The Magic of an Ordinary Day

Random post

Just some randomness from the last week...

• Anything can happen when you live in the country.  Like spending part of your morning trying to catch two horses, find out where they live, and return them to their owners.  When you don't know anything about horses.
• My neighbor Randy, fortunately, knows a little bit about everything.
• One hour in the Dallas climate reminded me as to why I moved from the Midwest: 30 years of having one continuous bad hair day.
• In our continual effort to "go greener" we have decided to get weekly organic produce from Los Poblanos.  They deliver it to a place less than a mile from our house, so we can both reduce our gas consumption and food miles.
• I took a fetal heart monitoring class at Med Flight.  I have spent my nursing career avoiding obstetrics (and doing a damn fine job, I might add) but now transporting high-risk obstetric patients is in my immediate future.  Has someone written an "Obstetrics for Dummies" book?  I need a better plan, which right now is to tell them to cross their legs, we'll be at Women's Hospital in 45 minutes.  Not a great plan, I know.
• My Grandmother suffered from a stroke last week and is now residing in a nursing home.  She's 98, and has lived safely by herself up to this point.  I hope I will be as healthy and independent as she has been. 
• My grandmother was a nurse, and her favorite practice was obstetrics.  I definitely didn't take after her there.
• Mom is safely back in Wisconsin and is happy to be back in her own home.
• Nearly a year after Dick's death, I'm finally able to be back in CCU and work with the physicians who cared for him without that lump in my throat.  Time healing wounds and all that. 
• I asked our pilot to fly over the Trigo Fire on Tuesday so I could look at it.  It's about 30-40 miles south of us and we have been choking on the smoke for a week.  It's just been so windy here it's been hard to contain, but they are slowly gaining ground on it. 
• Flying through the thermals around the mountains surrounding Albuquerque in a light plane is something I definately need to get used to.  I was absolutely green by the time we landed on Tuesday while the medic I was riding with was completely calm (and perhaps a bit amused by my anxiety).  But to paraphrase Tom Hanks, there's no crying in flight nursing.  It's a very macho, git 'er done kind of environment, and the last thing I want to do is look like a "girl."  I guess I'll just have to take some dramamine and suck it up.
• The lilacs are just days away from blooming, and I can't wait.  We have huge lilac trees on our property and when they bloom the whole yard smells delicious. 

So that's my week in a nutshell.  We got some adoption news yesterday which I'll share in a separate post soon. Have a great weekend, everyone!!

she doesn't miss a thing

Me: Hannah, do you want to go to the grocery store and then Walgreens with me?

Hannah: No, Mamma...that's the place where people don't have any teeth.

Me:  what?????

(I think she means WalMART)

birthday photos

Here are some photos from Hannah's birthday on Saturday.

Houston, we have a problem

I went on my first flight with a really sick, critical patient on Friday.  I lucked into it --  I wasn't even on call when the flight coordinator asked if I wanted to go on the flight as an extra pair of hands.  Anytime someone is that sick we send two critical care nurses and a medic.  And we sure needed all the help we could get.

When I got to the office we waited around for a couple of hours to see if he was going to live through the next hour, and then the next.  We were told that they expected him to die in the hospital in the next few hours or to die in the airplane on the way to Houston.  The only thing that was going to save his life was an aortic homograft, which no one in the state of New Mexico performs. He finally settled down enough to where we thought we could go in and get him to Houston while he was still relatively stable.  "Stable" considering he had coded twice that day and was on three pressors. 

It took an hour and 20 minutes just to get all his drips transferred to our machines and get him on our ventilator.  Then the transport to the airplane, and loading him... another 40 minutes.  He was doing okay, and our pilots absolutely busted ass to get to Houston in a quick hour and a half.  I had even weaned his epinephrine drip down a bit.  So far so good.

Then we got in the ambulance to get him to the hospital.  We went code 3 (lights and sirens) and busted ass at 90 miles an hour.  The patient dropped his blood pressure to the 50's.  I adjusted his drip, harrowing as it was with us going so fast and having to stand up and lean over the  patient.  Seriously, at one point I was airborne and just sort of floating around in the back of the ambulance.  We get to the hospital, and the Houston paramedic said "I'm sorry to tell you this but the CVICU is about a mile and a half through a maze."  And he wasn't kidding.

