Happy New Year

Okay, so I'm about 5 months ahead of schedule. But really, I'm 3 days into my 23rd year of life. Thus, to mark the beginning of this new beginning, I've committed to a few new resolutions, and they are as follows:

1. Exercise - it's almost a profanity. I hate it. To most people this would imply that I'm trying to lose weight. But really what it comes down to is how I feel physically. I'm not a sickly type person, but there are days when I come home from work and I can barely move I hurt so much. I suppose I'm just easily categorized as one of with a whimpy physique. So I've decided to start myself on a daily regimen of yoga to regain my flexibility, and continue doing my lunges with a bit more furvor. I'm hoping to tone up a bit.

2. Erasure - I've often spoke of this in the past. I suppose to some it sounds complicated or mysterious, but really it's exactly what it sounds like. Whatever, or in this case, whoever is acting as a parasite in your life, sucking you dry of either your energy or joy, get rid of them, completely and permanently. Sounds cold-hearted and just down right mean. But depending on the circumstances and the person, it's what must be done. In the past I've tried my best to do this concerning certain people, but I've never really completely followed through. This year has been one more year, and it's the last year. No more. D.B. you've taken my heart and soul, my sweat, blood, and most of all, my tears, and then graciously given me even more of the latter. But no more. Your name's not worth the energy it takes for my lips to form the syllables, and quite frankly, there's not enough room in my life for someone so demanding and yet still so unappreciative of the person I am or the person I strive to be. So what's the point of talking about what once was, or even what I thought would be? This heart is open, although hesitantly, and not even a memory is going to keep me from being happy.

It's not much but at the same time I feel as though I'm about to climb Everest. I suppose what I'm hoping for is a better year than last. Not that this past year has not brought me some of the greatest blessings I could ask for, but it's like this: I believe, if I'm correct, it was the Children of Israel that God was talking to and He said, "Open your mouth wide" and He promised to fill them with blessings uncountable. I guess I just have my mouth open, and in the meantime we wait. . . .

PA or Bust!

One more day till I leave for vacation in PA. Now, I know that some of you out there are thinking, "What kind of vacation is there in PA?" and I would be lying if I didn't admit that I have thought the same thing a few times myself. But really, I am so tired of TN right now that I'm ready for a change of scenery. And really I'm not sure what exactly has me so fed up with being here, but I am.

Don't get me wrong, there are some amazing people here, people that I miss on a daily basis, which means that I'm just going to die while I'm away from them for 2 weeks. But at the same time, I need some old but new faces. I need to play with Foxy and watch the game with my Dad and just be the old Patti. But never fear, I'll be back!

Off-Roading

Yes, you heard me correctly, off-roading, in my beautiful Bianca, who may I add does not even have 4WD, let alone off-roading capabilities. But really it was not done of my own chosing. Let me explain.

For one thing, TN drivers are the worst. I've heard people complain about New York drivers and Hotlanta drivers, but really TN drivers take the cake, the ice cream, the hot lunch, the bag of chips, and the pudding snack! They are hands down horrible.

So here I am driving home from an afternoon of chic flicks with Shana, when I find myself stuck behind one of afore mentioned drivers. Stop, go, stop, go, practically up the next cars tailpipe. Not really that he was in a hurry, because he was driving about 10 mph below the speed limit, but just enough to get under my skin and dig into the nearest nerve ending.

As I continued following him, his bad driving got worse. In an instant he had slammed on his brakes leaving me no choice but to veer off the road and onto the lawn of the Covenant Presbyterian Church, which might I add was under construction. Once traffic starting moving again, I began debating whether I ought to attempt backing up to get back on track or if I ought to just take the scenic route around the trees, through the front lawn of the church. Convinced that there had to be at least more more bad TN driver that I would end up behind before I got home, I decided it would be safer to just drive across the lawn, which is what I did.

To make matters even worse, I was right across the street from The Second's house. Hopefully he wasn't looking out the window, doubled over, laughing hysterically, as I made my way across the lawn and onto the church parking lot. But even if he was, oh well, cest la vie.

Good thing though that Bianca didn't sustain any damage throughout all this. Although I must admit, I felt a little guilty for driving across a church lawn. Would that be considered irreverent?

Shall We Dance?

