Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty is a real word, folks.

My class was told at the beginning of the semester that 90% of being successful consists of just showing up. So here I sit. In class. And you can count on the fact that I'm taking that 90% to the bank! Obviously the two people sitting next to me are as well! (Love that camera phone!)
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In a fortunate turn of events, I managed to score my sister's old laptop computer. The ultimate hand-me-down. Not quite as cool as those red acid-washed corduroy slacks back in '87, but still pretty cool. I mean, with the cords I could make that vvvvwrrrp noise when I walked (at least until all of the corduroy material rubbed off) but with the laptop I can blog in class. It beats taking notes. Really. Right now our white board is covered with words like choanol atresia, oxymatozoline, haloprosencephaly, and pyriform... hello? I can't wait for May.
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(this is not the post that I was referring to before... still need to type it up again)

Stupid Computer

I wrote a wonderful post today. Twice. The computer (at school) froze up on me. Twice. Maybe I shouldn't be blogging during class. Whatever... I'll try again tomorrow. Third time's a charm, right? It's great.I promise... I even made myself laugh.

Check me out!

Clearly I am not much of a computer programmer. However, I managed to figure out how to get my picture on the top of my blog. I am quite proud of myself! Not the best, but pretty darn good for me!

Quote for the day...

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, "I used everything you gave me."

You are not going to believe how my day went...

Tonight while I was in the ER some nasty old woman spit a giant wad of snot in my face. I was just inches away from her when I noticed that she was getting ready to spit. I said, "Are you going to spit on me?" And she took a deep breath, made that nasty throat clearing noise and fired away. RIGHT. IN. MY. FREAKING. FACE. My first reaction was to cold-cock her regardless of the fact that she was in her 60's. But after I calmed down a bit and rubbed germicide (not intended for contact with skin) all over my face and neck, I managed to think a little more clearly. We (me and the nurses) tied her down, and strapped a mask on her. I smiled when I realized that she now looked like Hannibal the Cannibal from Silence of the Lambs. I had to resist grabbing a sharpie marker and drawing the little lines on the front of her mask. I did, however, return to find that somebody else drew a smile with some fangs on the front of the mask. Priceless. Now let's just hope she didn't give me any disease.

My Anchor In The Storm

I have spent my life responding to anxiety by running from it. Maybe that's why I went through 10 jobs from the age of 18 to 21. Could be why I've relocated 17 times since I moved out of my parent's house at 19 years of age. When my options become limited and I am forced to deal with my anxiety head on, I have always had my refrigerator to keep me company. (I think we can all do the math on that one)
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Recently, with all of the big changes in my life, I thought that I had kicked the habit. For the first time in my life I was going to be consistent where I was. Funny how old demons creep back up.
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With the time needed for both work and school, I have been utterly overwhelmed. I feel like the old cartoon character, the Tazmanian Devil. Just spinning and spinning everywhere I go. Right now, my only option is perseverance, but I fear that eventually it just might lead me to a rooftop and an AK-47. It seems that all of the stress and anxiety has brought back my strong need to run. Find something new, find something different, and do it fast.

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My sensible side tells me that I need to stay, persist, and overcome. My other side wants to pack up (I am very good at it by now), move away, and find something that will make me "happy". But what is it that will make me happy?

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So today, over lunch at a cheap Mexican restaurant, I told my husband what I was anxious about. I explained to him that being the new girl at work is really hard. Nobody asks for my opinion. I just don't offer much value yet. He brilliantly pointed out that moving to another hospital or state or country or planet would not fix that feeling. I'd just have to wait it out. Funny, I had never considered that. So obvious.

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I asked him, "What if I don't want to do this for the rest of my life... what if sucking snot out of old, almost-dead people isn't exactly my calling?"

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"Then it's a stepping stone to something better, Jo. Now just use it to follow your dream, whatever it is. If you want to be a writer, then write. If you want to own a winery, we'll find a way. But right now, you need to finish this program."

