hot sun

yesterday I had a fabulous day, I went for a walk in town, it was warm most of the time with an occasional game of peek-a-boo between the sun and the clouds. I had intended to get a cup of latte and spend time in the book store, but as usual my plans were foiled and instead I ended up walking along the river walk stopping in several areas to look out at the small boats with very small fishermen. I stood next to a couple that seemed to be in the midst of a romantic interlude, I wanted to see how long it would take them to find a different place for their romantic moves, so mean. They finally left and I had this whole area to myself so I sat on a bench and just soaked in all the sun I could. Tim called me and he suggested we meet for lunch, always a nice invite, so we were to meet at the Maritime Memorial. It was still early when I got there so I read some of the messages on the memorial wall and wondered about the lives these dead souls might have had. I went to a concrete bench and lied down on my back, I passed out for 3o minutes, so strange to wake up and not have a clue where you are. Tim and I met at the Traingle bar for a couple of cold brewskies, nice. We later went to Washington to get Oysters for his boss, that ride is so serene and beautiful. It was a terrific day all in all. Today I stayed in bed and just relaxed for several hours, then I got this sudden energy and felt like going on a hike; we ended up in Knappa, and hiked the trail at the hatchery. It is a beautiful trail, a round trip of 5 miles; soo muggy and warm. We actually were not really prepared for the hike, I was not wearing the proper shoes, my feet hurt as a result. We did have fun. I love to hike. I tried to download the pictures onto my computer but I am having trouble doing it, so I have to try again tomorrow becaue I am just not having much patience tonight. I am tired and am ready for bed. Tomorrow is my birthday, so wierd. I will be at work, so I will celebrate some other day when I am in a better birthday mood. I hate have ugly moods, but sometimes I just do.

sunshine!

There is sunshine today, it comes and goes but when it its out it stays for a long while. I am caught up with my homework so I think I am going to town. I want to go to that bookstore in the middle of town, it is very cozy, they usually have some nice tunes, they serve coffee and other stuff so it smells really good. You get the feeling that you are in someone's cozy kitchen when you are in there. I love books anyway, the smell of them the way they feel, I like reading a chapter or two of an interesting title and traveling to the particular place the story takes me; I can get so lost in there. I do believe that is what I want to do today, get lost in the words of some great author, take in the aroma of the delicious coffee and listen to strangers conversations as they talk about their day, hmmm! that sounds inviting.

I got a call from Legacy Emmanuel, yesterday, it sounds like I might get an interview for the "trauma coordinator" job that I applied for, I think it would be good for me to move down there while I work and visit my home in Astoria a couple days a week, I am getting that itch to move on. Tim does not want to go to the city, no problem, I really do not want to move anyway, but I need some new things to do. I think in the city, I can learn the bus system and travel around, visit some new restaurants, new stores, go to a concert, etc. I do not know why I have this need to move around, I would love to say that I love staying home, and I really do enjoy my home, but I get this crazy itch to move and I feel restless until I do it, so here I go. I have been waiting for the right job, not in a real big hurry because I still have a year in school, but I am bored stiff with my job now; I hate that feeling. I love to work, so if I do not enjoy my work, that is not a good thing. OK, I guess I better go out and take advantage of this little bit of sunshine before it hides back in the angry clouds that are looming in the horizon. It does not look warm out there, however, so I better get me all dressed up in my summer/winter stuff.

I took this picture in my favorite place, Garibaldi. I love boats, they are so serene and beautiful to look at.

lets continue....

I left off with the fact that I had no emergency first aid kit or even a bandaid in an event in which I was hired for 4 days to be the first aid responder and medication distributor....what is wrong with this story so far?

no first aid kit

a dorm with a cot no linens, no towels, no shit!

I have to say that all of the people in this event were quite awesome and it was a very important event for those involved.

