Indigo Girl

On The Road to Recovery

OMG, y'all. I don't say "y'all" lightly.

After the Friday night email, we had an uneventful day and I ended up picking up an extra shift Saturday night. It was all FINE and I had my car fixed this week and booked C's 5th birthday party so an extra 12 hour shift would come in handy in my paycheck. It was uneventful (except for my ethically/morally soul-sucking patient) and I slept all day Sunday to work my normal Sunday night. When I woke up, A was green and said he had just puked. I broke the news to L and she, predictably, freaked out.*

*You know, I wouldn't mind her freaking out about puking because puking/diarrhea are definitely on my AVOID list, but she also freaks out over other people having headaches or aches/pains or no problem whatsoever except what's in her (L's) head. I am pretty relaxed about germs, so I'm unsure how I'm raising a germaphobe.

I left her sobbing in the shower. I doubt my encouraging, "YOU CAN DO THIS. YOU ARE STRONG AND CAPABLE" speech helped her. I received this email from A that night: 

E:  "L says that she wants mom. She says it's like having a ghost in the house."
L: "BWUHHH HUH HUH HUH HUH HUH HUH HUH AAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!"
C: "She's kinda freaking out."

Later:

 Update: L is no longer afraid of me. She is now one of us. Now that L has puked, she is back to being focused and helpful. 

She's in my room with me and we are resting the rest of the justifiably lazy.  Keeping an eye on sleeping C.

It didn't matter because I was on my way home. During my 2 am break, I ate my salad and then thought, "Why don't I feel like eating my sandwich? I'm always hungry by now!" and then I thought, "Uh oh." I was home and puking my 5 am. 

I slept until 10 am and then stumbled down the stairs. A said he had been hoping that I would get up and he could nap, but then he saw me and thought, "Um. No." I lay awake on the couch for a while, but went back upstairs to the bed shortly and slept for the rest of the day. After eating a few popsicles, I checked my temperature (at the urging of L) and even though it wasn't accurate because of the cold, it was 101.6. Then I slept all night long.

Everyone went to school on Tuesday (C never got sick! I think the virus skipped the cutest) and I spent the entire day watching The Forsyte Saga. It was good - not as good as Downton Abbey, but acceptable for a sick day. It bothered me that wooden Irene was called "Eye-REEN-ee" and I liked Soames at first, but overall, I truly enjoyed it. I have a few episodes to go.

Since then, I have been taking a long time to recover. I'm not a malingerer, so this is annoying. My skin is no longer a translucent green and I am keeping food down, but I get short of breath going up the stairs and my appetite has not returned. I keep thinking of people who get sick and never fully recover - I refuse to be one! I am forcing myself to recover.

 The girls are off school till next Tuesday, so Wednesday I helped them shower and made them lunch and then had to take a nap. I took them over to Karen's house for our prearranged sleepover before A and I went out to dinner (I kept it down! Mostly!), we saw The Hunger Games (I spent the time alternatively chewing A's palm and whispering, "THE BOOK WAS SO DEPRESSING! WHY ARE WE WATCHING THE MOVIE?!"), and poked around a bookstore.

I picked the girls up Thursday and dragged them through the grocery store since we had no fresh fruit. We got a few things done around the house and then I had to take another nap. Karen dropped her kids off that afternoon. I fed them tacos, popcorn, let them watch movies, and shortly they'll be sleeping peacefully in the basement (knock on wood). 

I have to go back to work tomorrow and I hope I can make it through my shift. I don't know why I'm feeling so weak.

While I Was At Work

A sent the following email to me at work tonight. I shouldn't laugh, but I am, because what else can you do? Years from now, when L is seriously discussing possible career choices, we need to cross off anything to do with healthcare.

"So E had diarrhea after her shower. 

And then she was complaining about a painful stomach during C's story.

Which made L FREAK THE HELL OUT BECAUSE OH NO NOW I, L, AM GOING TO GET SICK TOO.

So I sent E and C to my room and explained to L that I would read to them there, and if she could get a grip on herself, she could listen too.

So she came and sat in the rocking chair, looking very annoyingly terrified that E would give her The Sick.

So then a page before the end of the chapter, E puked all in the bed and up her nose.

And L LOST HER GODDAMN MIND, wailing and running downstairs and screaming, "I WANT TO GO TO ANOTHER HOUSE!"

Which freaked C out, because something was obviously horribly scary.

While E puked on our bedroom carpet on her way to the bathroom.

And I stripped the sheets.

