Thoughts

I hope everyone has had a good Christmas. Ours wasn't as planned but worked out well. I will hopefully post on that soon. I have been pushing some thoughts to the back of mine mind to deal with next month. Of course that is only next week. Last week I finally saw a doctor, sort of. The doctor, a friend of mine, was finished early and I was in her room. So I asked her if I could talk to her because I am having some problems and I don't know where I should start. We talked for a good long while and we developed a plan. First a bunch of blood work and an ultrasound and biopsy in a few weeks. I am having very mixed feelings. I feel better knowing that I finally have someone to help me with whatever the hell is going on with my body. I also would like to continue to believe nothing is really wrong and everything will be fine in a minute or it is just stress. I realize I need to get my body in order and that will help me cope with everything else.


I am a little mixed about my choice of doctors. I didn't know who to talk to so I talked to someone I know pretty well. I don't know if I want her to know how crazy I really. She wouldn't be my first choice for some things but I think she is an excellent diagnostician. She really delves into things and goes to whomever she needs to get help if she needs it. She is also my age and her sons play with my son every day. That is her job though right. I'm just nervous. I want to get it all over and figure out what we can do to get Jake a sibling that he says he doesn't want!

Not so merry at the moment

So I've complained about my mom before, a lot actually. She has issues. She is very lonely but has done many things to isolate herself and push away the people around her. But she also really likes to draw attention to herself, particularly if someone else is getting attention. There is a long history of her having... fits at important events or such. She is always late for family events so as to make everyone wait and to draw attention when she finally makes a big entrance. She always wants to help, say, sew something that is important but not have it done when it needs to be. Critical items, like the dress I wore in my sister's wedding. We were all waiting for her and my dress. She showed up almost an hour late. The dress still wasn't finished and she wasn't dressed and ready. My sister's SIL had to sew me into the dress, literally. There were several, SEVERAL tantrums during my wedding. She refuses to participate. She ironed through the rehearsal. She was late and we had to wait on pictures even after the photographer rearranged his detailed schedule. He was not happy and I think it showed in our pictures. We almost had to delay the damn wedding. She gets sick and wallows in her illness. She misses tons of work.

So the actual issue at hand? We are all (my mom, my aunt, Jake and I) supposed to go to my sister's house for Christmas. Mike has to work and doesn't want me to go. Still having issues there. But my mom threw a fit! A hissy of monster proportions because my sister wants my aunt and my mom to stay in a hotel. My sister has one guest bedroom. I know her house is huge and has a lot of rooms, but there really isn't a place to put people. My mom and my aunt are extremely loud. My aunt never had children and my mom is obviously many years removed from having young children. She doesn't get how hard it is to try to keep a little order in their lives while there is company. It was a little hard when we were down there this fall. When my sister visits anywhere she usually stays in a hotel. There are five of them. They need to be able to put the boys behind closed doors to sleep, not in the middle of a main room floor. (one would be fine. the second is pushing it, but the third is too little still). Besides is my mom going to sleep on the top bunk or my aunt? Anyway, my mom has gotten ugly. She was supposed to take my aunt. Now my aunt wants me to take her but I'm still on the line to go. I still have to work on Mike. I don't want to be away from him. I don't want him to be away from Jake. I don't want to miss my family and I'm sick of holidays with his family. They just don't feel right.

Anyway, my mom won't talk to anyone, but she will send horrible emails. Mean, mean. She tried to raise her children right, but she doesn't know where she went so wrong to end up with children like this. What did she ever do to deserve such horrible daughters? She has yet to actually come at me, but it is coming. It has been directed toward my aunt and my sister so far. Ugly, ugly, ugly to my sister. My sister doesn't come up to the area we live often. She never lived here so it isn't home. There are five of them to try and coordinate. There is one of my mom to travel. My sister has paid several times for my mom to fly down to visit her. My mom complains about it. I paid to fly my mom down once, she just bitched about it. She hasn't seen my nephews since July 2007. She was mean to them. She made them cry! I do go visit my sister without including my mom. I can't drive down there with her. I would kill her. I would be mad the whole damn time. It is my vacation, right?

I don't know what to do. I mean this is totally my mom. She has done what she can to ruin the holiday for everyone. She got the attention she felt like she wasn't getting. It has gotten bad a few times before but this is truly ugly. My mom can be down right mean and that is what she is doing. She is a therapist!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't know what to do. I may whine a lot and complain, a lot, but this is actually scary to me. I don't know how this can be worked through or past.

I forgot to mention that my sister is having surgery the Monday before Christmas but was still having everyone come. It isn't outpatient either. She will hopefully only spend one night, but still. That should be reason enough for people to give her some damn space! I am reluctant to go myself just for the added stress of company because I know it is hard. She is hoping to be feeling great two days after the surgery when people are supposed to be getting there but I am doubtful.

My happiness

I bitch and whine a lot but that is because I need to vent about the stresses in life. But there is so much good too. There are a lot of temper tantrums at the moment and frustration all around right now, but there is so much happiness. I am really enjoying Jake right now. He is so much fun. He is just so much more interactive now. We can really do things together. He is so smart too. I am shocked at his ability to problem solve! (I swear he is better many men I am around and thinking through things). He is so darn cute and he flashes a big smile to get his way. He is a total cheese when he sees a camera. It is terrible to try to take a picture of him right now. He talks my leg off! I can't believe how much he says and how long he goes. He still says a lot of things that I can't understand and he most definitely gets frustrated with me because I'm not on the same page. He tries to show me what he is saying that I can get which is helpful. I do get a lot of "dis, Mama" or "dat, Mama" when he is showing me around. But I swear there are some Duh Mama's in there.

He is a terrible flirt. Terrible. He is also very loving and asks for hugs and kisses all the time. He is not particularly gentle though. He's a bit of a brute actually and bossy too.

He is so good at helping his Mama. He wants to do it himself though. He was trying to reach something in the kitchen one day and I told him to go get his step. He always uses his step to get into the monster toy box but now he has figured out that it is his key to the world "up there"

He had his first Christmas program tonight and it went okay. The two's were a little too young to really get into it. But they tried. He made it about half way before he got bored and then ended up bonking his head on the microphone and sitting down on the floor with one of his teachers. He was literally the smallest of the children and he was just so cute.

We have made some progress in sleeping. Although he is passed out in the middle of the living room here, he almost always walks to bed now. However, this is where he sleeps. He won't sleep in his bed (his converted crib). He will play in it and lay down while he is playing but her won't sleep there. He will sleep in his chair in my room. At some point most nights he gets in bed with me but it isn't all night anymore and he goes to bed awake! I don't think he likes being alone to sleep, plus I think his room is noisy at night. The wind is pretty noisy. We are going to get him a big bed after we recover from Christmas. He is eating some food too. Food that little kids eat! He at two, TWO, hot dogs last night. Now, I don't think that is the greatest food (being so healthy and all) but it is a normal thing to eat and he is eating it! I'm proud of him though.

I adore my little guy and I'm sad I can't spend more good times with him. We have our moments when I am willing to pay someone to take him, but I just look forward to our time so much.

Well...

