The Intensive Art

It has been a great weekend! Friday evening was puppy playtime. Charlie is gaining so much confidence! He had no problem running and playing with the other dogs. He is completely over his need to hide under chairs or behind our legs. I’m really going to miss going to puppy playtime. I’m tempted to get another puppy, just so I have an excuse to go to what has now become a Friday night ritual. We need to buy a house! We really do want to have another puppy. Oh wait, if I stay in this city, I will NEVER own a house!

I used to be such a cat person, but I’m finding that dogs bring you joy on such a completely different level (not more or less, just different). I think I am becoming a dog person…as crazy as that thought seems. I think it is a combination between how much time you put into caring/training a dog, and the pure joy on the dogs face when they see you come home.

Saturday was a busy day! We spent the morning cleaning the apartment. This place is truly a disaster zone, and after several hours of cleaning, we’ve only scratched the surface. I just want to live somewhere clean…without having to clean it! Is that really too much to ask?

We then went grocery shopping and spent way more than we can afford. However, it’s nice to have food in the house again.

Saturday evening I went to INLAND EMPIRE, the latest David Lynch movie. Richard decided to take Charlie for a nice long walk instead of going, so I went alone. I actually prefer going to movies along *shrug.*

The movie was beyond strange. It was completely non-understandable for the first few minutes. Then, for about twenty minutes of hope, it made sense. However, for the last two and a half hours, it was a complete melting pot of confusion, horror, suspense, beauty, and intrigue.

I still have no idea what the movie was about, and I’m pretty sure nobody else does. I have poked around the forums for other people’s interpretations; however, they are usually vague and incomplete…which leads me to think that everyone is as confused as I am.

While watching it, I honestly thought it was about a woman with multiple personalites. I thought we were floating from one personality to another. But, I’m pretty sure I’m wrong, and the more I think about the movie the more it seems wrong. In fact, every time I have a theory, I discredit it…arg! Trying to figure out his movies is my prime reason for loving David Lynch, but this one is almost inpenetrable.

For those that have seen it (slight spoiler): Near the end, when Laura Dern’s character walks into and empty, old fashioned movie theatre and sees herself on the screen…I realized I was in an almost identical empty theatre. It was hard to stop myself from turning around to see what was behind me….but I was too afraid of what I might see.

That’s the kind of affect David Lynch has.

Sunday was the Lillac festival! I have always loved this festival. We walked up and down the street checking out all the booths and watching the crowds. And what trip down to the beltline would be complete without a Tubby Dog!

Tonight, after dinner, I am going to make some doggy treats. Then I’ll be making some chocolate chip cookies and watching Twin Peaks. I’m almost done watching the entire series again.

Tomorrow is back to work. I work three day shifts, have one day off, then work three more days. I think I may have students tomorrow…that would be a definite bonus! I love having students to help me out.

Yes, it has been more than a month since my last post. However, after about seven years of blogging, I’m quite aware that my desire to post ebbs and flows. There will be times where I excitedly blog every day. Other times, I will go weeks without posting. Lets face it, blogging is a lot of work! I think the only regret I have is that regular posting generally equals regular readers. I crave the hordes of readers other bloggers have, but they typically post at LEAST once a day.

That’s enough talk about how often I post! Too many of my posts start with a similar speech. I also want to mention that I’m aware that I have been tagged for the “eight random things” meme. I will try writing that in the next couple days. For now, I would like to update my last few weeks!

Believe it or not, I took a vacation! It was the first time I had more than two or three days off in a row since I went to Boston for ten days…four years ago! And before my Boston trip, I hadn’t had more than two or three days off in a row since 1997 when I went to Seattle. One vacation in ten years is insanity! My habit was to just get my vacation paid out.

So, to have two weeks off felt great! I didn’t go anywhere and I didn’t do anything. I watched a lot of television, walked my dog often, played on the Internet, and read. The most exciting experience was buying my new car! I bought a 2007 Galaxy Grey Honda Civic LX coupe with a manual transmission.

