Hi folks. I wanted those that actually check my journal to know that I am posting a lot more "Friends only". So, if you are really interested in reading my journal/blog, please sign up with live journal and friend me! It's free and easy, and then I know who is reading my thoughts. :) I'll still post some things publicly, but am leaning away from that more and more.

I've been doing some more thinking today: a dangerous thing, I know. Ever go back and think about the decisions that have molded your life/career choice? I had a fleeting thought today about going to med school....and then thought through all the reasons why I have not chosen that path. I know it's not too late--I could still do it. But, how does one really know what path you are supposed to take? I do know certain times in my life when God has clearly lead me to do something, but sometimes He seems to leave me with the choice, without definite direction. Many times there is more than one good option. I used to think that if I didn't follow God's exact path for my life I would be missing out on something really important. This left me in fear of making a mistake that would "mess up" my life. But, I've come to realize that God in His goodness and faithfulness can use all parts of my life and experiences. This doesn't give me license to be deliberately disobedient, but it can help me to have freedom and peace. Thank God that He is sovereign and faithful, and everything is not up to me.

Today I realized that I have taken at least 1 class through 7 different colleges/universities.

Hudson Valley Community College
Sage Junior College of Albany
Mohawk Valley Community College
SUNY Albany
Moody Bible Institute
Samaritan Hospital School of Nursing
SUNY Institute of Technology

And then of course 2 CLEP exams--one a "normal" CLEP exam, and one a Dante's Exam.

That means to get all my credits transfered somewhere I need to get 9 transcripts sent!!!! Insanity.

I realized all this today because I was getting a transcript sent from MVCC to SUNY IT.

Yeah, I know, that was all so interesting (can you hear my sarcasm?)

School starts on Monday. I'm taking 4 classes and actually looking forward to most of them! yay!!

Ethical Issues in Nursing (2 credits)
Nursing Leadership (4 credits)
Community Health Organization (4 credits)
American History: Colonies to Reconstruction (4 credits)

I predict that Nursing Leadership and Community Health Organization will be the most involved.

Well. It's the new year. Just encase you didn't know. :-) I have yet to do some serious reflection--I hope to do that within the next few days (in my paper journal). I need to step back and remember, think, and ponder.

I've been reading Streams in the Desert this past semester, and it has been really encouraging to me. I've started reading that, and Oswald Chambers, reading the entries that are for each day. Here's a few quotes from Jan 2 readings.

Throw away your laziness, sluggishness, coldness, or whatever is interfering with your pure love for Christ. Make Him the Source, the Center, and the One who encompasses every delight of your soul. Refuse to be satisfied any longer with your meager accomplishments. Aspire to a higher, a nobler, and a fuller life. Upward to heaven! Nearer to God!
--Charles H. Spurgeon (from Streams in the Desert)

God does not tell you what He is going to do, He reveals to you who he is. Do you believe in a miracle-working God, and will you go out in surrender to Him until you are not surprised an atom at anything He does?
-- Oswald Chambers

I'm praying for greater faith.

Matt and Sarah have officially left. They are driving to Florida, but making a detour to Western, NY (near Jamestown) to see my our grandma (96 years old).  We almost all went to NYC today, but they decided it was more important to go see grandma--a good choice, I think. I hope to go visit her relatively soon myself. It's gotten more difficult for her to make the trip here to visit us, and this year she wasn't able to spend Christmas here.

Matt and Sarah are doing lots of traveling in the next few months!! That includes a trip to Thailand. Wohoo! I'm doing my best not to be jealous.

It's been about 2 weeks since school ended, and I have done hardly any of the tasks that I need to accomplish during break. I keep excusing myself because it's the holidays and Matt and Sarah were here...but, now it's time to be productive!! I'm also contemplating all the books I want to read in the next two weeks or so before classes start again.

Flying to Chicago next weekend for Jonny's wedding!! Looking forward to it. I got a great dress for $40 that was normally $150. Gotta love the sale rack. :)

On another note, I had a bit of an adventure at work yesterday. They floated me to the cardiac unit! This was especially great considering that I am not even telemetry certified, and almost all my patients were on cardiac monitors. But, they gave me stable patients, thankfully. I tried desperately to remember everything I knew about reading EKGs and dysrthymias, etc. 

