Tuesday, November 21, 2023 (post for Nov 14-Nov 20th)

 Ahoy! More business, so I’m going to try to both recall events and write them down in the 23 minutes I have until my therapy session.

Last Tuesday, the 14th, I went to lunch with my parents, my brother, and Garren for my birthday. Ashley could not come because her babies are little and a bit rowdy. And she lives an hour away. Sad face. It was nice though. My mom gave me a Christmas cook book, a blanket, and some chocolate covered pretzels. 

Wednesday I went to class then I went to work. At midnight it turned the 16th and was my birthday! I went to the hospital cafeteria and bought myself a slice of cookie pie. When I was doing midnight vitals, one of my patients had asked me if I had any kids and I said I had a 16 year old son and a 13 year old daughter. They said I didn’t look old enough to have a 16 year old and I said, “I’ll be turning 38 in a few minutes!!” One of the nurses heard that in the hallway and everyone wished me a happy birthday and was really nice. 

Thursday, my actual birthday, I slept most of the day. Then I got Miriam from art club and pretty much drove her straight to swim practice. But in between she gave me this mug:

It says, “Super mom, super wife, super tired!” Super right, Miriam!!

Josh went to work straight from school, so I didn’t see him. Garren surprised me by getting some dinner for us to enjoy together before I had to leave for work. We were going to try Backyard Taco for the first time, but couldn’t get there due to some traffic issues. So we just got panda. It was a very nice little surprise that made my day! Then he gave me my first gift: A subscription to the Hallmark channel! And yes, I have already watched 4 Christmas movies instead of studying Arterial Blood Gases. 

As I was getting ready to leave for work my manager surprised me with a bit of a birthday gift. She floated me to the monitor room! I was happy about that because working the floor is kind of killllling me. I had also wanted to work the floor that night, though, because after 3 months I finally feel like I’m relaxing a bit on the floor and fitting in a little more. So at about 2am I got a call from my floor asking to come up to the unit. So I went up there and one of my nurses, Shannon, had bought cupcakes and cookies to celebrate my birthday! So I stayed up there for a little while and visited with everyone. It was so nice! I feel very awkward and fumbly sometimes on the floor. I try to show my best self and sometimes when that is my focus it just ends up in disaster. But I’m finally feeling a little less awkward. 

Friday, I had to wake up early, around 1:00pm, to go pick up my mom from a surgical procedure at Mt Vista. I missed it! Then Garren reminded me that I have a way of romanticizing my past and remembering the good things. He reminded me how terrible it could be at times. Ha. But I had a lot of good times there too. I really missed it. I was also glad that my mom didn’t seem to remember that her mom died there! Or, at least she didn’t mention it. So I got Miriam from school and drove them both to mom’s. Miriam stayed with my mom to take care of her because I had to go to work. Miriam is a caretaker by nature. She is very sweet and took good care of my mom. 

That night I worked in the monitor room. 

Saturday when I woke up, I spent some time cleaning out my Gardyn and putting new plants in. Then we celebrated my birthday by going bowling, eating sandwiches at Steve’s Krazee Subs, then to Coldstone for ice cream. It was nice! Garren got me a steam cleaner for our floors for my birthday. Then he immediately used it! Ha! Then we went for a long walk as a family. It’s so simple, but it’s one of my favorite things. :)

Sunday we went to church, relaxed, did a little house cleaning, then went for another walk.

Monday I had my last clinical. I was on the Med/Surg Trauma unit at Chandler Regional Medical Center. It was a slow day, but that was okay with me. I’ve been struggling a lot physically lately, so I’m kind of limited to what I can do  now :/

Well, I need to go log in for my therapy session now. I’m so glad I started my OCD/PTSD therapy again. It is helping so much in this stressful line of work. My therapist is amazing. 

I have just 3 weeks left until I am done with Block 2. Then I’ll be 50% nurse!

Flashback Friday to lots of November 17ths

 

So, three years I go I took my nursing school entrance exam! Sweet, naive Melissa. . . . I do believe this is a good path for me. I don’t know what else I’d do. Interior design wasn’t going to work out because WTBM wore me out dealing with customers. I lost all my patience. And Fashion Design wouldn’t have worked out either because there are no jobs here for that. So nursing it is! I hope going into nursing will allow me to do those other things though. I’d like to finish my Interior Design and Fashion Design degrees and I think nursing will let me do that. I also want to get the culinary associates :) hee hee. So many things to do!