The absolute highlight of my vacation was my David Lynch film festival. I watched Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Dr., and several episodes of Twin Peaks…all in the same day. This weekend I am going to see his new movie, INLAND EMPIRE. I’ve heard it described as one of the craziest movie going experiences of all time. Apparently it makes no sense…and well…what else would I expect from David Lynch?

Charlie really is driving me to the brink of insanity. He’s a walking contradiction! He is so easy to train with simple obedience exercises. He has no problem learning how to sit, lie down, loose leash walk, and his recalls are nearly flawless and reliable. Unfortunately, his potty training is getting worse every day (despite taking him out every 2-3 hours and watching closely for signals that he has to pee. He is also SO destructive when it comes to ripping up paper. And after trying everything in the books and out of the mouths of our obedience trainers…he still bites…A LOT! So, sometimes it feels as though we have the greatest, smartest dog, and other times I’m nearly in tears wondering what I’m doing wrong.

Charlie is actually done his puppy classes (sadness). They were incredibly fun! A lot of it involved him just running around socializing (playing) with other dogs. Charlie loves chasing puppies, being chased by puppies, and play fighting with puppies. Even more than that, we adored our Friday nights watching dozens of incredibly cute puppies running and jumping. As one woman put it, “you can feel your blood pressure going down by the minute!”

He will be starting true obedience classes on June 7th. It’s time to get a bit more serious with the training! He will learn to increase his attention span, gain self-control, and all the usual basics (sit, lie down, loose leash walking, etc. etc.). I truly love the facility I’m using. They are so incredibly friendly and knowledgeable!

Well, I have worked three shifts since the end of my vacation. I feel calm and at peace while at work. There is definitely a different vibe within myself while I go about my day. I will admit that I lucked out with my patient assignment, but in general, I feel as though I am starting to really enjoy this career.

Which reminds me!!! I received my RN license in the mail! When people ask me if I’m an RN, I no longer have to answer, “Sort of…I have my degree…and I passed my test…but I’m waiting for my license to arrive in the mail.” Yes, it’s all over and official, I’m the real deal!

It has been fun during the last few days watching the undergraduate nurses starting their jobs on the unit. I’m fascinated by the fact that only one year ago I was exactly where they are now. I am amazed and proud of how far I have come since then. It has been one hell of a year!

Of course, I celebrated my graduation from school and my registration as a nurse by promptly signing up for the “Advanced Studies in Critical Care Nursing” program at Mount Royal College. It is five courses long (physiology, pathophysiology, pharmacology, and assessment of critical care patients, followed by a practicum) and will provide me with the beginning training needed to transition to the ICU or ER. So yes, starting in fall, I will once again be a nursing student! I’m still very disappointed in the lack of critical training in Canadian schools as a basic part of becoming an RN!

Well, after going a month without posting, I could go on for ages. However, this post is getting long! So, I have decided to stop here. I will try to be a better blogger in the coming weeks.

I am tired tonight. I’m switching from days to nights by staying up all night, and my body is NOT happy about it. Normally it’s not a big deal, but three days ago I was asking my body to switch from nights to days. Seriously, how cruel is it to give me a schedule that involves working night shifts for two weeks, then two day shifts, and then back to nights for two weeks. Yes, I shall be dead before I’m forty!

Charlie had his splint off today. I dropped him off at the vet early in the morning and took off to run errands while the vet took an x-ray and examined his leg. When I picked Charlie up, he had a cone on his head and he looked miserable! The leg is just fine; however, he would not stop licking his foot/leg. So, until he stops, he will have to wear the cone (all that licking could cause an infection). He spent the afternoon under the coffee table looking completely unimpressed with the entire day.

The poor guy is having trouble walking. You can tell by looking at the leg that it is much weaker than his healthy leg. Weeks of not using the muscles of caused them to become imperfect. On top of that, he seems confused by the lack of splint–he had become so used to it! Four weeks is a lot of time in the life of a fifteen-week-old puppy. So, he needs to strengthen his leg and learn to use it again. I wonder if there’s a doggy physiotherapist around here.