Okay, I need to back off a little. I am extremely thankful to say that Jake is over his milk allergy and they "think" he is over his egg allergy. However, it is going to take some time before he can just eat both if everything goes well. His back is still a mess from his skin testing Wednesday. His got additional drugs and increased his existing meds. We are supposed to wait until all is calm and then start the dairy. Bad parents we are, we have given him some already (he is on the new doses though). I have added 2%milk to his rice milk once a yesterday and once today. I have given him one of his favorite things in addition to that. It sounds like he is saying "wickert" but what he is jumping up and down and hollering for is yogurt. He LOVES yogurt. I got him some of the little bitty kid cups but I know he wants a whole carton. I thought we should go small for awhile. We tried giving him yogurt awhile back and we thought it was making his cheeks break out. Supposedly, that isn't it. They told us now it happens if he gets a lot of soy. That presents some significant issues. But if we can have eggs and dairy it should be a bit easier to cut the soy back. Soy is in practically everything packaged or ready-made of course! But now I should have an easier time trying to make things he can eat. I do most of my cooking from scratch so it is easier to control the ingredients.

So I feel a little bit bad for being so mad at the grandparents. I did make sure that they understood that they still can't just feed him whatever they want. This is going to take awhile to make sure he won't react to these things and to get his body used to dairy. His poor digestive system doesn't know how to handle it yet. Okay, but there is still the peanut portion of my irritation with Grandma. Mike talked to his dad and it didn't really go that well. Jake had such a bad skin reaction to the dilute peanut serum. They nurse and the PA doing the testing brought several other nurses in to look at his back because his reactions were so severe. Just a little education. That is fine. I just felt so miserable for him. The process hurt him and then the allergic response made his whole back go nuts. Now his back is covered in eczema and little scratch marks.

So, as I was saying, Mike talked to his dad about the peanuts. He was sorry they left the cup out. They never leave Jake alone so it isn't a problem. Mike told him that obviously it is a problem because even if they are in the same room with him, if he finds a cup of peanuts it is too late to prevent it. He is a little speed demon. Mike pointed out that he will have picked them up and have one or more in his mouth before they even realize what he has. We all know how they get something you don't see and put it in their mouths. We have all fished something out of baby mouths. Mike told his dad that they can no longer have peanuts in their house. That went over with Mike's mom like a ton of bricks. My suggestion had been that the peanuts/peanut butter need to be up on the top shelf in the cupboard not down at Jake's eye level like they are now. They still can't eat them when he is there and they have to make sure and clean everything up right then and there. Mike said absolutely not. No peanuts at all. He acknowledges that it is just too much for his mother to have to do to get it right. (okay, he said "you know she isn't smart enough to handle it" but I feel bad writing it even if it is true). Poor Mike got yelled at enough that he has given up trying to bring peanut butter M&Ms in the house in his lunch box from work. I admit that both Mike and I will indulge in our love of peanut butter when we are not at home and it will be a long time before we will be around Jake. It just isn't worth the risk to have the allergen around Jake. But grandma eats a lot of peanuts. A lot. A lot of candy containing peanut butter too (goes well with her diabetes and all). I'm not sure how this is going to work out. Mike may not let Jake go over there at all, ever. That helps our problem.

I had such a bad day at work Friday that had my boss been there I would have quit. I suppose it was in my favor she wasn't though, huh. I am a service coordinator for plastics and gynecology right? Well, my favorite charge nurse is the one that makes our room assignments every day. I don't ever get to be in my services. We have one plastic surgeon and she has one scheduled day a week in the OR. I get to work with her maybe every three weeks. But there is gynecologic surgery four days a week at least. I have not done a case in more than a month. I think it is very hard to do your job if you never get to work in the specialties. You are completely reliant on what others tell you/ask of you. If your coworkers don't tell you something needs to be changed on a card it can't happen. So then if the doctor decides to change something and tells the people they are working with and they don't pass it along, then next week when they want to do it exactly like they did it last week no ones. Then the doctor is pissed. Another issue we have is making sure a surgery gets scheduled in the computer for the right actual procedure. When the person puts it in the computer they have to match it up to a card. That card tells the people who pull the case what to pull and the people who do the case what they need and what to do. Well, if you don't match up a surgery to the right card it is a huge problem. It wastes a lot of people's time and it causes a lot of frustration. It also costs money. Supplies always end up getting wasted then. Well, Friday I got my ass chewed the entire time I gave a lunch to a coworker in the room where the plastic surgeon was working. She barely took a breath. There was nothing I could say or do, she just wanted to be mad at someone. Making sure what is on her cards is right is my job. I don't know how to get the people that schedule to get the right cards. I have tried and tried. I have told them to ask me. I have explained and explained. I finally have the ability to go in and change it in the computer but that is something that is very hard for me to do when I am in cases all day. We finally got permission to get slight overtime to work on some of our service coordinator duties. We can have one hour a week. That is something, but really need one day a week (not overtime, just a regular day) but we don't have the staff. Anyway, I was ready to quit after my ass chewing because I have been so frustrated about never getting to be in my own services. I'm so glad I got a warm welcome when I got there. Can't wait to work with her tomorrow because it is my once every three weeks!

Last but not least, Jake is allergic to the dogs and the cat. For this moment we aren't going to do anything. The dogs don't come in the house. The cat is almost fifteen. She isn't allowed in the bedroom and that is the biggest recommendation besides getting rid of her. My hormones are all over the place and that doesn't help with any of this. I am finally doing better. The pneumonia is gone. Still coughing, but a lot less. My energy is a lot better. I just feel like I am on the verge of tears a lot. I suppose that is why my ass is so big.

Frustration

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving. Ours was there. I was sick. I am sicker than I was last week when I went to the dr. I felt better for a few days because of the big old shot of steroids and then the dose pack, but now not so good. I had a fever most of the day yesterday and again today. I went back to the doctor, you know, after I got out of work early today and got stronger antibiotics and better cough medicine. I have coughed my self into some strained muscles along my ribs and into back spasms. What freaking fun! That isn't my actual issue however.

We went to my in laws yesterday to eat. Mike was actually home and went and then it was just them and Jake and me. We ate during nap time. Oh wait, we had to keep the boy up. Thank goodness I feed him lunch because there was nothing for him to eat. He is FINALLY interested in real food, some. He wouldn't touch the turkey. He wanted green bean casserole. Luckily she had some beans in the cupboard still. The chewed on a radish for awhile. He basically ate a few green beans and some crackers. We have known Jake's allergies since he was 8 months or a little less right? Grandpa wanted to give him the casserole. No, I said. He wanted to give him the mashed potatoes Jake wanted. No, Grandpa I said. Grandma wanted to give him the stuffing. Where is package I asked. Did you use butter in it like the directions say? Oh, says Grandma. Grandpa hands him a roll. Where is the bag, I ask. Nope, not that either. Well can he have the green salad, Gpa asks. I turn and look at him and say No! (it gag worthy anyway but it is made with cottage cheese). Hello??? When I went to take the roll away I looked at their bread, nope, it has milk. I know I am not handling this as well as I might because I really don't feel good, but come on people! They pick him up from daycare and FEED him. Now, to my knowledge, they give him crackers, baby food that I buy, and fruit. I have actually been grateful he won't eat food there. Apparently I am going to have to pack him a dinner on the days they have to pick him up. They just don't get it.