It's been about 3 weeks now since my last dance lesson. Although you might not have known that if you'd seen my swift moves just yesterday.

I come to work early. Some people consider it to be a little over the top, but I'm so particular about things, especially work related things, that I really would rather come a little early and hear people tease me, than come later and play catch-up all night long. Thus it was that I arrived at work at my usual 6:00 PM. I gathered my papers and settled down to listen to report.

Lately work has been wonderful. I've had great patients with minimal complications. Yet as I received report I had a sickening feeling that my stroll down easy street was about to come to a screeching hault. Come to find out that one of my first patients had recently gone for a stress test where they found some areas of heart muscle that had been without blood for extensive periods of time. Later that day the cardiologist came in and ordered for the patient to have an arteriogram done to see if her coronary arteries were occluded. This is where the story turns ugly. While under sedation in the cath lab the patient's heart stopped, necessitating a rather exhilerating round of CPR to bring her back to life, so to say. But the worst is yet to come. As a general rule whenever someone codes, that patient automatically goes to spend some time in the ICU until they are stable again. Of course, this being the worst case scenario, that is not what happened with this patient. To my horror and amazement the doctor ordered for the patient to come back onto the floor, and I would in fact be taking care of her that night. Instantly a feeling of impending doom overcame my entire being.

15 minutes later I got out of report and continued to get my supplies together. And then it happened. The family that had been at the bedside with the patient called up to the nurses station, panick in her voice. The patient wasn't breathing. 3 of us ran into the room. Sure enough the patient was quickly becoming a deeper shade of blue as she continued to go without oxygen. I ran out of the room and down the hall to get the crash cart. Since the door to the supply room is locked, I entered the code and swung the door open. Propping the door open with one foot, I unplugged the crash cart and pushed it out the door. Not realizing how heavy it was, I was now not only panicked for the patient but for myself because I could not get control of the cart. As I rounded the corner, I spun around attempting to turn the cart so that I was in front of me, allowing me to just take off running with it. Instead, it took on quite a bit of momentum and decided to keep turning. After I crashed the cart into the wall, I continued down the hallway spinning as I went and then crashing into the wall once more before getting the dang thing into the room.

By that time the official code 99 had been called and doctors started coming out of the woodwork. There had to be at least 6 docs in that room, along with the code team, some intensivist RN's, the respiratory therapist, the IV team RN, and a number of ICU RN's and then a bunch of our folks, all yelling and barking orders and pounding on that poor patient's chest. I set up the heart monitor and flung the leads onto the patients chest and then excused myself from the situation, secretly thanking God that she coded before my shift started, meaning really that I was not officially the nurse yet.

For the next hour or so I took my pulse every 15 minutes. My heartrate ran in the 130's for the first half hour after that and then in the 120's for about another half hour. When the adrenaline finally wore off completely I felt almost sick. It wasn't until the next day that I could look at the situation and feel okay with how it all went down. Although I must admit I've heard some jokes about my handling of the crash cart and had some laughs when recalling my series of spins down the hallway. But honestly, that's a kind of dancing I'd rather not practice regularly.

Spilled Milk

Forget spilled, try altogether lost. I haven't been grocery shopping in about 2 1/2 weeks. So when the sell by date on the milk started slowly creeping closer and closer, I figured that I had waited long enough to replenish my pantry.

I felt rather clever after deciding to skip the daytime rush and crusie the Wal-Mart aisles during the nocturnal hours. Yet now, looking back on the evening, I have a sneaky suspicion that the riff raff jumping in front of my chart the entire time I tried to shop could very well likely be the reason for me forgetting or losing my milk.

Yesterday, 2 days post grocery shopping, I opened the refridge looking for the fresh milk. It was nowhere to be found. I checked all the storage draws, only to close the door slightly perturbed. I continued my search by looking in all the kitchen cabinets and even running out and popping Bianca's trunk, almost praying that I had not been so stupid as to leave the milk in the car and not notice the stench as it rotted in the 110 degree TN summer sun. It wasn't there. Thus I found myself digging in the trash hunting down my cashier's receipt. Yep, I wasn't crazy. I really had bought some milk.

So now all I have to do is convince the people at Wal-Mart that I did in fact buy some milk about 3 days ago and only just 2 days ago noticed that it was missing. I have never felt so blond as now. Wish me luck.