Dirty Needle

I can't believe I stuck myself. When I felt the stick, I was shocked, and I thought, no way, there's no way what I just felt was that needle going into me. So, I finished up with the patient, threw away my gloves and left the room, and in the hallway I squeezed my finger to see if it would bleed, to see if I did in fact stick myself or if it was just some other stinging sensation that I felt. Well, I bled. Then I went and told the charge nurse, and he asked me, well are you sure you stuck the patient too? And I thought so, so I went back to the room and squeezed the patient's arm to see if it would bleed, and it did. I accidently stuck myself with a dirty needle today. I still don't understand how in the world it happened, especially since I was using our new insulin pens that are pretty much fool proof so that you won't stick yourself. I never got stuck with the old kind. I'm actually not worried... I mean it's highly unlikely that this man has anything, but it's kinda weird to think that he could have something and that now I could have something... but even if he had HIV there's a super low chance that I would be able to contract it from a dirty needle stick. Anyways, his blood got sent off to the lab today to be tested, so that we'll know whether or not I need to be tested. I'm sure it's fine. They won't test the blood till Monday.

Funny things Haven does

Haven is my 4 yr old nephew with one older brother (Ashton) and one younger brother (Gavin). Haven is an absolute adorable mess, and everything he does just makes me laugh. So, when I got here (Houston), they told me that the day before Haven had peed on his castle, which was in his bedroom. When asked why, he said he thought it would be funny. LOL. It makes me laugh even now! Then I noticed (and how could I not notice it) green markings all over the door to Gavin's room and on the walls on either side of the door. I asked who had done that, and Andi told me that Gavin had started it (he's 1 and 1/2 yrs old), but Haven came along and showed him how. hahaha. What a good big brother! Haven gives the sweetest kissies and hugs and likes rubbies on his tummy and back. But, alas, I know that he too will turn into a stinker. It's only a matter of time. I guess peeing on his castle should probably move him on over to the stinker catagory, but he is just so stinking cute and the way he talks is hilarious that he just can't be in the stinker catagory yet. Andi and Chad are always telling him to talk in his big boy voice, and then he does this ridiculous deep voice. It makes me laugh. Haven can't even ride on his bike with training wheels without falling over, and yet he still argues that he's ready to have his training wheels taken off. Last night he told Andi that she hurt his feelings because she wouldn't give him candy or something silly like that. He's so funny. I'll post a picture later.

Sometimes

Sometimes, when I see a bunch of new things come up on facebook about people from high school that I was friends with, I get sad. They post photoalbums with all of them together having fun, and I feel... I dunno, sad. I haven't seen those people in about 5 years now, and I guess since I moved on to other places, I usually assume that they all went different places and didn't stay in touch with each other too, but then their photo albums are a blaring reminder that they did keep in contact. I didn't. I'm not even sure how I could have. My parents moved away from Franklin my sophomore year of college, and I've never had the time or money to go back. Always had somewhere else I need to go. I don't regret my decision to go to school in TX or study abroad for a year in Chile or to go to school in OK or to move to CA, but I wish I could see those friends again. It seems impossible now, because there is no more summer break. What are the chances of me even seeing them? Only if I went there at Christmas time, which I won't, because if I actually get Christmas off, I'll visit my family. I think that it's just my general since of lonliness right now that makes me so nastalgic. But it would be nice to see my high school friends again.

Change

Change is good. It keeps us moving. adapting. growing. Even small superficial changes can have a big impact. Removes us from our comfort zone.

For at least 3 years I've been saying that I would grow my hair out and chop it off to give to Locks of Love, but I never could bring myself to do the chopping part. Well, today the time came. All 11 inches came off. As Lisa chopped my ponytails off, I could see in the mirror the reflection of the faces of the other women in the salon that were getting their nails done at the time. To put it mildly they looked quite surprised that I was chopping it all off. To describe their looks more realistically I would say that they looked horrified. It was funny. I like shocking people.

The next post is a slide show of todays events for your enjoyment.

