This evening I went out to run a few errands in the evening air and let some of the brain clutter blow out the car window. I was highly successful and also bought myself flowers. Roses. I'm not a roses-kinda-girl but these were white with the slightest lacing of pink and I couldn't resist.
To review (an ongoing list), things good for the soul include:
Yesterday we went to Columbia for our nephew's birthday party. Roommate's sister, husband, and son moved from Kansas City to Columbia a few months ago as his sister is starting Vet School. When we got home last night we both remarked on the strangeness of making friends. They already have neighbor friends that are willing to roll their grill all the way down the street and around the corner to use it at Sister's house. She has work friends that come over. This is all very strange to us. I suppose there is a part of that facilitated by our nephew and his instant friendships formed with neighbor children and the like but still it baffles me. I think I can officially deem us Antisocial.
Today, I am wanting to go to a place that serves coffee and the like so that I can study for some of the four tests I have this week. (Have I mentioned more than three times that this is my last week of classes?) I don't really need anyone to study WITH me per se but I'm also desperately wishing that Roommate liked this sort of thing. He sets himself up here to work and draw and write and has this whole ritual around it. He may not realize the ritual but it's there and I can tell when he's getting into that mode. I'm wishing I could help him transport that mode to a public place where we can sit together and drink coffee and eat treats that go well with coffee. I don't know what it is about a public place that works so well for me when it comes to studying. I think part of it is just the accountability because I wouldn't want to sit there the entire time perusing myspace.
Perhaps I'll settle for bringing coffee and treats that go well with coffee to our kitchen table and turning on some music.
When things start getting hazy and you just don't feel like yourself..
When you're moody and starting to question major decisions you've made..
When you start feeling a little hopeless and you dwell on sad things way too much..
When you are irrational about loneliness and time..
When you just can't get excited about anything..
My advice is to immediately plan a full night's sleep.
That's what I did last night and I'm a new person this morning.
This may not work in all scenarios, of course, but it's a damn good start.
I am behind in school which is not at all surprising. At 11 last night I realized suddenly I had a paper to write due this morning. It was not at all difficult but I managed to drag it out forever and ever. I also struggle to spend a whole day at school right now. This is insanely stupid as I officially have one week of classes left before I start my capstone for the next 6 weeks. Surely I can muster up enough perseverance for that?
I need new shoes for playing nurse.
This weekend is our nephew's 5th birthday. I can't believe it. He's a full blown kid now. We're going to his birthday party.
So that's all I've got.
Things are not as they should be right now.
I am not as I should be right now.
The rain is a welcome sight.
Initial firetruck and ambulance and police.
The cops stayed an hour or so and brought out the dog.
Must've been about 20-30 kids over there?
It was entertaining.
I think they all left unscathed.
Ahh, summer.
(Instead of any embedding)
Bat for Lashes - "What's a Girl To Do?" I'm so diggin' her.
The White Stripes - "Jolene"
Dolly Parton - "Jolene"
I swear I heard The White Stripes are comin' to KC. Am I makin' that up? I don't see KC anywhere on their tour dates. I'm willing to make a trek to Chicago or Lincoln.
I'd never heard of "Creature Comforts" and came across it tonight and for some reason it hits me in just the right spot and makes me laugh! I also heard Hell's Kitchen is back on and I love that show. I'll have to try to catch it next week.
P.S. I seriously need some help in the window coverings area. Curtains? Some sort of super updated cool shades? I need some help. Maybe someone willing would look at pictures and help me.
Today in class we're spending some time talking about quality improvement in hospitals. I just wanted to throw out a wee little info that maybe would be interesting or on occasion helpful to you.
To compare hospitals in the area you can go to Hospital Compare. This is a site maintained by the US Dept. of Health & Human Services so perhaps that will make you want to take it with a grain of salt but sometimes.. I like salt.