And now I'm comforting terrified C instead of the kid who is actually sick, and screaming downstairs, "WE AREN'T GOING TO ANOTHER HOUSE SO STOP ACTING LIKE A BABY!"

And then I go downstairs to get Nature's Miracle, and give L a piece of my mind. I was less gentle than I usually am.

And I went upstairs and distracted C by showing her how I would clean up.

And then I cleaned up the puke and told jokes to C and made her laugh.

And then I washed up E, who had puked the rest of her puke into the toilet and now had puke on her.

And then I took her downstairs, and L eyed her like she was a RABID LION.  E had to go into the kitchen before L would go up the stairs.

And I sent L upstairs, where she is now, terror-sobbing herself to sleep.

C is fine. She's humming and reading a book.

E is fine, sort of.  She's downstairs with me and a puke bowl.  So far, she's OK.

I've about had it with L.

I'm about to wash the sheets.

We're not going to karate tomorrow.

So how's your night going?"

I Threw Out All My Bibs

I have been organizing my kitchen which means finally admitting to myself that I will never use that pizza stone and putting it in the donate pile.* And that we're done with bibs, so I don't need a bib drawer anymore. And realizing that I have FOUR huge Costco size containers of oregano. WHY? Why is the part of my brain that knows there's plenty of oregano in the cupboard broken?

*I know that some people like to make homemade pizza and make really good homemade pizza, but for ME, pizza is my easy meal, the one where I don't cook AT ALL. I want someone else to make my pizza.

A was very sweet the other night and admonished me, "Make sure you relax and do something fun, too, while the girls are at school and you're still working weekends." HA! I would think the fact that I'm on Twitter all the time would cue him in to my frequent breaks. But I took him at his word and my friend and I are getting pedicures next week. 

Today I researched a hotel for our amusement park trip next month. Here is what I'm looking for in a hotel: heated indoor pool and good, free breakfast. I want to CLEARLY SEE the waffle maker in the breakfast picture. Here is what some hotels offered as amenities: "Daily housekeeping services," "Free outdoor parking," and "Windows [are able to] open." WOW. 

I called the bounce house place where we had E and L's 7th birthday party and made a reservation for C's upcoming 5th birthday. The website only offered parties to start at odd hours: 3-5 pm, 5-7pm, and 7-9pm. We don't get out of school till 3:15, so 3-5 doesn't work, who wants a party during the dinner hours of 5-7? and 7-9 is too late. So I asked very politely if they would take a 4-6pm reservation. She said immediately that she would, but then she KEPT SAYING that it messes up their whole schedule and that's why they start parties on the odd hours. I thanked her for her flexibility (both at the time and then again at the end of the conversation) and HELD STRONG because I remembered Swistle's recent post about letting my own preferences take precedence, even when I'm uncomfortable, especially in a situation where I am spending a large amount of money. I could tell that she was inconvenienced (because of the way she KEPT SAYING IT), but if I backed down then I (and all my guests) would be inconvenienced. Since I am the paying customer, I repeated, "Thanks! I'm so glad you could make this work!"

AND I DID IT ALL ON THE PHONE! WOO!

I've been intensifying my "how to safely cross the street" teachings with E and L. Our street is only a little busy, but we have some crazy fast speeders that make my internal ED nurse kick in, and I remember how many kids are hit by cars each summer. (LOTS.) This is an area where I KNOW that I am reluctant, but at the same time, the more practice they get the better, so I am forcing myself to stand back and let them ease out from around the parked cars and make the when-to-cross decision under my supervision. It's hard. Today I stood on the porch and watched L hold C's hand and walk across the street to our neighbor's house to feed her fish some snails. Then I went back inside and suddenly, they were back! And no one had gotten run over! (THIS TIME.) (STOMACH CLENCH.)

E had been drawing during the snail death march and when she heard about it, she sternly compared me to the farmer of the creepy warren in Watership Down, the one where he was keeping them safe only to kill and eat them himself. She pointed out, "You feed them and then you give them to Gill to be eaten!" Excellent comprehension and analysis, little girl.

C has been visiting our neighbor, an lovely older man with grown daughters, while he reads his newspaper on his porch in the afternoons. She is sweet and charming, in our opinion, but he's a saint for sharing his leisure time with her. He laughingly told A the other day that she recently opened a discussion with, "So we've talked about Great Wolf Lodge. Now I want to talk about Cedar Point."

