cherry on top

Ok, it's been a while. I've often wanted to get on here and type away, but have then decided to not do so and just keep going on with my business, non-blogging.

I'm back.

Here's the Reader's Digest version of my recent goings on:

I'm still at the skilled unit I started working on back in September. Two things keep me going in my nursey-nurse work: the diversity of jobs out there for my profession and the cherry on top? I have just over 3 months until I have the golden year of RN experience. How exciting is that!?

I was licensed last July, and soon after started working at the PO. That fell through and then I was hired at my current place of enjoyment...employment. It's experience, nonetheless. I went from night shift, part-time, to days and am now PRN, solely to clock time for the almighty experience. The people I work with are great. It's just that we have a corporate overhead (healthcare=business, duh) and the unit is a dysfunctional mess. We're currently on our 17th unit manager in 4 years. So far we've kept the current one 3 months! She must like a challenge.

The guys are all doing very well, for the most part. Big B continues to enjoy working at the same job he's been at since late '08. LB is preparing to graduate in June and beat feet to college. He's been accepted to two and has decided on RU. AW is trying to walk a better path than he's been traveling the past two years. He's starting to play soccer again and has also renewed his interest in skaeboarding.

I lost a dear furever friend, Snooki, last month, after only spending a year with her. We have since welcomed Star into our lives. She's an 8-month old tortoiseshell tabby.



AW named her Star, but her KLS-has-to-give-you-a-hundred-names include, Titty-Tat and Toots. I know, bad, right!? I really didn't mean to end up saying slang body part and bodily function words! She's a petite, too-skinny little thing right now and a big lover!!! I'm having tons of fun bonding with my new furever friend.

Speaking of, I need to head out to take Sandi to her geriatric well-check. Poor old girl hit 9 this past November and well, she's my little old lady!





She doesn't look a day over 30!!





















Movies I'd like to see.

unentitled

KLS, RN
Hanging on by thread, hope and prayers.
Still at long-term care facility on rehab unit, aka SNF, skilled nursing facility.
Does anyone else see the irony here?
Tested, and passed, just 6 short months ago for "minimal competency".
Still waiting on change.
Seems to me it's worse than two years ago.
Have you seen the price of gas?
Nursing shortage?
More like saturation.
Something needs a wringing.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

are you ready!?

I am so ready, in so many ways. Then there's one reason that leaves me wanting time to slow way down. I'm ready for this upcoming year. It's a year without me attending classes and studying for endless hours. Ironically though, I'll have a full year without college attendance, at least on my own behalf. LB will take up where I've left off. He'll be attending college, somewhere. harumph.

So, as I start paying off student loans, my eldest son will become an adult, become of age to vote and will be eligible for selective service. All that wrenches at my heart, and it leaves me sad, but it's exciting as well.

He'll be 18 in March. Where has the time gone?

It's going to be a good year; I'm sure of it.

I turn 40 in January.

AW turns 15 and while we're at it, Big B will celebrate his 42nd.

I'm going to Vegas for my 40th birthday. Big B has arranged a trip for us to go out and celebrate, sans the younger guys. I can't wait. It should be a blast.

What else can we look forward to in 2011?

Right now I feel a sense of contentment. It's great to have a family that's healthy and to be employed. Granted, there are things in both aspects of my life that leave lots of room for improvement. Although AW is generally healthy, he's recently been diagnosed with sleep apnea. He was supposed to have a tonsillectomy with uvulopalatectomy January 5th, but just yesterday I found out Tricare (our insurance through the US military) denied it based on "not a benefit". Yeah, that came as a harsh blow, but rest assured I won't lay back and take the denial without a fight.

It is very frustrating because he's made some really bad decisions in the past couple of years and I was hopeful the surgery would 1.) work, therefore 2.) be the answer to some of his problems. He's even landed himself in legal trouble, so we're also dealing with going to court in the near future. In my mind it would help us to work on distinguishing between behavioral issues stemming from organic causes and well, those that are just rooted by teenageritis. Chaos...

