RETIREMENT

 Three months into retirement and I am loving it...loving it. Sewing, gym, shopping, quilting, quilt shows, motorcycle riding, friends, church, more sewing. Life is good. 

 THANKSGIVING AND POST-THANKSGIVING 2021

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving last week. Jack and Olivia came to visit...and Olivia did all the onion chopping and hand dish-washing going for two days! Molly and Ben came for dinner, and Molly made the most wonderful Cherry pie and two Bourbon Pecan pies I have ever tasted. It rained, so my plan of sitting outside did not pan out. We even had a bon-fire ready to go...however it would have been a smoky dud if we had tried to start it. 

I even got the Christmas tree up, although to be honest, it pretty near whipped my butt. I had loaned Ben my "pre-lite" 6 foot spruce, but after all the moving and stuff the top part would not light up anymore, so he had stored it and bought him a new tree. I was just going to put lights on the top and make do, but in the confusion of packing up Chances stuff for Virginia and the rest of Beth's (ex- daughter-in-law) stuff...many things got removed to the local dump. Alas, my fancy half lighted tree was one of those items. Ben saved the day though. He looked in his attic, and lo and behold he found a Christmas Tree box, with an actual tree in it! It was an older spruce where each limb is color coded and hooks onto the main trunk. It has a heavy duty fold open base and it was a quality tree when they purchased it years ago. Said tree had no instructions...but seemed pretty clear cut. Fire up that first glass of wine and lets get started. Dave has  snuck out to the other room, after the yearly argument over having a Christmas tree. He may be Baptized as a /Southern Baptist now, but those Pentecostal roots run deep. I call him my "closet Pentecostal"...the Christmas tree hating kind. Anyway, so I have stacks of tree branches everywhere. I start...I am working semi-from the bottom up, just at least one of each size branch in place to remind me where they go...and the damned branches just keep falling off. Fire up glass of wine number two, put on the Christmas music, hunt for my readers so I can see the letters on the branch ends. I had worked the night before, I had only slept 2 hours, my cognitive skills were already pretty sketchy.  I send Ben a Text that I am having a hell-of-a-time with the tree because it is different that what I have put together in the past, He ad Molly offer to come over after the pies come out of the oven. Well that is an option I can live with! LOL. I notice that one of the branches looks bent...so I lift up on it as I am pushing back...OMG...THEY LOCK IN PLACE. Now I have to back-track and LOCK IN PLACE every previously mangled branch I have managed to get in place. Awesome! Text Ben Back "Don't come...figured it out". LOL. Fire up glass of Wine number three. Fly through putting all the other branches on. OMG, the needle fall-out. Grab the vacuum cleaner and clean the floor. Now is time for fluffing the branches. This part took an additional hour. OMG,  the needle fall-out...repeat of the vacuum cleaning, dog who hates the vacuum has now left because she is terrorized. Fire up glass of Wine number four....by now the box of wine is getting low, lol. I pull out the new strings of lights, find an extension cord and plug them in...all of them work. Starting at the bottom and working to the top I place all 600  multi-colored LED's strategically so that any thin area of the tree will not show. Then comes all the glittery ornaments. I am down to just a few glittery stars...and on to Wine glass number five when JACK AND OLIVIA arrive.  I am still standing (barely...my poor feet are hurting, but my balance is great). Olivia helps m with the last of the ornaments. I start packing up the ornament boxes and stuff I didn't use and I find another box of ornaments...I mean at least one hundred more ornaments...nope nope nope nope...we are done. (DAVE has already deserted to the bed). Jack helps me put the boxes in the attic (I do the stairs and he hands the crap to me). I vacuum one last time. Done....Glass of wine number six is chilling in the glass.  Did I every tell anyone I am not much of a wine drinker? I mostly don't care for the taste, but todays boxed wine was mighty fine. 