However, the icing on the cake, the thing that sent me home crying, the reason that I believe these people are idiots... sitting on an end table in the living room where Jake plays was a cup of m&m's and PEANUTS. I know it isn't the end of the world if Jake gets a little dairy. Milk still gives him eczema. But peanuts could KILL him. Obviously they don't understand that I am absolutely terrified of the world out there and my child's peanut allergy. I have to work hard not to think about it and just do everything I can to control his environment. I am working very hard to not let the anxiety in the back of my mind over this allergy to freak me out. I have thought about changing my job to something I can do from home. I have given it thought to actually home school my son when the time comes. I think that is a great thing for some people. I mean I really give those parents (okay we know it is mostly mothers) credit. I couldn't do it. We would be butting heads and I would be going insane. I get frustrated to easily. I am not a teacher and I think there is a special place in heaven for teachers and those who care work in daycare. I can't imagine being in a room full of two year olds, three year olds, four year olds, whatever. I know I couldn't handle that, but I am terrified of the world out there when my son has a life-threatening allergy. I can not control the whole world, but I should be able to count on his damn grandparents! The f***ing peanuts are right next to his crackers in the cupboard. The f***ing peanut butter is next to his baby food. He goes to the cupboard for his stuff! I should be able to count on his grandparents to not be idiots. I have tried education. I have expressed to them the severity of the allergy. They have and epipen and had to learn how to use it.

I didn't even bring it up with Mike after we got home. We went in separate cars and he went to work as soon as we came home so he didn't notice I had been crying. I don't know how to solve this. They are always going to be his grandparents and apparently they are going to be idiots. I have looked into different daycare options. I can't find anything that fits our need. We can't afford to pay someone $10 an hour to watch him in addition to his regular daycare. There is not one actual daycare that is open late enough. Plus, sometimes I have to stay late. Overtime is mandatory and not scheduled. Mike is gone there is nothing he can do. I have considered giving room and board and paying a college student to watch him but I can't find one. I almost had one. Almost, but that is only temporary anyway. I have asked at daycare if there is anyone interested but there isn't. Duh, they want to leave work too. It comes back to me. To my job. Or Mike's job. If I could find an office/case management/ education kind of job, I would have to take a huge pay cut. That would be hard but we could figure something out. But there hasn't been anything. I can't really afford a 20 thousand dollar pay cut either. Especially since there is still instability with Mike's job. If he loses his job than maybe he could find something with normal hours but the job market is so terrible here and he won't move. I don't know what to pray for! I wish a nanny that refuses pay would drop out of the sky for us. I think I need to talk to my minister again. I keep hoping that someone will present them self to her that will fit our needs. I have put it out there to many people. I mean we obviously will have to cough up the cash if we could just find someone because we just can't count on his grandparents. They won't watch him overnight when I am on call either so that is a problem as well. But I can't really trust them anyway! Mike doesn't get it either because when we have problems with our actual daycare he is quick to say that we could pay his mom to watch Jake.

BTW, the dumbass coworker was finished yesterday and so far the charge hasn't freaked out and retaliated. I know the boss talked to her after so many people talked. I know I have had some bad assignments lately but I think work just sucks right now. I think some people have worse assignments than I do.

Really?

I know that I am in a funk, okay, a depression right now. I am working to pick my self up and enjoy this time of year. I know I need to do a better job of enjoying all my time with Jake. I know once the time is past it is past so I need to do better about taking in the moment. Anyway, that isn't my beef. Right now my personal issue with everyone is to think or just shut their freaking mouths. I will probably explode on the next person who says "don't you think you should be thinking about a second one now?" I have been sick, really sick. I have had a cough for more than four weeks that turned into pneumonia last week. I just had a cough, a dry annoying cough so I didn't go to the Dr until I got sick. Well, this week I had a couple of really rough days at work. I mean I was light headed, diaphoretic, just not looking so good - a combination of being sick and being anemic from AF. I believe I was asked about 100 times, seriously, if I was pregnant. I just can't take it.

Can't people mind their own f'ing business. I mean, I don't know if I am going to yell or burst into tears. I mean you just can't sit down and discuss your reproductive issues with everyone. Maybe I should and they would get the point to back off. People just don't get it. I know my issues are much less significant than others but I'm certainly not one of those people that gets pregnant without trying. I'm scared, I guess. What if it takes a year again? What if we have to do more? How am I going to be able to deal with these people??? For crapsake, yesterday the people giving me a hard time were friends - an OB and a nurse for the GYN that specializes in infertility. What if? What if? What if? My little mind is so fragile right now, but time is not my friend (as I was reminded) and I can't take anymore time to try to straighten myself out. I'm scared. I don't know what to do, but I do know that the next person that says something to me might really regret it!!!

Hell to pay????

I think we all might be in trouble at work. Friday and Monday our Unit Manager (charge nurse+) and another nurse that we don't actually know what she does (her title is supervisor of the aides or something) were gone. Oh and the director was gone Friday too. Crap to me that I was on call and the charge for the day. It was a bad day. The nurse in charge of the aides made a very poor decision to leave someone who has been here for like a month on her own to take the only aide with experience to a meeting. Not good. Not good at all. We didn't even have any extra nurses to help her until afternoon. We are lucky she came back!

Anyway, that just has me pissed what I am worried about is the boss. We have meetings every Monday morning to help educate us staff. That is good, most of the time. Our presentation was very short this week so we sat and talked because we could. All the people you have to worry about what you say were gone. People could speak freely about how stressful our charge makes everything and how in her attempts to make things go well, we are actually getting screwed. We also all realized that we don't know what this other nurse actually does all day everyday and she stays for hours and hours of overtime when we are in a time of very tight money. We all talked about talking to our new boss and our fear for retaliation from our charge. It is horrible to live in fear of what awful things the person in power over you will do to you. It is awful. There are some newer people that don't know the hell you pay and don't understand why us old timers don't demand change. They know how she is, they just have never experienced months or years of torture.

I was in a room all day until I left early because of a call from daycare that Jake had a temp of 103. He did still when I got home too (Mike went to get him). Poor boy. Anyway, I understand that after our morning meeting that many people went to the boss's office and were in there for hours. Some went as individuals and some went as groups. I know the boss was aware of our fears of the charge nurse, but I don't think any of us ever talked to her before. I don't know what we would. I don't know what we can do. Someone has to be in charge. She also is doing a ton of stuff that she didn't do before we got this boss. When someone else is in charge we just run the desk. We don't do all her "other" stuff. Well, when she is gone for any length of time, it has always been the nurse that we now don't know what she does that would be in charge day after day. Well, in the past, she might have been a good candidate for the job, but now she does not have the respect of the staff. Not at all.

I am very afraid the can of worms we thought we were opening was a actually a bottomless snake pit! I didn't say anything, but I will stand behind my coworkers that did because whatever they said is true. And as bad as moral was for awhile, we have all realized it is worse now. We are looking at the holiday schedule and there is no one to work. It is bad. We won't have many late shifts so people can go home at a decent time. The end of the year is always when we do the most surgeries. People have met their deductibles and want to get it done and don't care what time or day of the week. Doctors are grateful for the business and will work us to death. Each doctor only sees their own needs or how some other doctor is standing in the way of their needs. They don't see or care if they are burning out all the staff by keeping four or five rooms going until seven, eight, nine at night. We just aren't staffed for that. I am scared. We have already had some huge fights at my house over our work schedule. With impending cuts with the railroad, I really have to keep my job! It is just a big problem right now. I'm scared, but my family is more important than my job. However, we do have to eat and have a place to live.

