Saturday, February 28, 2009


13 week belly!!

Friday, February 27, 2009

Big updates!

The wonderful part of working with the elderly:


Me: Hello, sir! Are you having any pain right now?

Old man: Tomato soup! It was delicious!

Me: No, I am asking if you are having any pain. Do you hurt anywhere?

Old man: Sure I'll have some more!

(Shoot...now I have to find some tomato soup!)


I have been slacking terribly on posting. I know this. I never did this with my livejournal. I was a faithful poster, at LEAST weekly! Sorry, blog, I guess I'm just not used to you, yet.

I have found a deeply hidden love for Facebook. I am weening myself off my myspace account. There are some important people that aren't facebook-ers yet, so I can't delete it, but I won't be updating myspace anymore.

Ethan is wonderful. We had MAJOR miscommunication at school lately, but it's all settled now and everyone is very happy. We had teacher A giving me terrible reports on Ethan's behavior every. single. day. I was getting SO MAD at him, it was awful. I didn't know what to do! Then I e-mailed teacher B, who is also the lead teacher, and explained my concerns and I was told that his behavior is nothing out of the ordinary for a normal 4 year old child. Nothing he does is any different than any of the other children. They ALL have their moments, and she said he is doing just fine with correcting himself and moving on like nothing happened. I was really sad about the situation. Luckily, it's solved, and he has been doing so good.

Jay is on a 5 week layoff and I swear, if we could afford it, he'd be a stay at home dad in a heartbeat. He WANTS to stay home. He's GOOD at it. Last week was his first week off and after his FIRST time of taking Ethan to school, he had arranged a playdate with Ethan's best friend. Seriously. I've been taking Ethan to school for months, and I never did this. Jay does it once, and it's all set. We had dinner at home every night, including homemade lasagna, with homemade NOODLES. Say what? Yes! Unfortunately, my pregnant self is not allowed to eat anything with red sauce (I had this issue when pregnant with Ethan, too) so I didn't get to enjoy it.

Speaking of being pregnant. This nausea has GOT to go. I rarely actually throw up. Instead I walk around like a cat with a hairball, just randomly dry heaving every so often. It's disgusting. And it's getting old. I still haven't gained any weight, but my belly is certainly bigger! A few weeks ago I couldn't wear my regular jeans. Now I can. Strange. I take belly pictures every few weeks, though, and there are definite changes.

Work has been crazy. We had a code grey the other night. It's a terribly long story so I'll just sum it up. Picture a 350 pound guy. Naked. Angry. Throwing things. And me, trapped in the room with him and his angry, naked self. A code grey was called, all the male staff of the hospital come strutting their stuff (I swear, they love code greys) and get him in bed and put leather restraints on him. We didn't learn this part in nursing school.

We had a great day today. I love days like today, and I wish every day could be like it. First it started off with everyone sleeping in until 9. Then our bed was filled with 4 year old boy and two crazy dogs, all just loving on each other. Jay made homemade (there he goes again!) buttermilk pancakes (again, my uterus said NO to that) and we all played some Wii. Jay ran out to the bank and to get my oil changed while Ethan and I got dressed. Then we ran some errands, which included getting Jay his ankle brace, picking up my "flower of the month" from Ray Hunter, and stopping at Petsmart, where laughed until we had tears in our eyes when we found a dead fish on clearance. Jay said that he was going to take it up to the cashier and buy it and see if she noticed. You had to be there, I guess. Then we went to Texas Roadhouse, which is becoming ALL of our favorite restaurant. Came home, and have been lazy ever since. Perfect!

That's all for now.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Ethan: I want to grow up to be a man, just like my dad. He's such a good garbage man. I'm going to be a garbage man just like my dad when I get big.

(FYI Jay does construction)
I've seen a ton since I began working at the hospital last year. More than I ever saw in clinicals. Things like a 26 year old who went into a diabetic coma and died. When we turned her over, we saw she had angel wings tattooed on her back. We all gasped when we saw that. Ironic. Or the man who was just about to be discharged home, and went from sitting in a chair, totally with it, to dead, all within about 10 minutes.

Last night was the worst. Like as in, your worst nightmare kind of bad. I don't really want to get into specifics, but I'll say that someone way too young is dying right now, and the baby she is carrying is still with her. Being pregnant myself, if I started to think about it too much, I lost all focus. Why does this happen?

In other news, I really just wish I could pack up my little family of 3 and go away somewhere for a little while. I think it would do us all a world of good to get our minds off the "real world".

