Problems Resolved
I was finaly able to resolve a problem with my blogging software, and a couple of postings that I THOUGHT had posted are now posted for real.
In One Second....
It's the friday before memorial day weekend, 2 days before Steve's 41st birthday. I've planned a busy weekend, a trip to West Virginia on Saturday for a visit to the Fiesta Ware Outlet, and some slot machine action at the Wheeling Island casino, with Sunday spent celebrating Steve's birthday, probably dinner at our favorite sushi place, and cake at home. To start the weekend, we decide to go out for dinner, before coming back home and relaxing after a long week of work. We are 2 blocks from the house, and about to turn onto the main road when all the plans we've made for the weekend, and indeed for the rest of the summer, are changed for us in one horrible second.
I saw the car out of the corner of my eye before Steve did. I had just enough time to yell his name before the front end of the Cavalier made contact with the drivers side door of Steve's Focus. Then there was the crunch of metal, and shower of glass, and the acrid smoke of antifreeze and oil burning on the hot engine block.
I examined my hands, my arms, my legs, looking for any signs of damage, moving each joint expecting to feel the sharp stab of pain from a broken bone. Nothing. Not a scratch. I look over at Steve, he's bleeding from a small cut on his left ear, his hands brushing glass from his beard and the front of his shirt. My hearing comes back, and I notice that the engine of the car is still running. "Turn off the engine Steve" I say, in much calmer a voice that I ever imagined I would use after something like this. He does. I ask him if he's OK. He says he is, but that he can't straighten out his leg, his knee feels stuck.
The driver of the other car and her passenger are fine, walking around the vehicles, surveying the damage, calling 911 from cell phones. I call too. Just as I hang up, the EMTs arrive. They come to Steve's car first, since we are still sitting in the car, assuming that we are both injured. I get out of the car, tell them I'm fine. Steve can't get out of the car, his door is jammed, and he can't get hi knee to work enough to climb over the seats. The EMT has to help him, and once he's out of the car, he is unable to stand fully on his right leg. He will be in the squad truck and off to the hospital within 10 minutes for x-rays and a diagnosis of a tibial plateau fracture. This will require surgery, which is performed at OSU medical center on June 1. Steve will be unable to put any weight on his leg for the next three months.
Steve is doing well. THe surgery was a success, and he should make a full recovery. He's getting around the house with the aide of a walker, and we have a wheelchair for longer trips, so at least he will be able to get out of the house this summer. I'm in nurse mode at home, making sure he takes his meds, and giving him his Lovenox shots every morning.
We are both starting to relax a bit, after running at full speed, and being worried about his leg for nearly 2 weeks. Now the healing, and the rehab will occupy our time, and hopefully by fall, he'll be back to normal.
Happy Easter
Happy Easter, or whatever spring holiday you choose to celebrate...
Here's an Easter Fail:
45 Years
This past weekend, Steve and I went to Toledo to celebrate my parents 45th wedding anniversary.
Everything I know about being in love, and building a family I learned from these two people.
Happy anniversary mom and dad.
Construction Projects and General Maintenance.
I’m not one to make new years resolutions. They never last, life gets in the way, and any specific goals I ever set at the beginning of the year are usually long forgotten by Easter.
But this year, I thought I would pick a few areas of my life that I feel need a little maintenance, and focus on them in a general way. No specific goals, just areas that I would like to feel better about, or projects that I’d like to be further along with at this time next year.
So, it is my hope that 2009 will be the year that I:
Start taking better care of my health.
I am at least 70 pounds over weight and I feel every ounce of it. My knees and ankles scream at me just about every morning, but even more so the morning after I’ve worked a 12 hour shift at work. I can’t continue to do my job and carry around all this extra weight. I gained a lot of weight when I went to nursing school, and then more when I quit smoking. Nursing school was 4 years ago, and I quit smoking 2 years ago. It’s time to focus on the extra blubber.
Reconnect with my spiritual side.
When I was younger, I was a much more spiritual / religious person than I am now. Over the last few years, I’ve neglected that part of myself, and I really do miss it. I feel sometimes like there is something I need to be thinking about, something bigger than myself. Over the next few months, it’s my intention to explore my spirituality again, and hopefully become more grounded than I have been lately.
Complete my R.N. Studies.
I have the books, I have the materials, and I’ve been paying the bill for the last 4 months. I just need to sit my ass down every day and study! For some reason, I just can’t get past the first two chapters of Introductory Sociology…..zzzzzzzzzzz….See? just typing the title made me sleepy!
Read More for Pleasure.