4 years ago I ran this half marathon in Las Vegas.. It was a few weeks after Cyndie had died. I remember I was supposed to go with Trena. We had booked a hotel room at the Luxor. But it didn’t work out for her to go. I think it was meant to be that way because then Garren went with me and since it was after Cyndie’s death it was just meant to be.  

This one is fun. I drove my kids to school then drove to the airport, hopped on a plane to Los Angeles, got a rental car, drove to San Diego, picked up Ashley at her house, went to a Bastille concert, took Ashley home, drove back to the airport, flew home, drove home, picked up my kids from school (the next day) and went home and crashed! SO FUN!!! We had a blast!

Soooooo this one hurts. There is actually a lot of pain behind this picture. Garren bought me a harp for my birthday. I was so excited as I had wanted a harp for a while. I messed around with it most of the day and could pluck out a few tunes by the end of the day. I made a video and posted it on Facebook. Then I got an email from Garren’s sister saying, “I’m glad you got your harp!” Then it was immediately followed by something along the lines of “I’m not going to work for you anymore, I will be sending all your supplies and unfinished orders back. . .  BUT I’ll be keeping all the money you prepaid me for orders!” (The last part wasn’t included, but that’s what happened). I can’t even tell you how I felt in that moment. I am tearing up now just recalling it. This was the worst day of my life. The pain they caused me cannot be expressed in words. If I had been anyone else they wouldn’t have done that. If they had worked as seamstresses in a window treatments business for someone that wasn’t their sister they would not have done this. So why me? Why do this to someone who helped you in a time of need? This was our busy season for work as everyone is decorating for the holidays. They sent back unfinished orders that needed to go out before Thanksgiving which was the following week. I actually had people from church that stepped into make up for them. They should be embarrassed about that. Thankfully the people from church didn’t expect payment because I had already paid them in advance for this work and they were not going to pay it back. This was also my first holiday season with Miriam and all I can remember of it is this pain and working 20 hours a day to make up for their shortcomings. To this day one of the sisters has never acknowledged any wrong doing. The most I’ve heard from the other is “There was wrong on both sides.” They did wrong by me then and are still not right by me. I try to forget and move on, but this event was so significant that I can’t forget it. It was cruel and hateful. It caused me more pain than I have ever experienced in my life (oh, yes, I did mention my sister dying. Nope, this event has impacted the course of my life more so than my sister’s death). While I was working 20 hours a day trying to get their orders out on time as well as mine, I was writing out checks for my other seamstresses and I remember thinking something was wrong when I couldn’t remember how to write one of my seamstress’s names. I was trying to write a J and I couldn’t remember how. I called Garren and told him he needed to come home from work and stay with the kids. I drove myself to the emergency room (very slowly, like 20 miles an hour because I wasn’t all there cognitively). I got in and told them I thought I was having a stoke. They brought me into triage and asked me several questions. I remember being able to tell that they were talking, but not being able to make sense of what they said—kind of like the Charlie Brown teacher. They immediately got me back fro a CT, but it didn’t show anything. They said I was probably having a nervous breakdown from stress. Oh, how I wish I could have sent his sisters the bill for that ER visit. 

The cruelty of their actions haunts me to this day. It was personal. Like I said, had I been anyone else they would have sucked it up and finished their work then quit. Not sent back unfinished orders during the busiest time of year. And during a time when I should have been enjoying my daughter’s first Christmas. I don’t recall anything of her first Christmas. And I hate them for that. The cruelty of it all. . .  Unimaginable. The only comfort I get from this is knowing I would never do to anyone what they did to me. One of the sisters even behaved this way toward Garren earlier this year when he was doing his mom’s estate. She blew up at him over the estate stuff and it really hurt Garren. He even brought it up the other day and it’s been almost 6 months since it happened. The reason it is so impactful when they behave like this is because it’s not a brother/sister tiff: it’s a disrespectful jab at what we chose to do with our lives. It is an insult to our work, our profession. Brother/sister tiffs are generally forgivable. But insulting what someone has chosen to do for their career is just cruel. It’s personal and it hurts. I don’t think I will ever get over this. It haunts me. How on earth someone could treat another human the way they treated me is something I will never understand. I can’t put those puzzle pieces together. I gave them work in a time of need and they stabbed me in the back. 