As of today I am now on dayshift. I'm still plugging away on the rehab unit. Nightshift was aging me. Who needs that with the regular toils and troubles of life that add gray hairs and wrinkles, not that I've grown any of the former, just plenty of the latter?

Today was a great day, albeit horrid at times, what with the dysfunctionality I've spoken of previously. We have a new unit manager and she's working toward improving upon a great deal, to include adding a 4th pod (that would mean our 60 bed unit would be divided by 4 nurses versus the 3 [when we're lucky]). Today made me wonder if I'm just more comfortable overall in my new-nurse skin, or have I just gotten used to the chaos? Hmmm....

The above photo was taken on my 20th birthday. Friends threw a surprise intimate gathering for me, complete with Garfield cake.

all aglow

As I was sitting here in the great room I looked out and noticed the pre-dusk glow of the sun setting. I thought it looked pretty silhouetting my tree.

things with wings

these are a must-make...and soon!

A friend of mine posted this scrumptious recipe on Facebook a while back and I thought I'd share it here, it is all thanks to fellow blogger A Whisk and a Prayer.

I'm trying to channel the negative energy I've been consumed with lately, into some creative energy. It's a great time of year to do so, and so I've done some usual decorating. I even went so far as to buy a second tree. I've been wanting a pencil-slim tree, and finally splurged and made the purchase. Every year it'll be decorated with a theme. I almost went with a nursing theme, kind of an ode to finishing school. I was even going to tear up my old scrub pants from my school uniform and make a garland out of the strips, but decided I didn't really want to be reminded of something that's caused some major frustration and self-reflection lately - that being my dismal career. Instead, "things with wings" popped into my head. The tree has everything I could find that has wings, from angels, to birds, to bees, some ladybugs, butterlfies and dragonflies and even some jets. I tried to find a Batman toy and some other toys of the like, but didn't want to spend tons of money. I can use some of the stuff in future Christmases, but will donate the toys I did buy to a co-worker who has children. They've recently gone through some tough times, so I've been trying to think up different ways to help out where and when I can.

gobbled up

Seems I'm eating the words I last typed. Ya know the ones? The ones where I spoke of liking night shift and my schedule. Hmmph. In a lot of ways my schedule is great, but then I'm spending so much time in a zombie-like trance, and that's just not compatible with family life. That's not to mention the fact that currently I work alongside one other nurse, whereas on days I'd have more nurses to bounce thoughts and experiences off of.

Soooo...I put in a letter of intent to switch to day shift. I'll hate the early mornings, but in the end of the next three or so months I think better experience will have been gained.

I've been so neglectful of this blog and those of others. A lot has been going on in my family life and it's left me not really feeling like sharing much with too many people. A few weeks ago AW went through an ordeal that has helped him to turn over a new leaf, for the most part. That and he and LB have been spending more time together, which has proven beneficial for positivity's sake since they'd grown so far apart in more recent years. AW has really needed that connection and it's so good to see them getting along.

I've had a lot to be thankful for in light of some frustrating, if not at times dire, circumstances. It's all about growth, connections and faith.

the good fit

Finally! Finally, I'm on my regular schedule and it's basically the schedule I'd hoped for. One week I work Monday and Saturday, the next I work Sunday, Tuesday and Friday, all nights of course. It goes back and forth with this schedule, through November and I'm hoping it will stay like this for several months, at least for now. I feel like this will give me the best of both worlds. One world I'm a nurse, working and gaining experience to hopefully move on to a more preferable field of nursing, eventually. The other world I'm getting to be a mom and wife. Even during the days of the nights that I work I am able to do what needs to be done and still get my sleep. I wouldn't necessarily be able to do that on day shift without some finagling, as a friend found out recently. Our kids had half days last week and she was working on one of those days. Well, her kids needed to be at the school for their sports, and they don't drive yet. Fortunately another friend was able to help out. I didn't want to have to deal with these kinds of dileemas, so I chose nights. Part-time nights are working out great for me.

blither blather

Ok, so maybe "hate" is a strong word. I still feel pretty much the same way, though. Let's just start by saying that I'm an honest person, almost at times too honest. If one of my fellow co-workers asks me how I'm doing, how I'm liking it so far, what am I supposed to say? I'm doing great. My med passes are getting faster and faster with each pass, and I'm feeling more and more comfy caring for the residents and using my ounce of nursing judgment that I've gained over the past month or so.

