Heaping Scoop of Dissappointment

I applied to graduate school for Nurse Midwifery to a campus that is a sister school to my alma mater. I thought it would be amazing! Go to school and graduate somewhere that is in the same school network... go do clinicals up where my parents live so I can just live with them... everything will be wonderful!

Well, I submitted my application and waited. One day, there in my email box, was an email inviting me to an interview day. Yes, they made a whole blessed day out of it. 8-4, there were 2 interviews (with all 16 of the faculty for the program), seminars from: current students, faculty from your specific specialty (there were other nurse practitioner applicants there too and they split us all up), financial aid, and several other people. Then, at the very end of the day, I had to write an essay! *sigh*

Then, I wait. Wait for their decision. Wait in hopes that I get in. Wait in trepidation that I wasn't what they were looking for, even though I was supposedly chosen out of hundreds of other applicants for this interview day.

This morning, after night shift, I got the call that I didn't get in. It's a bummer.

I called my mom and told her, but not with any more emotion than could be mustered to just state it matter-of-factly. She encouraged me that whatever the L-rd wants to have happen, will happen. "Maybe there are trips or something else you need to be available for," she suggested, in true Mom fashion. "Yeah," was all I could respond.

While I am not at the point of tears (because I believe my give-a-damn was broken with the trauma), I am disappointed. This was my first choice of schools. I have had so many other people apply to graduate school around me, and several of them were accepted to several schools on the first try! I keep hoping that they will email me back and tell me that the first email was a mistake and that I was actually accepted, but that longing seems to be more of the bargaining stage in my journey to acceptance.

It's funny because about a week ago, my mom met this lady who's daughter is one of the faculty members for the nurse-midwifery program at the university I wanted to attend. They got to talking and the lady gave my mom this faculty member's email and encouraged me to reach out to her. So, I emailed the lady, saying that "my mom met your mom and they wanted me to email you" but she never responded. It is awkward to begin with, but worse now that I know I wasn't accepted.

I don't really want to wait until next year to begin school, only because I wanted to graduate 2020 to keep my high school graduation (2012) even with my college graduation (2016) then grad school to be finished in 2020. How pretty is that?! Alas, it doesn't seem like it will happen. Plus, I want to get married and start a family at some point. I was really hoping to graduate and be settled before this happens.

Only the L-rd knows why things happen the way that they do. All I can do is pray and follow His lead.



In less painful news, I quit my position at the NICU. For those of you that haven't read all of my happenings; I was working NICU and L&D, for several months now. When I first moved back here, I was hired for L&D, but there was no position open. I know what you are thinking, why hire somebody for a position that is not open?! Yeah, I'm not sure. Regardless, the managers of L&D decided that they still wanted me, but bargained with me that I could be hired and would need to work Mom/Baby while waiting for an L&D position to open up.

I was so torn. I had had offers for several NICU positions around the state. I didn't want to give up my critical care specialty for anything other than a position that would be able to further my career. As such, I bargained with that manager, and the NICU manager that offered me a position at a level 3 NICU at the same time. I got both managers agree to let me work both jobs at the same time, with working part-time at both places. They both agreed, and both agreed to be "flexible" with my scheduling to assist me with this endeavor.

Fast-forward about a month and a half into working NICU: I have already had several scheduling problems with NICU because the people in charge of scheduling will not email me back after several weeks! My manager called me to yell at me, and I stood my ground. I gave her evidence and explained to her the many, many ways I had tried to resolve the issue, with no success. HR had emailed about how the unit could be improved and I responded with several pages worth of diplomatically worded suggestions. Spoiler alert: none of those changes were made. Shocker, I know. Continue on in my journey there, and I find out about legal actions being taken, they refuse to train me to the level 3 kids (even though I have level 3 experience and they begin training those hired after me to train to the critical kids before me), they continue to con me into working day shift holidays where I am losing time with my family as well as night shift differential. The list goes on!

The reason I stayed so long, is that I thought I needed to work NICU for 2 years before I could get my critical care nurse certification (RNC). About 4 days ago, I was reading over the requirements again, and I discovered I needed 2 years as an RN, but only some of my career needed to be in NICU!!! WHAT A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY!!!