I ended up with two large moving boxes full of medications when all was said and done. It really seemed quite easy, all the meds were labeled, most kids would be taking meds in the am and pm, a few at noon and 3 or 4 with an odd presribed medication at 2 and 4 pm. I organized them as best as I could, they were all in plastic baggies so no problem. I asked where I would be keeping these meds in between dispensing, I was informed that they were to be kept by my side at all times. I was to follow the kids around during activities in the event they needed some first aid and I had to keep the medications with me at all times. I was having a problem digesting this new information, the activities, according to my itineray showed that the youths would be all over the campus at different times, I was not going to be able to carry these boxes with me everywhere, the solution came from noone. I pondered this over a few minutes and decided to empty out my roller suitcase and put the medications in that, I am so clever. That idea worked well, but it got tiresome running all over the campus with this huge suitcase, even if it did have wheels, it was humid and hot and my allergies showed their ugly side rendering me a prisoner to my own baggie of medications, which by the way, make me verrrrry sleeeeepy!

It wasn't long before several youths spotted me where ever I was, how could they not I was the lady in blue scrubs with a huge roller suitcase, and required me to render first aid for myriad of little problems. The complaints were not critical enough to call 911, just minor enough, thank god to appease with some good advice, and a kiss on the boo boo.

One kid pointed out that he had seen an automated emergency defibrillator on the wall in the lobby, Yippi! I thought, so if someone has a heart attack, I am set! the only one having a heart attack would be me, and I am sure that the defibrillator is simply and adornment at this college because I doubt anyone is going to even think of it much less know how to use it.

One kid cut himself and came for a bandaid, I knew it, now what, great. I held pressure to his bleeding cut while I thought of what to do next. I walked him intot he bathroom and washed it out and continued to hold pressure, he asked me why I did not have bandaids? hmmmm! well I said, in my clever and authoritative voice, band aids are over raided! they harbor bacteria, it is better to air out your wound after the bleeding stops! I do not really think he believed me but I was the nurse and he was polite, so he went with it. It stopped bleeding, and he went on with his life, later I checked it, it looked great to which he said, hey you were right I can't even tell where it was....ha! I am soooo gooood!

Later a girl injured her ankle while jumping off of some stairs, her friends came running looking for me they were sure she had broken an ankle, well I thought, that would require an ER visit, I am safe. Her ankle looked great, not even swollen, so I had someone run to the cafeteria to get ice, her friends helped her get to my makeshift nurse station, you know, where all the supplies werent, so I can help this hobbled child. I propped her leg up, in front of the door where she could see the others having fun out in a far-away field. I had a plan, knowing that teen-aged girls are a little dramatic, and taking advantage of her vulnerability, I figured she was a bit needy, I told her that her injury was minor and I expected her to be up and walking in less than an hour, she then asked me how I knew this, eeeek! what to say! Well I said, see how when I pinch your toe, it turns white, then when I let go, it quickly turns red? she said, "yes", well, I said, that means your circulation is great (it does mean that), and so your healing will be fast ( little white lie here, some medicinal license at best), she believed me. In less than 10 minutes she wanted to try and see if she could walk, it was a miracle, she not only could walk, she ran to the field, damn, I so goooooood! So that is how it went, I found myself passing medication pretty much all day because these kids all have one thing in common, no sense of time and medication non-compliance, but I was getting paid so what could I do?

Sleeping was not so fun, muggy, no linen, I slept on a cot with nothing but a thin mattress! ahhh poor me!

Why do some things sound good but when you do them they are horrible?

