Thursday, February 28, 2008

An Evening

Gotta love the evening shift. Such a dramatic change from the day shift I've been having lately. Ok, on day shifts I have had four busy patients and absolutely no help, but on evenings, I've been having three easy patients and an overabundance of help to the point where there's hardly a thinig for me to do, well not quite, but I'm bored now! There's just no happy medium. Oh well.

Today was kinda cool, I got up early (9:00) and went to Mcdonalds with Chris cuz he wanted to try the McSkillet burrito, cuz it's free today and tomorrow if you buy a pop. I got a little burrito, not as yummy, but less cals, big whoop. Then we sat there for an hour-ish and chit-chatted, which I love to do with my husband. Then we worked out and I tried really hard, so that felt good. I'm gonna start trying to go to some of the classes the healthy living center offers. The 2 I'm gonna try to go to regularly, cuz they're offered more now, is cardio kickboxing and a strength class. I really loved kickboxing in college, so I'm hoping it's similar. I need to get motivated to work out harder, so I hope this helps. Then we came home and had lunch together at home, not out to eat, wow! Soon Chris had to leave for Kid's Hope and I got to hang out for a while and then go to work.

So, yeh, now I'm bored and it's about 8:00p, sigh, I wanna go home!

The end.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Tulips, Haircut, Taxes, and a Baby (not mine)

Some updates in pictures....

Keith and Amy had baby Logan! Here is Chris holding his best man's baby!
(I can't wait for Kelsey and Jeff's, they're next!)

Keith's a daddy now. So sweet.

I'm so proud of my husband, doing the taxes!

I very impulsively got my hair cut off.

Had to buy these from Wally last night, they're so pretty and spring like.

I hope you're proud of this mom, I tried very hard to use the right feature on my camera, but it may still be blurry.
It's Wednesday mornin' and I don't work until tomorrow night. I had a quite awful weekend at work, but Monday was better. I very much need a new job, but nothing's sticking out at me yet, so I'll keep looking. That is all folks. I cannot wait for warm weather! Hurry up!
Love, Brianna

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

I'm a Pediatrics Nurse Today

Are my patients suffering from broken hips, infected knees, or fused spinal cords you ask??? NO! They are not! Today they are little kids, with none of these problems I am used to dealing with!

I am here in the Eugenia Litta Children's Hospital, a hospital within a hospital if you will, at St. Mary's. The first half of my shift was spent with 3 peeps in their 60s, all to big to move on my own, all with infected bones of some kind. However, I come to find I'm floating to peds! I am one of the few who do not REFUSE to float here. It's hard and different, but I enjoy the learning experience and new perspective on what else and who else is out there! We kinda freak out when we have to float here, it's a different world. Insted of giving out cups of pills, the medications come in syringes that you either push into their mouths or set to slowly dispense into an IV in a crazy looking contraption. Also, where do you take a blood pressure, a simple task normally, on a baby? It's the leg, come to find. Also, do I pick up the baby? Do I leave it in the crib? I dunno? And so on and so on, many questions. I came here and was greeted by many, so I felt like I had some good help. I have 9 and 12 year old girls and one 3month baby!!! I walk in and they're like these little miniature patients! I can move their whole bodies with one arm, hahaha.

I was a tad nervous meeting these folks, but all the parents and children were very kind to me and it went well. I didn't let on that I was "new". The two girls are both from the middle east, random coincidense, and they, along with their parents speak no english. So, we do a lot of pointing and smiling and guesturing. It's funny though, you can still make a connection without language. One little girl had cute pink slippers, jammie pants, and a pink stuffed animal. I picked up her animal and pointed to her slippers and smiled and she giggled.

The baby is so darn cute and little. I tickled his toes and let him sqeeze my finger, fun fun! I had to give him medication in his mouth and he sucked it right down! I was impressed. I was expected him to put up a fight. I also found myself weighing a diaper and charting on how much milk he drank, hahah, funny.

I have a few meds left to give, but it'll be easy, but slow, I have 2 hours left, bah. But yay, 3 days off. Tomorrow I am having lunch with my 3 besty girlies friend in Roch: the Hut master, C-Dawg #2 aka Bishelhopper, and Kels Marie (sorry Kels, we don't have a fun name for you!) I think we're going to Noodles at noon. Yay!

Today, I didn't do much. I woke up at 9:30 and hung around and eventually had lunch with Christopher Lewis at Culver's! Then I pretty much had to come to work. Chris finished his EXTREMELY frustrating Microsoft Excel class today. It was a do-it-yourself at home class and he's done done done! Yay! No more crazy equations to figure out.

Well, it's closing in on 10:00pm, so I guess I can go give the couple 10:00 meds I have to give. Another squirt of stuff for the baby!