I learned this little tidbit, while I was working L&D and I was nearly singing and dancing in the halls! I told everyone of my coworkers about it!!! Suddenly, my decision was clear: quit NICU. Life is too short to be dreading every. single. shift. Work is not the end-all-be-all of life. We work to be able to afford fun things, trips, food, etc. I don't need to sustain this life of being miserable at a work where management does not treat me well, my license is not safe to practice there, I don't agree with their practices, they continually screw me out of pay while requiring more and more from me, and day-shift (plus many night-shifters) are rude and miserable there as well!

So I quit. Then, I worked an L&D shift and they all celebrated with me. Such joy from my coworkers! They shared how glad they were that I am there. They fought over keeping me on their pod (we have 2 with a little hallway in between). The patients are communicated the same information from everybody, so they are grateful and understanding of the care they receive. (NICU nurses at the other place were regularly told different things from each nurse/nurse practitioner/doctor they encountered because there are no protocols and everybody practices based on how they were trained somewhere else.) While there are still people that I clash with in L&D, we are largely coherent on night shift, and even several of day shift people. They encourage my sarcastic jokes, dark humor, and general personality quirks. They like my hard-work and how much I try to help my patients through labor and delivery. They like that I do my best to continually learn and improve and help others when I can. They understand me better.

I like it here.

Trial and Error

Ugh, the amount of high's and low's I experience per shift in L&D has given me a terrible case of whip lash. One shift goes great, while the very next night is absolute hell and I can't seem to do anything right.

Last night's shift was a crazy combination of both.

I admitted a patient who was there for an elective induction, but did not want any of the meds to get labor started...

Then I immediately got another pt who needed an epidural pronto and then her blood pressures bottomed out and she went from a 5 to a 10 and delivered in 1.5 hours.

About 3 hours after the delivery, as I was getting caught up on charting, my preceptor came to me and asked if I minded taking ice water into the delivered patient, and asking what they decided to name the baby since they had waited until after the birth to pick a name. I went in, asked what the name was and you know what? They named their baby after me! I was with them for a total of maybe 5 hours, missed her whole recovery because of my other pt, and they honored me by naming their baby after me. Yes, I happy cried and teared up in the room. I don't think I have ever been so honored by anyone, let alone someone that I barely knew.

I came out and sat down to chart when my other pt pressed her call light. I went in and she said she thought her water broke. Okay, so normally we are supposed to check them when that happens so that I could report to the doctor. Well, this particular doctor was planning to come in and check her and break her water about 30 minutes after when she SROM'd. So, I figured I would check her (as normal) and go let him know. Well, I got REAMED for that because apparently he likes to check his own patients when he is at the hospital. I had been told this at the beginning of my orientation, but I am still in the task-oriented phase of learning and I did what would normally be done.

I'm trying to let it roll off my shoulders and just learn for next time, but it's still frustrating to me that we bend over backwards for doctors, and yet they yell at us for something so small as a preference. Nobody was hurt, nothing bad happened, and it didn't change the course of treatment at all...

I will do it differently next time. I will do my best to remember the little nuances and remember every doctor's preferences as best I can... but I'm still going to complain about the way that we are chewed out for stupid shit every day, just because the doctor is having a bad day or likes some random things done a very specific way.



Deep breaths. He'll be mad at me for the next several weeks and I will have months of proving myself to him and the other doctors. I hate this part, but I am also the most motivated when I feel like people are expecting me to fail, so I guess we'll see how it goes. L-rd willing, I don't struggle too bad.

Rebuilding Life

As I've had the past couple weeks "off", I have noted that the month of June/July is not a good month for me as far as life/working goes. For the past several years, this has been a time of the year where I am trying to start jobs, find housing, and otherwise "homeless" and bouncing between both of my parent's houses.

Both orientations are proving to be a bigger pain in the a$$ than initially expected. Between both hospital's HR people contacting me, educators calling, appointments for paperwork and health screenings, and the slew of other things I have to get done while living an hour and a half away from where I need to be, I'm frustrated. Just breathe. I know that everything will get done and even if I was only trying to figure out this process for one hospital, it would still be annoying. It'll get done soon, I'm just looking forward to being done with hospital orientations and floor orientations, so I can just start working.

Praise the L-rd I've got decent amounts of experience in NICU and some post partum/baby experience. Hopefully I get to learn some new valuable things during orientation!!!