Some pictures finally

Finally some pictures from our trip to my sister's house. I decided I needed to get them onto the computer at last! I am terrible about erasing pictures from my camera and it was sad! I got this camera for Christmas last year. Poor my Jake has changed. The baby has sure come out off his face. Makes me sad to see how fast he is growing up!

Here is Jake with his cousins at Balloon Fiesta. He loved it. LOVED it. Only Ethan and Sam went with us. Ben is still afraid of the burners so he stayed home with his dad.
We got to have a lot of fun with Aunt Suzi while the boys were at school. Here we were at the aquarium. Kind of hard to take pictures though
We also got to go to Explora a kids science museum and it was great fun for Jake and us. He is controlling one of the water sprays on a two story interactive fountain here.
Here is an air table where you put nails in the holes and it increases the force of the air in the other holes. I think we all could have played with it all day.

I thought the bubbles would be his favorite part but I was surprised. He was done pretty early and my sister and I wanted to keep playing
He loved helping Aunt Suzi vacuum!
I tried and tried to get a picture with all the boys and mine wouldn't cooperate. He was having none of it but his cousins were really good!
He had a lot of fun playing with the boys. He loved all their toys and all the space they have to play.

He stacked these cans in my sister's window forever. Unfortunately, I did have to listen to some sisterly advise on parenting. She didn't tell me anything I didn't already know was a problem. Jake's sleep is still a nightmare. It is almost impossible to get him to go to his bed, lay down and go to sleep. He will go lay down in his chair in my room and go to sleep and then get in bed with us at some point. He will lay down in the living room and go to sleep so you have to carry him to bed. He still screams and throws up for hours. We need to have a better schedule. I know this but it is damn near impossible with our jobs. Daddy goes to work at all hours of the night and day. I have three different shifts I work plus call and I literally don't know from day to day when I will be picking him up. In addition, he gets picked up by Grandma or Grandpa when I have to work late so he is at their house too which always throws a wrench in his schedule. I'm sorry I'm not a SAHM or have a job with normal hours too or have Mike's job have any schedule what so ever at all. It would make a schedule for Jake a heck of a lot easier! It makes me not want to see my sister again until Jake's sleep is better and I have no idea how long that will take. I mean it is a little better because he doesn't have to be rocked to sleep anymore.
Jacob has a new uncle! Mike's parents had to put their dog to sleep because he had lung cancer. His dad's way of dealing with that is to immediately get a new dog. Well, he had to wait about two weeks to pick up his puppy and those two weeks were hell. He was so depressed he had trouble getting out of bed. Now that MJ is here he is a different man. I don't understand the name MJ nor do I like it. I've just been calling him puppy like Jake. Jake wants to play with him so bad and the puppy wants to play with Jake but is smart enough to know better. He will run out and take a swipe at Jake and then run back to the safety of an adult. It won't be long and Jake will be experiencing those razor sharp teeth.

Jake did not so much like Halloween. He wore his costume just fine but not the going to the houses business. We didn't even go door-to-door. I am going to have to have another person with me that can go ahead and plant Jake-safe treats or stay with him so I can scope it out. We just went to friends and he cried at almost every stop. He did not like having a bag and he wanted to eat everything right then and there. I couldn't even get a picture of him until we got to the grandparent's because was so grouchy.

October

This has been a busy month. Jake and I went to my sister's house for balloon fiesta. It was his first long trip and we were alone. Thank goodness for the dvd player!!! I was very grateful to have a new vehicle to drive too. It was great. I had a terrible time holding down the speed though.

We still have a ton going on at work. The one doctor that does the single most surgeries is off two weeks because his wife had a baby. It has been a nice break but we know we will be paying for it starting next week. That is good, sort of. I mean it keeps us working but we are short of course. One person is off for having had surgery and that makes a big impact for the rest. We have also had trouble with the H1N1 starting. It is hard to be down two nurses at once. Our fear is that it will be more than that. Mandatory 7 days off is very painful to a unit. But they are sick and the rest of us don't want it. We also got good news??? The charge nurse's pet is quiting!!!! She is returning to another department. It surprises us that they will let her back. We are all excited. This is the review I was dreading so much for retaliation from the charge. It has been surprisingly okay. The charge is upset because she is leaving but no one else is, literally. We all have to pick up her slack and it is easier to do it if she is just gone. She has been with us for three and a half years but has managed to have three extended leaves (a month or more) and was being "allowed" to have surgery and be off for the holidays. I think that is was finally got her to leave. Everyone was so pissed. Yesterday though, another person announced she was moving far away. It wasn't a surprise. We knew her husband has been looking for a different job for a long time. But, he is one of those people that is always looking for the greener grass. It just puts a lot on the rest of us. That puts us down three full time RNs. That is not something we can all cover. It takes at least 6 months to train a new nurse to the job. If someone has a lot of OR experience it might be more like three months, but those people aren't just laying around. We will figure it out.

This month was to be the month. This month we had decided to start trying for another baby. That didn't work out. I have finally gotten off the meds for my face. It isn't going that well, but I will do what it takes. I had a skin lesion taken off my nose and it was benign so that was good. However, I have been having this horrible pain in my ankle. I have been trying to exercise because I need to so badly and now I am in pain. I mean I can't always put my weight on it. So I talked it over with our only longstanding ortho. (we have new ones, but I'm not comfortable with them yet). Anyway, I had a stress fracture in my ankle five and a half years ago and this is how it hurt. I figured out this pain isn't going away and he told me I had to come in. So I did. I saw his PA last week and got an xray. A calcification showed up on that picture that wasn't there in the picture I had taken years ago. If that is the problem, I need to have it surgically removed. THAT ISN'T AN option. I am closely protecting my time off so I can take twelve weeks off with a baby. Tomorrow I have a bone scan. That means I get radioactive dye injected and then they scan and see where it concentrates. That is the only way to know if it is another stress fracture or if it is this calcification. A stress fracture hopefully means just immobilization. If it means crutches this time, I can't work. I have a walking immobilizer boot right now and it is helping. Last time it was a different boot and there was too much wiggle room. That meant too much pain and I ended up in a cast. If the calcification is the issue than hopefully a steroid pack will calm the inflammation and then we will be done - for awhile. Any which way, it meant the egg I just popped out went to waste and that has us both sad.

Another note. Mike keeps hearing there are going to be cuts again at work. That means him. He has heard November, December, or February. He says it can't last long because they really won't be able to run the trains. It will be kind of like my department, the rest just can't make up that much. Plus there are a ton of federal regulations limiting their work so that helps them need more people. Who knows. Next month I'll get pregnant, be off work on crutches, and my husband will be without a job. Now that would be an opener for the holiday season!

I skipped a whole month again. I think sitting here and writing means facing myself and that is hard. Work is getting worse again. Hours suck. Increased workload, decreased staff, too much management. FUN. Had to get a new car. I hate spending money but I must say I love it. Jake and I got to say to hell with it all and are at my sister's house. One of the worst things about going on vacation is knowing that when it is over there is nothing to look forward to. Hopefully I can get some pictures up here in the next few days as we should be having some fun.