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After lunch, he drove me back to school and dropped me off near my classroom. Walking to class I did my best to clear my head and shake off my angst. As I looked back towards the parking lot to see our little white Ford Focus pull onto the street and head back home, I whispered a prayer of thanks for anchor that he is to me.

Just a joke...

Fried Chicken & The Pope

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After watching sales falling off for three straight months at Kentucky Fried Chicken, the Colonel calls up the Pope and asks for a favor. The Pope says, "What can I do?"

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The Colonel says, "I need you to change the daily prayer from, 'Give us this day our daily bread' to 'Give us this day our daily chicken'. If you do it, I'll donate 10 Million Dollars to the Vatican."

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The Pope replies, "I am sorry. That is the Lord's prayer and I can not change the words." So the Colonel hangs up. After another month of dismal sales, the Colonel panics, and calls again.

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"Listen your Excellency. I really need your help. I'll donate $50 million dollars if you change the words of the daily prayer from 'Give us this day our daily bread' to 'Give us this day our daily chicken.'" And the Pope responds, "It is very tempting, Colonel Sanders. The church could do a lot of good with that much money. It would help us to support many charities. But, again, I must decline. It is the Lord's prayer, and I can't change the words."

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So the Colonel gives up again. After two more months of terrible sales. The Colonel gets desperate. "This is my final offer, your Excellency. If you change the words of the daily prayer from, 'Give us this day our daily bread' to 'Give us this day our daily chicken' I will donate $100 million to the Vatican."The Pope replies, "Let me get back to you."

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So the next day, the Pope calls together all of his bishops and he says, "I have some good news and I have some bad news. The good news is that KFC is going to donate $100 million to the Vatican." The bishops rejoice at the news. Then one asks about the bad news. The Pope replies, "The bad news is that we lost the Wonder Bread account."

I know it's impolite to brag...

But I got my first "I'm a grown-up" paycheck.

Hell yeah!

Perspective.

It's nearly 2:30am. I was up at 6am for school this morning, and I have to be up again at 6am. Class gets out around 4pm and I head to work at 6pm. I've done the calculations and between school and work, I am committed to over 80 hours a week. Currently I only sleep for about 3 hours a night on half of my weeknights, and weekends I will be working 12 hour shifts. Yet all of that is so meaningless and petty in comparison to what I experienced tonight.

I worked with a team trying to save a man's life for nearly 2 hours. By the time his wife was able to make it to the hospital, things were looking very grim. So there I stood, at the head of the bed. As I was giving this sweet man his final breaths of life, his wife of 60 years came into the room to say goodbye. She held his hand and thanked him for everything. She reminded him that he was the love of her life for all of those years and still would be.

I miss comments...

Sooooo I changed my blog back to the way it was before. ANYONE can now leave comments. Fortunately I was able to tweak it a bit and now I will be able to catch any spam!

Can't wait to hear from you!

Jo

One more reason to hate me...

When a patient is about to "pass", my hospital will place a tray of fruit, cookies, muffins, lemonade, and iced tea inside the patient's room. Apparently this is for all of the family members who are coming in to say goodbye. Personally, I wouldn't want to be munching on macadamia-nut-white-chocolate-chip cookies and enjoying a cool glass of lemonade while granny was gasping for her last breath, but clearly the hospital sees things differently.
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Last night I was asked to drop by a patient's room to give a quick breathing treatment. Upon my arrival, I saw the large tray that I secretly refer to as the "Continental Breakfast of Death". I found it really pathetic that I was supposed to give this woman a breathing treatment, but I suppose we gotta make money one way or another, right? I spent the entire time in her room saying to myself, "Please don't die on me. Please don't die on me..." More than once I thought we were close. Fortunately, I managed to wrap things up and get out of the room before the end.
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About an hour later I was downstairs in my department when a co-worker came through to tell me, "Hey Jo... looks like you killed that patient on the 4th floor."
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"What??? Are you serious? She's dead?" I asked.
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"Yup" he replied, "Dead as a door nail"
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"Oh man... do you think it would be ok if I went up and made myself a plate of cookies?"