Well, have a nice day folks and a belated happy birthday to my 6 year old cousin Grant!!! He doesn't read this though, although he could if he wanted to since he reads like an adult and all.

Bye!

Monday, February 18, 2008

A Blog For the Sake of a Blog

An Update:

Saturday: Did a few things and then went to the cities to have din with Brice, Jenny, Mom and Dad. It was very very fun! I am not a complainer when it comes to food and what I order at restaurants, because there's not a whole lot I don't like, but at Old Chicago, I got a grilled chicken roll-up thing, sounds harmless right? Well it was just soaked in some kind of vinegarette sauce. I can stand that sauce in small amount, but it was overwhelming, Brice tried it and he concurred. So, I felt annoying, but I just had to ask for a new one, I couldn't eat the thing! So I asked for no sauce this time, to avoid the first problem. So my 2nd roll-up was dry as a bone and the chicken in it was ever-so-charred, creating a dry burnt taste in my mouth. I ate about half, jeesh, what a bummer. Oh well, I guess the side salad was good.

Sunday: Was an okay day. I had fun with the three year olds and then later Chris went to work. I went to a movie with Mom and Dad, that was fun. We went to The Spiderwick Chronicles, I actually really liked it. When I got home I got to just hang out with Christopher. It was good to just talk for a while and then we went to bed! He wasn't going to go to bed, but I kinda gave him a back-rub and it lulled him to sleep, so my Christopher went to sleep at 11:00pm! We never ever go to bed this early. Midnight maybe, but 11, never, haahaa. He was so sleepy. I stayed up until 12 watching Castaway on TV.

Monday: Got up at 8:45 and Chris and I got to go visit Mr. Logan Scott Byant, a new baby boy! Chris best guy friend Keith Bryant and his fiancee Amy had their baby boy 2/17 in the morning and were so gracious as to invite us to visit today in the hospital. The parents just looked so good and they were so calm! Logan was a silent little sleeper the whole time and Chris and I each held him a couple times. It was pretty sweet to see Chris holding a baby :) I'll be excited to see the little guy grow up. Then I headed home for a bit while Chris went to play b-ball. I left for Kid's Hope and 1/2 way there I realized that the kids don't have school today! So, I met Chris and Dad at Wendy's and just to sit and relax before coming here to work.

Now, I am sitting here trying to pass the time. I have a little under 2 hours left, bah, evening shifts go so slow. I have 3 patients and am covering 1 for an LPN, but they are so nice of patients, super easy and un-needy. So, I am trying to help other nurses, but they don't really need me. I work tomorrow as well, but then I have 3 days off after that before I work the weekend. So........anyhoo. I guess that's all I can think of to say.

Adios amigos.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Heather's Party!!!

Last night we had a shin-dig for Heather's upcoming wedding. We had a nice group of Heather, myself, Casey, Kelsey, Meghan Finn, Katie Sanford, and Abby (from Heather's church). We played a bunch of games and won prizes, ate food, and had fondue! Hut opened some "fun" presents and the whole theme was "pink". You'll see in the pictures below there's a lot of pink. It was fun to have that many peeps at my place and fun to see Meghan and Katie, high school friends! Well they're still friends now, but ya know, we were all together in high school, so it's fun to be around each other all at once! If that made any sense.
Casey dominated the necklace game. We weren't allowed to say Heather or Wedding and if we got caught saying them (and Casey always caught us) then we had to give up our necklace, Casey ended up with the most, by far at the end. My living room went from clean and tidy to crazy pink and back to clean and tidy in a matter of about 6 hours. Chris came home from work at 10:00p and he said he'd never seen the living room looking so crazy, haahaa. Thanks to all who helped me out with this and to all who came to celebrate, it was lots of fun honoring our dear friend Heather! Her wedding in now in LESS than one month, yikes, I better get my dress altered, haahaa. Ok, look at the pics. They're annoyingly spaced out, but whatev. Bye!

Heather's Bridal Party in Picutres!!!




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Wednesday, February 13, 2008

The 13th is the new Valentine's Day.

Since Chris and will only see each other tomorrow, the 14th, for a matter of minutes or so, we celebrated the love holiday today, heehee.

I came home from work and what did sit on the counter you ask? Well, a dozen red roses, a box of candy, a card, and a little box! It was so cute how he had it all sitting out like that. The little box turned out to be very sweet little white gold hoops (props to anyone who thought of the movie Mean Girls when I said white gold hoops, haahaa). They are very cute and I'm wearing them now! Chris is so sweet to me and thoughtful.
After eating some chocolate, we went to Victoria's and had yum yums, it was so romantical! Then we also stopped at Walmart, haahaa. We heart Wally.

Since it's a week full of work and school it was nice to spend the afternoon/evening just with him.
I hope he knows how much I love him!!!
Here are some fun pics:

Valentine's 2006

Valentine's 2007
Valentine's 2008!!!






