Christmas Review

Christmas 2006.
Location: UCSD Thornton Hospital, BMT Unit.
Sometimes it is not so great being a nurse. I know I can't really complain, working just 3 days a week, but when one of those 3 days lands on Christmas day, well, it's just not as fun. So keeping with the positive, I am formally recording my favorite memories of the day.

Seeing our break room bursting with food covering the 8 person report table, the whole second report table, the sink counter, and filling the refridgerator so it was hard to close. There was a whole turkey, a catering sized pan of mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, a small trash can sized bag of rolls, another bag of sweet rolls, a plate of banana bread the size of a trashcan lid, another of home made cookies, a 4 pound box of Godiva chocolates, 2 1-pound boxes of See's candy in addition to the 4 pound box of See's, a pan full of lumpia (christmasy!) a bowl of the dipping sauce, another bowl of cranberry sauce, 4 boxes of Vietnamese pasteries, 6 bottles of Martinelli's apple cider, a jug of apple juice, a plate the size of a trash can lid of brownies, and a variety of assorted regular sized plates of different home made cookies. I don't know what was in the refridgerator!

Having a little blue eyed blonde girl hand out candy canes with her daddy while most of us were in the back eating. "Who was that guy?" we all asked. No one knew. Finally the charge nurse came in and informed us, "That was the CEO of the hospital." Oops.

The very first "event" of Christmas morning, Christmas balls! Hanging down between the legs of a very naked man at the side of his bed, legs spread just enough, flat butt facing us, PISSING ON THE FLOOR!!! No prostate problems for this guy!

Meeting the brother, newly married sister, and parents of my favorite, always smiling patient who is all of 3 days older than me. Did I mention her very hot brother?

Getting the news that one of our nurses, who has been in Tahiti the past 2 weeks with her boyfriend, got engaged! She showed off her huge black Tahitian pearl and tiny diamond engagement ring as she frolicked about the unit in her white and green scrub top, her red pants tucked into her red and white striped socks with white fuzziness like Santa at the top.

And my favorite, having my favorite doctor, Bill, I mean "Dr. Mitchell" have all 4 of his beautiful, amazingly calm and cooperative children come up to the floor to visit, each with thier own jingle bell around their wrist, and singing christmas carols to my favorite patient. The baby, Will, was in a front pack and jingled all the way, as only a 3 month old can. The staff joined in the singing with Rudolph as back up. His kids are precious.

Most all the staff had their families come up to visit, and our lounge was packed. It was a very nice memory. The last Christmas I worked was up in Santa Barbara, and my dear friend, Christine, and I sat quietly at the nurses station, and picked at our hospital provided dry turkey and excuse for gravy with mashed potatoes. The highlight was us raising our glasses of apple juice, and saying to each other, "Well, Merry Christmas." "Yeah. You too." Gives whole new meaning to Silent Night.

I had the fortune to go home to family after work, and spent the remainder of the night surrounded by my own family opening gifts over jovial conversation and being amused by the Cat, and finally heading off to bed as sugar plums danced in my head, so I could get up again in the morning and do work again. It is good to be me!

Outta beta

Well that certainly was a trial of patience! I am sure everyone else blogging shares my frustration and finally triumph after trying a myriad of usernames and passwords to get in. I gotta start writing this stuff down! I do see the irony in that while beta was down, I also lost my voice. Isn't that just the way it goes?

A few of my favorite things

I love that my patients let me inject various liquids into their bloodstream.

That's all. It's good to be me.

Go Chargers!