Laundry Time

We needed a few Costco-specific items (huge bottle of vodka! giant flat of Coke Zero! double tubs of peanut butter!), so I swung by on my way to school pickup. I wandered the aisles and felt . . . lonely. Everyone else had kids with them and I missed mine. Then I picked them up from school and we stopped by our neighborhood store on our way home and I had to negotiate who got to push the cart, who got to put the peaches in a bag, who got to help empty the cart without breaking the eggs. . . so never mind what I just said. Shopping alone is lovely.

E and L have been pestering me to learn how to do laundry, but it's not the most convenient chore to teach them. I usually do it during the week when I'm off work and they're at school. Still, they're old enough and it would be extremely helpful for them to be able to flip the clothes over to the dryer and put a new load in the washing machine. I'm trying to gear up to include them in laundry time by concentrating on how it will pay off in the end.

In the meantime, L has been helping me put laundry away and it is AWESOME. It takes me less than half the normal time. She sorts all the clothes that need to be hung up, matches up the socks, puts underwear into the right drawers, and folds pjs. I supervise and hang items up in the closets. I remember HAVING to put away my laundry in elementary school, but I certainly didn't initiate being helpful like that.

I ordered a Scholastic book for L called Who's in Charge?: How Governments Make the World Go Round so that she can get a head start on her presidential bid.

We've given away two batches of snails that have been eaten by goldfish. I'm going to give more to my neighbor's snail eating goldfish this week. I feel bad sending the snails to their death. I SHOULD feel all "It's the circle of life," but I don't. I have two more leads on people who want snails as pets and one more person with snail eating fish. And I'm scraping another clutch of eggs off the tank this morning. HOW MUCH SPERM CAN ONE SNAIL HOARD FTLOG?

C's class appears to have very unusual names, more so than E and L's. She is in there and is friends with Eloise (love!) and Autumn, but there is a Miracle (girl), Gemini (girl), and Nisaiah (boy) (like Isaiah with an N). I can't wait to hear the rest of them.

Running Again

I started running again a little over a week ago. I don't run in the summer. I hate the treadmill/track and it's too damn hot out, even early in the morning. But I ran in the cool rain two Fridays ago and it felt good. Unfortunately, I developed shin splints even though I only did four miles. I hobbled around, miserable, during work that weekend. 

Last week I ran a neighborhood circle, about five miles. Usually I run the flatish part first, up a steep but short hill, and then a gradual decline back home. I reversed it this time and it was a much harder run. That gradual incline is almost three miles - that's tough! I took Lucy with me and by the time we hit the hill, she was tired. I forget she's nine and an old lady. 

This week I iced my shins immediately after my run and then later that day before I went to work. It was marvelous - no pain! Still, getting old is bullshit.

After school, C's teacher let me know that she is doing well despite her young age and is "a good fit" for kindergarten. That was really nice of her and hopefully I can stop worrying now. (BWA-HAHAHAHA!)

Last week, on varying days, E forgot her lunch, her water bottle, and lost her sweater. Natural consequences are not working; she is too laid-back. When she realized she forgot her lunch, she was initially sad, but perked up quickly, commenting, "At least Mama won't have to make a lunch for me tonight!" I've asked her to come up with a plan to help her remember her lunch and water bottle. We'll see what she decides.

It's Amazing that ANYONE Has Healthy Lungs

I took a class on lung transplants yesterday because my hospital will be doing them soon and they will be coming to my unit like the heart transplant patients. Of course, I hope to not be working there by then, but who knows what will happen so I'd better stay up-to-date. There are over 200 lung diseases that can lead to needing a transplant and some of them only affect non-smoking women in their 20s/30s. I left class thinking, "WE ARE ALL GOING TO NEED LUNG TRANSPLANTS EVENTUALLY!" It's like when I took the high risk obstetrics class and learned about all the horrible things that can happen during pregnancy/delivery/post-partum and land you in critical care. I was amazed that ANYONE ever had a healthy, uncomplicated pregnancy. THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS THAT CAN GO WRONG. 

Sorry.

Only 15% of lungs that are harvested from a donor are viable to place into someone, so they're working on ways to increase the available pool of lungs and therefore help more people. Physicians in Toronto are doing this totally cool and bizarre thing where they're keeping rejected lungs warm and "alive" outside the body and attempting to fix them. So, there's like LUNGS sitting under what looks like a cake display pan with a breathing tube in there and a circulatory system attached, just hanging out in the OR. You can see the physician prod them a bit and bronch them. Or maybe you shouldn't if you're squeamish about organs outside a body.

 

I was tucking L into bed the other night and we were being silly - I was kissing her face all snuffly-like and she was trying to lick my nose (what?) and then she told me that she and E had touched tongues, just once and really quick. I laughed and asked what she thought and she thought it was gross. Then she asked, "Do you and Daddy touch tongues?" so I explained French kissing to her and grossed her out completely. 