I volunteered to serve as a first aid responder for a certain event, in a certain university in Oregon. The event involves young adults in a time of transition in their lives, and for the record let me just say that any names are ficticious to protect the identities of the real people and places, anyway, I saw an advertisement in my job's website that was recruiting a nurse to go to this event for 3 nights and 4 days to be the first aid responder and to log and dispense medications to these youths; I seized the opportunity!
My thoughts were quite romantic, I would have my own dorm, free meals, get paid for basically just being there, sounded so good. I liked the idea of going to a university and pretending I was a student, you know, mingling with other students, joining them in their meals and activities, how fun, and get paid! seriously! so why did no one jump on this opportunity? hmmmm! always suspect such situations, Iam more the wiser now.
I set out with my bags, my laptop, you know to do myhomework, I bought a couple snacks including sunflower seeds and yogurt. I googled my map and off I went with high spirits and much elan!, I love that word. I immidiately ran into some problems, I spilled a huge bottle of water on my camera and my car seat, was this an omen? oh no!
The google directions were slightly wrong but being the resourceful person that I am, I found the University with an hour to spare.
Once in the university grounds, vast grounds for the sake of this story, I started to panic, it is huge, and many many buildings, I had to find a parking spot and walk to the administration building where I asked for directions to my destination; I must say the girls at the front desk were very helpful and gave me a map with the "you are here" arrow, easy peasy, I thought. Soon I found that although the map was great it did not include the CONSTRUCTION BARRIERS, what up? 30 minutes later after driving in many circles and going in to restricted areas I found the building I wanted, but I had to park far, far, far away, no problem I need and love to walk; I was just happy to find the building with 15 min. to spare, I hate being late. I got there, it was a hot and muggy day, nice people introduce me to everyone, they handed me a ticket to place on my windshield so that they would not tow my car, ok, so here I go for that long walk, and I could not bring my bags because we would be handing out dorms and keys later, I started to feel that i was going to get my badly needed but much procrastinated, workout. Eventually I was in a large room where the guests started to arrive, young exhuberent youths, with incredible energy, dressed in bright yellow shirts displaying their logos, the music started, they were practicing a little welcome dance. I later found out that these young people were the leaders of what would be other young people that were coming to this event, it really looked like it was going to be fun, so I needed to get down to business, chop! chop! after all, I was here to render first aid and by the looks of the moves on the stage, there were going to be some injuries, so I wanted my first aid kit, my location etc.
First aid kit? oh, wow, there is a little problem, I heard coming out of this way-to-bubbly blond leader, noone thought of bringing a first aid kit, NICE! no worries, I will just pull banaids and ice bags out of my ass!. Blondy proceeded to tell me that all I needed to do was to log and dispense the youths medications, I see, so just how many medications can a youth have? and by-the-way, just how many youths are there? wait to I want to know this?
They scurried around looking for a box to put the medications into and a notebook for logging, and to appease me they made a little makeshift nurse station with a pretty poster that said "nurse", so sweet. I had no clue what this entailed and noone would offer any answers, they were too busy doing their part, which by-the-way was much better organized, after all they have been doing this proudly, for eleven years.
I guess, I started to think, this will be easy money, I get my dorm, with my refrigerator, microwave, and get paid to give out medications, hmmm! smells like drug pushing to me, but oh well.
As the youths started to arrive and getting in line to hand be their plethora of medications, I started logging feverishly, I started to realize why the job assignment was opened for a long time, here I was in my little nurses station with two huge moving boxes, a pen and a little worpt binder, writing names of drugs, how many, how often, etc. Frankly, if you need to take so many happy pills, and you are this young, something is terribly wrong. My thoughts started to wonder, what if they do not take their happy pills, what happens then? the word postal came to mind, but I was digressing, so I took a deep breath and just got to the task.
This will be continued for it only gets dramatically better and I am going to have to retire to my cot, "cot" being the operative word here, with my no linens because they failed to tell me that I needed to bring my own sheets, towels etc. I have gone on many hikes and I have had more linen and furniture on my backpacking trips than I have now, but that is a subject yet to be explored......

Are there stupid questions?

Yes there are, I am so sick of well-doers telling people that there are no stupid questions, because there are and they are time consuming, distracting and frustrating for those of us that know the answers. Yea, OK here is an example of a SQ, I give a patient a gown as I put him/her in a room, the complaint is a rash on the chest, stupid question? "do I put this on?", really? I want to say something along the lines of: no, I just gave it to you in case you want to play dress up..., no, what would make you think that?..., no, let the doctor undress you...no, I just hand out gowns as door prizes, its yours take it home...Seriously! Yes I am cynical but how can that be preventable? stop asking stupid questions! That is all I have to say on this subject.

This is a picture of my new haircut, not too good but you can tell that it is pretty short...who cares? yea no S____!

Again I sit in front of my computer doing home work and try to figure out how it is that any school of higher education, can think that anyone person has time for so much reading, research, and homework? I work full-time, and perform other daily tasks on my activities of daily living (ADLs). I have to sleep, eat, entertain myself (and that in itself includes a myriad of things), tend to my animals, my SO, and my home. I have to do certain chores and go to the dentist,(I have an appointment today which will take approximately 2 hours between getting there, being there and getting back). Today the one of the community bars has beer for two dollars, all day, I have to go for at least 2 hours, and that will render me incapable of doing much else. What I am saying, is that we need to cut down on these school requirements!