The best part was having a patient EVAPORATE into thin air. This patient was transferred to my room in the late morning, because his private room was needed by another patient. I knew I would not be having this patient for long, though, because he was supposed to go home. So, I introduced myself to him, told him I was getting his discharge papers and instructions together, etc, and went out to do just that. A little bit later I entered the patient's room again with a beautiful teaching packet (specifics about his new medications, diet, and follow-up, including a whole stack of prescriptions from the doctor) only to find the bed empty...and all his belongings gone! I checked the bathroom--nope. His roommate said, "He walked out 5 minutes ago..."

At this point I'm thinking, "What in the world..?!"  In the few minutes that I had talked with this fellow, he seemed like a somewhat normal guy--not the kind to just disappear or leave the hospital without telling anyone. I'm also thinking things like..."Did anyone take his IV out??"

Several phone calls later, I discovered several things: 1.) His home phone number was discontinued. 2.) The phone number of his next of kin did not work either. Later, thanks to the help of the police, I learned that his "home address" is not a real address!!!!!

So....you just never know what is going to happen. :) That's why life is an adventure....thankfully through this whole scenario, I did absolutely nothing wrong. What are you going to do with someone who is so non compliant? But...he really needs those prescriptions and to follow the instructions, else he is probably going to end up in the ER with a heart attack or stroke. But what can you do....

There you have it: the most recent adventure at work. I don't usually bother to write about things, but this is the first time a patient simply disappeared on me. I've had others insist that they were leaving now, but none simply disappear without saying a word.

Anyway, Happy New Year!!

Phew. It's late. Just finished watching the Nativity Story with Matt and Sarah. The last week or so has been packed with social activities.

Thursday was definitely a highlight. Some friends came over and we went sledding, and built possibly the biggest snowman ever!! It was awesome. Three of my friends were international students and had never been sledding before. Matt made a huge jump that sent us flying through the air, made us lose our sleds, and hurt our tails bones/backs. But it was great. ;) It was especially awesome to see two tall guys (6'4" and 6'2'') slide down the hill and fly over the jump on the same plastic children's sled. <grin> I'm not sure that Matt was successful in convincing Ryan W. that it was a taboggan.

Ah...and the snowman. The second ball was so big that we had to roll it up on a board...unfortunately the snowman has already met the destiny of all mortals, thanks to the warming temperatures.

All for now. My brain wants to really write, but I'm too tired.

Hope you had a Merry Christmas!!

Mary

I'm tired. Perhaps that is clouding my view of things.

My mom, dad and I put most of the Christmas decorations up this evening. The garlands, the Christmas tree, the lights in the windows. My mom had already put up the nativity scenes (we have about 5 of them!!).

Sometimes this house feels empty--there is just a remnant of this family left. This is the smallest number yet to decorate the house for Christmas, and I found myself doing a lot of tasks that were traditionally Matt's--like cutting the Christmas tree bottom off, setting the Christmas tree in the holder and trying to get it straight (actually, I really fought with that thing--but I think I won--the tree looks good), screwing the window lights down, and putting the lights on the tree.

As I was putting on Christmas tree ornaments, I tried to choose the most special ornaments from Matt and Sarah's boxes (as well as my own), and wow...looking at those things brought back memories. I came across an ornament that Rachel gave Sarah in 2003 that said, "Sisters stick together." That was the really hard year when Matt and I were overseas and Mom and Dad were recovering from the car accident. I said something to my mom, and before I knew it we had both started crying. And then I started laughing, saying, "What a sorry bunch we are! Crying while we are decorating for Christmas!" lol. And then my mom said, "Well, were not even a bunch anymore--we're only a pair." But we were both chuckling by that time. So, call me crazy. Crying one minute and laughing the next. You need humor sometimes (all the time?).

I could get really sappy. So I'll skip that. I just miss my siblings so much. It's quite incredible actually. Going from having 1 sibling around to having NO siblings around has been a big change. And sometimes I can't help wishing that things were more like they used to be. When more family was around and my dad was in better health. It was incredibly wonderful to live and hang out with my best friends (my siblings), and to have them to laugh with, encourage, cry with, play music jam sessions with. But...I keep reminding myself how incredibly blessed I am. It makes me feel bad when I realize that I am not content all the time--God's great gifts are incredible in themselves, and He has blessed me in so many other ways too.

On another note--school for the semester is almost over--2 more weeks! yay! I can't wait. I actually had tons of schoolwork to work on tonight, but we really had to get the decorating done because the women's circle Christmas party is here on Tuesday. I still haven't decided if I can make myself do a bunch more schoolwork tonight--perhaps I can.

