Birthday countdown

I had an age reality check today. I went to the eye doctor for my yearly exam and to order more contacts. My prescription has not changed a fraction in the last year which I was happy about until the doctor told me that happens to people "when they reach a certain age". So I was handed the 'certain age' line and I didn't take it well. So I am going to be 30 this year, actually in 7 months and 9 days. Everyone says 30 is no problem but for some reason I can't buy into that theory. 30 is huge, it is the end of my 20's.

Part of the problem is fear of the unknown. When a female turns 25 everything starts to fall apart; your hips get wide and you start exercising; no more Taco Bell in the middle of the night because of indigestion; hangovers are worse than ever and now take 2 days to get over; a variety of aches and pains start to occur, especially with weather changes. Now all this is between 25-30 years old, what is going to happen when I turn 30?

One thing is certain, I am not going to take turning 30 well, I am going to be a big cry baby and throw a huge pity party for myself...unless someone can prove that 30 is the new 20.

Friends

Friends are one of those really important things, especially to me. I love all of my friends for all of there different personalities and quirks. Sometimes I like to look at my address book or phone list and remember all of the friends I had forgotten. It is true that you cannot keep in touch with everyone, sometimes you have to let them go and just remember how much fun you had. I have friends in several states which is good for vacation ideas and bad for spontaneous shopping trips. One thing I missed when we were traveling is having friends to hang out with. Friends help define me and make me who I am, sometimes for worse but mostly for better.

One of my friends told me (after I finally relayed a stressful situation I was in and had been in for a year) that friends want to know everything that is going on, even the bad stuff. I try to remember that and truthfully, it is nice to tell an objective person your problems.

What I love the most about my friends is the 'out of the blue' phone call. You can go months with no contact and suddenly there they are, talking about their life and asking about yours. Those calls put a smile on my face for days. I love my friends.

DVR-Worthy TV

Thank God for my Time Warner DVR (kind of like a TiVo). I can tape all my shows and watch them when I am not busy. I can set that wonderful contraption to tape everytime my shows come on, even if the day gets switched. Not only can I watch them whenever I want, I can also fast forward through the commercials making the viewing much more enjoyable. So these are the shows I highly recommend and that I consider DVR-worthy: Desperate housewives (of course), Grey's Anatomy, Bones, Las Vegas, CSI Vegas and NY, Criminal Minds, ER, Numbers. I am considering that new show Love Monkey but I think I will wait and see if it lasts; nothing I hate worse than getting into a show and having it be cancelled. I haven't found a comedy that I want to watch...the end of Friends was the end of comedy for me. If Sex in the City was still on that would be DVR-worthy and don't even think the TNT version is worthy of what the series really was. I miss those girls.

Now that may seem like a lot of TV, but without the commercials those hour shows are cut back to 40 minutes, a marathon viewing session is usually needed. Speaking of marathons, I am such a sucker for marathons. Especially VH1 marathons like 'I love the 90s' or 'America's Next top Model'. I could watch that crap until my brain dries up.

My favorite ER episode was on 2 weeks ago, "Soccer mom has a stroke". It stars Cynthia Nixon (from Sex in the City) and really does a good job of viewing health care from the patient's perspective. A must see for anyone in health care, especially a neuro unit or stroke unit.

Health care

We recently got our Ford Explorer fixed, even though there was nothing seriously wrong with it. It is never a good idea to take your vehicle to a repair shop and tell them to "look at that noise". It is going to cost you a lot of money for that look. So our bill was astronomical but what was so amazing is the cost of labor. Our labor costs for this repair were $800.00 or about $80.00/hr. I am sure that fixing my vehicle was difficult, all work is difficult. Let's put this in perspective for a minute...the decision as to what was wrong with my car was made by a machine, the repairs were nor unusual just normal repairs. The decisions going into the repairs were not life or death for the car or me. Was it worth $800.00?

Here is the perspective...I don't make $80.00/hr yet the decisions I make at work do affect people's lives. Whether I am having a good or bad night directly impacts my patients, sometimes in a big way. So is my car worth more than my patients?

So you have probably figured out we had a poor patient outcome on our unit, not because of nursing but because of the doctors. The doctors did not take the nurse or patient seriously and the consequences will be with the patient probably forever.

