Me, Family, Community.

I haven’t posted since Monday!  An eternity in just regular folks time.  We are fine, lots of stuff going on, shall we give the run down since Monday?

Me:  I’m struggling with this nursing thing.  It’s exactly how I expected it to be, but now it’s staring me in the face a couple times a week.  It’s still going to happen, but I’m hesitating at the threshold.  I’ve seen an 85 year old man, unaware, incontinent, with bed sores all over his body.  I’ve seen suicide attempts (failed), drug overdoses, violent patients, code blue – full resuscitation & lonely patients.  I’ve fed countless peoples’ parents while their children are watching because I now realize no child wants to hold a spoonful of oatmeal to their parent’s lips.  I wish I could say these words, “I’m sorry” “I’ll be right back” “I hope you feel better”  “Do you need to go to the bathroom” “Does it hurt?” “Your son/daughter/family member/friend will be back soon/at 1:30pm/tomorrow” and “Are you hungry? Cold? Hot?” in the following languages: Spanish, Italian, Farsi, French, Korean and Vietnamese (probably I need more languages, but I haven’t gotten so many patients yet – less than 50 so far).  I’ve also seen many patients feel better, appreciate the care that they get and walk out of the hospital into a car driven by a family member or a friend back to a warm house with food.  It’s not always like that. 

Family: Vince is mad at me right now.  I’m not sure why as it’s spring break eve and he’s going to Florida in a couple of days with the Boy Scout troop (all his besties) and Jeremy.  He’s usually not mad at me, I’m worried that something is up with him.  It’s probably a passing thing and I shouldn’t dwell on it.  Edda’s appointments just beget other appointments – the neurologist this week (which Jeremy covered because I was at the hospital) said we should follow up with a physical medicine doctor to look at the foot braces and think about Botox injections to relax some of her musculature.  Jeremy is fretting about work, though this week I’ve been falling asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow at 10pm, so I haven’t been chatting with him as much as I’d like and then next week he’s gone – out of cell reach.  I think the boys will be even out of reach of electricity.

Community:  Our two local high schools have been in the news recently, for less than stellar reasons.  The NYTimes wrote about the first one at Rockville High School here.  Today something happened at Vince’s high school and you can read about it here.

I think I’ll skip the national/global news…

I am more chipper than this gloomy entry sounds.  I’m getting enough sleep, not exhausting myself.   Which is always my #1 goal. 

Love,
Doris

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