We stayed up a while. Olivia made guacamole, I made tater salad (needs made the day ahead so the flavors are all good). It was fun. Go to bed late. Next morning...gee why is my head hurting? Dave got up at 5 and started roasting the Turkey. I get my first cup of coffee (throw in a shot of Pecan Praline Whiskey to deal with the wine headache) and we are off to the races. Make a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs, turkey bacon and biscuits with butter and whatever kinda jelly ya want. OJ, goat milk, water, coffee, tea...paper plates (cause I am that kinda gal who hates dishes). We got a call from my Nephew Michael about this time...good to hear from him. I wish he could see this Ornate Tree I constructed by myself! I the put the dressing in the oven and got the last minute items on to a slow simmer. (Can't do without that Turkey gravy!). Dave didn't think I should make breakfast since we would have so much food for lunch, but he ate anyhow. Thanksgiving dinner was planned for 2 and we actually started at 3, when Ben, Molly and the pies arrived., so I was glad I had made breakfast.  We also had pies that Jack and Olivia brought, pumpkin and chocolate, so all the bases were covered.  We had so much food I was in a coma. Later realized we didn't put out any cranberry sauce...lol...it was not missed.  the good thing was that it was cool enough, we just kept everything covered on the bar and it was snack at your own risk. LOL. Paper plates made clean up a snap...and bless Olivia's heart over there doing the hand washing. We had so much fun. 

I had to work the day after Thanksgiving, so Jack and Olivia left around Noonish so I could get my nap. I knew it would be busy the days following the holiday, and it has been...like insane crazy busy. I pulled into work with an ambulance pulling into the ER bay. I see CPR in progress...oh HELL...run in, don't worry about clocking in, throw my work stuff in the break room, grab my stethoscope and pen and get to work. This little lady had been down for awhile before being found, so she did not make it. Sad for the family the day after Thanksgiving. So the shift started with a bang and just kept going from there. I think I clocked 12,000 steps that day. 

And that my friends...is how our Thanksgivings roll...good one day and crazy the next. 

So you think you can Walk?

 April 30th. A day to remember or forget. I got up to get ready for SAMA training. Had to be off the night before, so had slept pretty well. Got up really early, or at least it felt that way, but my day was getting ready to start with a BANG. 

From time to time we keep the Grand-dog named Pepper who is a 65# black lab and we have our black Lab Layla 100# girl. So, I let them out at about 7 a.m. and go to fix their food. I have to leave by 7:30 to be hospital by 8 and I am already cutting it close. I hear thunder (no no no no no). I hear heavy raindrops...the floor of heaven literally opens up and the rec room is a caliopy of sound (metal roof)...is that hail I hear? I rush to let the dogs in...slide down the hall in my stocking feet, hit the step into the rec room....the edge of the step...like one inch of the step and come down hard on my left heel. All my weight...all of it fell on this heel...this heel that has had inflammation...SCHREECH! OMG....PAIN WORSE THAN NATURAL CHILDBIRTH.... cannot catch my breath....pick myself up. crawl to the rocking chair and get back on my feet and hobble to the door to let in two very soaked pups. It is literally raining cats and dogs. 

Dogs fed. I am still barely able to hobble. It is still raining. I have texted to check to see if the class has been cancelled, because it is raining so hard...nope class still on. Locate umbrella, get into car (a little wet, but ok.) Drive to the gate...and find it closed (dang it...forgot about that), get out...can't hold the umbrella when having to hold onto the car door to walk. SOAKED TO THE SKIN...AND IT IS A COLD RAIN! Finally get to hospital, the classes are downstairs...alllllll the way on the other side of the building.........wow. 

So after all that I did get x-rayed 3 days later, not broken, told it was a sprain. Pain persists. I am working on this ankle and it is not getting better. Go back to primary doc get scheduled for MRI. Still hurting, still working....still managing. Well guess what...it's a complete tendon rupture...torn...completely, tendon gone with 6 cm of retraction....sooooo

Surgery on 6/16. What I didn't know? That I would be on crutches for two weeks...two weeks...OMG. 

MEMORIES OF A 7 YEAR OLD (1965)

 In my head I am hearing Bobby Gentry singing "Ol to Billy Joe"... "It was the 3rd of June, another sleepy, dusty, delta dayyyyyyy", but actually it was the End of August and the first day of school in Idabel, OK. I was 7 ( almost 8) and President Kennedy had been murdered and buried the previous fall. Momma and Daddy had split up again and were embroiled in a divorce. Momma had moved us back to Oklahoma to live with Grandma and Grandpa while she got back up on her feet. Times were hard and jobs were scarce...but momma was trying.