I'll be going through the same charting class twice in the next couple of weeks, and it's a class I went through 2-3 times throughout nursing school. I should be working directly for the company by this point, but that didn't seem to happen.

No housing has become available in order for me to be able to move down to College town anytime soon. Maybe it's because I sound like a child on the phone? Maybe it's because everybody and their cousin is moving to this damn state and snatching up any hopes of having a house I had. House prices are skyrocketing, rent prices are ridiculous, new houses are being built all over the place, and I predict another economy crash here in the near future. I can see the crash of 2008 happening again... soon. Until then, I'll be trying to find a place for me and the puppy to live.

This baby nurse is struggling.



How is your guys' summer shaping up?

One of Those Days

Today is just one of those days.

I woke up at 7 a.m. because I had an appointment to take my car in to the shop because I had taken on some water in my transmission due to some flooding a few weeks ago. I show up and they tell me they might not get to see my car until after noon. Then what's the point of an appointment?!?

I dropped it off because I need it fixed, they shuttled me home. Then called because they had failed to let me know it would cost $52 just to "look" at the car due to the fact that it's making a weird sound. Well, you just dropped me off with no transportation, so I guess it's okay to do that.

Fast-forward to them texting me at their closing time: They texted that they have an estimate on my car and to call them back. I called back and they apologized, because they had sent that text prematurely. I can feel my blood pressure rising. I called my dad to ask if it's worth it to let them keep my car to work on it and in the process of talking with dad, I went ahead and decided to call the mechanics back and tell them to just let me have my car back. So I call back and ask if they have already seen it, due to the conflicting messages I have received thus far. I got a few mixed messages with roundabout explanations, all of which tells me nothing!

So, I called Mema and asked her to drive me to the mechanics at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning to get my car back. I'm more than a little irritated.

Now, a good chunk of irritation began because of one of my "job offers" calling back and demanding an answer today. I interviewed with them yesterday and they immediately told me they would love for me to work with them. It was PRN but they were considering hiring me part time, if I would be willing to cross-train and work postpartum. Well, the recruiter called today, with my offer, and after hearing it I let her know that the job is concerning to me. I am afraid of losing my critical care nursing skills if they keep sending me over to postpartum. I told her that I would consider working full time for that hospital if they would let me train in labor and delivery, but she told me they have no openings. She then asked if I had interviewed for labor and delivery and which location. To which, I stupidly replied that I had interviewed at another hospital system for L&D. I have until Thursday to think about it and get back to her. I would be more than willing to work PRN in the NICU, but why are all of these hospitals trying to get me to train on postpartum??? It's really irritating. Once I show on my resume that I had a year of NICU, then went to PP, nobody will want me back in the NICU and they won't want me anywhere besides maybe med/surg because that's essentially what Mom/Baby (aka postpartum) is!



All I want to do is eat chinese food and the chinese restaurant I found that delivers in this ridiculous town has 2 phone numbers and neither one of them work. They don't even ring through to anything.



My gums over my wisdom teeth have been swollen for a couple weeks. I'm essentially a teething adult. I can feel my teeth being more exposed now than they were a couple weeks ago. Thing is, I can't eat because my gums/teeth hurt so bad because they are pointed sideways and smooshing my other teeth closer and closer together as they come to the surface. If only the pain would keep me from eating, then maybe I could lose some of the 15 pounds I've gained since moving here.



I give up. I'm gonna go take a nap. I've slept away an entire year because I sleep when stressed/tired/bored/lonely. I'm 23 and don't even know how I got here because I have slept away this last year and the year before I was sleeping when not at work/at school.


The struggles are real today. I need some serious prayer, even more serious Divine Interventions, and some sort of stress relief would be great too. Maybe I'll go cry, that's good stress relief.

Job Front Update

The NICU with paper charting decided the other candidate they liked would work better for them... Not gonna lie, that hurt a little bit. Regardless, I had 3 other interviews set up by the time that call came.

The rejection call resulted in another interview that I will be doing today. Actually, in about 45 minutes. It's for a PRN position, but at a decent hospital in the same hospital system.