And that my folks, was our V-day, fun times were had by all.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Find Me a Job

Let's play a fun game.....you think up a place I could work and maybe I'll work there! I've had enough of my job and it's time for something new, so bring on the suggestions. Cashier at McDonalds, pet store owner, cosmotologist, whatev. I'll do it.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

FREEEDOOOMMM!!!! (say with accent)

Sunday night and I'm NOT at work, yes I am writing from home.

I made it through Friday night with Mr. Confusion and since then I've been loving this time off! Saturday was random. I ended up buying something fun for Hut's party, so I cannot say what on here, shush if you know! Mom and I bought this together and tried it out, fun fun! Then I found myself staying at Mom and Dad all day, doing various things. Kellie and Jill came over at some point and we played some new fun games that Mom bought. Eventually we invited uncle Brad over and he, Kellie, Jill, Mom, Dad, Gavin, and I had pizza. The missing Hemmer's where in such places as Florida, St. Paul, and Missouri! They were missed. Later, us girls went to see Chris/get icecream at Culver's! We all hung out more at Mom and Dad's, it was fun!

Today, Sunday, Chris and I had the 3 years old in Sunday school. We only had 2 today, but we had fun, they're so cute. Then we went to church and then to Austin to take Katie (my sister-in-law) out for a late birthday lunch. We didn't stay there long cuz Chris had to get back to work.

I was left home alone around 4:15ish so I set out to re-clean my closet. I ended up getting rid of 2 more large garbage bags of clothes I never wear/too big. I added these bags to the other 3 from a few months ago in my trunk. They'll be taken to Good Will at some point. Then I fixed, with Mom's help over the phone, my vacuum. It was clogged to death with pine needles. Lesson learned: do not vacuum up Christmas tree needles ever again. So, now my vacuum works. Pretty sick that I haven't vacuumed since Christmas. Oh well, the floors didn't look very dirty anyway, heehee. Then I worked out, got groceries, talked to my dear Cara on the phone, made supper, and Chris arrived back home.

He's been doing homework for 2 hours while I just watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding on TV, it's a funny one. Now, he's relaxin' and I'm typing. There, the detailed happenings of my weekend.

Tomorrow, I have Kid's Hope and then nothing else. I work Tues, Wed, Thurs day shifts, ugh so cold and early!

Peace dawgs.

Friday, February 08, 2008

Tick tock tick tock

Well here I sit, evening shift 3 of 3 in a row. I'm sitting because I'm in a 1:1 room, meaning I sit next to one patient all night. He's not misbehaving because he's sound asleep and I cannot keep him awake. I even got him up to the chair and he's sleeping. He's completely confused, but sleeping away the day. It's on ly 7:15, so I'm not sure how I'll last another 4 hours in here.

I haven't really done much lately since I've been working evenings. Yesterday Chris and I worked out and today I had lunch with him at Subway. And that my friends is all I've done in the past 2 days.

I'm very excited that I have the weekend off! I work Tues, Wed, Thurs day shifts. Chris has class Thursday night, so no Valentine's Day for us, poo. How dumb to have class on that day! Then Friday is Heather's party!

Well, I'm so dull right now that's all I can think of to say. Ugh. Boring. I dunno what to do. I guess I'll just sit here and watch TV.

Bye friends.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

A Blog That I Wrote

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Hello there.
I am at work with a few short minuets left. I came to work and I saw that I had no patients assigned to me....interesting. So, I approached the charge nurse and she informed me that I would be getting 2 post-ops (people coming back from surgery) and one unit transfer (someone from the intensive care unit stable enough to come to our unit. And guess what....they're all coming NOW! Um ok, well I'll try my best. But it's impossible to get 3 patients from outside the unit at the same time. Luckily they came at 3:30, 3:50 and 4:30, so I had a little bit in between to settle one patient and move on to the next. This whole debacle kept me non-stop busy from 3pm to 8pm, non-stop. So, therefore I did not eat. But I had some grahm crackers and peanut butter (the best snack Mayo has to offer on the unit).

Now my 3 lovely patients are settled and in less pain, so all is well, but it was a little intense.
I paper-cutted my finger like the worst I've ever done and it's bleeding and throbbing, ouch!

Well, quick update before I go....um....the weekend was pretty busy overnight, I barely stayed sane on Sunday night to Monday morning, but I made it and got some sleep before Kid's Hope. Monday night...hmm...I think I just hung out, watched John and Kate Plus 8. And ate left-overs for supper or something.

Tuesday, Chris had class and I watched Idol with Mom and Dad and Gavin and then Mom and I went to 27 Dresses for a late movie! I was good and fun, we giggled.