It was hot and muggy that early late September morning. It had rained overnight, but now moisture just hung in the air in a fine mist.  We were ready for school waiting in our new clothes. Grandma had made me a pretty blue dress, decorated with rick rack and a big bow tie on the back. I had new shoes and white socks. It was so humid that you could literally taste the air. It had rained overnight and the Oklahoma red dirt road was a river of sticky mud. 

The  bus was late, but being kids we didn't worry. Since it was the first day of school, grandma was monitoring from the front window to be sure the bus stopped for us, since it was gonna be the first time we ever rode the bus. Of course , since my Great Uncle Sam lived next to the bus driver, Mr. Ayers, he was already alerted to the newest Williamson clan members that would be gracing his blue bird bus, so the it wasn't likely he would forget about us. 

Seven thirty came and went...school started at 8 am sharp. We were 13 miles from town, so the bus surely should have arrived to pick up it's newest riders. Suddenly we saw a scraggly group of High School students, followed by the grade school kids and even the littlest  kindergarden kids trailing behind, walking up the muddy hill to Grandpa's house.  One of the high school boys told grandpa that the bus had made the curve onto the wooden bridge, but because the wheels where lined with the sticky red dirt mud (clay) the back wheels had slid completely off the bridge. That particular county bridge did not have any guard-rails...not even a wooden barrier between the bridge and ten foot drop down to the muddy water. This nameless creek, had swollen to a small river overnight, and the bus was threatening to drop all the way into it's muddy depths. 

Grandpa to the rescue! Firing up his trusty rusty tractor...which by the way had no brakes, just a clutch to slow it down, and he was ready to roll. Teen-aged boys rode the fenders armed with chains and hooks to pull the bus out, and off  he went... not like today, when the "children" would be coddled together calling mommy or daddy on their cell phones, nope the older boys were excited to be able to help. 

While Grandpa was rescuing the bus, Grandma was rescuing the young ladies new shoes! She was drawing up well water and  bringing buckets out with rags so the girls could clean off their new shoes (white of course because it was summer) of the red Oklahoma clay. Some of the richer girls were complaining of the mud splatters on their nylons. I was just glad that I hadn't had to walk and ruin my new white socks...I was very proud of those beautiful white socks!

Grandpa and the Highschool boys got the bus back on the bridge and up the hill. I remember Mr. Ayers coming in to use the phone (we had a party line) to call the bus barn so that they would know the bus was o n it's way and not disabled in any fashion. 

So Grandpa saved the day...and I made my entrance into the 3rd grade late. From there on after I always tried to be fashionably late because  there is nothing like a grand entrance!

Sol,you can't walk???

 So last night was cra-cra...It was totally insane from the second I got there. Bed 1 detoxing, bed 2, discharging, and before the disinfectant dried already had another patient. People lined up in the hallways, homeless frequent flier in an imaginary hallway bed (wheelchair, sitting over by the blanket warmer)....just noise and call bells, and phones ringing. 

Nine hours into this Sh!t storm (it is a Friday night), local PD bring a young guy in in a wheel chair. This guy looks like he works out...really healthy looking, claims he can't walk and they stick him in a hallway bed. I go to lunch (not my assignment). Come back, they are trying to find a bed to move him too so he has privacy for a EKG (CHEST PAIN...short of breath...yeah, same song 2nd verse....all he wants is a ticket to Fort Worth which is HOME to...well where he lives homeless. He had been sent to a psych facility in the Valley, and because he met someone there and was getting along so well...some rocket scientist (ie: dumb ass) decided to send him "home" in the same ambulance...to a city he had never been before....cue some cutsy music...and family discovers an additional psycho-unstable person "living" with their family member and freak out and call the po-po....who obviously don't know what to do with him since (1) he hasn't broken a law (2) he isn't psychotic (2) he gives them an out...but suddenly not being able to walk (could this be a fear of the police psychosis...vs..."I know how to use the system"?) 

