Amanda: I'm working full time, which means three 12-hour shifts per week. I leave the house no later than 6:18 and I come home sometime around 8:15-8:30. At first, I had a really hard time making my brain work for such a long stretch. Once, as I was reporting off to the oncoming nurse, I was telling her about the last pain medication I gave. "I gave it at 18:30 and it's every 4 hours so he can have it again at.... .... .... uh... can you do the math for me on that one?"
Its getting better and my mind isn't so sloshy by the end of the day, but that doesn't mean that I know what I'm doing or am confident at my job at all. I'm still afraid of my boss; I'm afraid that she's going to find out that I'm totally just winging it and probably screwing it all up.
The floor I work on is a surgical specialty floor- women's health (which is a lot of gynecologic oncology (cervical cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, endometrial cancer, etc.), urology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transurethral_resection_of_the_prostate">TURPs, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, urosepsis, etc.), and ear-nose-and-throat (throat cancer, tongue cancer, esophageal cancer). "Wow," you're saying, "that's a lot of cancer patients." I know, right? Who knew that's what "surgical specialty" actually meant.
We do get a lot of "medicine overflow" which means the whatever patients who come in through the ED. I've had several http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIWA">CIWA patients, a guy who had a chronic wound in his scrotum that I swear you could have put a golf ball up inside of it, there was a lady who didn't know there was a sawed-off shotgun in the back seat of her car and it went off and shot her in the buttocks, and the lady who was pregnant and diabetic and decided to fast for Ramadan which put her into http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DKA">DKA.
After working there for 5 months, all I can say is that it's my new mission in life never to get cervical cancer and as soon as my girls are old enough, they are totally getting the HPV vaccine.
Tyler: Tyler still has a job although they've changed his responsibilities around. Apparently, he gets to use power tools now, or maybe he's just by the power tools, so he's spent the last several days watching http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-hz1GpFpXA">safety videos.
Ethan: Ethan has been able to walk for several weeks now, but had chosen to continue crawling. In case you're keeping track, he turned one in July. Then, on Tuesday, he decided it was the day to make the switch. He's about 50/50 now which is a big improvement from the 99/1 that he was on Monday. He only has 4 teeth and is still super crabby. The doctor asked me at his last check-up how many words he said. "Uh.... zero?" He just grunts. He makes a distinct grunting noise whenever he sees a dog, so I'm going to go ahead and count that. A mother at the park said that her pediatrician counts signs, in which case we can add bananas and grapes.
Nora: I'm just going to go ahead and say that Nora is the cutest little kid I've ever seen. She's generally happy and bounces when she walks. Her little giggle and her chunky baby legs just make me want to eat her. She sings little songs to herself and like cuddling. Her current favorite movie is Jumble Book.
Lillian: Lillian is really learning a lot in kindergarten. She's one of those kids who will perform for other adults, but will do nothing for me, so it's sort of amazing what her teacher can get her to learn- which is pretty much what I've been trying to teach her for 2 years to no avail. Her report card showed pretty good marks in everything except "Uses Time Wisely," in which category she got the lowest grade possible. Yeah, that sounds like her. She lives life at her own pace and refuses to be rushed.
She is getting to be pretty funny, though. The other day, I was planting a new flowering vine in our backyard. It is going to have little purple iris-looking flowers. "This plant is silly mom. Why did you want one with purple flowers?" (Also, she questions everything. "Why did you want this bread?" "Why did you do your hair like that? "Why did you say it was time to go to bed?")
"Because I thought the purple flowers would look pretty."
"Yeah... pretty silly."
The only other question you have is, "what do you do with your kids when you're at work?" I know this because everyone asks me this question. A lady I know from church who has kids approximately my kids' ages takes Nora and Ethan all day. Then a different neighbor picks Lillian up with her school-aged children and hangs on to her until Tyler gets home. It's kind of a lot of juggling, but we make it work.
2 comments:
I am exhausted just reading this. Whew!
I am relieved to read your description of a kid who will perform for other adults but not her own mom. Miriam is like that. She is gradually starting to show me what she can do, though.
I would come home from work all the time and feel so worn out, stressed out, exhausted and almost panicked about the possible things that I might have done wrong or forgotten or wondering if my co-workers thought I was a complete idiot. It is much better now, so you will get confident. But just for the record, I think you look like you know what you are doing. It is a tough profession and job. Survive the first year and it gets a ton better.
Now I just wonder if people say "who is that girl who shows up once a month and plays nurse".
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