I survived

She is gone. I wasn't sure if I was going to make it through last week. I still have my doubts about the future as far as pissing the charge nurse off. The charge nurse was back today after being off most of the summer. I wish there had been a little more space between her pet's eval and her coming back. But I've made it this far. I even got my reimbursement check today for my certification test I took in December.

I also survived the birthdays. My baby is two. My baby! Jake is so funny. He is such a charmer. He has so many people wrapped around his little finger. I just can't believe he is two! I didn't even get to take pictures during the birthday. We gave Jake another cupcake yesterday just so we could take a picture and to see if he would eat it. He didn't. He loves candles. He tried and tried to blow them out with Mike on the big cake and we let him blow them out several times on his cupcake. Of course someone was standing beside him helping him. He didn't notice.

He has been a stinker when he knows you are trying to take his picture. He won't give you a nice smile like this one. I don't remember why there is a tear. We have pictures coming up in a couple of weeks and I hope he cooperates!

I made a cake to practice for his birthday. I should have made practice cupcakes because that didn't work so well with his allergy modifications. The cake tastes good and Jake got his first beater.

A good friend's sister has a little boy that is a few weeks younger than Jake. Jake loves to play with him. We went to the splash pad at the zoo and the boys sat to have a snack. It was so cute. Jake started handing K some of his puffs with out being told. He would only hand them out one at a time however and sometimes he gave them a lick first. They were so cute.!

This is the little boy who sees the camera! Our baby sitter came over to say goodbye before heading off to college. He wouldn't cooperate for a picture at all. He still asks about her.

My struggles are a bit different right now. I have been so busy I haven't been able to dwell on how crappy I feel. A friend of mine saw a different doctor today about her thyroid and got a different medication. I am very interested to see how it works for her. My thyroid levels aren't real low but they sit on the line. I may make an appointment with the doctor she saw if it really helps her.

Anyway, that isn't the problem. One day years ago, like seven or eight, I agreed to work with the plastic surgeon that was coming to our hospital. I agreed to be the person primarily in his room so he could have some consistency when he started. I believe my boss said that way he didn't have reinvent the wheel each week. I was still pretty new. It had to be at least eight years ago. Anyway, I quickly discovered I didn't really care for it that much. I didn't like the doctor much and plastic surgery ranges from gross to really horrible. One day in a staff meeting, my boss announced that we had a new position and she was looking for people to apply. She said that she wanted to have coordinators for each specialty and they would be doing things similarly as to what I was doing. She announced to everyone that I was the service coordinator for Plastics. What the hell? This was the first I had heard about this title. I was not very happy. If given the opportunity I would have picked a different specialty. Ortho was my favorite and I wanted to do that. I told her. She told me I couldn't do both. I said that was fine, I just wanted to do ortho. Nope, not going to happen. It all worked out. I would have really gone crazy in that position when a particular doctor started. I would of quit.

So, there have been changes over the years. That surgeon left and I have completely set up two following plastic surgeons. I also was a coordinator for a retinal surgeon for the brief time he was here (I put so much work into that). After someone else quit, I was actually asked to take on gynecology also. The surgeon in that practice that I didn't like had just left so I said that would be just fine. I liked it a lot more. I still do. Anyway, back to the present. Some how this position means I can do my coworkers evaluations. I don't know why it does but that is what has happened. I want to blame on the temp director but I can't because my old boss made me do three last year. This year is different, however. I was initially assigned four. Two of the other service coordinators were also assigned four. One of them did the evals like I did last year and the other didn't. We didn't get any sort of training, just some papers and a shove last year. However, the people assigned to us were very carefully picked. The director did the problem ones, as well as ours and the charge nurse did a lot of the rest of the staff. Well, the charge nurse has been off for about two months now sick. She has been really sick. In and out of the hospital. Two hospitals actually. Tomorrow is the temps last day. She wanted all of the evals done by then. So that meant we had to split up the people assigned to the charge nurse and do those also. I took four initially and accepted a fifth one today.

Of the first four I got, the director told me she was sorry because she gave me two of the three hardest ones in the department. I was upset about one. I'm not sure who she thought the second one would was because the others weren't bad at all. She did give me my best friend, but we are good enough friends that we can tell each other what we need to do and it isn't a big deal. She did have a few issues but one of the other evals on my list is the most strong-willed nurse in the department. But the one I was dreading was the worst nurse in the department. The laziest person we have who is the charge nurse's pet. Wahoo!!! I have been sick about it. I worked on it for hours last night and then went to the director and went over it again today. I went to her to help me find some positive and she just kept adding more negative. I very frankly discussed my concerns about giving an honest evaluation to the charge nurse's pet. Our new director doesn't even know the charge nurse because she has been gone. (she was back for partial days for about a week about a month ago. She was still too sick). The inter um voiced my concerns to our new director or so she told me. She never saw it so she doesn't know what I am talking about. She didn't see the favoritism and hasn't seen the retaliation.

The inter um did the eval with me today. I'm glad but she was a lot harsher than I was. The coworker did okay, but I could see that by the end she was starting to think, to devise. You can see it in her eyes. She is a plotter. I am scared. There is nothing wrong with her appealing the eval. The director did it with me. I had specific supporting information that had been presented by peers. Peers too afraid to give their own names, but some obvious to her (that one would be my best friend that the charge calls a tattle tail all the time). But the nurse was still doing things she shouldn't. She actually has some firable infractions. I am still worried. I was sick all morning. However, I the last eval I picked up has me more concerned. It is someone that oriented me. She has been a nurse forever. She is a friend. But she is having some significant problems. I have done six evals so far and three of the people have voiced concerns about her. The same concerns I have. Something is wrong with her and I don't know what it is. I wonder if she is sick and not telling us. Her job performance has gone to crap. She used to be a bit dingy but a good nurse, now she is just bad. You pretty much have to tell her exactly what to do or she doesn't. She can't identify what needs to happen on her own. She will just stand there until you tell her to go do this or do that. We have been worried but we didn't know what to do. She has to have hand surgery but that isn't root of the problem. This one I think will be harder. I went over her self evaluation and I was just shocked. She could not have rated herself any higher. Not at all. She gave examples but they aren't enough. She obviously doesn't see how bad she is doing. It is going to hard. There will be crying. I believe this was the third evaluation of the top three. So I get to do them all. I am not worried about what she will do to me. She might be mad, but it is out of concern for her welfare, not to mention everyone she takes care of, that I have to be honest. This one might have to be brutally honest for her to see.

Why do I have to do these? What gives me the authority to do annual evaluations?? Peer evaluations yes, but the actual big one? I am so ready to be done with it!!!

Whew!!!

I was brave and got my evaluation over with today. It took more than two HOURS to do. Almost two and a half hours actually. She is a story teller. She has literally seen me at the desk as charge nurse and said "oh dear, where is Mary?" Now how does that make you feel? Today she said I do a very good job of running the desk. Huh??? My charge nurse - really called a unit manager but she seems to want to do mostly the charge nurse stuff. Anyway, she has been really sick. Really, really sick. She was in ICU for more than a week. She has been off for 6 weeks? maybe a little more. She hasn't had a lot of opportunity to do more of the unit manager tasks. Anyway, there is a second in charge running the board most of the time, but occasionally I have been too. This director seems to think the sun rises and sets with Mary so I was surprised when she said that. The whole thing was a pleasant surprise actually.

