Zippity Doo Da.

Work Wednesday night was a NIGHTMARE. 

Census has been extremely low lately at the hospital. We had only 3 or 4 when I went in on Wed.  So I was sent up to 9 to sit.  Sitting involves watching over a pt and making sure they stay in bed, don't pull out IV's, eat, etc.  I go on up and am told by the nurse that my pt has "confusion" going on and she needs to be monitored.  Okay, I say.  Sounds pretty easy. 

The first four hours were manageable.  I was hanging out in my chair reading my book and she all of the sudden sits up in bed and asks me kindly to make the elderly man in the doorway leave.  I get up and go around the corner and there is no one there.  I told her no one was there and she said, "Oh okay."  I was a little freaked but I sat back down and kept reading.  Then she started talking.  Not to me but to her mother.  Her mother wasn't there either.  She went onto having full on conversations with people.  Then she started calling me "Mary."  That is her daughter in law.  She started introducing me to the other "people" in the room as Mary.  I kept reminding her she was in the hospital and that I was not Mary.  

Then came the unimaginable.  She shoots out of bed and starts yelling that she has an appointment to get to.  She begs me to let her out of bed and leave and I calmly try to explain to her where she is.  She had a bed alarm on so when she placed her feet on the floor it went off. A few other staff members came running in to help and she starts yelling "HELP! HELP!" She thought she was at her apartment and needed to get to the hospital. She kept telling them that I screwed her up and it was my fault she was confused.  She was so angry at me, which she thought I was Mary and screamed at me to get out of her face and leave her alone.  She wouldn't let me touch her, console her, nothing.  She told me that I ruined her birthday and that I was happy I ruined it.  

It was so awful.  I was shaking so badly and had to take a break in the hallway.  The staff saw how shaken up I was and offered to send me to another room, so I went.  When I got to my new room I sat with two sweet little ladies.  We sat and watched movies and talked.  At about 10:00pm I was reading my book quietly and I hear whispering.  I look over and the little lady next to me was saying her prayers.  Thanking God for "blessing" her life and for watching over her.  I lost it.  She had told me earlier that her husband was terminally ill and here she is in the hospital not able to be with him.  It struck me like a ton of bricks to here her recite her prayers.  She never once hesitated to thank God in spite of her trials.  

So here I am at work today and I get sent back to the crazy lady's room again.  Thanks to Big D.  I still hate her.  I was really nervous and told them so but they sent me anyway.  So I get up here and they tell me that they had messed up her meds and that's why she went so crazy when I was here. WOW. I had told them that she was hallucinating but did they even bother to check her medication?? NO. It makes me so mad.  

So they changed her meds and now she's as sweet as pie.  We are having a great time.  Thank God. 

How Sweet It Is.

Work was so much fun last night.  Yep, I said it... FUN. We had a really great team and I enjoyed working with them.  It feels refreshing to actually enjoy my job.  

Lately I have been making some headway with my jewelry business.  I call it a business but it is more or less a hobby that Maury's sister and had decided to turn into trying to make some profit.  She and I started with making breast cancer awareness bracelets to raise money for the 3-day.  We tried to sell them at our garage sales and nothing really came out of it, so we gave them to her granny and she ended up selling them to a few of her friends. I was really disappointed so since then I decided to step out of the box and make other types of jewelry.  I taught myself how to make earrings and used more diverse beads for the bracelets. They all turned out super cute!  I was really reluctant to take all of my stuff up to work.  I hate getting hit up to buy all the middle school cookie dough stuff when I'm at work so I thought the same probably goes for jewelry.  Boy was I wrong.  My stuff turned out to be a big hit! I've sold almost all of my stuff and currently have 6 orders for new stuff.  The girls loved it!  My co-worker Ruth asked me to bring all my stuff up to a very popular high school in town to sell.  She is the football coaches wife and she said all the other wives always ask her where she gets her jewelry.  I am really excited!  

My mom and maury's sister and I are hoping to get to go to the biggest craft show this side of the Mississippi, this weekend.  I really want to get a booth at these upcoming shows.  Who knows, maybe my hobby will become more than a hobby!

Here are a few pics of my stuff :)

My job brings out the best and worst in me.  It's almost like I have to take a whole new attitude into work everyday.  

I got floated back to ortho on Wednesday, my first day back.  I was so upset.  I had been gone for two weeks and when I got there, no one even said hello.  Except for Katrina, she said hi and asked where I had been.  But other than that, nothing.   It's like no one had the guts to tell me I was being sent elsewhere.  I looked and found out for myself.  I was so pissed I stormed off the floor and almost started crying.  