Health care professionals wonder why our patients don't trust us. I saw a news report on TV about the nursing shortage and the reporter gave examples of how the patient could protect themselves...from who? The nurses? The doctors? Are we out to get out patients? Apparently I missed that class in school.

I'm done rambling.

Mean People Suck

I always wanted to get the bumper sticker that says "mean people suck". Of course that would require going to a store, cleaning my car, placing the sticker on my car and having to peel it off when I put it on crooked. Instead I just truly believe that mean people suck. I don't understand people who want to be miserable and want to make everyone around them miserable. I am all for having a cranky day every now and then but keep it at home and don't infect my aura with your screwed up energy.

I was in charge last night at work. This is a fairly new occurence for me so I am still learning. I don't really like to be in charge but since the alternative is having one of the miserable people do, it I can suck it up for 12hours. It was a busy night for 2 reasons. The first reason is day shift's bad energy floating over to our shift causing major bad energy. The second reason is miserable people. Okay three reasons....the third reason is the new computer system at work. Nurses don't like change and this is a major, over the top, please shoot me now change. A little stressful for our anal retentive selves.

At work I am so anal retentive (which I am told is borderline obsessive compulsive) but that never carries over to home. My husband is forever puzzled by this fact. At work everything is neat and orderly, at home the opposite. People who have tried to console me told me that nurses are anal by nature, I hope so. Is there an anti-anal retentive pill? Maybe we could do arial sprayings for this new computer system.

Computer programers amaze me too. When you tell them you have a problem with the new system the standard answer is "You'll get used to it, don't worry". Can I start to say that to my patients? "I know you have a brain tumor, you'll get used to it, don't worry". "I'm sorry you had a major stroke and can't talk but you'll get used to it, don't worry". "Change is good for everyone, you'll get used to being fed through a feeding tube, don't worry". I don't think I would get the same response.

Night Shift

Night shift is amazing. I have worked night shift for over 4 years and I still think it is amazing. By night shift I mean 7pa-7am, but it can also be 11pm-7am. Consider this, when the rest of the population is busy working I am sleeping. I sleep when the sun comes up and get up when the sun goes down; especially in the winter solstice. I get to see the bad programming that is on TV at 3am, and yes it is as bad as you think.

The plus side to night shift is that the rest of the population is sleeping. Traffic is better, work is quieter and I can shut off my phone while sleeping and not feel guilty. My patients do not sleep as night like everyone thinks they do, but sometimes they are cool to talk to and the middle of the night is the perfect time.

The downside to night shift is the sleep deprivation. Webster's should come up with a new definition of sleep deprivation for it's application to night shift. I am good with 6-7 hours of sleep before my shift...no more 8-10 hour nights of sleep. On my days off I function just fine with 3-4 hours of sleep. That just shouldn't happen, what kind of life it is to be tired all the time? Of course the argument could be made for switching to day shift but when you consider making less money for more work the argument ends quickly. Caffeine is my friend, Starbucks is my other home.

Speaking of Starbucks, has anyone tried the Cinnamon Dolce Latte yet? Very yummy and highly recommended.

My first post

My first post as a blogger. I have been reading blogs for about 6 months, now I have one. I hope I have enough interesting information to actually write stuff. My name is Michelle and I am a nurse in a neuro critical care unit. I have been a nurse for over 4 years, in critical care for over 1 year. I never thought I would specialize in neuro but here I am. I am married, it will be 10 years in June. Never thought I would get married either. Life just laughs at my plans left and right. I live in OH but this is a temporary stop. I traveled for 2 years as a nurse; worked in NC, CT and NJ before stopping here. Traveling is good unless you don't like to pack...I don't like to pack. We stopped when we were tired and here we are (plus my cats were getting tired of the car rides).

There are a lot of stories I can tell you about nursing, but there is more to life than being a nurse. Don't get me wrong, I love my job but I have a life outside work too. I am currently in school working on my bachelors in nursing with an ultimate goal of being a nurse practitioner. That is a long way off. I love to shop, purses are an addiction that I can't afford but I still try. I love to travel on vacation but we can't afford that either, at least not the places we want to go.

That is the short version of my life. I hope it is interesting, if not stay tuned...you never know what will happen.