I enjoyed the day off with a vehicle (Richard got a ride to work so I could use the van to take Charlie to the vet). I bought a couple books at Chapters, sipped tea at Starbucks, bought Richard some pants, and wondered around the mall. I forgot how much better it is to have a vehicle of my own. I was reminded of the freedom a vehicle allowed, and it pleasantly intoxicated me! I may just decided to buy that new Honda Civic after all.

Patience! That’s what I need! I need to pay off a couple debts, then try to get approved for a mortgage…and when that fails, I can get my fancy new Honda Civic.

Work is driving me to the point of insanity. There are just too many patients and too little time. I am so disheartened by all the “solutions” that are being introduced in order to help speed up admissions to the hospital, and thereby reduce ER wait times.

For the record, I am absolutely tired of the news reporting that the long waits are due to a massive bed shortage. To whomever is listening THE REPORTS OF THERE BEING A BED SHORTAGE ARE FOR THE MOST PART A MYTH!!!!! That felt good…

The news keeps stating over and over again that there is a critical bed shortage and that we need to hurry up and build new hospitals, and add on to current ones in order to ease the crunch. The news reports that because of this shortage of beds, patients in the ER have to wait thirteen hours or so to be admitted.

The problem with that is that there are dozens of beds in my hospital that lay empty at every moment of the day. On my unit there are usually four and sometimes eight beds that lay empty all the time. So, why aren’t patients being admitted to these empty beds? BECAUSE THERE ARE NO NURSES TO TAKE CARE OF THEM.

Sorry for the capitals, but seriously, why does this fact seem to escape the media, the health region, and the Government? Why do all of these institutions insist that building more beds will solve the problem? They are building a big hospital down south, but if there’s not enough nurses to run the hospitals we have, then who will run the new hospital?

So, the “solutions” to the ER wait times? They have implemented what they call “Triggers.” For example, if someone has been in the ER for four hours (the four hour limit being the trigger), they will be sent to a unit whether there’s a bed available or not. If someone has been in the post anesthetic recovery room for a certain amount of time, they will be sent to a unit whether there’s room or not.

They expect us to admit these patients post-op and from the ER and care for them in the hallways. This is about as unsafe as it gets! Not only does it overwhelm the nursing staff (I didn’t think we could be more overwhelmed…I guess this will prove me wrong), but putting patients in hallways means that we don’t have emergency equipment available at the bedside.

What we need is MORE NURSES. We need to find innovative ways to attract AND KEEP nurses to the city. This could include great signing bonuses, competitive wages (not to nurses in other provinces, but to other, similarly educated people in this city), excellent benefits (seriously, shouldn’t nurses have good health benefits?), and more than anything…a positive work environment.

What we don’t need (which we are experiencing) is difficulty getting a pay increase that even comes close to matching cost of living increase. The government wants to give us a couple percent raise over the next few years. They are also attempting to roll back many of our benefits. Is this really a time to take a step backward?!?!?!?!

This in a city, where on a full time nursing wage, you can’t even get approved for a mortgage for a 500 square condo. If you doubled a nurse’s wage, he/she would be able to just barely get approved for that bachelor suite (assuming they don’t own a car or have an ounce of debt). On a nurse’s wage, even renting a one bedroom apartment can potentially take up half of your paycheck.

Ok, I’m going to stop there. Rant over. I could type for hours about this issue, but I need to stop somewhere.

A certain someone (specifically me) passed his licensing exams. He (meaning me) is a Registered Nurse!

I’ll admit it…I cried…

Charlie is doing great! Even though he has a splint, he’s been bounding around the house. We haven’t been able to convince him that he’s hurt and needs to REST! We went to our vet today to have the splilnt changed (it is now bright yellow…she promised we could have purple next time), and she gave us some advice on curbing his activity. So, we have him on his lead at all times…he’s either attached to the coffee table or one of our belts. And it’s working! He can no longer fly up and down the hallway or chase after us, or practice trying to get up on the couch.