Three back to back admissions and said "can't walk patient" is sucking up ER hours by the $$....and all we are really doing is feeding him and giving him his prescribed meds. Psych won't take him because he isn't unstable ....not hearing voices....not hallucenating...just hungry and "can't walk". Miraculously after about 7 days of this the Social Worker "found funding" for a bus ticket and he happily climbed the steps to the bus....suddenly cured of all ailments.....

Now I wonder why our taxes are so much?????????????? At least he was a legal citizen who got helped out of a bad situation. 

Into a World of Insanity

Into a world of insanity, I am sailing my ship. As Seattle burns and people yell and shake their fists at one another, I wonder when this chaos will end? Probably never. The real end is the end of our way of life. Freedom....is an illusion. I used to not be afraid to drive across half of the country with only my 14 pound dog by my side. Now it is more advisable to carry something a little more lethal than a barker. I have upgraded since then to a 110 pound Lab who is a sweet-heart who will take your arm off if you reach in "her" vehicle, yet will lap you up with love if she is standing outside it with you. I also have my CHL and I keep myself protected at all times. I drive 22 miles back and forth to work, and 15 miles of that is the "dead zone" for cell service. Coming home between 1 and 2 a.m. basically the only road traffic is the drunks leaving the bars, oil-field workers tired and trying to get home, and me and the hogs that keep jumping out in front of my car!

So, insanity....or maybe age-related memory? Well, so yesterday I get to work and get my stuff ready to go in. I get my work shoes and put in a new bag (I take home to Lysol and clean every-day and only wear my street shoes in and our of the facility due to CoVid). I go to change into the unit scrubs (we still are not wearing any personal scrubs back and forth in order to not be bringing home extra germies), and I cannot find my darn shoes. Figure I had a senior moment rushing out of the car and set them back down in the seat. I change, tell co-worker that I will be back because I need my work shoes (no way are my canvas street shoes gonna support my feets for 12 hours of up and down the hallway!). I go out to the car, imagine my surprise at finding my lunch sitting on the seat...what the heck....where is my shoes...oh crap!!!!! Carry my lunch in, exchange it for my shoes in the refrigerator (still tied up in the bag). I nonchalantly pull them out, and put them on...and OMG they felt WONDERFUL, ice cold. LOL, so life is about the little things.

So this has been a busy week at work. I personally have cared for two CoVid positives, multiple ear aches, chest pains, abdominal pains (two of which turned out to be appendicitis and went for surgery), snake-bite that turned out to be a "nail" bite, We had a super crazy detainee from County that came in covered in blood...wasn't my assignment so I tried to avoid the screaming, spitting, blood slinging fiasco going on in the first pod. I don't know what kinda drug is going around out there, but the crazy has been deep lately. The last DPS DUI possible draw left me pretty traumatized. Gal decided to give me the CoVid cough (didn't even know that was a thang) and threatened to spit in my food at a local diner where she claimed to work (I have been there one time and wasn't impressed with food offerings....so pretty sure no worries about her spitting in my grub). Pretty sure the threats, coughing on me after pulling off her mask and trying to smear blood on me constitutes Assaualt on a Health-care worker...and I told her so. She was screaming and cursing and acting out for her audience (we of course were full and people were coming out of the woodwork to watch the show). I was just glad the officer had his body cam on. Someone finally called security who came and helped. Ms Cutie pie's hand-cuffs got moved from the front (a suggestion of detainment) to the back (which pissed her off more royally than she was originally). I was wishing we had one of those chairs they show on COPS where they put them in the chair and roll them into a room to kick and scream and spit until they get tired! Yup...jail detox was in her future

UPDATE: 5/1/21 Same OFFICER comes in and I ask if he remembers  the above incident....yup he says...I said...you had your body cam on for all that right???? He said "yup, and guess what?" "What?" I asked.... "well" he says " that incident is used as a training exercise for new officers...."....LOL...I am a STAR!!!!!!

WHY WHY WHY....

So this is my whiney post....in that I NEED TO VENT.....