I have not played this harp in years. I joined a little Harp Circle in Virginia for a while and played with it then, but it just reminds me of this day and that stupid email: “I’m glad you got your harp!” I am working on not letting things like that ruin things for me that could add to my life. So I do plan to pick it up again soon. Possibly over the summer when I am on a break from school. I am working in therapy on disconnecting things from events. So hopefully I will be in a good place this next summer and I can enjoy the music again! Maybe even teach Miriam! I just don’t want to hold on to this anymore. They did wrong by me and have never made it right. I know I can’t expect that of someone, but they should. I’m their sister. They hurt me. Why is it so hard for someone just to say they’re sorry? That would do so much for me just to hear those words. I am working in therapy on accepting that those words will never come. But it’s hard because whenever I interact with them I know that if something ever happened between us again they wouldn’t accept responsibility. Nothing is ever their fault. So I avoid interactions with them altogether. They want to have a family reunion next summer and I don’t want to go. I don’t want to spend time with people that could do what they did. Ugh! Okay, I need to stop writing about it because I’m going to a bad place. I must still care for them in some way though, because deep down, I would never wish them to feel the pain that I have felt as a result of their actions. I wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone. Ever. I just wanted to be a part of them. I wanted to do something great with them. And it could have been great. They were so talented! But they took some things personally and took offense where none was intended. We could have made a really cool thing together. I just wanted to be a part of the family. Well, I did go on to make something incredible. Just did it with other amazing, talented women. I guess this experience did do that for me. it led me to the most incredible group of women. In my time leading WTBM I employed 26 people. When this happened, that was the worst time of my life. What it led me to became the best years of my life. And that business I created and most of those amazing women are still with the company! One of them that is still with the company was one that stepped in to finish some of the sister’s orders when they sent them back to me unfinished! She offered to help me in my time of need and it ended up being a good fit for her and has blessed her family for more than a decade! Her husband has lost his job a few times over the years and we were able to keep them afloat with the income from the business. Such neat experiences in the business that I will cherish forever. So while their actions were cruel and painful and continue to cause me pain to think about, it led me to some beautiful women that gave me the experience of a lifetime!!

Tuesday November 14, 2023 (post for 11/8-11/14)

 This past week has been a bit overwhelming. Well, not so much overwhelming, I guess. Just starting to feel a little run down. I don’t think I’m going to last much longer in my current position at work. It’s too painful physically. I spend all my time off trying to recover from work. That’s no life. Yesterday when I got home from clinical I was the only one home so I didn’t need to make dinner for anyone but myself. I was starving after running around all day, but all I could do was lay on the couch. I could barely move. A few days ago I went and told my manager that the job was getting too hard for me physically. I asked her if I could be in the monitor room 2 days a week and the floor one day a week or if my monitor room night could be in between my two floor nights. She said she’d do her best. If she can’t accommodate I’ll have to find another job :( And I have to pay back part of my sign on bonus. If I can make it to February then I can start the nurse extern program which would mean I’d be a CNA one day, Monitor tech one day, then nurse extern the other day. That might be enough for me, but I don’t know how physically involved the nurse extern will be. And I don’t even know if I’ll make it through next week! The pain is getting to be too much.

Anyway, in other news. Miriam is becoming quite an accomplished artist. She made this picture of Dean Winchester. 

I think there is a more final version than this, but she hasn’t sent it to me yet. She turned it in last week for her art class. She is very talented!! I posted it on Facebook and everyone loved it! Garren’s side of the family said she had Schadd genes (Garren’s grandparents were both artists). That may be true, but I don’t want to be left out! ;) I didn’t say this on FB because I wanted Miriam to have her moment, but I’m not half bad either! Here is a water color I did of the mesa temple. 

Also, I have these books I’ve been making for the kids with drawings and sayings, etc. This is latest drawing I’ve been working on in Joshua’s book. His favorite movie is Ratatouille. 

I need to do this more often. I find drawing very therapeutic. It calms my mind when I am overthinking. 

So as far as work goes, I found a CNA job at the Stem Cell Transplant unit at the Cancer Center. I wrote about wanting to work in that area last week. Only problem is that it is a day shift position. I could make that work, it would be fine. But they are only open Mon-Fri. So I would have to work on all the days I don’t have lab or lecture. Then weekends would be for studying. Which would be fine, but they’d have to let me do 3 12s and they’d have to always be those specific days. So I am not sure that would work out. But I guess I could try. Also, I’m not a day shift person. I’m not making friends with anyone before 10am. Only enemies. Day shift people and night shift people are two different species. 