But the real bonus is that it will help us with house training. We will be able to keep an eye on him at all times. No more sneaking down the hallway to go pee!

We actually took him to puppy playtime on Friday. We were worried about him playing too hard (puppy playtime is all about the puppies running around and play fighting), but we knew that the gentlemen that runs it is a vet and would be able to give us advice. Our plan was to keep him on a lead and just hold him back, letting dogs come to him. He suggested letting him walk around socializing, and only holding him back if he gets out of control.

For most of the time he just hid behind my legs (apparently this is the norm for the first couple times). However, he started to interact and play with dogs in the last ten minutes. He didn’t start playing too hard, but I could tell he wanted to. I can’t wait until his splint is off and he can go full throttle!!!

On top of everything, the vet found a lovely (yet massive) yeast infection in his ear. So, we get to put drops in his ear twice a day! Puppies sure are a handful!!! Not to mention expensive.

******

My day shifts on Thurs/Friday were chaos! Thursday I walked into a mess. One of my patients was receiving hefty blood transfusions and had a surgical dressing that was saturated despite being reinforced, changed, and reinforced again. The second patient had dimentia and was agitated all night and needed to be transferred to a stretcher, then it was discovered that many of his meds had duplicate/conflicting orders that needed to be organized. My third patient’s meds (about a dozen meds) had been ordered, but not scheduled, so the pharmacy hadn’t sent any up to the unit, and my fourth patient was having pain control issues that hadn’t been resolved.

I just took a deep breath, dug in, and organized! I worked my ass off and by noon, everything was fixed, solved, and settled. I was very proud of myself for taking on an enormous chunk of chaos and fixed it!

Friday, I was sure it would be a good day. I had done so well organizing my patients care the day before that I knew it would be a much better day….wrong.

It started out by finding the dimentia patient on the floor, flat on his back, and covered in blood from all the IVs that were pulled out. He had fallen while trying to get to the bathroom. *deep breath* and called for help! Another patient had a complex discharge that needed to be organized…and on and on and on. Again, I dug in, worked my ass off, and organized everything.

I’m proud of the work I did this week (Sean gives himself a pat on the back).

And now, it’s back to night shifts for two weeks. YAY!

So, last night Charlie had his first venture into emergency vet care. While running after Charlie while playing, Richard managed to step on his front left paw.

I have never heard a dog yelp so loud and long! We waited about an hour to see if he would “walk it off” and start doing better. When he put wait on it at one point he started yelping long and loud again. So, we scooped him up and ran to the vet.

$600 later he had a big blue cast on his leg, which makes him look even more cute and innocent (pictures to follow later today). Unfotunately he’s still a little devil!

We were told to limit his activity and make sure he stays off his splint. However, he’s convinced that nothing has changed and keeps scooting around on it…arg! How do you convince an 12 week old puppy to stay off his feet?

I’m MOST sad because he was scheduled to start puppy classes tomorrow and now that will have to be put on hold for five weeks when the splint comes off. I was looking forward to seeing him jump around and play with other dogs.

*sigh*

I’m so tired!

Puppies are a lot of work. I’m starting to understand the pain of having a newborn baby. I have to get up several times a night to take him to his potty matt. When he’s awake, I need to watch him 100% or he will pee/poo in the wrong spot, or chew things up. I always have to think about how I act toward him, or react to his behaviors, because it could have an effect on him forever.

Fortunately, unlike a baby, I can leave him alone and go out. Even better is that in several weeks he should be completely potty trained. Then, I will need to buy a carpet cleaner to get rid of some of his accidents…ugh!

The only downside is that I can’t put him in front of the television and have some alone time. He depends on me for almost all his entertainment. Thankfully, he’s learned to play fetch already. Playing is much easier when I can stay still and he does all the running.