This is intended to be a "quality tool" that one can use to see how hospitals stack up against one another in topics like discharge education, evaluations, pre-surgical procedures, etc. You can search hospitals by distance from a zip code. This was also eye-opening as to ALL the hospitals just in my area of the city. You might be surprised. The comparisons on this site are based on the charting/documentation of nurses and physicians so not in defense of crappy hospitals but some information may be skewed as nurses struggle to have the time to document every single thing. An audit done on discharge teaching might not actually show all the discharge teaching that took place. This information is gathered each quarter. Also, magnet hospitals tend to have higher scores in these comparisons. You can also see how a hospital in Missouri or Kansas compares to the rest of the nation or its own state. It was just interesting to me.
Also, I know people are aware of the $4 generic drug program available but personally I wasn't sure of what drugs are available. Here's a place to get an idea. It's from the Walmart website so don't forget other places are doing the same like Price Chopper and is Target matching now?
Notes for myself:
Aviation Industry - if the same rate of mistakes was happening as nursing it'd be like a jumbo jet a day going down.
"Wall of Silence" book about hospital error
"Keeping Patients Safe: Transforming the work environment for nurses"
perhaps 200,000 a year die from med errors
5 million preventable injuries
12 trillion dollar economy
2 trillion of that is healthcare
NYTimes website - polling - ppl. ready to embrace Universal Healthcare but not socialized medicine.
We are NOT getting the best bang for our buck.
Managed Care is driving cost control.
90% of insured ppl. are in managed care program
We could do so much better.
Cuba is rockin' the healthcare more than we are.
Uninsured Persons - robert wood johnson foundation - "Cover the Uninsured Week"
CDC
Institute of Medicine (IOM)
47 million ppl. are UNINSURED
Barack Obama - Universal Coverage
ppl. are scared the quality will go down
We need to be a LOT more innovative!
AHRQ - research & health quality - gov't site
CPO - HAVE to do Computerized Physician Ordering instead of standing around deciphering handwriting, ridiculously archaic!
I am the worst student.
My motivation level is in the red and I honestly don't know what to do about it. Right now my weeks consist of either eight+ hour days of straight lecture/reading of a PowerPoint presentation outloud to me or hospice/home health/public health clinicals. My study habits are... Okay I don't have any study habits and the worst part of all of this is that in 1 month|28 days I'll be saying to myself "What the hell was wrong with you? You had it SO good!" I mean seriously, I'm griping because I have to sit in an air conditioned building in a cushioned seat and screw around inside my head while someone talks? Seriously?
Off and on all evening I've been "studying" for a test I have in the morning. I've learned that I can focus very well for about four minutes at a time and then I'm ready for somethin' else. This works out well for my roommate...
Wish me luck on my test!
Also, let's start discussing job options 'cause I sorta need one. Let's also discuss the fact that I haven't had a job in nearly two years and also...seriously? Oh! And could you analyze me and help me know where I might make a good fit in a hospital? Great, thanks! See ya!
(For my Capstone I put my three options as PACU, ICU step-down, and Emergency Dept.)
Nursing school has been hard.
With two months remaining until graduation (two months remaining!), I look back and find that the hardest parts of nursing school for me have been the parts that reconstitute the ache I have for my dad. Right now one of my classes is Community Health and for this class we have talked about hospice care. For the next few weeks I get to spend one clinical day a week going along with a hospice nurse. This is something I'm extremely uncomfortable doing. Last week I sat upright in my bed on Monday night weeping about the following day's potential events and also missing my dad.
I've said it before but sometimes it's the most random things that bring my dad to life right in front of me and sometimes it's blatant. Hospice is blatant. Also, perhaps it is because I am too close to the topic but I find (some) hospice nurses to be some of the most arrogant people I've come in contact with. A hospice nurse that came to talk to us in class told us about one of her patients that had died a few days earlier and the more "shocking" her tale became, the more blase she was with a "this is my job" tone that made me wanna punch her. I'm not adequately describing what I feel. It's not that I wanted to see tears - it's that I can't stand people that will stand in the freezing cold and refuse to admit they need a jacket.