tHe CuT

terrible HORRIBLE no good VERY BAD night

I had the most terrible, horrible, no good, very bad night at work last night. I'm so glad it's over, but I can't stop thinking about it. And nothing that horrible really even happen to make me feel this way. I think it was just little things upon little things added to the fact that I felt so unconfident in what I was doing, because it was my first time to have a trach patient and the transfer to our floor was not good, and then lots of unexpected stuff happened, and then the doctor was a jerk (but my team leader and the charge nurse told me not to worry about it and that he's a jerk to everyone and that I did good and to brush it off), and it wasn't my fault that the patient pulled out her PICC line, and I just wanted to go home, and I cried twice at work, and I hate that, and then another patient needed blood, and then the phlebotomist didn't come for like an hr and a half, and then my patient finally got blood at 4:50 am and the blood had beed ordered at 10:30 pm (but it wasn't an emergency, so it really is okay), and then my patient's IV went bad right at change of shift, and then my other patient's central line wouldn't draw back, and at start of shift half of the medicines weren't there for my transplant patient, and I don't speak Mandarine and couldn't communicate well with one of my patients, and one of my patients wouldn't use the call light, but was unsteady on her feet, and ended up on the floor, and I gave all of my bedtime medicines late, and I thought the night would never end, BUT I had the most wonderful team ever last night. My floor splits us up into teams, so that we can help each other if we need to, and my teammates helped me so much, and I totally would have lost it without them. Of course that's the way it should be, but in all of my nursing school rotations I never saw team work like what goes on on my floor. And the nurses that float to my floor talk about how much they like floating to our floor over others because we're so helpful. You HAVE to have that on my floor or NOBODY would work there because the patient load can be so intense. Praise God no real emergencies happened last night. I bawled when I got home today. It felt nice to finally release all the anxiety that had built up over the night, but it would have been nicer if anybody wasn't working today and could hang out with me. Although I'm really sleepy, but when I try to relax, I think, and so I can't relax and sleep yet. I'll prob fall asleep when I'm too tired to think anymore.

PS- I got into grad school at the University of California San Francisco!!! I will be studying to be a family nurse practitioner in the fall with a minor in HIV/AIDS. :)

Broken

I can’t handle these love songs and movies about growing old and your spouse dying! Mark Schultz’s song “Walking Her Home” has me all teary eyed right now, and if I choose to let myself, the teary eyes could turn into ugly snotty slobbering tears. But I choose not to let it tonight. I’ve cried enough today already. I wonder why these old couples get to me so much. Is it the fact that they have spent more than half of their lives together and then one of them dies and the other is left on this earth without the other? Or is it the fear that I will never find a love like that to be sad about? Or is it the fear that I will find a love like that to be sad about? Or is it because I look at my own grandparents and think about that? Or is it that I look at my parents and I can’t imagine one without the other? They take care of each other. Dad takes care of lots of practical stuff, and mom tells him when to turn… or, hehe, doesn’t tell him when to turn, and then finally tells him after he figures out that he messed up.

Church was wonderful tonight… I don’t know that anything was much different than normal, which is proof that a good part of what we get out of worship is what we bring to the table. An open heart helps. OF COURSE a church that doesn’t sound like it’s dying while it’s singing helps too. God rescued me by giving me Glad Tidings Church. I’ve just been going through hard times with being a new nurse in a new city with new friends and a new culture.

This church is so different than any that I’ve consistently ever gone too. It’s exciting and interesting to hear the same verses I’ve heard my whole life from a different view. It’s also hard. Do I agree with everything that’s said. No. But I didn’t in the denomination that I grew up in either, and so this is okay, because this church loves Jesus and the worship and teaching there is based on the Bible and is what is carrying me through right now.

One thing I like about my church is that when the preacher asks for people to respond at the end of the sermon, a good 1/3 to 1/2 of the church responds, which makes a lot more sense than maybe one person responding! We’re all broken and struggling at some point during the year if not at some point during every month or every week. So I went down front too, and the preacher… oops I mean, pastor Forrest, decided he would pray for each person tonight. Sometimes he gets people to come help and they just divide up among the people, but that’s not what we did tonight. Anyways, Pastor Tim, plays the piano and leads singing during this time, and everyone still sings or prays or whatever while this is going on. People stand, they sit, they kneel, they lie prostrate, whatever they feel they need to do. So tonight, Pastor Forrest, prayed for each person and a couple of others joined and prayed with him over each person. When Pastor Forrest got to me, and placed his hand on my back, I felt… I felt, I guess the way I can describe it is, I felt power in his touch. I haven’t ever had a feeling like that before when someone is praying for me or otherwise. I was broken tonight. And I felt power in his touch. I was still broken when I left church. But I felt power there.

My sister sent me an email the other day, one of those forwarding things, which I don’t send on, but I really like this past one, so I’ll copy and paste it here:

Malachi 3:3 says: "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."

This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God. One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible Study.

That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining Silver. As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities. The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says: "He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver." She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed. The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you know when the silver is fully refined?" He smiled at her and answered, "Oh, that's easy -- when I see my image in it." If today you are feeling the heat of the fire , remember that God has his eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you.

I liked the email, because I have always heard, "God won't let you go through more than you can handle"... but the clarification of Malachi really means a lot. That such wonderful imagery was used by God in order to describe to us just exactly how he is taking care of us and what he wants in us is awesome. God's watching us, refining us, not willing to let us be destroyed but patiently waiting on us.