This may be wishful thinking, what with all of the stuff I need to read for the R.N. classes, but I have a stack of books I bought last year that I just never got around to reading. First up: The Watchmen. Steve has been after me to read it, and I’d like to finish it before the movie comes out in March.
Reconnect with Friends I’ve lost touch with, and open myself to new friendships.
I’ve lost touch with so many good friends over my lifetime. I have theories as to why, and I’ll write about that later. But this is the year that I will try to get back in touch with people that matter to me. And it’s also the year that I will be looking to make some new friends.
Time to Confess....
OK, I admit it, I suck at blogging. I’m terrible when it comes to updating this thing and I’ve been trying to figure out why.
I have ideas for postings all the time, but just can’t seem to sit down and make myself write. I always find some reason why I don’t have time, or find something else to do once I sit down at my desk. Before I know it, I’ve forgotten all about writing this blog, and have down loaded a months salary worth of new music on iTunes.
Maybe it’s that I just don’t feel that my ideas or thoughts are interesting to anyone. I mean, really, who would be interested in the rantings of bear in Columbus Ohio?
Or I worry that my writing isn’t as good as some of the other blogs I read on a regular basis. I’m not as good at putting my thoughts into words as maybe JP, or Sean, or Moby or Homer or….well, you get the idea. I guess maybe I’m just too self critical for my own good.
Then again, maybe I’m just afraid that I’ll make myself look foolish or silly by writing what I really want to write. This is actually a recurring theme in my life. I’ve always had a fear of not being in control and appearing foolish or silly in front of people I don’t know.
But you know, the more I think about it, the more I realize that none of this matters. I enjoy writing, and I shouldn’t stop myself from putting my thought out here just because I don’t feel that I measure up to other people. People will find what I write interesting, or they won’t. And as far as looking foolish, the chances are slim and none that I will ever meet the people that read this in person, so what the hell?
So, with that in mind, look for more frequent postings from me this year. I hope people reading what I write will find it interesting, and maybe even leave a comment or two if the spirit moves them to do so.
If I bore you, you can always move on to the next blog in your blog roll and come back later.
Happy New Year all! Here’s to a great 2009!
2 Years....
Today marks the 2nd anniversary of my last cigarette.
Here's an interesting piece of math:
The current price of a pack of smokes here in Ohio is about $5.00.
In two years of not smoking, I have saved nearly $4,000.00. that's a nice chunk of change.
Now, if only I had actually put that $5.00 a day in the bank...
Thanksgiving Morning
It's 11:00 AM on Thanksgiving day and Steve and I already have a nice holiday glow.
It's our tradition, on major holidays, to sleep in, then have cinnamon rolls and mimosas for breakfast. I guess this year, the champagne and orange juice went down a little too easy. At least it made the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade easier to watch. Speaking of which.....
Why the hell can't NBC just shut the hell up and show the parade? On thanksgiving morning, I want to see a parade, not cuts from every awful show on broadway. The whole thing has become just an ad for the new york theaters. (At least on NBC). I switched over to CBS about half way through, and their coverage wasn't much better. But at least they didn't cut away from the parade every 5 minutes to televise some (poorly) lip synched performance by the cast of the latest Disney stage horror.
This afternoon, we'll be heading over to Steve's sister's place for dinner. It should be interesting, since it's the first holiday since Steve's step father passed away on November 16. Holidays with his family usually involve some sort of drama, I can't wait to see what this brings.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope you have a great day no matter which family you choose to spend it with.
Recent Events
Where to begin?
It's been a busy couple of weeks, with little time to sit and think, let alone write. A week of endings, beginnings, and of things finally feeling right after feeling wrong for a while.
An Ending:
One week ago today, we buried Steve's step father, Ron. He had been ill for a while, dealing with the aftermath of a botched knee replacement surgery (MRSA infection), congestive heart failure, and declining health after 70+ years of not taking care of himself. In the end, it was pneumonia that caused his death on November 16th, just a few hours after being removed from the ventilator he had been connected to for 7 days.
The funeral was small, attended by close family and friends. Ron had 3 children from a previous marriage in addition to Steve and his brother and sister. Steve is doing OK, and his mother is starting to adjust to life without the drama of having an ill spouse to occupy your time.
My feelings are mixed. Ron was a bigoted, opinionated bastard at times, full of bluster and ego. This led to times when I just could not stand to be around him, declaring at one point that he made Archie Bunker look liberal.
But, he was a good provider and husband for Steve's mother, marrying her when she was a single mother with 3 children, providing a home for them, and raising them like they were his own. I guess that's no different than any of us. We balance our good side with our bad side, and in the end all we can hope to say, or have said of us, is that we did our best.