Last week I had a “run in” with day shift CNA. The last two weeks at work I have been doing “bed side shift report.” It is best practice and safest practice. It is good for the CNA leaving to show accountability for what they’ve done, good for the on coming CNA to have a clear idea of what they’re getting into, and it is good for the patient to feel involved with their care and feel peace of mind that we understand what their problems are. After two rooms this CNA said, “I will be taking report outside the rooms now.” She made a big deal out of it in front of everyone at the nurse’s station. It was rude and embarrassing. I asked here to talk to me away from the nurse’s station so we could keep it between us. She said that only nurses do bed side shift report and all we’re doing is waking them up, etc. We’re supposed to wake them up and have them in their chairs for their meals! Our manager asked us to do this and told us to turn on all the lights and look at all the things! Anyway, I was really upset about this. Two of my favorite nurses on the unit, Stephen (Wilson) and Loni (Johnson), followed me into the break room because they could see I was upset. Stephen assured me I was doing the right thing. He reminded me that doing the right thing can be very lonely and unpopular. We got away from bed side report during covid and getting back into it is not going to be easy. People have gotten comfortable in their ways and don’t like change. So I am going to be lonely in my endeavors. Loni told me I was a great CNA and she supported me in bed side report. Before I even started giving report Stephen had come up to me and said he felt compelled to tell me that I was a great CNA and that I was always there right when he needed me and I went above and beyond. Later in the break room he said that he wasn’t a religious person, but a spiritual one, and he thinks he was inspired to tell me that right before this incident took place so I could be in a good head space to receive her criticism of bed side report. I think he was right. This is a great unit I work on and I am grateful to be a part of it. I don’t want to have to leave, but I might have to soon :(. So I say, ‘As for me and my house, we will do bed side shift report.’

Clinical yesterday was a good experience. I got to go to the OR. My patient had been in a motorcycle accident a few weeks ago. They needed the wound cleaned and a wound vac put on. When they unwrapped the dressing I could see clear through their ankle!!!! It didn’t make me want to pass out or anything, but I did have some PTSD. The smell of the dressings when they took it off smelled like decomposing flesh. Unfortunately, I have smelled that smell once before. . . . I was in a funk the rest of the time and determined that the OR is probably not for me. I think I determined that already with my physical limitations, but yesterday confirmed it. It was still a cool experience to see the whole process from beginning to end. I followed this patient from the med/surg floor to pre-op to OR to pacu then back to floor. I got to see the entire experience from beginning to end! It was amazing!! My nurse, Faith, was also great. She let me do a lot of things, but also took over in a lot of areas I wasn’t comfortable with. I told her I wanted to watch her do the sub q injections because I was really clumsy and fumbling around with it. She said, okay. Then she prepared everything and was about to do it and she said, “You know, the only way you’re going to get over being clumsy is by doing this over and over and finding your own way. So get in here!” Then she handed me the syringe! It was great encouragement and I liked that she did it right before I had to do the injection. If there is time in between the time I have to do it and actually doing it I get all flustered. 

Now on to this week. My birthday is on Thursday but I work Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. So I am going out to lunch with my parents and Neal (and I think Garren is coming too) today. Then On Saturday we’ll go bowling and out for dinner afterwards to celebrate. 

TTFN.

Tuesday, November 7th, 2023 (post for 10/22—11/7)

 It’s been so busy these past few weeks that I find myself falling asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. I hate that. I like to lay in bed and unwind, read from my cooking magazines and watch some garbage on tv. 

Monday the 23rd of October was my first clinical day on a med/surg unit. It was spectacularly dull, which is exactly what I needed for day 1. I got to do med pass with the nurse and sub-q injections. 

Work has been good. We’re getting busier because the snow birds are coming back. I get to remove IVs on discharging patients now, so that’s an exciting new responsibility. Working the floor is kind of killing my body and kind of killing my spirit. I am going to try to transfer to the monitor room full time in the spring of next year. I’m going to wait until after I get a position as a nurse extern. 

School has been good. We’re in med/surg now and this stuff kind of clicks with me. We’re doing the endocrine system, cardiovascular, immune system, etc.

The temperatures are finally dropping a bit so I can go with Miriam to swim before I go to work. I enjoy watching her. 

This is my view from where I sit.

Miriam is in the white cap.

. . . Holding her hands up.

On Monday the 30th of October, I had my second clinical at Chandler Regional. It was another boring day. I was on the trauma med/surg which sounds exciting, but it was not. And that was fine. I like it when it’s dull so I can absorb what’s going on and take things at a slow pace. I asked my clinical instructor if we could leave early so Josh and I could go to Phoenix for the World Series game. It was so fun. We got there about the 5th inning. We got hot dogs from a vendor and sat on the sidewalk and watched the game on screens outside the stadium with everyone else who didn’t have tickets. They lost. So that wasn’t fun. But it was a good game. Then Josh and I went to a place called Insomnia Cookie. We got to custom create our own ice cream sandwiches with cookies. Good memories!