I played piano for the Christmas English Tea earlier today. It was so nice to get to play music again. That's another thing I miss--singing and playing regularly. But, there are seasons for everything, of course.

I seriously wonder who is reading this--should I make this private?? Who finds this journal anyway??? I just need to write my thoughts down--makes me feel better.

So, this past week I got my very first patient complaint as a nurse. (To clarify: patient complaint was about ME. I hear patients complaining quite frequently--many people find things to camplain about, but this was the first complaint about ME.) It was from the mother of a difficult patient (not medically difficult, but personality difficult--if you know what I mean), but nonetheless, I felt terrible. (Though, I'm not really sure I did anything wrong--was following normal procedures/protocol!) In fact, I felt terrible about it for the rest of my shift, and all this past week. I was still feeling bad about it this morning when I went into work. At work I try so hard to do a good job, be positive, treat patients well, etc. To get this off the wall report (that was given to my boss, btw) was just like a stab in the gut. Sigh. 

Why is it so easy to forget about all the positive comments, and remember only the bad ones? 

I asked my boss today how it turned out with those people who had the complaint. She said it was fine, and that she called them and apologized (what else is there to do?). I told her how bad I had felt about it, and she told me a story of when a patient called in a complaint about her...and she got a call from her then boss at the time (just like my boss called me in to tell me about the complaint). My boss also said that when she received the complaint about me, she thought, "What?! Mary?!" I tell you, some things just don't seem to make sense.

People are so different. Take today for example. Here are two comments from two different patients:
"What makes you so nice?" --This was said with sincerity, wonder, and surprise.
and
"I just want to be left alone...I would be fine if you would just leave me alone!!" and then later "You've been arguing with me all day!"
That last comment I had to stop myself from making a protest, because I certainly had NOT been arguing with him all day. The very statement was so absurd!!! But, I stopped myself--I decided it wasn't time to start arguing, even if I was being accused of arguing.  (This patient was refusing many things, btw....)

So....if you are a nurse, and you do your best, don't be disheartened by a complaint...it happens to everyone sometimes. That is what I learned this week. And although maybe looking back you could have done SOMETHING differently, it doesn't necessarily mean that you were doing a bad job. 

The End.

Shall I shock you? I'm posting!! ah ha!

Oh my. I think exhaustion has hit, and this post could be scandalous. Or not. Maybe I'm just too level headed and sensible. Or not. Or maybe I am just postponing the idea of going to bed. Or maybe I am having a hard time winding down after an insane evening at work.  Or, maybe I am just over analyzing a situation again. Or maybe I am not making any sense whatsoever. There! I think I figured it out.

;-)

Yes. My evening at work. I left about 12 AM. My shift was from 3 to 11 PM. At about 10 PM it suddenly dawned on me that I had not eaten anything, drunk anything, or used the restroom since the beginning of my shift. So, I ran to the locker room, and grabbed my water to quench my thirst, and came back......and continued to work.

Evenings like that one make me wonder, though. In the times of insane craziness I wonder, "What possessed me to put myself in this situation?"  "This is too much." "I should quit this job."

But then, when the night is over, and I am sitting at home with my aching feet up on a chair, it somehow doesn't seem so bad anymore. I survived the stress--the moments of insanity, when my head was spinning, and I had to struggle to make myself keep calm and think straight. The feeling is so horrible, though. That's the feeling that makes me wonder why I don't quit my job. But, at the same time, I can say, "I like my job!" In all honestly, some days I like it, and some days I absolutely do not. Basically every single day has moments of fairly high stress. Some days the whole shift is that way.

Sigh. I hope tomorrow night is better. If every shift were like that one, I WOULD quit my job. (Is there any doubt why there is such a high turnover rate of nurses? Would more hospitals consider giving us less patients per nurse????) And, my hospital is one of the better ones. I do not have mandatory overtime, and there is often a resource nurse to help when things get insane...but more often than you might like, everybody is going crazy, because everything is insane. It happens.

Hi folks,

You are indeed a faithful reader if you are reading this since I have not posted in ages. Yes, I am still alive, just living life and writing in my paper journal. :-)

University classes begin tomorrow--I'm taking 6 classes. Still working at the hospital.

All for now. Working tomorrow, so I need some sleep......

Mary