I adore our walks together. I slap on my Sirius radio, listen to OutQ or the Broadway channel and walk walk walk. I just wish Charlie was a little bit better at going for walks. He can be so stubborn and defiant! He occassionally will stop or get distracted and refuse to go anywhere.

His first Vet appointment is on Tuesday! He’ll be getting a full exam and a vaccination booster. I can’t wait to take him! It’s so fun seeing him going through all sorts of new experiences. I’m also signing him up for a Bright Puppies class. In this class there’s some basic fundamentals like housetraining and stopping them from nipping/biting etc., but for the most part it’s just a chance for them to run, play, and socialize with other dogs and people. They even do interesting things like play CDs of thunderstorms so your dog isn’t afraid of them when he/she grows up.

He definitely needs the outlet for all his energy! I feel so bad on the days where Richard and I both work day shift and he has to be alone for several hours. When I get home, I can tell just how much energy he’s built up!

Anyway, I just thought I would write a little more about my new “baby.” I can’t wait until he gets a little bit older and more controllable.

I would like to introduce everyone to our new baby. His name is Charlie! He’s as bratty as he is cute! We’re up several times a night so he can pee (occassionally in the right place even), and he whines and cries whenever we leave him. Fortunately, he’s a very smart puppy and is learning very quickly!!! We are very exhausted parents though…

He’s 8.5 weeks old (Born January 2nd 2007), and is a crass between a Shetland Sheep Dog and a German Klein Spitz. His mother was 14 inches tall, and his Dad was 7 inches tall…so he should stay fairly small.

So, last Friday at 7:00am I had my first code blue. It’s a moment I have been fearing…but it really wasn’t too bad. Around 6:00am, my patient started going down hill. I kept increasing her oxygen rate, changing her to a more powerful oxygen delivery device…nothing worked. Her vital signs became increasingly difficult to get as the blood flow to her extremeties became worse by the second. She was in some kind of shock, but as they rolled her (intubated and being pumped full of blood) to the ICU, they still hadn’t really figured out why. Hemoglobin was fine, lungs/heart looked good, temperature was fine etc.

I learned a lot from this experience, including a few warning signs that I could have grasped onto earlier. But this is how nurses learn…by reflecting on what they did, how they did it, and what they would do differently in the future. I have already done this to death over the several nights following that night, so I won’t go through it here. I will just say that although I could have done things better, I still did things well, and correctly. I may have saved this woman’s life. I am very proud of myself.

******

On to happier things! Over the long weekend, Richard and I decided to drive down to visit our neighbors to the south. We went to Great Falls, Montana!

I used to go to Great Falls all the time as a child. My parents honeymooned there, so it was almost exclusively our first stopping point on our family road trips. Great Falls would be followed by Spokane, then Vernon, then home.

Being a know-it-all, I thought I knew exactly how to get there. Drive south to Fort McLeod, then continue south to Sweetgrass where the border crossing is (has anyone detected the flaw in my thinking yet?). In Fort Mcleod, we took a wrong turn. Actually, we reached a fork in the road and chose the wrong fork. As a result, we ended up in Lethbridge, desperate for a map. So, map in hand, I saw our flaw and we drove back to Fort McLeod. We were now an hour over our expected time of 5.5 hours of driving (this time was well memorized by me from my childhood road trips).

We drove south from Fort McLeod on a very dark, windy road past Cardston (the Mormon temple is beautiful at night), and to the boarder crossing. Something seemed “off.” I remembered the road being a very big highway all the way from Calgary to Great Falls. This was a very tiny road in the middle of nowhere. Also, there was no town of Sweetgrass to be seen.

I chalked it up to my Dad occassionally taking different boarder crossings. Sometimes we would skip Great Falls and go Straight to Spokane etc. So, I’m wasn’t worried. However, the crossing guard told us that it would be about four hours until we got to Great falls. I thought this was very strange since I remembered it being only two hours.