We did talk quite a bit about one of the evaluations that I have to do. It has me in a difficult position and she helped me. She didn't tell me anything I didn't know but she offered to sit in on the evaluation and that was a relief. I want a witness. If she doesn't I am going to ask the acting charge to sit with me. It isn't going to be pretty. I think one of the reasons she assigned me this nurse was because she know that I have to be honest. I call her on her crap all the time right? The issue is that this is a bad nurse and a bad employee. She is incredibly lazy. She thinks she is so much better than the rest of us and that she doesn't have to pull her own weight. But she can tell everyone else what to do. She happens to be the unit manager's pet. I don't get it. I kind of do, but I don't. I mean she is really bad. It took her a lot of work to find someone to fill out her peer evaluation, because everyone can't stand her. She wanders around with this sense of entitlement. She is also afternoon charge sometimes and she is terrible. She is so freaking lazy. I can not express this enough. Well, if I am honest her eval is going to suck. I can be honest without letting my personal dislike get in the way. If her eval sucks the unit manager is going to be nasty to me. So I at least want a witness so she can't say I was just mean. I have bitched and moaned plenty on the past about how nasty the charge can be when you piss her off. GREAT!! The director told me that she doesn't see how this person is still here. She obviously doesn't care about being and OR nurse. Well, I finally agree with something this woman says.

I can tell the director thinks I remind her of herself. I was surprised. She really wants me to get a master's degree. She said that like 20 times and she had many many suggestions for different jobs and experiences for me. I was surprised. But she also told me that she wants ME to become the unit manager when our current unit manager isn't any more. That was a surprise. It is always best to promote from with in and it would be the worst first year of my life but that I was the stand out in the department for that position. What about Mary??? Mary is working on her BSN but doesn't have it yet. It was very surprising to me. She said I was a wealth of untapped knowledge. Weird! It was weird. I literally could not have had a better evaluation. I could not have scored any higher. There wasn't anything I needed to work on just goals for the up coming year. Weird!!!

The crappy thing is those of us doing evals are going to have to do more because we don't know when the unit manager will be back. I did some last year right, but this director has really made a big deal out of the service coordinators. She has elevated our positions without more pay and kind of ticked off the "others." That makes it more fun right? At least one thing I have been dreading is done.

This summer has been bad. With me at least. I am struggling. It makes me very sad that I am not enjoying my son as I should be, as he deserves me to be. Work is soooo stressful. Our interim director should only be here nine more days. Thank GOD. Only we have to have all our evaluations done in that time. She personally has to do mine. Not good. We don't get along. She tells us all these things we do wrong and I argue with her. She doesn't see how we do anything. She is locked (literally) in an office half way across the hospital. Even when her office was in our department she still didn't see. She was off at even more meetings than our old director.

Good news is that we have a permanent new director. She seems much more on page with us. Hopefully it will work well. We have just had two directors for more than a month now and it sucks. It also means we are getting assignments from both of them. Assignments that have to be done out side of our actual duties of taking care of patients. Managers some how seem to forget that we still do that. Hello! Someone still has to take care of the people. They get so far removed. I have pointed that out to the interim director that her assignment will have to wait because I have a job more important to do first. She didn't like that.

Mike's job has been insane. He still has one, thank God, but he is hardly ever home. He is only about twelve hours between trips. Then he is gone for at least 36 hours. He is awfully tired too. Not much that needs to get done around here can get done.

I have an appointment this week with the doctor about the medication for my face. I have been taking medication now since what, Jake was 5 or 6 months old. I have very little never pain now which is obviously great. I still have a lot of twitching and tugging and spasming that is muscular and they can't fix. Some of it could be helped with botox injections but the worst of it is around my mouth so that isn't really an option. Of course, what I am being told is that I just need to reduce my stress levels and that will get better. Anyway, the point of the appointment is to stop taking the medication. It is not something that I can take while pregnant. It effects my nerve transmissions and could prevent a baby's from forming properly. I believe it is a category X medication so we want off that. But that leaves me afraid. Will I have that horrible pain again? I have visited with a couple of the providers at my OB office and they have researched the recurrence of Bell's Palsy during pregnancy. There isn't much out there. My odds are higher but they don't know if there is anything I can do to try and prevent it. They give pregnant women with herpes antivirals during pregnancy and I wanted to know if that would help me. They just don't know.

I have officially gone off the pill as of like a couple of days. However, I feel like something is wrong with me physically. I went to the doctor and they told me it was just stress. My symptoms cover many things including stress. Fatigue. I am so tired I can't do anything. I could take a nap every day when I actually get home. I have been stuck late at work almost every day. Loss of appetite but weight gain. I completely forget to eat because I am not hungry. But I have gained weight which makes me feel like crap. Headaches, nausea, difficulty sleeping even though I feel like I could always take a nap. Depression? Thyroid? Tell me I am fine. Something is out of balance but I don't know what it is. I am hoping maybe this doctor will draw more blood this week and maybe they can tell me. He wouldn't treat anything because he is just a pain specialist and he is only here for less than a month because he is moving. That has me a little worried. What happens if I have problems again? Who do I go to? Hopefully he can tell me. He has a very busy practice so there are a lot of people that are going to need a different doctor.

I just feel like I need to be doing more for my sweet little demon child than I am. I feel like I'm not being a good enough mommy right now and oh, we need to hurry up and try to have another child because the clock is ticking. That doesn't help. I need to figure out what it up with me before I get pregnant. But now my husband that is never home is really pressuring me to have the second baby I do want. He just wants it now. I can't figure that one out.

Anyway, I'm just struggling a bit right now...

hangning in

Life is still stressful. I sat in a meeting this afternoon for an additional hour after my shift ended. All I could think about was getting and walking out, forever. What the hell am I doing?? I am ready to strangle my "temporary" boss. We have a new one starting soon and I hope, I pray that they kick this lady to the curb. Is that going to happen? No, she has a contract for some crazy amount of money until the end of August and then will be a consultant until 6 major projects are completed. Or so she says. I don't know if the hospital will go for that. I'm sure it is a TON of money. Besides, we are hoping the new boss disagrees with some of things she is pushing. Anyway, she has made my life very difficult. Much more so than before. She keeps piling on the work. Every Monday she gives us more and more. The charge nurse doesn't give us any time to work on these minor projects. ha! I am sorely irritated that I am doing all this extra work for $80 a pay period. I would love to say I am done, but that won't happen. They won't let me quit this extra work without leaving the whole job. I am so tempted. Oh wait, I have to have a different job to do that! Anyway, she chewed me out for not questioning whether a doctor was credentialed to do a surgery or not. I never in a million years would have questioned this. It was just a small portion of the surgery she is yelling at me about. It is all about paperwork and not the doctor's abilities. I was just livid. LIVID. I checked into it and the person that can help is injured. Great. So I went to the medical director over surgical services and told him. He was shocked. Nurses being told to question doctors? So I hope I won't be getting my head chopped off tomorrow.