As we hit the emergency room, we weren't getting any kind of blood pressure from his cuff although he still had a pulse.  Someone from the emergency room escorted us through the --I kid you not!-- two sky walks and two elevators it took us to get to that damned CVICU.  And I'm feverishly trying to get a blood pressure reading, and check for a pulse.  Of course, paramedics are too cool to run, but we were walking mighty fast.  Mighty fast.

Fortunately, the epinephrine drip had kicked in by the time we got to the unit, and I had an okay pressure.  We got him settled and off our equipment and heaved a collective sigh of relief.  It was 2 a.m. and we headed back to Albuquerque, feeling pretty good that we got him where someone could hopefully help him.

I can't say enough about the crew I work with.  Being a fairly new flight nurse, I am amazed at how comfortable I was at 40,000 feet with a patient who was so sick, who hadn't been expected to live a few hours ago.  The nurse and medic I was with, as well as the pilots who got us there quickly and safely...I was really impressed. 

Man, I love this job. 

p.s.  The patient is still alive, waiting to stabilize a little bit more before he goes to the OR. 

short and sweet

Here's some photos of Hannah and her grandparents taken the weekend they spent in Tucson.

That was the weekend I went on the ride-along with the Fire Department and this is what I saw:

I kid!!  I kid!!  Unfortunately, I didn't see anyone in their boots.  He's pretty, though, huh?

Today is Hannah's birthday and I have a lot of things to do yet.  I'll post more (real) photos later.  Happy Saturday, everyone!!!

Update

I thought I'd update on what's up at Casa Frijole. 

We are getting ready for Hannah's 4th birthday on Saturday.  We are having a small family party with our friends Don, Candi and Phillip and the neighbors next door, Randy and Patrice.  Hannah has a crush on Randy, I think. 

Anyway, we got Hannah this big house for her to play in outside.  It's made of nice stained hardwood, and it has a little sink and windows and "Hannah sized benches" (she's been asking for it since we first saw it at Costco and describes it as the "Hannah sized house with Hannah sized benches").  Dwayne and Randy are going to put it together on Friday afternoon.  We just have to have a no drinking until after 5 pm rule after last time Dwayne went over to help Randy with his roof and we all ended up abandoning the project about 3 pm, drinking beers and having dinner together.  Randy called it quits about midnight but Patrice and I stayed up late chatting. 

But I ramble.

The birthday...yes.  I'm making ribs and home made macaroni and cheese (per Hannah's request) and Mom is in charge of the cake.  The weather is supposed to be nice, so we can just spend some time together outside, drink some margaritas and talk smart. 

I know--we're not having a kid's party.  I just couldn't bring myself to do it this year. I'll do one next year.  Hannah can have some of her little girlfriends over this summer to play in her house.  I just can't bring myself to do it this year.  I am a children's party Grinch, I guess.

In other news, I have been on a horrible dry spell with Medflight, and haven't flown in two weeks.  It's making me crazy.  The company has had plenty of flights, but as luck would have it --  nothing when I've been on call.  Dwayne is on the verge of telling me to get a real job.  I'd like a nice trip someplace warm today (since it snowed yesterday and I'm looking out the window at my snowy yard as I type this)...California, maybe.  But let's face it, I'd go to Calgary if it means I can fly.  Is there a patron saint of people who fly?  I need to figure that out.  Every little bit helps.

Well, I'm off to shower and get Hannah ready for preschool. Then I'm going flying.  You see how that positive thought thing is working for me? 

determining my reality

I am a huge fan of the site Zen Habits.  I have it on my daily "must visit" sites.  I don't always have a calm, Zen life but I'm trying. 

Awhile ago I read this post about focus and reality.  And as I thought about it, I discovered that I have spent the winter focusing on negative things in my life.  The uncertainty of the adoption process. Financing the adoption.  My Mom's continual struggle with staying healthy and positive, and the stress it causes.  Having to be so much to so many people, and not having any time to be me.  All those thoughts had been crowding my daily thoughts.  I even started listening almost exclusively to mopey music.  I realized that all those things -- these negative things -- had become my reality.

So I am trying to create a new reality for myself.   To focus on the things that I want to consume my daily thoughts.  To cognitively identify negativity in my thoughts, stop them and push them back.  I even changed up the play list on my iPod to something happier. 

It really takes conscious effort to do so, but I am noticing a change in my attitude and my outlook.  I am more hopeful, happier with my career and hopefully less crabby. 

It feels good.