A Beginning:
We found out in August that Steve's niece Karie is expecting her first child in April. This past week, we saw the first ultrasound pics of the baby. It's a girl, and her name will be Haiden. I can't wait to be a "great uncle bear" and have already suggested to Karie that she rent a copy of Auntie Mame to see just what she's in for. I fully intend to make sure that two of little Haiden's first words are "Prada" and "Tiffany's". Every child should have an "Uncle Mame"
And lastly, from the Things Are Finally Right department:
I'm back on my 36 hour / week schedule at work. For me, that means that everything is back to normal after my awful experience with that other job. Things are finally back to where they before I left. I'd forgotten how nice it was to have days free during the week. Working 12 hour shifts and working every other weekend is a small price to pay for only having to work 3 days a week.
Politics
I'm VERY happy about the outcome of the presidential election. I keep hoping that this is truly the death knell for the religious domination of the republican party, and not just a fluke.
The passage of Prop 8 in California however does NOT please me. But I have to wonder: Where the fuck were all of the people protesting when anti gay marriage amendments passed 4 years ago in Ohio and a few other states? No one seemed to care then, but now that it's happened in California we are ALL supposed to be outraged?
Typical west coast / east coast homo mentality: Nothing matters unless it happens to them. Fuck the rest of country. Well, you know what? Welcome to the reality that 75% of the rest of the gay country has to live with every day.
Did anyone stop to think that if we were not so hung up on the word MARRIAGE, with all of it's religious connotations that we might actually have equivalent civil partnerships by now? Nope. All these loud mouthed homos seem intent on wanting to be just like the straight folks next door.
And here's another hint California: Tell Gavin Newsome to shut the hell up. His comment about gay marriage coming wether anyone "Wanted it or not" probably did more harm than you know.
Is it November Already?
Time to play catch up:
After 3 months of hell, (3 months that i will never get back) I decided that I needed to leave the staff development job I took last July. It turned out to be more of a human resources job than a nursing job. I was miserable, and in spite of the fact that i had decided to give the place 6 months before deciding to leave, I know deep down that the outcome would be the same. I gave them as little notice as possible, and went back to my old job, where they were only too glad to have me back. I should have gone with my gut reactions about the job. I would have saved myself a few weeks of misery.
The month of October was spent getting back into the groove of actually being a nurse again, working odd shifts (Had to take what was available since I went back with little notice.) and shaking off the dust of the hateful place I had been at for the previous 3 months. I did manage to get a little outdoor time in. Here are a couple pictures of the fall color around these parts:
The colors this year were kind of dull. Not as spectacular as years past. We had a dry summer, so that probably had something to do with it.
Now it's November, and I'm back to working mostly days shifts on a new skilled nursing unit ( Skilled = rehab patients, few dementia patients and more complex cases) that was just opened. I'm loving being a hands on nurse again, and don't see myself leaving. I'm going to use the time to finish my RN studies while I have a stable place to work.
September Update
What an interesting ( or awful, depending on your point of view) few weeks it's been.
First of all, work is going a bit better. I'm finally starting to feel like part of the team, and people are being nicer. The new administrator is working out well, and I DO like her. She's the kind of manager I like working for, one who isn't afraid to get her hands dirty, and is willing to let you run your department, as long as you keep her informed.
The last week in August, we underwent a mock state survey. This is an opportunity to see where we might need to make changes, improvements, etc. before the state of Ohio conducts their annual inspection survey. Talk about stressful. Everyone looking at every minute piece of information, making sure that every I was dotted and every T was crossed. But it was worth the pain. We found out that the facility is actually doing a very good job, and that there were very few things that needed to be changed or corrected.
Just as we were relaxing and working on action plans from the mock survey, the REAL survey team from ODH showed up at 6:40 AM on September 9. Talk about great timing. Since we were all in "survey mode" from the mock survey, handling the real one was a lot less stressful than it could have been. We passed inspection, with NO deficiencies. That is something rare in the nursing home world. Needless to say, the new administrator is thrilled, and and so are the people at the corporate office.
We were still feeling the warm glow from the perfect survey when, on Sunday, Sept. 14, a MAJOR wind storm swept across Ohio. This was the remnants of hurricane Ike, combined with a strong low pressure system coming out of Canada. We had sustained winds of 35-40 MPH, with frequent gusts of wind clocked at 65-75 MPH. Needless to say, the entire central Ohio are was a complete mess.