Speaking of chopping off - Jake took off the end of his thumb Saturday. He was playing in the storage container cupboard. We have a safety catch on the outside of the doors and then on the inside as well. He can get them open in less than 1o seconds. The main reason those doors are latched is because he makes such a big mess. Well, in the midst of his mess he cut his little thumb on the edge of a zi.p.loc storage container. Are they sharp? They aren't supposed to be. I was cooking dinner just feet away from him and he screamed for me and there was blood all over. OMG was there blood. I thought he cut his hand off. I was shocked. I had to struggle to see where the blood was actually coming from because it was all over him. I still don't know how he did it but the container is obviously gone. I held pressure on his little thumb for fifteen minutes and it didn't help. I didn't want to take him to the ER and have them tell me I was an idiot for bringing him there so I took him across the street to the neighbors. My neighbor and his dad were outside. They are both paramedics and flight nurses. My neighbor is actual now a nurse practitioner and been a nurse in two wars now being deployed multiple times. So anyway, I thought he could at least tell me if I was being silly or I really should go to the hospital. He looked at it and said it was pretty serious since there was no way to actually close the wound. This I know. But I don't know how they treat it when it is like this. I know what to do when it is worse, but this is in a grey area for me. He put a huge band aid on it and wrapped it with something I wasn't familiar with and then put a bunch of tape over it to try to keep it on. I know little kids. Half of them have their dressings off by the time we get them to the recovery room. Thank God Jake left it on. The goal was for it to fall off in the bath Sunday night, but I was presented the dressing and the thumb when I was trying to sleep Sunday morning. It looked like hell! It looked so painful. But thank you, Jesus, it wasn't bleeding. I got a couple of band aids on it and I wrapped it with some coban. That stayed on until after his bath and we put on another that is still on now. I was just sure it would fall off at daycare and start bleeding again. Hopefully we are past the bleeding now. If we had gone to the ER they would have had to cauterized it. That is so painful. I would have been crying too. So we are still good and he still wants to play in that cupboard.

Now on a daily basis we are talking about baby number two. Mike wants to start trying now. Mike is the one that gets to sleep. Although Jake is doing much better, but he still doesn't sleep all night in his bed every night. But it is better. He gets up very early and stays up way too late for me. I think it was about 845 when he fell asleep in the chair. He still screams until he barfs if you put him in his crib to go to sleep. I just don't know what to do about that. I am just tired of cleaning up vomit. Anyway, it is still a little earlier than I want to have a second baby. Mike keeps reminding me that I am thinking in the world where I get pregnant the first time we try and I need to wake up. Nice huh? He is right, but what if? Maybe... Then he reminds me that maybe Jake was our one on a million and it will take more than just a year of trying on our own this time and some hormones. Nothing like another slap in the face! But he is right, but what if... I want them to be two years apart in school so that would mean Jake needs to be three since his birthday is at the end of August. I guess there is still a chance we won't hold him back but I doubt. He is doing really well, but he is a boy and I am already sick thinking about how we are going to handle daycare then. I have been planning on stay on bcp's until the end of October. That has been my mindset and then we will have to figure it out.

The good news is that Mike's work situation has kind of leveled out a little. The railroad has hired back a few people. That puts him higher up the list. I am no longer worried on a daily basis if he will have a job and where it will be. But, we never dreamed they would cut so many people to begin with. It is still touchy. Mike says we will figure it out and we won't let it stop us having another baby. We have to feed it and diaper it. But we will work it out.

I went in to work today in a good mood because today is my tenth anniversary at my job. Too bad my boss had to poop on it.

Wait, we are still here!

Wow, not even one little post in May, not even a whine about my birthday. I survived. It feels like that is what we do - survive. We both still have jobs. Our hours haven't been affected too much lately. We have had a lot of surgeries. My temporary boss has greatly expanded my job duties as a service coordinator. I don't mind, but it is hard to get done what I need to do while I am still doing the rest of my job. I am slightly irritated that I only have the potential to make $80 more a pay period for doing this than coworkers that do as little as possible. I have a lot of responsibilities. However, I know that I would be laughed at if I asked for more compensation since we are still being told to be thankful for the hours we have.

Mike is still home!!!! We really didn't think he would make it past the middle of May, but he is still here. The railroad did a whole bunch of track work near us and that meant more jobs temporarily in the area. Mike heard this week that they set up 25 more trains. That is great news, sort of. Last I knew, he didn't know how many people were getting their jobs back. Rumor was that it was only going to be about six people. That just means the people that still have jobs just have to work more. I suppose that is okay. It keeps us with a paycheck, right? I was hoping it would be more people would get their jobs back and that would put just a little more space between Mike and the bottom of the list. The most important thing about 25 more trains is that it means they need more coal. That means things are maybe, just maybe, starting to turn around. It gives us hope that there just might be another 10, 15, 25 or more trains in the future. We are not relaxing with this by any means but we have a glimmer of hope.

Of course the most important thing in our lives is our sweet little monster. Is he that bad? No, but it sure feels like the terrible twos are hovering near. There are frequent fits and lots of NO mama's and even worse are the no daddy's. Daddy has a harder time understanding that this is just part of the age. There are time-outs for that and hitting fairly often. I definitely feel a battle of the wills coming in our near future. I mean big battles. We get frustrated at such a willful little boy, but I keep asking Mike what he thought we were going to get! I think it has helped Mike see that he isn't our little baby anymore. That has been something Mike has been refusing to see.

Jake talks about none stop. Again, I'm not sure where he got that. He says lots of sentences now. I mean real sentences with verbs and everything. We (he and I) still get frustrated trying to communicate what he wants sometimes. I just don't know what "this" is sometimes. He signs "more" and says "this" and gets very frustrated that I don't what he wants.

Jake is still a terrible, terrible eater. I am so frustrated. He will not give up baby food. There are days that is the only thing he will eat. The most difficult thing is that there is only one kind of food that he wants now. Over time he has stopped eating the other flavors and will only eat this one. He will literally eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. It could be worse right? I mean it is a dinner so it has veggies and meat. He could only be eating applesauce or something. I hate it. I am so ready to be done with this crap. I keep exhausting the town's supply of this variety. I have asked stores to order it for me and they won't. That really surprised me. I am willing to pay up front. We haven't been able to find it online either. Last weekend I went to six stores and only came up with 11 jars. That is a big problem. I went to one today and they had nothing again. He will just not eat and have milk or juice if you don't have his "ninner." Just recently he has started asking for beans. I can't figure out what he means for beans. I have given him everything I can think of and I asked at daycare and they don't know either what beans mean.

I wish I could say Jake's sleeping has improved but I can't. It has from eight months ago I suppose. He generally sleeps through the night 2 maybe 3 nights a week. He let me sleep in just a little one day this week. He still throws up if you leave him in his crib to cry. Actually, Mike needs to clean the carpet right now from two nights ago. This is something that causes a lot of stress for us. Mike puts him in bed and says I can't get him. He finally caves and then I have to clean up the whole damn mess. I have had to give Jake a bath after 10 because he has gotten so sick. This makes me very angry with Mike.

Potty training? Not exactly. I still try to put Jake on the potty chair before his bath if he is willing. He asks to sit on it several times a day but he rarely actually goes in the chair. He seems to understand though. He asks when you go to change his diaper. (I just love to hear him say diaper. It seems to have syllables).