This morning I went to my step class and was happy to find out that it was double step day - my favorite class ever. Now I've come home and opened all the windows so I can hear the rain and feel the breeze. It's cozy. I've got all afternoon to sort through my kitchen cupboards and listen to music. Salmon is thawing on the counter for salmon risotto tonight. I'm going to be quite content until my inevitable lung transplant.

SNAIL KILLING MONSTER

For some reason, I offered to let E wear the watch part of my heart rate monitor early this summer and that led to her wanting to wear it all the time and then arguing with her sister over whose turn it was. (AHEM. It is MY watch, kiddos.) They both decided to use their allowances on a watch and we looked through loads of Amazon pages. It was an excellent consumer experience. We made sure it would be relatively kid-sized, waterproof, had a stop watch, was within their price range, etc. We read the official watch face measurements and got out a ruler to figure out the size. Here is L's choice and here is E's. They are wearing them nonstop and also timing themselves holding their breath, singing the ABC song, touching the bottom of the pool, sitting still in church, etc. If you need an 8yo gift, I highly recommend a sturdy watch!

I've cleaned the fish tank twice now and ignored my conscience as I've vacuumed up dozens of baby snails and discarded them. I was googling "what the hell to do with all these freaking baby snails" and came upon a Q&A where one of the answers said something like "Throw the extras in the trash!" and then that person was severely reprimanded. It was suggested that s/he was not actually a human being but a SNAIL KILLING MONSTER. I do try to show respect for all living things, but I'm at a loss as to my alternatives here and have turned into a SNAIL KILLING MONSTER. There are still a lot of snails left to find homes for and I scraped off ANOTHER egg clutch from the roof of the tank. I guess our single snail hoarded a LOT of sperm. (Gag.)

Baby snails eating a lettuce leaf. A lot of these snails are no longer with us. Cue the sad music.

Last week I re-read Island of the Blue Dolphins to remember if it's age appropriate for E and L and it totally is. I loved that book and have read it multiple times, but couldn't remember how much sadness was in there and if there were any adult situations. There are not. I think I was confusing it with The Blue Lagoon. Next I'm going to re-read Harriet the Spy.

E and L brought home a mini-magazine from school last week, just a few pages of articles that they used for a reading comprehension assignment. One of the articles show information about four books and they had to answer questions based on the descriptions, like "Which book is probably a biography?" Two of the book descriptions interested E, so I ordered them from the library. She's really enjoying the first one and yesterday I was saying, "Isn't it SO COOL how you can see a book you'd like to read, order it from the library, and then read it? For free? Libraries are great!" and she looked at me like I was a complete dumbass, like "That's what libraries are FOR, Mom" but nodded politely.

Outnumbered By Our Centuplets

I didn't really expect the snail eggs to hatch - the first clutch died, so I figured they were all unfertilized - and so, of course, THEY DID.

I left that picture full-size, so you can click to embiggen it. Here's one tiny baby snail on my finger:

Someone on Twitter asked if I was sure that was a snail and not a drop of honey. It's so LITTLE! If we look carefully in the tank, we can see their practically microscopic antennae. They're super cute.

Except: what the hell are we going to do with them? A and I stood there laughing at each other for a while and after the kids went to bed, I scraped the last egg clutch into the trash. I think we have enough to deal with. I asked the fish area employee at the pet store and she did a poor job of hiding her amusement and then suggested euthanasia. I am fine with scraping the eggs into the trash, but I'm not sure I can crush the adorable, itty-bitty, living baby snails. She also said that these snails are around our area and we can put them in a pond, too. 

School is going well for everyone. E and L started learning cursive this week and they are both very excited about that. I have the feeling that everything they write will be in cursive soon. C has learned where her classroom is and left E and L (who are supposed to walk her in) in the dust this morning. So, no signs of anxiety/reluctance then. She reports having two friends and playing princess games at recess. She says she sleeps every day during rest time, but also remembers the story that is read aloud, so I'm not sure. She's not as tired as I expect at night, so maybe she is sleeping.

I've gotten a few things done like cleaning out the pantry. Yesterday, I changed all the bedsheets, washed and dried the old ones, folded them, and put them away. Do you know how long it's been since I could complete a task from start to finish? It felt good.