The electricity went out everywhere at around 4:00 PM Sunday afternoon, and still isn't back on in many parts of Columbus and the surrounding suburbs. (We were lucky at our house, power was restored about 8 hours after it went out. ) There were trees down everywhere, major property damage (Mostly from falling trees and branches), and no one anywhere had cable or internet service for about 3 days. (I will remember that next time I'm tempted to bundle our phone service in with the cable and internet service. No thanks. I don't want to be completely cut off.)
The power was also out at the nursing home for 2 days. Not such a bad thing, since we have an emergency generator that will power some lights and all essential equipment. The biggest problem was getting everyone fed when we didn't have any working kitchen equipment.
Now that the weekend is here, life seems to be getting back to normal (or as normal as possible) and things are settling down a bit. Hopefully next week will be a little less hectic than the last 3. (knock on wood!)
More State Fair Pics
No visit to the Ohio State Fiar would be complete without a visit to the dairy barn for a dish of ice cream and a gander at the world famous Butter Cow:
Yes, it's sculpted out of butter. So is the calf next to her.
But wait! There's more! Here in Ohio, we are not content to have just a cow and her calf sculpted from buttery goodness, but each year there is another sculpture, the subject of which is always a closely guarded secret until the first day of the fair.
This year, the Ohio State Fair proudly presented:
BUTTER PRESIDENTS!
Yes, a Mount Rushmore style pile of butter, bearing the faces of the nine presidents to have come from the buckeye state! Here they are, in all of their saturated glory!
L to R: Benjamin Harrison, McKinley, Taft, and Harding
Continuing around to Hayes and Garfield
And finally, William Henry Harrison and U.S. Grant.
Who says the fine arts are dead in the midwest?
The Ohio State Fair
Even with all of the turmoil with my new job, Steve and i did manage to get out for some fun this summer, including a day spent at the Ohio State Fair.
Here are a few pictures from the day:
The Giant Man Eating cardinal at the front gate. The cardinal is the state bird of Ohio, in case you were wondering.
The Main Gate.
One of the old exhibit buildings. There are two like one, both built in the early 1900s, and still in use.
Iron Weed flowers in the prairie exhibit. Ohio was once mostly covered by prairie land, and there is a movement to bring some of it back. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has planted a small prairie inside the fairgrounds.
Giant, creepy, Smokey the Bear. There's a ODNR employee inside the thing, talking to the kids through a microphone.
The midway.
The Ferris Wheel. No, we don't ride anything. Something about large machinery that is taken apart and put back together on a regular basis makes us both a little nervous.
Time Flies......
...when you're not sure if you're having fun.
So, it's been a while since my last posting, but I didn't realize how much of the summer had gotten away from me until recently.
It's already August 30, and I feel like I missed the whole summer, mostly due to the new job.
How is the new job going you ask? Well, that's a long answer to a short question.
I started the job on July 1, and stepped into the middle of a B-hive.
Here's the hit list:
The office that they were supposed to have ready for me wasn't. I wouldn't have an office space of any kind for nearly 4 weeks.
The computer they were supposed to have ready for me wasn't even in the building. (It would be nearly 6 weeks before I got the equipment I needed to actually do the job I was hired for.)
The woman who had been the administrator when I interviewed for the job had been pretty much shown the door the day before I started. Taking her place was a corporate vice president who obviously went to the "fear and intimidation" school of management.
The people who work here are actually some of the meanest people I have every had the misfortune of working with. They've thrown each other under the bus so often that the tread marks are permanent.
The woman who hired me, the DON, was demoted a week later. Nice huh? Now there's an interim DON until a permanent replacement is located.
The corporate VP seemed to take an instant dislike to me and acted like she was smelling something bad every time she looked in my direction. (Although I found out she acts like that toward just about everyone.)
So, needless to say, my first few weeks at the new job were not happy one. We finally have a new administrator, and she seems OK (except for a tendency to be a micro-manager) and we are still waiting for a new DON to be hired. But I'm not sure that I want to stick around to see what happens next.
Truth is, I miss being a hands on nurse. I can see that this job is going to be more about pushing paper than doing any actual nursing.I went to nursing school originally to get away from paper pushing, but now I'm right back at it.
I've discussed it with Steve, and I've decided to give it 6 months, then decide if I'm going to stay. Time will tell.
Well... That was Fast
Just a couple of days after posting my rant about being disatisfied with my current place of employment, I finaly learned the outcome of the interview process I started back on May 21.
Apparently, it IS a good thing when the people interviewing you high five each other after you answer a question. I have been offered, and accepted, the position of Staff Development Coordinator at another long term care facility. I start July 1.