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

So at work we have the alcohol protocol for those who are detoxing, we have a hospice protocol for those recieving comfort measures...how about we start an obnoxious patient protocol? Good idea, no? The first part of it would be right off the bat, you become a DNR because when I give you the amount of narcotics you want, you will likely DIE, and I'm not going to waste my time doing chest compressions on you when I TOLD you you can't have that many. Oh, and you also lose your call light. Sorry, but that dinging gives me a headache and since I know I don't need morphine or dilaudid for every ache and pain, I will have to suffer through the pain. Other than that, though, all the safety measures that normally apply to those recieving narcotics will not apply to you! Yay!

In other news... Jay and I are not finding out the sex of this baby and I am already tortured by not knowing.

Monday, February 9, 2009

So my IV skills went down the drain roughly 3 or so months ago. Seriously, I couldn't start one if my life depended on it.

So today I get a direct admit. Meaning the person didn't come in through the ER. They went in to see their primary doctor and the doctor sent them straight to the hospital, past the ER, and into one of my rooms. I hate directs. You basically have to start from scratch. And tonight was CRAZY and I just didn't have time for all the work involved.

That's another story...back to the IV. So he needed one. I had already decided I was going to ask this other nurse I work with who I always say is so good at starting IVs, she could do it with her eyes closed. Unfortunately, she was super busy, too. So I decide I'll try. I gather my supplies and I get myself settled next to his bed. As soon as I start to look, he tells me he only has ONE good vein. One. So he points it out but warns "it rolls a lot". Sure enough, I kid you not, as soon as I put my finger on this teeny tiny vein, it rolled straight into his other arm. I'm not even being dramatic. I decided I better at least TRY, even if it meant blowing his only decent vein. As I am preparing myself to start, he tells me he has been a paramedic for 30 years and the last time he was in the hospital, the nurse couldn't start an IV so she left to find someone else to try and while she was gone, he started his OWN IV. I looked at him and my eyes were gigantic as he tells me this. I can feel beads of sweat on my brow. Seriously? Why did I pick HIM to try? Why didn't I pick my super confused little old guy down the hall? Well now I HAD to try. I'd look like a big chicken (and I am) if I left then.

So to make an already long, dramatic story short...I was able to start the IV and I walked on cloud 9 the rest of the night.

The end.

Sunday, February 8, 2009


Two days in a row and the nausea was minimal! Woo! I am still battling the fatigue, but I will take that ANY day over the nausea.


I am at a terribly awkward stage in my pregnancy. I don't really look pregnant, but none of my pants fit comfortably. I despise maternity jeans. Seriously. Do they make ANY with back pockets? Because I'm sure I don't speak for myself when I say that a lack of back pockets will make even the tiniest butt look big. And when you don't have a tiny butt AND your pregnant, well, that's just scary.


Jay and Ethan went up north this weekend which was nice for me because I got to do lots of relaxing. Friday night I worked, but then Saturday I laid around all day and watched America's Next Top Model marathon. Then I had dinner with my parents and went to church. Ideal day. Today my boys are home and we are just relaxing. We had my Grandma's 80th birthday party which was nice, and then we went for a walk with both dogs and Ethan rode his bike.


Did I ever mention the two dog thing? No? Well yeah..we have two dogs now. We. are. insane. Seriously. I have no idea what we were thinking. Did I mention our original dog hates other dogs and we KNEW this going in? No? Well, yeah to that, too. Lucy is getting better, but those first few weeks were rough and I spent a lot of time yelling and crying. We even started the process of giving him up, but when we learned that by contract, we would have to surrender him back to the adoption place AND pay a fee, we decided to try to work this out. He is the sweetest little dog in the world. Almost TOO sweet. Ethan named him Logan. So we have Lucy and Logan. He's a 17 pound beagle and he has the same colors as Lucy. They look really cute together. Honestly, it's getting a lot better and he brings out a really playful side to Lucy. I still wonder on a daily basis what I was thinking, though. I'll have to get some pictures up.


I had my ultrasound last week. The tech was less than exciting. She basically measured the baby blob and was done. I had to ask to see/hear the heartbeat, and that was the only way I got to see my baby for more than 2 seconds. Ethan was there, and I thought she'd be a little bit more patient with his questions. I'm a little concerned because my baby looks awfully pointy and lumpy, but I spoke with my OB and she assured me that the baby looks perfectly normal and that everything will "smooth out" within the next few weeks. I do have a picture from the ultrasound, so I can post that now.


I have a STRONG feeling that this baby is a girl. I have ever since I found out I was pregnant and even on the ultrasound, it looked like a feminine blob. I think I am feeling that way, though, just because this pregnancy is the EXACT opposite of what my pregnancy was like with Ethan, and I know that does not mean anything as far as gender goes. I can say with 100% certainty that I will be thrilled no matter what with whatever gender this babe is. I never thought I could be a mommy to a boy, until I had a boy and I found out just how amazing they can be. We'll see! Jay doesn't want to find out the sex and I do, so I'm not sure what we'll end up doing. '


Okay that's all for now.