I had an interview on Friday where the interview ended with them telling me I interviewed well and they wanted to give me an offer early this week! Now, this interview was supposed to be for L&D. They interviewed me under that assumption and did not tell me, until I had finished the interview, that they would be hiring me for Mother Baby and would maybe be able to transfer me over into L&D after a year!!! Why have job postings open and interview people under the assumption that they would be going into said posted position, and then inform them that the job is not actually available? That's just mean! So, I hope to be able to get a job offer with them, and maybe work in a condition that they start training me for L&D by September/October. Otherwise, that job isn't worth it for me. I need the critical care experience and I am already worried I might lose my NICU experience and I'll lose my baby IV skills, delivery skills, and general NICU knowledge. The other thing with working at this hospital is that I would not be able to work for the NICU because it's a hospital that rented out their Peds/PICU/NICU floors to THE children's hospital of this particular state. It is the hospital that every hospital sends their sick babies to. We almost sent one of our sick babies there but our neonatologist threw a hissy fit and got the baby denied for being too critical (and for the neonatologist being mean to the receiving doctor). Since that hospital rents from the hospital of the Mom/Baby floor, the NICU employees are employees of the children's hospital and the other hospital. As such, I can't work part time for both hospital systems... Ugh, ridiculous.

Well, I have an interview with that children's hospital at that hospital too... hahaha. I guess we'll see how it goes. I need L&D experience but I also want to go somewhere and work part time in a NICU where I would be able to see more critical cases. I need L&D experience for graduate school through.

I'm so torn and just need an L&D hiring manager to take a chance on a little, baby NICU nurse and train me up while letting me work part-time in a high acuity NICU that is also willing to train me in the high acuity cases!!! Is this so much to ask?

I would love to work 2 part-time jobs, with over-time days and be able to live with my parents and not pay rent... I could end up buying a house in the next couple years! And if I have so many months of experience in both critical care areas, I could go and be a travel nurse in other states! I struggle with there not being enough hours in a day, not enough days in a week, and not enough ways to get experience in a shorter amount of time. I want to master it all, and that's just not feasible by today's standards. I know, however, that there is a connection and a better way to care for babies and parents through combining L&D and NICU practices. There simply has to be.

LIfe in Slow Motion

I had that follow up skype peer review interview thing... it went okay. It was the same questions, same lady from the first interview, just add in one of the floor nurses. Like, really? Plus, I sat on my end of the skype call for 20 minutes before the interview started because I was told to connect 10 minutes early and it took awhile for them to connect. Minor irk, I'll be fine.

It seems to me, however, that once I start interviewing with one hospital in the system, that it suddenly shuts me down for any of the other hospitals in that system. I have interviewed in College Town, which then made the recruiter from Home Town (in the same system but different recruiter/hospital) not contact me anymore. That's ridiculous! The recruiter for the paper charting hospital at least talked to me about location, but I need to go ahead and call her back and ask her to get me more interviews at higher acuity places.

This whole process is absolutely ridiculous and they take frickin forever to get back to you with anything. Application -> recruiter call? 1.5 weeks. Recruiter call -> interview? 1.5-2 weeks... Interview -> job offer??? Uh, probably never!!!

Grandpa is doing okay. Major family drama went down because one of his sisters (he's one of 10 kids...) came to visit him. His family hates grandma... ummm, lots of people do but that's a different story. Anyway, his sister had tried to call him for 2 weeks to let him know she was coming into town. However, when grandpa went into the hospital with confusion, where we learned of his cancer, grandma stole his phone and routed all of his calls to her phone so that nobody would get to talk to him. Why? Because grandma is mean. Don't take this lightly. She has narcissistic personality disorder and she's got the meanest, evilest version of it. She does things just to try to kill people slowly and try to torture them until they give in and keel over dead. I kid you not. (More storied about her in another post. She takes too long to talk about and I've got loads of crazy stories on her just from this last week.)

Anyway, this particular sister of grandpa's will tell her off! Haha, so funny. BUT I MISSED ALL OF IT! Anywho, since grandpa wasn't getting any calls and they were all sent straight to grandma's phone, my great aunt ended up strolling into the house unannounced. My mom said that my grandma's jaw dropped to the floor! AND I MISSED IT ALL!!! Damn it!