Today, I did nothing as usual when I work an evening. I stayed up until 2am last night watching season 7 Gilmore and then I woke up at 10:30 and layed on the couch watching more Gilmore until 12:30, falling in and out of sleep. Then I met Chris, Mom, and Dad at Wendy's around 1:30. We stayed there until I left for work around 2:25.

I am not proud of my laziness. Tomorrow I need to work out! I must! Maybe Chris will go with me and be my inspiration in the morning.

Some fun things are coming up in the future:

February 15th: Heather's bridal shower at my house!

March 2nd: Mom, Dad, Chris, Me, Brice, Jenny, and Gavin will go to a Timberwolves game! I'm excited! It started with Chris and I and spread to the whole fam! yay! I've never seen a professional game before!

March 15th: Heather's wedding!

April 12th: Newsboys concert in Rochester with Chris

May 2nd-ish: Kelsey has a baby and I'm auntie Brianna! yes!

Last week of June, 1st week of July: I'm takine 2 wks of vacation. Chris and I will hopefully take a short lil' vacation somewhere close, but regardless, no work, for 2 weeks!

Late August: Cuzzin Jamey gets married!

Ok, these events are getting further and further away, but yeh, I'm excited for all of them and I'm sure there's more in there too!

MMMkay, I get to go now!
Love ya all!

Monday, February 04, 2008

Writing a blog to stay awake.

Here I am on my 2nd overnight shift of the weekend. I am, of course, very tired. I only slept for 5 hours after my 1st overnight, so I'm already feeling dizzy and blurry eyed and it's only 2:30am, I got a ways to go yet.

Let's see.....My birthday was a very fun day. I got to hang out with my awesome husband all day. We had Macaroni Grill for lunch with our gift card, it was delish. Then we both had Kid's Hope, which included a Kid's Hope party, so we were there for like 3 hours, but it was a lot of fun. Then later we went to Caros O Kelleys, it was also delish. I refrained from the free icecream. Then Mom and Dad had us over for some more b-day fun. Mom had a giant birthday gift bag full of fun things for me to open. She also made me a very yummy angel food cake/strawberry dessert and I got to blow out the candle. Thanks Mom and Dad. I also got a lovely card/suckers from Gavin, heehee. Chris gave me my last two needed Gilmore Girls seasons to complete the set, yay! I love watching an episode or two before I go to bed. He also got me tickets to see the Newsboys in April! yay! Thanks babe. I also got some nice cards (2 of which were singing cards!) emails, and facebook greetings on my b-day!

The next morning, Friday, I got to see Casey, Heather, and Kelsey at Panera. We sat there a good 1.5 hours chatting and eating breakfast. Chris had to go to work and I met Brad, Julie, Kellie, and Jill at Valentino's for dinner, which they paid for! Whoop. It was lots of fun. Then later, the girls, plus Dora, and I went to Target and then to my place and watched 3 episodes of Gilmore. When Chris got home from work, he was so kind to humor us and take pictures of us. I need to put them up on here later, they're funny, at least we think so. Then we forced Chris to be in some too.

Saturday Chris and I worked out, had lunch at Culver's, and then eventually I came to work while he went to a Mayo vs Century boys basketball game with Dad and Grampa E! Fun fun, Mayo won, poo.

I woke up Saturday around 2p and went with Chris to Kelsey and Jeff's superbowel get together they always have. Kels and I played pool and darts and soon I had to leave them all for work. I stopped by to see Ma and Pa and got to relax with them and watch a bit of the game before I had to leave.

While at work tonight, I managed to watch most of the amazing 4th quarter of the superbowl, wowee, intensity! What a good game that was. Me and this IV tech were sneaky and watched for a while in the visitors lounge, don't worry, my patient's didn't need me!

Now I am sitting here, bored and tired. I have SIX patients tonight, they have a few meds here and there, but lemme tell ya, they're about the six least neediest patients ever, so their call lights rarely go off, which is nice. I was busy from like 7p to midnight, and now I'm just watching the clock until 3a, then I will go give some meds and take some vital signs.

Earlier, I answered a patient's light who wasn't mine and she told me her chest hurt and a bunch of other things, and what do ya know, her heart was in a funky rhythm and the doctors sent her off to the intensive care unit! I'm sure she'l be back tomorrow.

When I go home today, I'll only get to sleep from 8a to Noon cuz I have Kid's Hope again today at 1p, ugh, it'll be very hard to get up. I will have to set 3 alarm clocks and I asked Mom to call me around noon if she can! It's so hard to get up because it's like waking up in the middle of the night in that deep sleep! Oh well, Tuesday I can sleep in all I want to make up for the 9 hours of sleep over 48 hours that I'll get.

Whoo hoo, it's 2:54 now. Nearing the 4 hours left mark!

Well, hopefully pictures to come. There's a fun quiz below if you haven't taken it yet, you should. I made it last night at work.

Bye alls.