Sew What!

Been busy the last week. I got on a sewing kick. Making all kinds of things, happily distracted while I cut and stitch. Also keeping up with my training for the most part. Just need to start cross training a little more, don't want to blow out my bad leg before the race.

Speaking of which! One day less than 2 weeks. I am not ready.

Oh, look something shiny!

I realize this blog is something of a rambling, going nowhere, kind of waste of time. But for me it's cathartic.

So, this week I continue with my training for a race in Texas. I leave in 15 days. I'm not sure that's quite enough time to undo years of not working out enough. Ran my 5k today, did interval workout(kicked my butt and REALLY showed me how out of shape I was), and of course my yoga for runners workout to stretch my short little muscles. I am also starting a new dietary plan in which I eat more snacks in between meals.

So that means I have to go to the grocery store, since I can not find Cheez-it's anywhere on this plan. I also have to fill out my application and order my transcripts because I am finally going back to school. I also have started making items to sell on Etsy.

You see this race was about way more than whether or not I can run 3.2 miles. I know I can do that. There are a lot of things in my life that I have been putting off. So I guess this blog is really about whether or not I can make the changes I need to.

Hmmmm, if nothing else. It gives me a place to keep track of successes and failures. I live in a town where I know absolutely no one, I have no family except for my kids, and I don't like to call and burden my friends with my woes. So this is it. The place where I can tell the ether what is adding to my deep bouts of depression and what I have finally decided to do about it.

If I am the only one on this journey, that's OK, it's my journey after all.

She's Crafty

So far my training for the race has been going well. Took a break from running today, I've run 5K everyday this week up until today, and just did yoga/strength training with a 7 mile bike ride thrown in. I know, I know, 5k that's nothing. But considering I was lucky to run 2 miles on a good day and I rarely ran more than twice a week before the month started I will take my wins where I can. We can't all be Charlie Sheen. "I'm winning!"

A bonus to all of this new physical activity is that I am getting a lot more done around here. Instead of being the monitor/laptop staring slug of old, once I work out I am ready to take on all my household chores. So today, realizing that yes I had dusted, vacuumed, mopped, and done the laundry yesterday I decided to do something crafty. So I broke out a bin of fabric scraps and started making me some new headbands for running. I prefer my hair on the shorter side, but find it annoying beyond belief if I can't pull it back when I run. So I rolled up my sleeves and took matters into my own hands. I don't care for my store bought headbands because they tend to either slip or not really hold my hair back. Not anymore I made a super cute reversible band with elastic that goes under my hair and doesn't slip.

Very happy with my day. Oh, and the sun finally came out! Quite a milestone in our trudge toward spring here in the midwest. So tomorrow, I take my run outside and try out the GPS feature on my Nike+ running app.

Wish me luck!

Can't run fast enough.....

My training for the race is going great. Only thing is I realize that what I'm really training for is to run away.

Run away, run away!

So, I'm training for this race next month that should be a blast. It's a 5K with obstacles. Unfortunately I have let me self get pretty out of shape following an injury last spring. So now I doing a hard core training course for a month to get ready.

Last week went pretty good, though I started off slow with my running, toward the end of the week I had picked it up to 5k a day. The upper body workouts have been another rude awakening. I thought I was at least a little fit, that is until I tried to do 3 sets of push-ups. Ha! And don't even get me started about the core workouts they have scheduled. Apparently my core is rotten. After a measly couple of exercises I am laying on the floor panting like an elderly sturgeon left on some hot pavement.

Morning Muse

Oh, how searing the morning light is when you are driving into it after working all night.

So, I work at two different hospitals which leads me to think of all the wonderful pluses to the opposite job from the one I am currently working at. It's kind of a "grass is always greener" over where I'll be tomorrow night and then when I get there I get to think, "hmmmm, maybe it was just the light, it might actually be greener over there".

I think they call that perspective, but that is an awfully big word when you haven't slept in 24 hours.

Not enough coffee in Peru.....

The worse thing about working nights is that even on your days off you feel like you've been slipped some Benedryl/Nyquil/Phenergan cocktail.

A whole pot of coffee and I still feel like I need toothpicks to hold up my eyelids. We'll see if a 4 mile run helps me rejoin the living or just forces me to take a nap.

".....Oh, what a night......."

Sometimes on my long drive home into the morning sun, that little bit of a song goes through my head. 


Last night was one of those nights. 


On my second night shift of three I arrived (on time unbelievably) after driving two hours through a snow storm on roads that resembled blocks of ice beneath the blowing snow. This after a day of my children and their somewhat adult father(who really should know better) waking me up at least once an hour to ask me questions like "Did you know it's snowing" and "Hey Mom, look at this Lego alien I made!". 


After receiving my assignment of all different patient from the night before, I chose to see the potentially sickest patient who also happened to be confused and kept forgetting that he had a HUGE life changing surgery(i.e. he thought he was fine, at some kind of hotel and that he could get up out of bed on his very shaky legs and walk away from the cords and tubes that were basically keeping him alive). As I am explaining to Mr. S, for the fourth time in 15 minutes, why we cannot "just take out" the tubes coming out of his nose and chest my pager goes off.


Code Blue Room 544


(here is what raced through my head all in about 30 seconds)
Crap! Which rooms are mine tonight!? 
Think, think, think. 
Ahhhh, I can only think of the rooms I had last night! 
Where is that sheet of paper! I've only been here 15 minutes! 
I really should be in there if it's my patient! 
Where is that stupid paper. 


To Mr. S "Please don't pull on that!  No sir I can't just take it out. I just explained why. Please sit down, I really don't want you to fall. "


After making sure that Mr. S is in no danger of falling or removing any equipment from his body I run down the hall. Twenty people already in the room, the 5 outside the door who are taking turns running for supplies update me and together we all agree on why the patient's suddenly unresponsive, though the 15 doctor's(I use the term to include medical students, residents, and other assorted gradients of the profession) in the room haven't quite gotten to the solution yet. We try to help them along, I yell "Check his blood sugar!" With everyone yelling at the same time, they will just assume someone "important" said it. A glucometer is called for and what do you know? Blood glucose < 30! D50 in and patient is breathing and asking "What's going on". Sometimes the doctor's want a really complicated answer when it's really the most simple. And most of the time they certainly don't want a nurse to figure it out before they do. So give them there moment, as long as the patient comes out OK. 




All this in the first 20 minutes of my shift. ".......Oh, what a night"


On to patient #2 of 4. Oh, doesn't speak any English, no translator, no family, confused, fall risk, having problems breathing.




Yep, it's going to be a long shift. I hope I get a lunch.