Baby's first concert

We finally went to see a show, first one since we moved down here. I miss live music so much, having lived in 2 meccas of live music (Boulder and Chapel Hill). The band is Iron & Wine, one of my favorites. I had Adam's permission to gawk and be giddy over being in the same room as Sam Beam, the singer. Something about a bearded man with an acoustic guitar singing poetry makes me swoon. Here's a not-so-great picture just because. I heart Iron & Wine. Check them out.

Good things

Please don't feel obligated to ooh and ahh over our first sonogram picture. An 11-week old fetus is pretty amazing, but not very cute yet. We don't have to pretend.

Feel free to ooh and ahh your heart out over this one though:

Merritt hiding in the closet of her new bedroom in their new house:

Big sisters covering up a little stump with a leaf to protect Bram's little chubby legs from getting scraped. Very effective!

Scoobs feeling sentimental about Adam's shoe:

Couch hog:

A message for you

To those of you who have requested that I post pictures of my growing belly (and, consequently, my widening ass) on this very public space, I have just 3 words:

Y'all be trippin!!

I'm sure I will post a picture or two of myself at some point in the next 6 months, but you are not going to see a real-time pictorial progression of my development from reasonable-sized cow into full blown HEIFER. Not happening!

Job Frustrations

One thing that I have found really challenging about working on a general floor is retaining some compassion for the drug abusers and alcoholics that get hospitalized over and over again. We call them frequent flyers. We had a patient on our floor for just over FOUR MONTHS who had been originally hospitalized after being found in a ditch in a wheelchair totally cracked out with sores all over. So we took care of this patient for 1/3 of a year, after the patient repeatedly refused to be placed in rehab or in nursing homes, even though he clearly demonstrated a total inability to care for himself outside of the hospital. It's not that he was a difficult patient. He was actually very easy to take care of as far as his physical needs were concerned. The hard part was knowing that one day he'd be discharged and that then it would just be a matter of time before we'd see him again.

Well, he lasted 8 days out there. I showed up to work last night and saw his name on the door and I swear I could have cried. Or punched the wall. Do I believe this man is ill? Yes, I believe drug addiction is an illness, born out of horrible personal choices. Do I believe this patient deserves the best care I can give him? Absolutely, and I try to deliver that each time I am assigned to him. But the frustration that comes when a patient like this single-handedly casts a bright spotlight on everything that is wrong and broken with our health care system is very real and I am still learning how to deal with that. It is quite possible that this patient will spend another few months on our floor. Every time he gets close to discharge, all he has to say is that he is feeling some chest pain or something and then it will be another work-up at taxpayers' expense and more days spent in that warm hospital bed with 3 solid meals a day and cable tv and room service. I believe the plan is to get him involuntarily committed, but they tried that last time and it failed.

I hope I haven't shared too much. I always worry about HIPAA. This patient deserves his privacy and dignity like anyone else. Hopefully I don't sound like Nurse Ratched. But these kinds of patient make me want to work with babies or children. Any population that isn't responsible in any way for its illnesses sounds like a dream.

For shame

Think of the most embarrassing moments of your life so far. I, for one, have a fairly long list. But seriously, try to think of your greatest humiliation, that thing that causes your face to go red with even the slightest passing thought. Got it in mind? Take heart and click the link below. You have nothing on these guys.

New Kids on the Block

In a "BLOG FROM DANNY WOOD!!" Danny says he is excited that "We finally have the chance to give all you guys what you have always deserved." What oh what, dear God, did we ever do to deserve this??? Everyone get on your knees and repent and maybe this will all go away!

Commitment Issues

We had our first hot and humid day, and I needed, physically REQUIRED, a chocolate milkshake. There is a train track between my house and pretty much everything, including the Dairy Queen. I am fully capable of patiently waiting at the track without any angry fist-shaking. The train has a job to do and I respect that. I'm never in a hurry anyway. However, the train conductor on this particular day decided to run the train back and forth, back and forth, north and south across the track. It was impossible to tell which way he was actually trying to go because he wasn't getting anywhere. 2 steps forward, 2 steps back, repeatedly. This went on for a solid 15 minutes, and nearly everyone in the line made a u-turn and returned from whence they came, figuring this crackhead driving the train was never going to commit to one direction. Unlike my total commitment to getting a milkshake. Which is the only reason fathomable that I waited as long as I did. It totally paid off. The shake was delicious.

Horrible horror of all horrific horribleness

A spider whose body was reported to be the size of a silver dollar was found in my patient's bed yesterday, WITH my patient. More specifically and horrifying, it was found crawling out from her undershirt. I got this information during report at shift change and thereby performed the involuntary/uncontrolled heebee jeebee dance in the middle of the hallway, basically unable to really comprehend or digest this information because my brain was trying to reject it. My sweet little 90 year old patient, unknowingly harboring a true terrorist under her fake silk old lady undershirt. I could cry just thinking about it. Lucky for her, she is not, shall we say, "with it" enough to process this information.