Miriam has been taking pictures from the telescope. It’s broken so she’s asking for one for Christmas. The pictures still come out great even though it’s broken!

Halloween was busy. I was studying for an exam, there was another World Series game to watch, and it was halloween! Garren passed out candy while I studied. Miriam and her friend, Audrey, went trick or treating—dressed up as ghost busters. Joshua worked. 

 I studied while watching the World Series game. They had a moving moment during the game that made me cry. Stand up to Cancer gave everyone cards to write names on of people they knew that had cancer. Then they had everyone stand for a few minutes and hold up their cards. It was really emotional. I thought of both Linda and my very good friend, Cecilia, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. 

On Wednesday, Nov 1st, I had my first med/surg exam. I didn’t do too bad! I scored in the “upper quartile.” I’ll take it! It’s equivalent to an 86%. Fine by me!

Sometimes when I’m at work I like to look around at what jobs banner has available. I found my dream job. It’s in oncology. That’s an area I’m passionate about. It’s in the stem cell transplant unit. I went with Linda once to one of her infusion appointments. I loved the environment, I loved the process, I loved it all. It’s not an exciting area as it is outpatient and people are just hooking up to bags of stuff being infused through a port. But I still loved it! With my masters it could eventually lead to research in that area!

I hope this job is available when the time comes. I’d really love this to be my first job as a nurse. 

Yesterday, I had my third clinical day. It was great because I got to start an IV and do a straight cath. I did both with success, though my teacher had to do a lot of the “finding” work for the IV. So, I didn’t love it. . .  I felt like I should have been excited, but I wasn’t. It also was very painful for me with my EDS to stand over the patient for a long time to find an IV site and to wait for their bladder to drain. I am still in a lot of pain today from it. I think that bed side nursing is physically not something I’m going to be able to do, unfortunately. That also throws out any thought of doing CRNA as well. I’ve spent most of the day kind of coming to grips with that and accepting that I am limited. Going back to the job I found , though, I think the job in the stem cell unit could definitely be realistic for me. It’s outpatient so the patients are mobile. I’m not going to be lifting people, turning people, transferring people, etc. So I am feeling more and more like an outpatient situation is going to be best for me.

On the more silly side of it all, when i did the straight cath I was so nervous that I was clumsy about everything. First I put on sterile gloves that were too small so my hands were all contracted looking. I took those off and went to put on another pair and I dropped them on the floor! Then all I had left were the ones that come in the straight cath kit and I pulled to hard on them getting them on and tore them! My teacher said, “You have to keep going, we’ve already started. Can’t leave the sterile field.” It was embarrassing. But I emptied the man’s bladder so the task was accomplished.

Today as I was still in pain from clinical and wildly depressed, I took the day to just catch up on some things. I went to the plasma center to find out why they are deferring me (low protein—I knew that, but whatever. I’m doing plasma so I can get extra $ for a family vacation. Garren’s biggest anxiety in life is our retirement money, so he doesn’t like to spend money on vacations. So I am doing what I can). Then I went to the dentists office to make our next appointments because I forgot to do that when we left the other day. Then I went to Costco, then Fry’s. Then I went to lunch with Garren. Then Got Miriam from school, then took a nap and now here I am! I just needed to sit with this new realization that I am limited and not going to be able to do all of the things I want to do in life. 

Oh, and about clinical. I also left feeling really bad because my teacher was teaching EKG rhythms, but she said something that I could not let go. I’m writing it here so that anyone who might be reading this will please learn from this and please DON’T BE THAT NURSE THAT WE TALK ABOUT IN THE MONITOR ROOM! She said a monitor tech called her and asked her what a paced patient’s underlying rhythm was. And she told them there is no underlying rhythm, that’s why they have a pacemaker. But that is 100% wrong! They can have underlying AFib and heart blocks! The heart goes into AFib as a sort of desperate attempt to make a beat. So little impulses start firing in the atria and it quivers. It kind of has a little freak out. So when a pacemaker is put it, an artificial heart beat is created. But the atria doesn’t know that so it is still firing impulses. The pacemaker will make the rhythm regular, but it won’t stop the atria impulses from firing. That has to be corrected with medication or cardioversion. So you can have a regular  paced rhythm with underlying Afib. Here is a picture of it.

Don’t be that nurse. :)