Whew

Things have been... well, I don't know. The end of the year is the busiest time of year for surgery. People want to get things taken care of they have put off. They have met their deductibles and so they need to have their surgeries. They may need to use their time off before the end of the year or they will lose it. One thing we see is that it is farmer or rancher and it is the off season so they get their backs fixed or their hernias fixed or their Lap.Bands placed. Whatever, it is nuts. We are each supposed to be cutting our hours and watching the clock but then we are expected to stay late all the time. Whatever. We got an email that told us in this time of recession the costs to provide health care are up and the revenues are down so as of the first of the year there will be a significant increase in the cost of health insurance. In the next paragraph it said they didn't know when they could consider giving us cost of living, let alone market raises. This wouldn't be so bad if the hospital hadn't just bought the majority of the doctors' practices and the free standing surgery center that has already put so much turmoil in our lives. Great. When they did this they decided to redo all the marketing for the hospital. Every sign, every single paper, all the pamphlets, EVERYTHING had to be changed. They changed EVERY clock in the hospital so that they have the new logo. There are more than twenty clocks in just my department. I can come up with 25 without thinking hard. But there is no money for raises and they don't know when there will be. Really.

Anyway so that has been a bit stressful. Mike has been working insane hours. He has been averaging 23 hours or less home and 24 hours gone. He used to be home 36 hours or so. He is a person that needs his sleep too. It is nothing for him to sleep twelve hours or more at a time. I can't tell you what I would do to get eight or even six! It has been hard with daddy being gone so much. Jake sure does love his daddy!

However, last week I finished all my tests. I took my specialty certification test. I had been trying to study everyday some for a long time and I have been trying to take care of the house. It was the hardest test I have ever taken in my life. It was much harder than the test I took to get my nursing licence. In some ways that makes sense since it is supposed to mean that you are highly proficient at a particular specialty so the focus is much more narrow than all of nursing. I knew it would be difficult but I wasn't expecting it to be quite that difficult. The good thing was that I got to take it here in town. That is a very recent change. I thought I was going to have to go about 3.5 hours away which makes it a lot more challenging. I was worried about the weather and it was bad the day of test. I was able to take Jake to daycare and then I tried to relax for a bit and I drove about five miles across town and that was it. Thankfully it even told me right then and their that I passed. THANK GOD!!! I don't want to go through that again. It was very expensive and time consuming. But I did learn a lot. I learned a lot of things that I wish I had learned years ago. I will say that I believe my years of experiences really helped on the test at least as much as the studying. But I did learn a lot. I got a lot of validation. Too bad I don't also get a raise!! It does look good for the hospital to have a good percentage of certified registered nurses.

On to the important things. Jake is just growing by leaps and bounds. He is a nut. He is so chatty. I don't know what he says most of the time but he talks nonstop. He is into saying "hot" right now but it is how he says it that is so funny. I know he is saying it like I say it to him when I don't want him to touch something hot. It is just so funny. He has slept through the night three out of the last six nights. He hasn't slept through the night in FOREVER!!! Tonight is our biggest challenge. Jake got to nurse this morning, but no more. It is apparent that he has no intention of giving up nursing anytime soon and I just can't do it anymore. Fifteen and a half months is a long time right??? I need to be done. I also need the regular bcp that I started on Saturday or might need to start blood transfusions soon. I hear crying. I guess tonight isn't going to be one of the nights he makes it!