Regardless, grandpa is losing a bunch of weight, not drinking enough, not eating, and my grandma just keeps him from having food by telling him he doesn't need to be eating. Poor guy. I just wish he could have time alone from her! Just let him live with me!!!

Work is okay. I finally have an end date. With that came a call from HR in the middle of my nap. Ugh, I answered a call from the hospital, while mostly asleep, to hear a very loud, overly cheering lady essentially passively aggressively yelling at me for breaking my 2 year contract. She kept reiterating that I signed on for 2 years, so the hospital gave me $3500. I kid you not, she probably told me that it was $3500 like 8 times in 2 minutes. Yes, I know what I signed on for! She was being really rude, while trying to sound nice, all the way up until I told her I have to leave because my grandpa is sick. She sounded slightly sorry and then had to start fumbling around for words. Long story short, she asked how I wanted to pay it back. I told her to go ahead and have accounting call me and we can talk about it. They haven't called, or maybe they did and didn't leave a message. You would think that a hospital, that has half of their employees working night shift, would understand that they need to not call in the middle of the day and that they should leave a message if they want to get any business done. This hospital is severely pissing me off. Whatever, I'm leaving, it'll be okay eventually.




I can see the L-rd working, but I'm only seeing the surface. I want to see the behind-the-scenes takes. I want to see how this all plays out and how everything gets worked out. *sigh* Tis not the way G-d works. Yay for faith building... I know it's a good thing, it's just that growing pains are painful and there's no Tylenol for spiritual "discomfort".

Imposter Syndrome

For as long as I can remember, I have felt out of place. I'm out of place working in the NICU, in school, in Small Town, in Home Town, among "friends", with my own family (especially extended family). I know I'm not the only one, but it's highly unsettling to feel like you don't belong anywhere.

Well, it hit me like a freight train last night at a small family gathering I attended to celebrate a few family birthdays. I show up and I know most everybody there, but a couple of my very own cousins are people I've never met before. THEY'RE MY OWN AGE!!! How have I not met them before??? Doesn't matter, I don't belong here anyway. The family that is so tight-knit here all lived in this town for a couple decades now. I've only been here for about 10 months. Of course I'm not going to be used to this side of the family because they never came up to Home State for anything, so we only saw them on the rare occasion that my little nuclear family made it down to Small Town. This, was not a frequent even because my dad despises it down here and doesn't like this side of the family (his side, btw). Sigh.



I mentioned that my Mema's sister is the DON for my floor of the hospital right? She's the one who let me come and shadow in L&D and NICU throughout college and then offered me a NICU position. Well, seeing as she's my boss, I have decided to not really mention that I am looking for employment else where. Who in their right mind would? Unfortunately, I may have mentioned to Mema that I was applying to a local nursing program in order to work as a clinical instructor or professor aide. I'm a fucking idiot for doing such a foolish thing. Last night at the dinner, which just so happened to be at Mema's Sister's house, Mema decided it would be a good conversation to bring up that I was applying for this university position. WHY ON EARTH WOULD THIS SEEM LIKE A GOOD CONVERSATION TO HAVE AT A FAMILY GET-TOGETHER??? AND WITH MY BOSS???!!!??? I get that they are sisters and there was a lul in the conversation, but that's not Mema's information to be sharing and that is not an appropriate time!

Mema keeps calling my mom "to visit" and check in on her. Fine, that's expected. However, she also keeps making things up about me and my life in order to be discussing it with my mom during said "visits". I recently shared slight concern over lack of days that I get to work, so she called my mom almost immediately and told my mom that "I am very worried about work, worried sick!". My mom, being my best buddy and knowing that we don't believe everything we hear, texted me with said information. I then got to reassure my mom that I am not super concerned, more peeved than anything, and I reiterated that she (Mom) and I had already discussed my lack of hours and next career choices in depth. She, of course, already knew all of these things because I call my Mom pretty much every day. But why does that seem like news that would be Mema's place to share? It's not! This is why I don't tell her secrets or anything that is of any worth, she spreads it to everyone, degrades me and complains about me to the whole family, then gets upset when I don't live at her house, spend every free moment with her, and want to move away from her town. I can feel my blood pressure rising just recounting the various other times this type of situation has come up with her.