On Tuesday I job shadowed and informally interviewed in the cath lab. I liked enough of what I saw that I set up a formal interview for today. I officially applied for a position with the electrophysiology (EP) section of the cath lab. I would be working 7a-5:30p, three days per week. I would be on call every 4th weekend from 7a-5p, but I'm told that the EP side rarely gets called in on the weekends.

It would be a big change from my schedule for the last nine years. I'm filled with sadness at the thought of leaving my coworkers and moving away from the intense, stress-filled environment of critical care. I've gotten a lot of personal satisfaction from my job. I spent a long time talking with one of my former coworkers who moved from critical care to EP (and recommended me for this open position). She said it was an adjustment to feel like she was still a nurse and still making a difference in patient outcomes, but she's grown to appreciate the slower paced environment and not being emotionally and physically exhausted at the end of her day.

I'm no longer an adrenaline junkie and I've grown uncomfortable with the morality of a lot of cardiothoracic care. On top of that, our unit is poorly managed and I'm ready to get out. I don't like change, though, and I'm firmly in the "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't!" camp, so I get a nervous tummy whenever I think about it. Plus, I have not been officially offered the job (although my former/possibly future coworker says her manager thinks I'm fab) and I don't want to get ahead of myself.

I had my formal interview today and I think it went well, but who knows because I've spent all afternoon going over the questions that I was asked, analyzing my answers, coming up with BETTER answers, critiquing the times that I wasn't specific enough/babbled too much, etc. It was a manager and two nurses who interviewed me. One nurse seemed quite friendly with a nice smile and the other one was more reserved. I couldn't tell if he liked me or not. HE SHOULD! I AM LOVELY. Anyway, the manager goes on vacation next week, so I'm glad I got my interview in this week. I'd rather fret about getting/not getting the job for the next few weeks instead of fretting about the interview. Cross your fingers for me!

P.S. You can mail snails. Does anyone want one or twelve?

First Day of School

I sent two third graders and a kindergartener off to school this morning! It was bittersweet and please insert various cliches about how they grow up so fast here.

This is a close up of E and L so that I could document their huge feather earrings. That'll date them! And here is my little/big girl, my sweet baby!

E and L have been hilariously feeling sorry for kids who have traditional school starts. L, horrified: "They have to wait ANOTHER WHOLE MONTH! Summer is TOO LONG." It's hard for me to start this early (although I do like getting back to my routine), but obviously my little nerds have adapted just fine.

I knew they were excited, so we had a super busy day-before-school in order to exhaust them by bedtime. We were picking blueberries by 0830 and went to the Y for my class. We swung by Target to take advantage of the buy-one-get-one-half-off shoe sale and spent four hours with friends at a park/splash pad. We made it to school in time for the 6 pm ice cream social. We went to each classroom, greeted old friends, and chit-chatted with the teachers. At home, I passed them off to A who showered them and tucked them in. 

This morning, C was practically vibrating with excitement as she ate breakfast. SPOILER: she made two best friends at school! She, um, doesn't know their names, but I'm sure she'll learn them.

It was easy to drop off E and L, but hard to drop off C. I know everyone in E and L's class except two new kids, so they're totally in their comfort zone. I was leaving them in a familiar environment. C has L's kindergarten teacher and there's a kid from ballet in her class, but everything else is new to her. And it's just been the two of us together for the last three years. This is going to take me (us?) a bit of time to adjust.

After we watched everyone walk into the building, A turned to me and said, "Well. Have a . . . weird day."

I vacillated between "WHEEEEEE FREEDOM!" and "I WANT MAH BAY-BEEEEES!" I have some ambitious plans for my free time (which, with my current work schedule, is essentially Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday) along the lines of:

1. Take everything out of our house.

2. Raze the house to the ground.

3. Rebuild the house.

4. Neatly store only necessary objects back in the house in their specifically designed places.

Objectively, that's not going to happen, so I've amended my plans to:

1. Get rid of everything unnecessary.

2. Paint everything.

I have plans to shadow a nurse in the cath lab and interview with the manager next week, so we'll see what I can get done before I change jobs. There are no current open positions in the cath lab, but I am crossing my fingers anyway. Sometimes managers have wiggle room and I've had two current employees - one an RN and one a PA - who have spoken up for me.

I felt a bit melancholy today and thought about skipping the Y and lying around eating my feelings, but I've never regretted making the decision to work out, so I went. I didn't push myself, but my favorite instructor did it for me and I felt better afterward. I felt like I was stumbling around a bit, but I DID enjoy going into Target, picking up a basket, heading straight for the uniform shorts (HOW DID E OUTGROW HER SHORTS IN TWO MONTHS?!), putting them in my basket, and checking out.