Sundays at work are usually so much more peaceful at work, usually to the point of being boring. And I love that about my job! Sometimes you need the break. It is also an added perk if the Chargers happen to be playing. Pardon the pun, but the air just seems charged with good will, and everyone seems to be on the same level of calm. It is really great to hear the unified tv's all with the game on, and if they score the whole floor erupts. Even if you are not actively watching the game, you still know when we are up.
It reminds me of when the world cup was going on, and everyone would wear their team's colors on that days match. For the last game, rounds were halted, meds had been given way before they would normally have been gotten around to. I personally went so far as to wear the Italy jersey my grandparents had brought me back from Italy on their last trip. Funny how most " 'Merikens" don't have a clue about international events. They are so into football, as of course I was just saying. Sports are fun though. My newest team to watch is the Seahawks. Seahawks and the Broncos.
I'm ridiculously tired, and thankfully most of my patients are too. Sleep is a comodity here, and valued greatly. Whenever I can oblige, I try to let them sleep. I wish that was a 2 way street!
I will be going home soon, and my bed is just waiting for me. I can still appreciated being able to come home and be in bed by 8 without interuptions from children or a husband or pets. It is good to be me. It will be better when I am sleeping! Then I will be ready for day 5 of 5 tomorrow.

Getting it

I live for moments like the one I just got to experience. My patient finally "got it!" She decided to take hold of the last remaining days and quit taking the ativan and wake up and live! She is thinking about Christmas, even New Years. She could finally say, "so this is it, I am going to die. Really die. There is no cure." It's gotta be hard to be able to say, and she did it and I am so proud of her for not letting this disease drag her down slowly.
I almost did a happy dance when she told me she did not want any more ativan. You could almost see a cloud lifted off her family, who were obviously having a hard time watching her barely able to keep her eyes open. You knew they wanted to have every minute with her awake and able to share the time together, not be alone in it. They know the alone time will come.
My patients surprise me sometimes, and I love it when they do. I feel like I changed someone's life, made it better. It's good to be me. I love my job!

Smile has been reapplied

Every once in a while my patients make me smile. Today started out like that, and I have to get this down on paper, pardon the expression. I plan to write more later, but this was just too cute. Usually, when we come into a patients room in the morning, we update the dry erase board with the current date, our name and other pertinant facts. This is how it usually looks:

Saturday, December 16th 2006
RN: Laura
CCP: Medina
Charge RN: Martha

Today, my dear patient added to the bottom:

Sick guy: Marc

Fishy looking

What a depressing day! Not that being in oncology is the most delightful, upbeat area to be working in, but most days, it is good. Patients are fighting their disease, we make their pain go away albeit temporarily, they get to go home until their next round of chemo. Things are on average good. Today is not so much the case.
One of our dear patients passed away yesterday. His family was one of the ones we were adopting. I am always a little leary of designating a family to shower with gifts because inevitably the patient does not make it to the holiday. On a good year, they get better and get to go home, but not this year.
I have a 37 year old whose sarcoma has spread to his eye and has grown so quickly that his eye is bulging out of his head, thankfully covered still in also swollen eyelid. Imagine those goldfish with the google eyes. He has a hard time talking, since they had to take a chunk of his tongue and palate out. My other patient does not get to go home either because those headaches, well, they are from a raging infection in his sinuses. No Mexico surf trip like he was planning. I guess San Diego is still better than being stuck in Idaho.
My heartbreaker for the day is the 32 year old who finally got the news that her fears are confirmed, and she will be living, hopefully for the next 4-6 weeks at best. For me, what makes it worse is that she just wants to sleep. She is trying to take enough ativan, benadryl, anything to let her sleep and "get away from it all" for as long as possible. How can you want to sleep the last few days of your life away? Ativan does not make the cancer go away. I wish she could just realize that this is her chance to do anything she had always wanted to do, rather than trying to hide and make it go away. I can't imagine having a death sentence hanging over my head, though, and we never know how we will react until we are in a particular situation ourselves. I like to think that I would be strong enough to say enough is enough with the chemo and just find as many ways as possible to live to the fullest any day I have left. This is why I am not going to wait until it is too late to do the things I have always wanted to do. I don't want to have to have a death sentence over my head to take the time to go see the things that are only in pictures, or tell the people I love how much I love them. I don't want to die with unfinished business. It is good to be me, and I am grateful for the opportunity to live like I mean it. It is so easy to get lulled into "just get through life" and postpone the things that don't seem important. But I think those things, the dreams and hopes, those are the things to live for. Some day, when I am staring at the wall while drooling on my pillow in the old folk home, I don't want to wish I had. I want to let the mental movies roll, and relive my glory days. And by the way, every day you live is a glory day.