To whom it may concern,

To the woman who was screaming out of her car window at 5:30 AM this morning while I was driving to work:

Seriously, it's too early to be that angry. First of all, it was just a lane change... do you need to get that pissed? Second, I saw your middle finger the first time. When you started swinging your arm up and down with you finger in the air, YOU were the one looking like an idiot, not me! Finally, you simply are not attractive enough to be that nasty. Based upon your looks alone, you might consider compensating with niceness. Just a thought.

To the woman who made me stuff a pillow under her naked butt this morning at the hospital:

I case you hadn't noticed, that is gross. When you said, "Can you help me adjust my pillow" I didn't understand the exact location of said pillow. For future reference, my professional title is Respiratory Care Practitioner, not ass-pillow adjuster. Also, have you considered wearing underwear? Might help.

To the person who decided that 6 am - 6 pm shifts should be the industry standard:

Screw you. Nobody should have to get up at 4:30 am and then not get home till nearly 7 pm. It's just wrong.

Like Night and Day!

Tomorrow I head over to my sister's place to help her pack. While this may be totally normal for most people, this is really an event in both of our lives. Saying that we have never been close is an UNDERSTATEMENT. Somehow my parents managed to produce three completely different children. Not a similar one in the bunch. We have spent most of our lives tolerating the other person and generally disagreeing about how life was supposed to be. But recently we have both made some very big changes in our lives. I finally grew up and she has finally regressed. (Becky came out of the womb as a 40 year old woman). Somehow we have found eachother in the middle.

I am super excited to see her move to Indiana (Go Hoosiers! whatever that is...) to become a doctor... of education (I got her some surgical scrubs anyway). But I am sad that she will be so far away from the family. Often I wonder if we will eventually end up in the same town, raising kids together or if life will just get in the way. Either way, I've already checked on plane tickets to the mid-west and I can't wait to see what life holds for her. As long as she gets packed in time to move...

I gave blood!

So today we had our monthly blood drive at work. And tonight I really feel the need to be honest with everyone. I didn't do it because it was the right thing to do. I didn't do it because I was able to go lie down for 20 minutes then eat cookies and drink punch ALL WHILE STILL ON THE CLOCK. (Although that was fun!) I did it because after we donate four times, we get an entire day's pay! The hospital I work at will credit me my full hourly wages for an entire day. Unfortunately I learned that it wasn't exactly going to be free.
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After numerous attempts to locate a vein by various workers, one guy managed to stuff a needle into my arm. It felt like he was throwing a dart right through me. I was in so much pain, but I just sat still and thought about the cookies, punch, and my free paycheck! When he was finished I stood up, stumbled to the recovery table and nearly fell face first into the tray of snacks. The cookie monitor said quite loudly, "OH MY! ARE YOU NORMALLY THAT PALE?" To which I responded, "How pale am I... I'm supposed to be pink. Don't you see any pink?" Within seconds all of the blood donation workers circled around me just in case passed out. (The feeling was similar to having just pounded multiple shots of alcohol at once... at least that's what I've been told it feels like!) Anyhow, they all kinda convinced me to move over to the "rescue cot" to lie down. I just wanted some cookies. Why didn't anybody understand that? I don't want to lie down on the cot, I want a cookie. But it was not to be. Some lady made me drink warm water through a straw while she elevated my feet with a cardboard box. For a few moments, I really wanted to close my eyes and drift off to sleep. (Again, much like that 2 AM bar-haze... that I've only heard about ...where you gently lower your head onto the bar with your eyes half closed). But I fought the urge, and convinced the workers that I was just fine. I managed to stumble back to my department, where I sat at the computer totally spaced out of my mind to work on some patient charting. I couldn't even remember how to spell the word "wean". I tried it a few different ways... wien, wein, ween... after a few minutes I just gave up and asked my co-worker. So much for my big payoff, huh?