She told my mom that I was considering moving to a Huge Southern City to go to midwifery school, then proceeded to bash said city to mom. Not her place to share such info, especially when I was telling her things like "I might go back to school, such and such place has a pretty good program, it wouldn't be for another few years... etc... etc... etc..." What happened? Mema called mom and told her I was planning to move ASAP and was unhappy here in Small Town and went on to say she (Mema) regretted ever talking me into coming down here."

I told you about her meeting with exfiance where she sent my mom a text disowning me and telling my mom that I was pretty much a failure, right? She also sent me a hatemail letter informing my family she would never go camping again (because that's where I introduced her to exfiance, stupid choice on my behalf I know). She then got upset with me for not wanting to live with her (she told my mom in the text that I was uninvited from staying at her house anyway) and she got PISSED when nobody wanted to go camping with her this summer, myself included. Duh! You told my family that you wouldn't ever go camping with us again because I'm such a fucking failure at life!!! I get that exfiance was evil to the core and terrible to everyone. However, do you not remember that you married not one, but 2 of them??? Why would you not help me out of a bad situation by being there for me instead of disowning me and spreading rumors behind my back to my entire family (extended and immediate) so that I now have nobody but my parents and my brother? (my dad doesn't even know what happened still).



Some days I wish I was born into a family who was closer to the cousins, grandparents, and entire family. Those days are few and fleeting. After most family gatherings/functions, I recall the simpleness that comes from having the closest family members 2-8 hours away and I count it a blessing to not have an Everybody Loves Raymond situation going on. Small Town got me close to being Raymond, but I keep my doors locked and my house appears to have nobody living in it, even when I'm home for weeks on end because I can't even go to work...



I don't belong here. "Be in the world, not of the world" Can there be a friends clause or some type of support group for those of us stuck in the world but with no connections or need to stay here? Maybe a vacation visa to leave the world for awhile? Something???!!!???

Recap

It's been awhile since I've posted, I noticed that today... Sorry about that everyone.

Let's recap over the past several days that I have not been writing about my "facinating" life:

• I nearly quit after being made fun of and ignored for an entire night at work. Labs were taken down, except for mine... My CBC coagulated and had to be redrawn by day shift because I played RT, and nobody took down my labs even though one nurse took down everyone else's and showed back up to the unit as I was headed down for my measly 3 labs... I attempted to help keep a child from dying and was made fun of TO. MY. FACE. by a nurse who is consistently hateful to all of us new girls and various people around the hospital, as well as an RT who most everyone has a hard time with, seeing as the nights that he is on, we are our own RT's... You can see my shock when I was mocked for turning up oxygen, suctioning, and attempting to straighten the tubing on a vent kid that was desating to the 60's before grabbing her nurse. It was an awful shift. I went home and broke down before sleeping and losing it with my new nurse friends.
• Work was redeemed the next shift I had because I got not one, but THREE compliment cards and a backpack! The week before I had gotten a coffee cup for being "flexible" and willing to come in on my day off from a last-minute call, for a shift I never signed up for.
• I worked Thanksgiving, which turned out going really well. Mom came down from Home State and it was so wonderful having her here! She cleaned my kitchen while I was at work. I had tried my hardest to have my house clean by the time she got here, but it simply didn't happen. My Mema housed My dad's two brothers and their families for Thanksgiving. So I got to visit with much of my family and it was absolutely wonderful! I didn't spend as much time with them as I had wanted to, but I was working most of the time they were here. Sometimes being a nurse is a huge inconvenience and slightly painful, because I miss out on some of my favorite opportunities to have precious moments with family, but there are many sacrifices with being a nurse. For now, while I have no children, I will survive the sacrifices. My family knows I'm working hard and Someday, I will have many many favors saved up and hopefully people will be more than willing to help me because I have helped them. This has backfired many times before... it will likely backfire again. Life goes on and I will know I did everything I could, within reason, to 1) keep boundaries and also 2) be a team player.
• Oh, and I began watching the Gilmore Girls series on Netflix. How have I lived without this show my whole life??? My babysitter used to watch it every afternoon, but I would go upstairs and watch 7th Heaven. What a delightful, hilarious show! I'm so glad Netflix has brought the blessing of Lorlai and Rory to my consciousness. So glad I don't live in the Ivy League and rich people lifestyle. My goodness, I could not do it. 
• Guys, I got a haircut!!! I look like I'm halfway between Tris and Jennifer Lawrence. I look a little boyish, to be honest, but I also have not worn makeup with the hair yet. I'l test it out and let you know how it goes. Mostly, I like not having to put my hair up and it's nice to blow it dry and have it take less than 30-45 minutes to get it dry to then have to straighten it. Plus, my curl/wave is working with the cut and actually enhances it. I don't even have to straighten my hair if I don't want to.

