Cool shirt…

Mom and I took Ilana to her softball game tonight. We were early. We thought the game started at 5 pm, which means she had to be there at 4:30. The game actually started at 5:30, so we were early. She sat and watched the South Haven girls higschool play. It was interesting!




That's Ilana in the yellow.

I got sunburnt while mowing the yard today. Not fun!

This shirt just makes me laugh! I might have to get one someday…

It is warm today!!

It got up to 92 degrees today! It was muggy too because we are supposed to get thunder storms all around us. If it cools down a little later, we are going to try to mow the lawn. I'm sure today would count as an “ozone action day” if they were doing that already. I'm not complaining though…

We busted out our super fan because Padme was getting too hot. I'm sure she has some congestive heart failure from having heart worms. She cannot tolerate anything above 75 degrees. We usually install the air conditioners earlier for her more than for mom and I. She also cannot tolerate the cold due to a fracture or something before I got her. She has major arthritis in her legs.

That's the price you pay for a shelter dog. I wouldn't trade her for anything though.


The white dog is Padme aka “pretty girl” or “leafy-butt.” (she likes to sit and wag her tail) She is a sheltie-mix. The pure-bred is Anakin aka “pretty boy,” “sir poops-a-lot” or “stinky boy.” This photo is out in their pen.

You have a shortage of what?! Are you serious?

I worked the last few nights and we had more than our usual obstacles. We were running out of IV morphine. We called pharmacy because our patients were receiving 2 mg and they had us using 10 mg syringes. Which is annoying first of all, because we have to have another nurse witness the waste. Sometimes they put larger doses in by accident. They told us that they are no longer going to carry morphine.

One of the other nurses asked them if they were serious and "isn't this a hospital?" Morphine is probably the second-most used narcotic pain reliever. It is even in the acronym for treatment of chest-pain—MONA. (That stands for morphine, oxygen, nitroglycerin and aspirin.) Pharmacy then explained that they were joking—they never joke with us and frankly with 7-8 patients each, we weren't in the mood.

Pharmacy then explained to us that their supplier has a back-order on morphine and they didn't know when they would get some in. (Immediately my mind goes to a drug dealer…only one that is legal…without the shady transactions.) Then I'm thinking that if they don't know when they are going to get more morphine in, why are we "wasting" 8 mg each time we need two? Sounds crazy! Also, what are we going to tell the doctors when we run out? "Um, sorry doc but we ran out of morphine." We'd get laughed at!!

In all reality, we probably wouldn't totally run out, but the possibility of it was just too much not to share.

I was getting ready for work yesterday in the locker room and I was telling another nurse a story in which I said "oh stink." the other nurse asked me "did you just say 'oh stink?'" I replied in the affirmative and one of the dayshift nurses said she says it too. He asked us if he could start saying it and the dayshift nurse told him we'd be honored. :)

We have had our fair share of float pool nurses recently as we've been so busy. The float pool nurses say that they love coming to our floor because we are so helpful and don't treat them like they are a pariah that has an über-contagious disease that spreads by smiles or conversation. We welcome the help! Help us! We'll thank you for it!!

Padme, my dog, is the hunter of my two dogs. This afternoon when I woke up, she was steadily barking at something while she was in her pen. I went out there and she was barking at a frog in the yard outside her pen. I thought I'd help her and the poor frog. Well, I went to grab him to move him to another spot in the yard and he jumped into the dog pen. Oh snap! Sorry frog, I cannot help you when you go into her territory.

I really like the word "rediculicious." (I'm impressed that my iPhone had it in it's vocabulary.) I don't know why, but I do. I want to use it a lot, but it's not always appropriate.

It's really warm today. 84 degrees and sunny right now. Not that I'm complaining or anything…

I'm so excited because I got our tickets to see Eclipse. We are going to the triple feature. It was was only $20 for those tickets and $10 for just Eclipse. How can you not go to the triple feature? So far, there are seven of us going…

New Job

I have been trying to get a different job because my current job in Medical Oncology has been affecting my health.  I have been sick more and getting migraines.  I think it is partially due to the stress of the job and partly due to the drive (It is a 40 minute drive) and lack of sleep.

I got a job at a local hospital that I have worked at before.  It is where my sister, Jamie, currently works.  I am excited to start this new job in hopes that it will help me to feel better.  I'm supposed to start orientation on June 1st. 

Is it really May?

I cannot believe it is May already. It has been cold these past couple of days. By "cold," I mean 40s-50s and rainy. I'm not sure I like it, but everyone says I'll appreciate it in the summer. I don't want to appreciate it then, I want to appreciate it now. Then I am reminded of a quote by President Uchtdorf that I received in my in-box today about patience. Funny how those things work, huh?

My sisters and I took our mom to lunch on Monday to celebrate Mother's Day. It is a rarity for all four of us to get together. We had a blast! Here we are in my car getting ready to leave.

I had to work the weekend, so we decided to go out on Monday.  This weekend was not a good one at work.  We have been terribly busy for the last couple of months and has been draining.  Saturday night was going okay until I got poked by a dirty needle after I gave a shot.  Never fun.  I was alright until I had a chance to sit down and talk to a co-worker about it.  It didn't help that the employee health nurse wasn't calling me back and they are supposed to return my call within 1 hour.  We also had a patient buy us pizza on Saturday because she said that we were "awesome."  We had a staff of 11, so that is quite a lot of pizza to be bought!  We sure appreciated it though!  :)

I am excited for warmer weather and summer to come!!  Yay!