy but light application in the bathroom and kitchen. Heavy duty, messy cave-like stalactites in the dining room. I came home from cleaning a home this past friday and was this close to having a breakdown for Christmas. Instead I sent the kids off to my Mom, she's staying at a hotel due to the renovations here, and cleaned my house until one in the morning. I spent a good part of Saturday hopping around like I had ants in my pants, trying to convince myself it wasn't that bad (it was) and then trying to figure out a way to call and have the situation rectified (but they already had their check, they could just blow me off). I called the head drywall guy and left a message that I wanted to talk to him, that's all I said. He called me back and I explained the situation. He had been out most of the week (back issues, how we all collectively suffer from these back issues) and had an assistant do the work at my home. I had never discussed textured ceilings because I just assumed they'd be smooth but the assistant said the ceilings had to be stippled because there was too much bowing of the drywall due to the age of my home and joists that settled unevenly. I was very concerned when I even heard mention of texture on the ceilings. What? I don't want stuccoed ceilings I said I hate that look. Owen's karate teacher, who recommended these guys, told me they stippled his ceilings and it looked very subtle. I don't know I said, what about doing knock down, no the assistant said, that will just emphasize the bowing. I had a very bad feeling about this, especially since the drywall was already up on the ceiling. I didn't think I had time to see Owen's karate teacher's home but we managed to get there and back real quick and yes, his ceilings looked very subtle, not peak like or stucco at all, so I held my breath and said okay to the texture. And, oh boy, did I ever pay a price for it. But when I was on the phone with the head drywall man and explained the situation, he went above and beyond in terms of professionalism. He said he was very sorry that I wasn't pleased with my work and that they would be out Monday morning to correct the problem, sand down those peaks (yes I will have another late night of cleaning). I cannot tell you what a weight (the full weight of my heavily stuccoed dining room ceiling!) was lifted when he was so receptive to my concerns. No defensiveness, no hesitations, totally professional and quick to want to have a satisfied customer. We'll see how it turns out tomorrow. I'm not going to jinx myself by saying anything like this my mantra is 'it will get better' because, honestly, how much worse could it get? because do I really want to see what could be worse than this ceiling?

motivational forgetting

2009-12-16T21:40:00.012-05:00

I learned in my Clep book for Human Growth and Development that sometimes repression is called motivational forgetting, which I just love. It seems happier, more active, self help groups could be dedicated towards it. God knows I'd like to channel some motivational fogetting towards erasing the month of December from my mind. And I had the worst dream last night, that I slapped Owen on the face (I've never slapped anyone ever) and it was so hard it left red marks, like a handprint and I wanted to hide it so I wouldn't get in trouble. It was so real and so awful, I woke up feeling spent. My word. Things are beyond panic producing right now, which might explain the dream, my guilt. I don't know that I've been this stressed before, aside from when I was pregnant with Oona and then I was crazy and stressed. Now I'm just normal (which probably qualifies as mildly crazy) and in full on panic mode. My downstairs is beyond disastrous - drywall is going up but Christmas is next week and my kitchen is essentially gutted and I, um, dropped the cabinet above my sink on the faucet and broke the spigot so even the sink is inoperable. Let's see... my Mom came out because my Grandma appeared to be dying once again but either I'm living Peter and the Wolf or my Grandma is a cat with nine lives because she's perking up? without antibiotics? when her breathing sounded like someone sucking on a bong just yesterday? What else, what else. Oh, I'm to take the CLEP next Tuesday, wish me luck because I haven't really and truly been studying that well admist this perfect storm of events all taking place in the holiday season. I could kick myself for being so dumb about the home renovations. But I don't like to do things half way so I kept picking apart at the kitchen, sort of the way you do at a scab when you're a curious, masochistic child, and now it's an angry pus filled wound. Needless to say, I don't have a tree up yet or presents wrapped. So... if you're into schadenfreude by all means enjoy the pictures below while singing it's the most wonderful time of the year to yourself. I do it, glutton for punishment that I am.

my mantra is 'it will get better' because, honestly, how much worse could it get?

you know how anthropologie and other catalogs will pose models next to decrepit plaster walls and it looks so pretty and arty? not so in real life.

dining room. my neighbor, the firefighter, helped fix a last minute leak on the roof over the box window, allowing the drywaller to finish hanging drywall in the room. i need to buy him something special, i'm thinking alcohol, to thank him.

beyond the plastic wrap is ground zero in the house, our living room.

can i recommend getting a man to help take out a toilet and put it by the curb if you have a nice strong man around? good thing i go to a chiropractor for trigger point therapy.

i plan on replacing the small window with one that will fit within the original, larger, frame. but i need to f*cking take a breath first.

