milestones

Without a doubt, the next few months will be filled with incredible milestones. Both boys drove off this morning, school-bound. AW was riding shotgun while LB maneuvered their way to their freshman and senior year of high school. These times are truly bittersweet.

It's exciting to see AW start high school. I'm hopeful his HS career will be um...., less dramatic than his middle school career. He is such a great kid, but he's made some very bad decisions over the past couple of years. The middle school he went to was a miserable place to be. It seems that many of my friends, who've had sons that made it out, had similar bad experiences, but their son came around and turned out for the better. This would include my eldest son, LB. He made his own share of bad decisions, but has shoved his way through and is an awesome guy.

They both make me proud. I saw a bumper sticker recently that I loved. It said "Proud parent...period". A child doesn't have to be an honor student or a gifted athlete for his or her parents to feel pride.

AW will be 14 next month. He now towers over me and has given his brother a run for his money, concerning heighth. We always knew AW would outgrow his brother. Right now, at 3 1/2 years (to the day) apart, they're within an inch of one another.

LB is a senior now and he'll be 18 in March, and with that comes many celebrations. We also have "the lasts". Today I took the last first day of school pictures of both boys. LB will head off to college next year, and although I imagine I'll take pictures each step of the way, he won't start off a new year on the same day as his brother again.

I'll have to control myself over the next several months, so I don't lose it. I feel like I haven't had enough time with my sons. Can't we go back and do like shampoo tells us, you know, to repeat? I tried telling him that I was demoting him to kindergarten. He just laughed at me.

Many friends who've had kids go off to college recently have warned me about senioritis. As sure as there are good times, there will be some bad mixed in. They're convinced that it makes it easier to part with the senior who goes off to college, or leaves home for whatever reason.

This past week is a great example of frustration with my near-adult son. That's a whole different blog post though.

sticks and stuck up

Working at the peds office (PO) has had its ups and downs. I told a couple of my co-workers Wednesday that it was indeed my favorite day of the three I work during the week. This is simply because it's just MB and I, and no other "nurse". The term is used loosely because the other person I work in patient care with is not a nurse. In the state of VA it is not required to be licensed or certified to work in a doctor's office. She is, however, certified as a phlebotomist. All that being said, she is good at her job and great with the patients. It's the way she treats those of us she works with and how she expects to be treated that I have a problem with.

We have two computer terminals in our nurses' station. She has claimed one of them, even going so far as labeling it with her name. We have three Thermoscan Ear Thermometers and three handheld pulse/pulse oximeters. Yep, one of each are labeled as well, yet they are not her personal equipment. She's also one of those who will walk into the room and in the most snarky fashion ask why something is the way it is, or isn't.

I realize there's always going to be somebody that we prefer to not have to work with. It's quite different when that somebody is one of only about ten co-workers.

Like I said, Wednesdays are my favorite days. Well, they have been. Evidently she'll be working them after school starts the 23rd. We provider match (which means when three of us are working we each work with a specific provider) and her provider will be dropping her hours down so she (the provider) can be around for her children. So rather than working to 5 p.m. 4 days a week, NFC (not favorite co-worker) will be working five and getting off earlier. Lovely.

I have my intrapersonal battles with all of this. I like my job because, well it is work, and the schedule is great. I don't have to work nights, weekends, major holidays, and so forth. But...is this what I became a nurse to do? It'll have to do for right now, because there just isn't much out there for inexperienced nurses. I figure I'll at least stick with it for the next few months, because yes, it looks like they're keeping me around for as long as I wish to stay.

Days like yesterday leave me frustrated. It was a day spent with NFC, so it was already spent overting outright frustration. Then it happened. I attempted to do a blood draw on a patient, once in each AC and the veins rolled. I'm not extremely well-practiced at this task, so I decided to stop there and go get NFC, the trusty phlebotomist. I had trouble using the safety device on the butterfly needle and going back to the days when there was no such thing, from which I was originally trained, I just decided to discard the needle in the sharps. It bounced backward and caught my thumb. Lovely.

I will say NFC was awesome about the whole event and even talked me out of my devastation over doing something so dumb. Of course, we had to go through the formalities when something like this happens, to include her drawing my blood to send off for HIV testing. Great day...not.

There seems to be a trend when certain things happen. One week was strep week. Everyone that came in seemed to be having s/s of strep throat and were of course swabbed for the rapid strep screen. This past week was let's-stick-something-up-our-nose week. One kid had stuck part of a diaper wipe up his and another had supposedly stuck a foam circle up his. We succesfully removed the former's obstruction, but had to send the latter to ENT. They found nothing.

It's all fun and games in the PO!