So I go up to ortho and find out that I only have 6 pts and I am thinking that it's going to be an okay night, then they slam me.  I am having to spilt the floor with the other aid because one of their regulars didn't show....super.  So needless to say, I was less than excited and really upset.  I was just out of work for two weeks for back problems and they send me to the one floor where aids are required to lift people in and out of bed 90% of the time.  During my shift one guy had broken his tibia and fibia (like completely out of the skin, broken) had a skin graft and an external fixation device.  He weighed at least 190, if not more, and tells me he needs to poop and I have to lift him out of bed....yeah freaking right.  I told the staff I wasn't doing it and they needed the male aid to come over and do it.  

So, at 6:30 The entire night shift shows up and that meant I got to go back to peds.  I was thrilled.  I felt like I had acted really ridiculously and childish and I was disappointed in myself.  Once I decided to accept the fact that things weren't going my way, my day got better and it wasn't so bad.  I felt like the more I fought it, the worse it was getting.  It really is all about attitude and that day mine stunk.  

Just like last night, I was annoyed that we had 9 pts and 3 admits and I was the only aid.  I didn't get to get report, which I hate, because I feel like I don't know what's going on.  So, right when I get there we get two admits at the same time.  My charge, Big D (whom I have some personal issues with, but that's a whole other post.) refuses all other help offered to her and wants me, and only me to help her.  She has issues with control and likes to be bossy, but like I said, I will save her for another post.  So I am running around like crazy trying to get everything she needs.  Starting off the shift annoyed is not good for me because I began to find every small request extremely annoying.  Then I started to feel bad.  These people are in the hospital and they are hurting and it wouldn't hurt for me to quit being such a brat and help them.  So attitude adjustment is the name of the game now.  

To Annoyance and Beyond

People seriously annoy me.  One friend that I have in particular. 

I honestly feel like I have a clingy girlfriend.  I hadn't talked to her in over two weeks.  She used to work evenings with me at the hospital, but since has gotten a new job (thank God) and I don't really see her very often.  She's the one who confided in me that she and her husband would like to have a baby and he believes she needed to cut back her hours to work on their relationship in order to bring a child into the mix.  Yeah, it's pretty bizarre, but whatever.  Ever since then she has been so clingy and annoying.  

So back to the not talking to her for two weeks.  She texts me July 3rd and said she missed me.  I said, I missed her too and she asked how work was going and I told her that I was out of work for two weeks due to my back issues and she says "Has anyone said anything?" And I was like "About what, my back?" and she said "No, anything about me not working there anymore." I was like "Um, no I haven't been to work in a week." It just annoyed me because she is the kind of person that is all about her.  She then kept asking when she was going to see me next and told me two more times how much she missed me.  Then she wrote that she missed me on my wall on FB.  Today is her birthday and she has updated her FB status twice today to tell everyone about it.  Yesterday she updated it twice to remind everyone that today was her birthday.  It's like she desperately wants people to acknowledge her existence.  I felt like she wanted me to invite her to Maury's family cookout for the fourth because she would not let it go. Kept asking "So when will I see you?!"  Two weeks ago when maury was in town she wanted to go to a movie the very night he got here.  I was like DON'T YOU THINK  WE MIGHT WANT TO BE ALONE!?! 

I don't know why I let it bother me, but it does.  She is so annoying and I feel like she's obsessed with me.  I know that sounds really arrogant, but it's honestly how I feel.  I mean, what person says they miss someone that freaking much? I don't even tell my best friend, whom I haven't seen in months, that I miss her that much.  This weekend is her birthday party.  They are all going to the river to camp and float.  I'm not going.  I am going to see Maury.  I told her a few months ago, before she went psycho, that I would go, but there is no way in hell I'm going now. I just can't take it anymore.   

My Latest Happenings.

Nothing exceptionally exciting on the home front.  

I decided last week to look into getting my real estate license.  I want to do the online/correspondence courses, but seeing as how they range from $399.00-$700.00, I am not so sure.  I think I can take the classes in the classroom for free, but the hours are 9-6 and it's an 8 session course.  Maury told me to ask my parents for the money and offer to pay them back when I sell my first house.  Who knows what I'll do.  

Meanwhile, I am looking for and collecting information on my four schools of choice to get my BSN.  I had planned on applying to two schools here and two schools in Texas, however, I found out tonight that one of my schools of choice here doesn't offer a BSN.  They only offer an AAS (Associate of Applied Science) and RN to BSN.  Needless to say I am a little annoyed.  You think you have everything planned out and then you get thrown a curve ball.  Oh well.  I will still be applying to the three remaining schools, that is if I don't get into the nursing program I am on the wait list for.  We will see! 