To cover staffing (since many nurses are being laid off...who would have thought that would EVER happen??? Nursing is one of the most stable job fields in the country!), my manager has moved me to what is called "midshift".  Technically you come in from noon to midnight. You either get a group to care for, assist with what was usually fast track (except fast track is closed as that wing is reserved for the CoVid-19 patients we never got, or you do Triage. Now I like doing triage, it get's hairy when a lot of people sign in at one time, but you get the most interesting conversations and  back-stories with people. Sounds ok right???? Well the unanticipated problem is that mid-shift, means the busy time, and with us running the entire shift 1 RN and 1 tech short, you hit the floor running. Everyone is taking turns triaging , unless their patient is circling the drain...and guess what, the day nurses get to CHOOSE which patient's YOU take over...so...yup...the needy, the confused, the patient's with lots of stat orders...guess which one you are getting...ALL OF THEM. The easy peasy, give a Tylenol and discharge...THOSE are not your patient's...Put on your BIG girl panties...because you arn't getting a potty break or a lunch break until 11 pm tonight, if you are lucky.

So Friday I had one of those shifts that makes you wanna pull your hair out, except I didn't have to because the little old lady in 4 was doing it for me. I gave her her call bell when I got there and showed her how to use it...and believe me, she took to the teaching well. Her provider and family members had all skedaddled before I got there...and now I know why...they needed to REST! To say she was independent is an understatement. To say she was impatient...well a rattlesnake had nothing on her. To be honest, I felt quite sorry for her...for the 1st 2 hours. But after being scratched, clawed and my hair pulled, I was not quite as happy to run to her room. I got there at 12 noon and she went to the floor as an admit at 8 pm. I will say that was the busiest 8 hours I have had in a while. I clocked 16,652 steps .... 30 steps at a time from the nurse station to her bedside, get whatever she wanted, come back, go back to the station, for her to think of something else she needed. Nothing satisfied her. Get her up, put her down, put my head up, put my head down, get me a drink, get me a fan, sit me up, lay me down, put me on the potty, why do I need medication, why do I need an IV, why can't you feed me, where is the food, why don't you have food, why don't you just stay in here. Why do you raise your voice when I scratch you....it hurt?? Oh look you are bleeding, why did you put your hair up like that ? (after she managed to get my ponytail with both hands as she drug me down onto the potty chair with her...LOL) She may have only weighed about 170, but my back was killing me by the time I took her upstairs!

I had gotten a TDC pt in bed 6, which is pretty much the room we use for any incarcerated patient, because it is at the end of the hall, and we don't have people walking by trying to see in the room and rubber-necking.  After about 4 hrs of hearing me in and out of the other room, the officers were laughing at me...well until they saw the little lady was actually drawing blood on me (scratches)....dang...anyway, I finally got her comfortable, or she was a wore out as I was, because I had her sleeping when I took her upstairs...and it wasn't from medication. Upstairs, could not find the receiving nurse, so I put this lady in her bed, by myself and called for the nurse to the bedside so I could do a safe hand-off.

After lady in 4 went up, the rest of the night was pretty much ok, until I got the trama, guy with abrasions literally all over most his body from a motor vehicle incident. Went to CT with him, did all the usual stuff, IV, VITALS, so on. Came back, it was 10:00 pm, 1 hr to I'm off, still had  no lunch break after 11 hrs, I did drink some tea so I wouldn't go into renal failure...anyway, now I have all these abraisons that have to have asphalt scrubbed out of them. Horribly painful for him, labor intensive for me...and thank God a tech had arrived, We worked side by side....Poor guy. Anyway, by the time 12 pm rolled around, I still needed 30 min to finish charting (1/2 a peanut butter sandwich in my hand!!!! Manna from heaven.). A storm was rolling in and I was trying to beat the wind and rain. I got out...soaked with sweat, exhausted and drove home. Not too much rain driving, missed the dead hawg in the road (I've hit 2 dead hawgs and messed up my car so I am getting better at finding them in the dark.LOL.)

Got home just as the storm hit, and it was a dozy. We got 2 inches of rain, mixed with  a little hail I think. I had sweated through all my clothes and wanted a shower, but it was lightening and thundering and the power was popping on and off (we have a well pump) so a shower was out, I had to take a basin bath. Dave told me I stunk...of work sweat...and that he had never in the whole 14 years he knew me to come home smelling bad...lol...I told him I earned every cent of my money that night...and had the sweat to prove it.