After the boarder we were literally in what felt like the middle of nowhere. We were on a very tiny, ice, windy road that seemed to climb up and down mountains. I kept saying, “I could have sworn this was supposed to be a major highway!”

You know those movies where a stranger walks into a bar where they are VERY out of place, the music scratches to a stop, and everyone is silently staring at you. We had one of those moments as we bought gas in Browning. It was obviously an all Native American town, and while we were never made to feel unwelcomed, it was obvious that they weren’t used to seeing caucasians stop and get gas…there was a lot of strange stares going in our direction.

Back on the road, I finally decided to check the map Richard picked up at the Boarder. You should have seen the look on my face when I realized we had taken the wrong road! We were most definitely on a road that would end up in Great Falls; however, it was a long winding road that went way out of the way through the Blackfeet Indian reserve.

Even more astounding was that the road I DID want to take was straight down from Lethbridge. ACK! We were in Lethbridge but turned back because we thought it was the WRONG way! *CRIES*

We just looked at each other and decided that eventually it would be hilarious…

So, ten hours later (this includes, going the right way by accident, lunches, going the wrong way etc. etc.) we checked into the hotel. I was exhausted since I only had 2 hours of sleep (hard to sleep after a code blue). We still managed to order pizza and go to bed at 1:00am

The next day we drove around, shopped. I love buying all the products that haven’t hit Canada yet, and I love buying drugs that are prescription here, but over-the-counter in the US.

This was some kind of plant near the military base in Great Falls. I loved the mountains hanging out in the background. In this area, mountains stick up here and there, rather than all together like the rockies.

This is a similar mountain that I saw on the way home.

Here’s a nice picture of the nice big highway that we took back. Yes, this is the one we were supposed to be taking there. The trip back was only 5 hours long…now that we knew the right way! And yes, there was such a place as Sweetgrass!

Great Falls reminded us A LOT of Moose Jaw. It was about the same size, had the same lonely and run down “feel,” and was surrounded by similar prairies. We did notice that the customer service in this town was over-the-top incredible! I was left wondering if it is just really good, or if Calgary’s has become so bad that it was just relatively amazing. People were so friendly and were always going out of their way to help us.

There was even an awesome woman in the Albertson’s grocery store who had an awesome southern accent. She spent a good half an hour looking for Richard’s favorite snack food for us. She was so apologetic when she couldn’t find it. I loved the way she called us “honey.”

Ugh…and now I have to go back to work tomorrow after six days of freedom.

*sigh*

This is supposed to be a great close up shot of my new grad ring. Unfortunatley, the battery died before I could figure out how to get a nice clear close up. Oh well…I couldn’t be bothered to wait for the batteries to charge. So, I’m going with the “abstract” version.

The ring is a beautiful 10K white gold (I couldn’t justifying paying more than $100 more for 14K). It has “BN UofC 07″ on the outside, and my name in script on the inside. I really friggin’ love this ring! It’s subtle, classy, and is a great momento of my degree in nursing.

I also finally got my ass in gear and sent in my grad photos. The package with my photo proofs has been sitting in front of me for months! I can’t wait to get the portraits so that I can proudly display one on the wall of my apartment. Of course, I will be spreading the joy by sending my mom/grandmother/sister a copy. But the ever egotistical me will be keeping the largest copy.

******

I’m sitting here at 03:30 desperately trying to stay awake. I work night shifts next, so I’m in the process of turning my schedule around. So, I’m playing World of Warcraft, watching some TV, and listening to the Broadway channel on my Sirius satellite radio.

I have been in an “I love nursing” mood this week, which is much better than the “oh my God, I hate nursing!” mood I have been portraying in my posts recently. I had an absolutely great week, even with having to work day shifts the entire time. I had a good patient assignment, I was well organized, on top of my care. On top of that, my successful IV start streak has continued. Granted, they have all had great veins, but I’m still overjoyed!

I must say that life in general is started to fall into a nice groove. Everything seems to be exactly how it is supposed to be. It would feel a lot better without all the debt though.

*cries*