Full Moon Madness

It's been 2-3 nights since the huge full moon occurred. Regardless, the children in the Big House have not gotten said memo. I only had two babies last night and they were being so naughty!!!

I was running behind all night long and not for lack of trying. One kid takes frickin forever to assess and feed because there are often unforseen complications such as him puking every. single. assessment. because he gets so worked up and upset that he doesn't even make sound when crying and thus provides enough pressure on his stomach to then throw up. *Ugh, buddy, let's talk about this!* This phrase is uttered more times than should be allowed in an attempt to get him to chill out. Surprisingly, he's more cooperative for me than for anyone else. *facepalm*

My other kid was on a vent, but absolutely delightful. He's so sweet and his family is so kind and calm. I adore this family/kid. However, he's getting sick. So, after being late from my first kid taking waaaaaay too long to eat and not having a tube to be able to tube the rest of the feed, I started in on this kid. Shortly after sitting down to begin charting on both little pip-squeaks, the NNP came in and I got informed the kid needed blood cultures taken stat. Which means IV sticks to get a totally sterile sample of blood, besides whatever terrible thing has decided to begin growing in this poor little kid's body. First IV got placed no problem, but no blood return to be able to get for cultures. So on to second IV. Got that, no problem and got blood. Antibiotics started and I'm already late for the first kid's second assessment/feeding.

*sigh*

The whole night ran behind after that. Try as I might, I could not get caught up on charting completely until day shift arrived. I was 10 minutes to clock out so that I could chart everything that happened.



I finally got home, got showered, and dressed into new pj's straight out of the dryer. Called in my puppy to sleep with me for the day and as soon as I laid down and petted her, I realized she was covered in some mysterious, dried, likely-dead-animal's guts type substance. So, at 10 a.m. after a frustrating night-shift, I walked my backyard twice in hopes of finding whatever it is she rolled in. Then proceeded to give her a bath. She was pissed, but hey, I'm not letting her gallivant about in my house and all over my bed in some dead creatures guts. GROSS!

Dog's bath done, another change of pajamas, scrubbing my arms up to my elbows and aromatherapy diffuser turned on, I fell asleep.

I woke up 5 hours later, and 2 hours earlier than I needed to, because of nightmares. Nightmares about work, nightmares about family, nightmares about past events. My subconscious must be trying to tell me something, but I'm not getting overworked. I think it was just a stressful shift, my family all bailed on me (except for mom) in every way possible (Thanksgiving, both rape cases, you name it), and I'm still battling memories of exboyfriend and exfiance. I would have worded the last few sentences differently, I don't normally use rape in such a blunt term when talking about those two assholes and the countless number of times I have been abused at their hands, but I'm in a no-nonsense kind of mood right now.

Tomorrow night is Newbie's Night Out with the other new girls on my unit. I'm so excited I can't even tell you! I've been looking forward to this night, and attempting to plan it for months. I kid you not. So, for it to be so close is a wonderful feeling. I'll let you know how it goes!

Good news about last night's shift is that I have made friends (work friend status) with the respiratory therapists, many of the NNP's, and so many others besides the regular nurses. Plus, I got to have my favorite charge nurse on last night!!! I tell you what, she makes the shift so much better, just by being there. But she listens when I have concerns, she believes my "nursing judgement" which is little more than babysitter judgement at this point, and she helps us out. She agreed to help me out with tonight's assignments and not putting my two kids together until first kid learns to not take so long and second kid starts to feel better. I wish she were charge again tonight... ah well, I'm making friends with people the other "regular" staff has difficulties with. Thing is, they have difficulties with a lot of people, and I think it's because of the "regular" staff, not the others. Ya know what I mean? That's how it rolls with a clique mentality. Meanwhile, I'll be friends with everyone and people on other units have already begun requesting me by name. So I'm good with that.