in praise of the hula hoop

2009-12-08T13:59:00.005-05:00

I never thought I would come across a form of exercise that is so damn enjoyable until I discovered the hula hoop. I bought one about a month ago and it sat in my closet because it is big, too big to do in my bedroom without the hoop hitting the wall, but one night last week I ventured upstairs to my cold, dark, empty 3rd floor and just rocked out with the hula hoop for a half hour. It's weighted which makes it easier to stay up, they say this contributes to an increase in calorie burning too. There's all these claims about the inches you can drop off your waist using the hula hoop for a half hour a few times a week. But you know what? I don't care. It's all about hooping and laughing, because hula hooping makes me laugh a lot. It's odd because it's rather sensual as far as exercises go and connects me to my body in a new way but it's so fun, I guess it changes my preconceived notions regarding sensuality, that it's something serious, because the hula hoop isn't, well it is seriously good fun. Last night I was feeling very antsy and went upstairs to hoop, just for ten minutes to get the steam out of me, well 45 minutes later my shuffle's battery died and that's when I finally stopped. I got my hoop from hoopgirl (I got the reasonably priced power hoop) but this place firegroove sells them too. I love looking at the websites, they're very playful and very west coast. Fire groove also has a bunch of youtube videos, both girls have some enviable taut bodies, by the comments from some of the men I think they're doing something else instead of envying them. So... if you're interested in a super fun cardiovascular exercise and have the room for a hoop I say go for it.

kitchen redo

2009-12-07T14:08:00.007-05:00

I don't mean to toot my own horn but I think I should get special props for baking 4 batches of seven layer bars for the school's cookie walk given the current conditions of my kitchen, no?

Another view of the lovely, semi gutted kitchen. It is cold in there. I need to get insulation to put above the drywall ceiling, when it's installed. The drywall guy is supposed to stop by tomorrow morning to check things out and let me know how much this will cost, fingers crossed for a very reasonable price.

The room before Owen's karate teacher stopped by with his sawzall to take down the dropped ceiling frame. He made quick work of taking down that frame and god knows it probably would have taken me all day.

Before version of the kitchen. I'm really hoping it will look much much better once I'm done with everything. right now it looks pretty awful and I'm getting a wee bit discouraged. But just wait until you see my next post with the gutted ceiling dining room. Yes, the only working room on the first floor is currently the living room, taking the name living to a whole other level. I'm sort of having a prolonged panic attack about getting these other rooms as finished as I can by Christmas but I chose to make this mess so I can't really get too bent out of shape by my handiwork? hubris? hallucinatory delusions brought on by shelter magazines?

2009-12-06T16:53:00.005-05:00

I feel like I should apologize for my blog turning into 'days of our scarves' because even i'm getting tired of seeing my neck and mouth, if only my cats would model these for me. The reddish stripy one is missoni mohair fabric that I bought in NYC at least fifteen years ago, I'm telling you I knew I'd knit one of these days just didn't know when. The heather grey one is another moss stitch, which I'm addicted to, I want to make a moss stitch hate but I don't know how to make a hat yet. My Grandmother has a cold and, for once, she's not being put on antibiotics so she is sounding horrible. There doesn't seem to be enough air in her lungs to even expel the congestion. But the care managers and hopsice nurses all remark on what a trooper she is and how she's so strong and it's miraculous the way she rallies and I'm not buying it anymore. She has been on this health roller coaster for over a year now and her mind has diminshed even more. It's a fucking tragedy! She is lacking the higher cognitive functioning to be able to make a decision and let go, how is that something to be praised? I think that people who are still mentally sound can make a decision, to some extent, in their death, in terms of knowing it's time; turning away from food and drink, unnecessary procedures. But where she is now they bring her to be fed, slip ensure drinks in her if she misses a meal and she spends the rest of her day asleep in bed; her color is remarkable, she still has a pink blush to her cheeks even if her skin is so thin it flakes off quite a bit. I never realized just how angry and sad I could feel simultaneously. Years ago I saw a bird suffering and picked it up from the train tracks then brought it to the grass and killed it with a stone (and this story wooed my husband, maybe that shows things were just destined to go south in our relationship, I don't know). I feel like I was more charitable to the bird than my Grandma right now, it's horrible to see her like this and I feel so incredibly helpless. I keep praying that she'll die before this week is over (that prayer wasn't answered) or before my birthday (which is wednesday) at the absolute very latest that she'll die before I start nursing school because then it will become much harder for me to go see her. It does make me feel evil in a way to wish someone I love would die, it's definitely selfish and terribly judgemental but it's also unbearable to see a vestige of my Grandmother linger so.