Right now I am loving this house.  Except for the new neighbors I have acquired. He hasn't been a bother until tonight when I stepped on him.  Yep, that's right, stepped on him.  He's a huge, light green toad.  He used to live on my front porch but has recently relocated to the back porch.  His buddy, the dark green toad, got run over in the driveway.  I was on my way out to turn off the sprinkler and I stepped on something squishy and bouncy and I turned around and there he was.  Of course I screamed really loud and he hopped away, but I had a moment of tears because I thought I hurt or killed him.  He's still hanging out back there and will more than likely be gone in the morning.  I would give him a peace offering, but I unfortunately don't have any flies.  Oh well.  :) 

The REAL Real World.

Two posts in one day... I know right? It's Epic. 

So I watched one of my guilty pleasures tonight, The Real World.  Maury and I have a secret obsession with MTV reality shows.  We were mildly devastated that Lauren left The Hills. But whatever. 

So this season promises to be pretty intense.  It's only the third episode and there has already been a major fight.  This season is staged in Cancun, so there is much partying and drunkenness, as to be expected.  Tonight's episode was centered around the roommates getting their "jobs." They are working for a company that provides chaperones while the youngsters come to party for Spring Break.  Their boss informs them that while they are here, they are representing the company and there is to be no intoxication or table dancing, whatsoever.  Personally, this is reasonable to me, but one of the chicks freaks out about not being able to "have any fun" while she is in Cancun. Her words are "If I want to get sh*t-faced and dance on a table while I am here, I should be able to." Wow.  What class this girl exudes.    

Meanwhile, another girl, who happens to have a boyfriend who she claims she loves and talks to every night on he phone, is spooning every second of the day with her much attractive roommate.  In several scenes they are groping each other on the dance floor and he leans in to kiss her on the cheek and she scolds him.  "Stop it! Don't go there!" She says.  I am like "Seriously???"  He wouldn't be going there if you weren't rubbing yourself all over him! Girls amaze me.  They expect to be able to blur the lines of intimacy and men will still be able to follow.  She is allowed to tease him but he can't act upon it without being shot down.  It's so bizarre.  

 In another scene, one of the guys gets angry at one of the girls, for a really ridiculous reason, so ridiculous I can't even remember what it is, and spits in her food.  They are actually in line at a taco stand in he goes up and sits next to her and waits for 5 minutes just so he can grab her bag of tacos and spit in it.  REALLY?!

Where does MTV get these people?  They are so disrespectful and arrogant.  I can't understand why someone would want to live their life that way.  Complete and utter rudeness.  I guess I will never get it.  I am really glad I was raised to know different and to act like a lady.  If my mama saw me on national television rubbing all over some guy I just met and dancing on tables drunk, you better believe I would have a job in the drive through window at Taco Bell waiting on me when I got home.  

Getting Geared Up!

I am so ready to do the 3-day!  Ok, physically I am nowhere near ready, but mentally I am SO EXCITED.  Maury and I went on a 4 mile hike last weekend and it felt like a mini day on the 3-day. The 3-day is a 60 mile walk.  It's 20 miles a day of nothing but walking.  There are pit stops where you can fill up your camel back (The pink backpack thing I am wearing in the picture that holds water) grab some food and be on your way.  Then there's lunch.  I am pretty sure last year I ate two whole sack lunches.  Each one contained a chicken sandwich, chips, an apple and two cookies.  It's ridiculous how much you are burning off while walking.  I ate and drank all day long.  This year I am wearing my pedometer to count the calories I am burning.  

My favorite part are the cheer stations.  Hundreds of people line up at designated spots to  cheer on all the walkers.  They give us snacks (again I am always thrilled about food) stickers and other fun little things to remember our experience by.  Last year a whole elementary school lined up to high five us.  It was one of the best parts of the day.  

At the end of the day you go back to camp.  There are probably 500 or more pink tents set up for everyone.  There are trailers to take showers in and tons of porta potties.  They have other tents for food, chiropractic and medical care, foot massages, and other sponsored tents.  I won't be showering in the trailers this year.  Luckily, Maury's mom will be picking up the girls and taking us back to her house to shower.  Last year it got down to freezing temps at night and I froze to death going to bed with wet hair.  So this year I will be blow drying and sleeping soundly.  

This event is probably the single most exciting thing I am looking forward to this year.  It's such an experience and I am so excited that my mom and Maury are doing it.  Maury had signed up last year and at the last minute got called on a business trip and couldn't do it.  Hopefully this year there will be no interruptions!