That question is easy to answer. Well, so is the "How are you liking it?" if I just answer right off the cuff and honestly. I don't like it. It's not the patients, residents, whatever... It's the disorganized, utterly frustrating chaos (I live with a fair amount of chaos on a daily basis in my family life. That's not the problem.) Basic everyday chaos isn't anything I can't handle, but the kind that leaves a unit having had 16 different unit managers in 4 years, well that's a problem. There is no rhyme or reason to how forms are kept. Need a lab form? It's on the desk in a pile somewhere. Need an incident report? Try the cabinet.




The med room could be declared a local disaster area. The treatment carts? Ugh. There is no unit secretary, person in charge of supplies, wound nurse, etc.

Our job titles: "RN Charge Nurse" or "LPN Charge Nurse" and we are in charge of everything from admission to discharge. Everything. All the everything in between has little to no efficiency in the processes.

Ugh

I've even responded to an in-house posting for a Discharge Planning Assistant. (That may seem contradictory to what I just said, about nurses being in charge of discharging, but there's a lot more to it than the paperwork involved from the unit's standpoint.) I wouldn't mind staying with the facility, but this is how desperate I am to get away from the UFH (unit from hell) and for that matter, night shift isn't all that I thought it would be.

Now I'm going to go find some cheese...

must confess

I hate my job. I'm trying my hardest to make the most of it, to make it through this adjusment period in hopes of feeling better about it overall. I started nights this past week. One thing is for sure, 8-hour nights are vastly different than 12-hour nights. First, it seems to take forever for 11 p.m. to roll around, whereas with a normal 12-hour shift 7 p.m. comes much quicker. The hours seem to roll by at a decent pace. That's a blessing.

It's more about the environment I'm working in, I think, that causes me the most frustration. This became quite apparent last night. We had a patient that had just been admitted a couple of days before. I hadn't met her yet, but was on that pod (hall/wing/whatever you want to call it) last night. Her O2 levels kept desaturating when she was on BIPAP or during her neb(ulizer) treatments. She has COPD, so when she was put on a regular mask (her NC wasn't cutting it either), she was reaching into the high 80s. All the details aside, I really liked working with the management of the problems. Most of the residents/patients I'm dealing with are sleeping through the nights so there isn't much to do for them until the few and far between times they call out or it's time to pass meds.

We also have a patient who has a history of multiple cancers, and currently has multiple abdominal fistulas. I'm talking big holes from inside out. I will admit that when I first went in to watch the LPN I've been orienting with do the dressing change I became a little queasy. Then next time it needed to be done I went right in and did it as if I'd done it a million times before. It was such an awesome feeling to help this woman as I know I provided her care with dignity. She commented on how much she appreciated my attention to detail.


I really think I'd be better off in acute care...in the hospital, in the ER or on a med/surg unit (wow, didn't ever think I'd hear myself saying that, or read it), or maybe even an ICU. Bigger WOW. I certainly never would have pictured or fathomed that!

Tonight and tomorrow night I will orientate with a RN, a very seasoned RN and I look forward to it. I'm hoping she'll teach me some things and put some things into perspective. If after the next two nights I'm still frustrated I will continue to search for something else. As it is I'm interviewing at a local family practice Tuesday morning. It's a far cry from what I just spoke of, but it will be better than putting up with some of the craziness of LTC nights.