Just what IS a Staff Development Coordinator you ask? Well, I'll be responsible for hiring the nursing assistants and nurses, and providing all of the required inservice programs, as well as developing additional training programs for the facility. This job is the perfect merging of my previous experience as a corporate trainer, and my new nursing career. It's part training, part HR and part nursing. I will also have the chance to teach nursing assistant courses, and do community outreach for the facility.
I tried to convince my current employer to let me do this job for them, but that was never going to happen. I've already given my notice, and they actually seemed happy for me. (Maybe it helped that I agreed to work out the rest of the month, instead of just 2 weeks.)
Oh, did I mention that this is a management position, and that I will be working Monday to Friday, 8-5, with weekends and holidays off? And that it involves a nice little pay raise? And quarterly bonus? <GRIN> Yeah.. I'm a happy bear...
There is ONE tiny draw back however.. Because this is a management , front office position, I won't be able to wear scrubs to work every day. The dress code is business casual. After nearly 6 years of working in health care, I have nothing in my wardrobe that even fits that description. ( I have a ton of scrubs, I have jeans and t-shirts, and I have a couple of suits. That's it.) So, I had to go clothes shopping..
Let me tell you something: 5 years of wearing scrubs (which are basically pajamas) can let a bear seriously delude himself as to his actual size. And I have. Shopping for new clothes this evening was NOT a fun experience. (Especially not for Steve who had to deal with me as my attitude went south). Ah well, that are things that can be done in that department too.. Time to get to work...
A Search for Greener Grass
WARNING: Long Rant Ahead
I’m not sure exactly when it was that I started to hate my job. Over the last few months, it has gotten harder and harder for me to go into work, and harder still to maintain a positive attitude once I’m there.
Don't get me wrong, I still like WHAT I do for a living, and am still sure that I made the right career move. Lately however, I’m not too sure that I like WHERE I work. I’m now more convinced than ever that I need to make a change.
Although it is hard to identify the straw the broke the proverbial camel’s back, I can list a few of the straws in the pack:
Maybe it was the day that a nursing assistant’s baby daddy showed up in the parking lot with a gun, and the DON called ME to see if I could go and see what was going on. (Fortunately, I had already left the building for the day and wasn’t trapped there while the facility was locked down for 2 hours.)
Maybe it was the day that the DON stood at the nurses station and loudly proclaimed that “None of you nurses are passing your medication! There are too many boxes of pills in the med carts!” (Even though we had been telling her for months that the pharmacy we use was over delivering medication, and probably over billing for it too. But no, we were the incompetent ones, not the pharmacy.)
Could it have been the day I found the rock of crack wrapped in a dollar bill in the middle of a hallway? Or the bag of weed in a patient’s room? Or the day the IV patient with a history of drug abuse became irate because her nurse wouldn’t give her a dilaudid injection through her PICC line? (For those who don’t know, a PICC line is a catheter for IV meds that runs directly into a major vein. Putting dilaudid in it fast would get you really high, really fast.)
Or, maybe it’s the fact that most of our nursing assistants seem to think it’s OK to drop the f-bomb in every sentence, and have gang tattoos up their necks, and think it’s OK to be 10-30 minutes late every day. (Then I’m the one who gets criticized when I have to rearrange the daily assignment list to make sure that there are enough aides to care for the patients.)
Perhaps it the fact that the nursing assistants are allowed to be openly insubordinate to us nurses (their supervisors) but the minute we try to actually BE managers (like the DON says we should) the nursing assistant go crying to the DON who then comes to us and berates us for being “Nasty and rude” to the staff. (Um.. asking them to clean up a resident that has soiled themselves, NOW instead of "After I take my break" is rude? Huh. News to me...)
Is it the fact that I haven't had a regular schedule in the 3 years I have been working there, and that I never get my monthly schedule until nearly the first of the month, making it impossible to plan any further ahead than 3 weeks at a time? (The person that does the scheduling says it’s impossible to do a set schedule, even though everyone knows it can be done. The problem is that SHE can’t figure out how to do it.)
There are those that will tell me that these are problems that I might find at any facility. But I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think that the people managing the facility I work at are really all that concerned, and in fact spend more time barricaded in their offices than they do paying attention to what is going on in the rest of the building. (As long as the beds are full and the money is coming in, they really don't seem to care about much else.)
All of these things are contributing to my dissatisfaction with my job. It’s a struggle to go in every day, a struggle to stay focused and positive, and a struggle to maintain a professional attitude with the staff, residents and families.
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve started looking for a new job, putting in applications at a few other facilities, and have had a couple of interviews. I owe it to myself to see if there is a better place out there before I decide to get out of long term care all together.
License Plate WTF?
I wonder if the woman driving this car actually thought about this before requesting it from the BMV?