The only funny part is that the nurse who reported this to me kept insisting that the spider could have come into the hospital with the lady and her belongings. Like the spider had been hanging out in the bed for the past 4 days, totally committed to this lady, just waiting to be discharged home. Um, no and just, no.

The Sunday New York Times

Anyone else do the crossword yesterday? Did you find it relatively easier than it should have been? I normally get like one clue every 5 minutes and then give up after really stretching my brain for maybe 10 answers, but yesterday I was on fire. I actually finished about 75% of the puzzle, on my own, in less than an hour. This is a personal best for me, so I am led to believe the puzzle was easier than what normally appears in a typical Sunday NYT.

Or, I am a real live GENIUS. Because real live geniuses take almost an hour to finish 75% of a stupid crossword.

Seriously, will I ever finish one of these mothers without any help? All signs point to NO. But all signs point to YES that I am a big nerd for writing a blog post about this.

The best part of waking up

Getting only 3 hours of sleep the past 2 days before going to work made for an exhausted Laura Sue this morning when I got home from the hospital. I threw the blankets over the windows, put on my cute little eye mask thingy that Adam sweetly found for me at the drugstore, and then, with a smile, threatened murder to Adam or the dogs if any one of them got in the way of me getting at least 5 hours of sleep. In REM by 8:15 at the latest. Just now awakened at 3:30 by a sharp, high pitched, and very loud YELP coming from Scooby as Jesse stepped on him on his way out of the bedroom. Scooby is such a drama queen. Totally unnecessary. Jesse just stared at me with his typical "what did I do i'm so sorry and pitiful and heartbreakingly cute" look.

And, Mexican music blasting from one of the neighbors, and I can't figure out where it is coming from since most of our neighbors are black. You know, not to stereotype or anything because I'm sure there are some black people out there who listen to Mexican music, but I doubt they live in Mississippi. And if they do, I need to meet them NOW. Maybe I should go wander the neighborhood, follow the music, and find a new friend. Or maybe I should shoot for another hour of sleep? Yeah, that one.

Rut

Work is getting stale. Pneumonia. Acute Renal Failure. Acute Alcohol Withdrawal. Uncontrolled Diabetic. And my favorite: Abdominal Pain. This is pretty much what we get. I am still learning but at a much slower rate. The challenges that came along with being a new nurse are basically over. I don't get stressed out over giving report at shift change. I don't bat an eye for having to call a doctor at 3 in the morning. My time management and prioritization skills are pretty good. I never have to stay late to chart or catch up on things I fell behind on. Of course I still have to ask questions and run things by my fellow nurses every now and then, but sometimes I wonder if I can even completely trust the advice I am given. Let's say the med/surg floor doesn't exactly attract the most ambitious nurses, generally speaking.

I really am nervous that I have become too comfortable too fast as a new nurse, but it's hard not to do that on my floor where we see the same conditions all the time. And our patients are mostly stable and not in imminent danger of sudden unexpected death. I am afraid that I am going to be woefully underprepared for the next step in my nursing career. I so badly want to work with more critical patients where I have a lot more responsibility than I do now.

I guess I should enjoy this period of relative confidence while it lasts because as soon as I transfer to another floor, it will be back to square one in so many ways.

One small step for Adam and Laura

One giant leap towards yuppiehood.

Check out my late birthday present!


We made it 8 months in the South with one vehicle between the 2 of us. I will always be very proud of that accomplishment.

This car feels so soccer mom-ish. But it is perfect for what we need and ridiculously comfortable compared to the Jeep. (Imagine, I will be able to listen to music and actually carry on a conversation while driving around!!) And we are consoled by the fact that we still don't have a TV or a microwave. So we have miles to go before we are truly yuppified.

"August Rush"

Just when I thought this movie couldn't possibly get any worse, ROBIN WILLIAMS shows up about 30 minutes in. Vomit!

Perceived ambiguity of "that"

Birthday goodness

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes!! Pre-birthday festivities included a sushi dinner with my dear husband on Monday night. Yesterday I went car shopping in Mobile, which did not result in the purchase of a car, sadly. Followed that up with a trip to the movies to see "Horton Hears a Who" with my nieces/nephew and Nick and Cristi. And then, dinner over at their house, which Nick in all his stealthness procured from some lady on the coast who runs an underground crab cake/stuffed shrimp ring out of her kitchen. Definitely not FDA approved. Definitely delicious. Then cake and ice cream followed by me falling fast asleep on my brother's couch in the middle of "Hell's Kitchen" on TV. Came back home and I was snuggled up in bed drifting off to sleep, again, by 9:15 while Adam gave me a birthday foot massage. A lovely, tame, G-rated birthday. Fun for the whole family. I imagine my wild and rowdy birthday celebrations are not totally a thing of the past, but probably much fewer in number from here on out.

Now, gentle reader, please feast your eyes on what will likely go down in history as the most awesome birthday card ever made. Please note the smiley face drawn into my belly and also the birthday snake. This immediately became one of my most cherished possessions. Poor Jesse didn't get a shout-out, so I'll have to keep it hidden from him forever to spare his feelings.