(Some) Hospice nurses are thrilled to tell you how dedicated they are, how all the fucking shitty shit they deal with is all just part of the job, how rewarding the job is, how they love their patients. I get somewhat similar (but more minor thoughts) when people announce on and on how Green they live, how "This is organic and Fair Trade! Go me! I'm a fucking humanitarian!" This is all running together and I'm imagining how a hospice nurse reading this might feel. My insight is narrow and very, very, limited.
I can't apologize for missing my dad but maybe I can apologize for talking about it here so much? I guess I can't really do that either. Yesterday when I saw my friend at her wedding with her dad my heart hurt so much. I wanted so badly to hug my dad. I want it desperately and intensely. In the car with Roommate earlier today he was playing a CD that had this song on it that said "Fe Fi Fo Fum" and then something else but my dad used to say that and arch his arms up in the air while lifting his legs high and coming for me. He'd pull his t-shirt up over his head just enough to look menacing. I can smell him. I can feel his whiskers on my face.
I'm in bed with my roommate. This morning after we woke up I went downstairs and got coffee and the paper and came back up. Later we ate and I watered flowers. We have music on and we're just here together and it's.. nice. Today our friends are getting married. For such an occasion I actually bought a dress. I could not possibly tell you the last time I wore a dress. I got married in pants. Lots of fashion faux pas happenin' that day as I was also wearing pigtails with flowers stuck in 'em. What? Yeah. Yesterday I also bought myself a long hippy skirt and a t-shirt with an ice cream cone on it. They're cute and I sorta feel like a girl in them which is a feeling I'm slightly unfamiliar with and enjoying quite a lot. I painted my fingernails and toenails and got some shimmeriness for my eyes. I'm really looking forward to the wedding. It's fun when it's people you like a lot. Also, my roommate is so handsome!
Yesterday was just the best kind of day.
I feel positively sappy about it.
We slept in a little yesterday morning. (I just deleted the next sentence because I now have to censor things I tell you as they will easily shout out my address to you. Most all of you couldn't care less but all the same...) Our moms came over and we went to Old Shawnee Days. I ate a hand-dipped corn dog, people. It was the most amazing corn dog I'd ever eaten. I can't tell you I consume them more than a couple times a year but man. I also brought home some raw unfiltered honey there and it's so good.
Afterwards we came home and the four of us worked in our yard. The back had gotten completely overgrown before we moved in so it took a ton of sweat to get things cleaned up. There were weeds and thistles almost as high as my head. It all looks so much better now and in our adventures we discovered wild strawberries growing around the clothesline pole! We even planted a few flowers. My aunt & uncle stopped by and while here my uncle mapped out the perfect location for a hammock to be stretched between two trees.
Believe it or not it felt so good to sweat in our yard and stretch out our muscles. I can tell you mine are highly underused and the exhaustion that set in hours later felt earned.
After some dinner we both took long showers to rinse off the salt and potential poison ivy. It seems we've no shortage of poison ivy in our yard. During our clean-up our neighbor behind us poked his head over his tall privacy fence in true "Home Improvement" fashion to say "hello." Through our conversation with him we learned that quite some time ago this house was owned by a crazy veterinarian who never did anything to the yard. It sat empty awhile for sale, eventually sold - was renovated and now here we are.
We decided to watch "Phantom of the Opera" but partway through went outside to listen to the band our neighbors had at their backyard party. (People do that?!) The band was actually really good and played songs from The Doors, Johnny Cash, Van Morrison, Ben Folds, Cake, Elton John, and more. We ended up sitting there on the ground, whiskey for him - wine for me, until they stopped playing at 1:00 am. It was fantastic, the best kind of night.
I've decided I'm in love with summer this year. So often all I can think about in regards to summer is the heat. This year summer has earned a place in my heart as a time for sunshine and flip-flops, lightning bugs and night air, cut grass and icy drinks, family and a lover, soil and toil, watermelon and tomatoes. It sounds blissfully utopian and.. it is.
Now that we've transplanted to Shawnee, KS - we need food tips.
What great places around here do you love?
Tell me where it's at 'cause I don't know where anything is.