Here is my beautiful iris. I planted a ton of them last year and a few did bloom this year. This is the first. It has had a total of seven blossoms on that stalk. I didn't realize they could have that many. I do so love iris.
I am going to have to try harder. It is therapeutic to write so I should do it more right? Sometimes you just don't want to actually but the words down because that makes them real. You don't want to admit to yourself the situation.

And so it goes

I keep trying to sit down and write a post but I just can't seem to do it. I would love to just carry on about Jake because he is doing so well, but that isn't what is consuming my mind these days. I am horribly stressed with work, both mine and Mike's. It seems as though we are circling the the drain and there isn't much we can do.

Mike is now five people from having to go to Wyoming to work. That would be horrible, scratch that, that WILL be horrible. What it means is that he will have to go to the next leg of their trip instead of his normal one. It is the final or initial step for the trains. It is taking the trains to and from the mine. He actually does that a lot now but then he brings the train home. He would have to live up there. His plan is to get a topper for his truck and when he can't drive home he will sleep in his truck. He can't find a reasonable topper anywhere near us. It isn't like he has set hours or days so we can plan on him being gone so long and home so long. It is going to be awful. Five more people get laid off and he goes. What is worse is that once he leaves, it is only the ticking of the clock before he gets laid off. He has been there more than five years! When the layoffs started he kept telling me not to worry because there were so many people behind him on his local board. Well they have laid off about 200 people that were behind him on the board. There are less than fifty left behind him... Companies are needing the coal. They are using their reserves. It can't go on forever, but will we survive the cut? Probably not. He has our health insurance. He has an outstanding retirement that will be gone. Gone.

My job is sucking ass. The environment is hell. Everyone is miserable. Our new boss doesn't give a shit about people. That isn't her job. Her job is to shape things up and trim the fat. I was off yesterday (without pay) because we didn't have enough work. I needed a mental health day though. It is scary. Everyone has the claws out. My charge nurse was gone for about the first two and a half weeks the new director was here. I had to be the charge nurse for three of the days she was gone. I hated it. HATED IT. Someone almost got fired for an error while I was on duty and I had to defend the person. It was the charge nurse's pet. I don't like her personally, but more importantly I am not comfortable with her work. But there was no way in hell I was going to be the one in charge when she got the boot. My life would have been HELL!!!! For the current volumes we are doing, we probably four too many nurses. So... Right now we are all having to go home early or stay home. Summers are always worse because doctors take vacations and will be gone a week here and a week there. Thankfully, nurses take vacations too so that will help a little.

Anyway, I'm not sleeping well. I'm worrying constantly. I have to watch my back every single move I make. Our jobs won't be based on seniority like Mike's. Ours will be the first, the second, etc to screw up. So all the worrying doesn't help one's performance. I mean you get paranoid and shaky. You question yourself and that isn't good. We need to just be able to do. But no, now it is "did I dot that i, did I cross that t?" I mean everything is important but you should have to triple guess yourself.

The worst part of this personally is that we have been talking about starting to try for another baby sooner rather than later. At the moment, we aren't sure it about holding Jake back a year to start school. That is a long way off but he is doing better developmentally than lots of the kids in his room that are six months older. He is doing well socially as well. But we still don't know how he will be when it actually comes to the time to make that decision. We can't have another baby now. We won't be able to get the hospital insurance until November. But that aside, we won't be able to afford another child on just my income. We may have to move. Who knows what we will find for work. I have been glancing around and everyone is tightened down right now. The job market is horrendous around here for Mike. I mean, 200 people have been laid off a head of him. They are all looking for jobs! Nothing will pay as well of have the benefits. Hopefully something else would have better hours, but... Anyway, we may have to put off another baby. We may not be able to have another baby. This is upsetting me very much right now. I mean, if I can't get pregnant that is one thing, but if it is because of the damn economy I am going to be mad my entire life.

Hopefully I can get a happier post with pictures of Jake out in a few days.

Things aren't going all that well right now, but it makes world feel a lot less crappy when your baby looks up at you and says "Mama, I love you."

Fun in the sun

A good friend and coworker of mine brought over an Easter basket for Jake today. He loved it. It had some jello eggs, a huge bubble wand, chalk, a turtle shaped water gun, and more good stuff. We took him outside to play and he just loved it. He just adores this friend of mine. He asks for her every day. This morning when he woke me up by jumping on my head at 3:40 he was asking for her. I thought about taking him to her at that moment! He just loves to play with her. Her only daughter graduates from high school this year and babysits for us from time to time. My friend is really looking forward to having Jacob to play with once her baby is gone.

Anyway, we played and played and played. He was so cute. I didn't grab a single picture either. Every time he puts something in your hand or takes something from you he says thank you. That is great right? Well when you are holding the bubble bottle and he dips the wand in he says it. We had to have heard thank at least 150 times while we were there. It was fun. I got sunburned though and I'm afraid his cheeks might be pink. I need to get some new sun screen I guess. I was looking at Jake's little legs the other day and thank goodness I think he is going to get a bit of his daddy's coloring. His legs were not anywhere near as pale as mine. I have the skin so white it is lavender on my legs. I still feel bad if I burned my baby

So the new boss was there today. First thing she had maintenance come put a big deadbolt on her office door. The bosses door has never been locked before. There were tons of things in there we needed - instrument books, reference materials, orientation videos that cost a fortune, pay stubs for people who weren't there on payday, emergency OR light bulbs and fuses, back laser keys for when someone misplaces the regular set, emergency chocolate and antacids. I didn't see her much. But almost everyone who was working around her said that she didn't speak to them. She didn't start conversations, she didn't introduce herself or anything. We have a very short meeting every morning and she didn't come to that either. I sure hope she does in tomorrow. I walked up to introduce myself and she turned around and walked away. I didn't mention that the charge nurse is still MIA either did I? Great. Well, let's see how it goes for the rest of the week. I have some major things I need to get handled but I'm not sure how to go about it.

The beginning? The end?

I hardly slept last night. I had a ticket to a high school musical that had been rescheduled from Saturday night. We had a blizzard so they changed it. That made it hard because it didn't get over until a little after 10 and I had to be up at 5. I'm old and don't cope with that very well. The musical was great and a much needed distraction. I had very fitful sleep filled with bad dreams. You see, today our interim director started and my boss told us she thought it was her last day. It is nice to start the day with us all crying.

I can't even tell you the new person's name. I know her resume is longer than my arm. What does that mean to me? She doesn't do one thing for very long, and I'm not talking about interim positions. My charge nurse didn't work today at least in our unit. She had to spend some time some where with administration going over things with this new person. She did tell one of my coworkers that she told this person that "we" weren't going to be very receptive because we are going to be very loyal to our old boss and that "we" don't trust the two doctors that are now in charge of everything. Well, that is kind of true. We are not happy with the two doctors. I don't trust a word that comes out of either of their mouths - one I never have and the other I stop trusting more recently. They flat out lie to us. Nice huh? We are loyal to the boss that has been with the hospital for forty years and she is still in her fifties. But I think we are afraid. We don't know what is happening again. Again, our future is uncertain. Again there are doctors behaving badly and getting their way. We have been told we can't progress because of the leadership we had, but what the hell do we have now???

Wait and see. Go to work and do my job. That is all I can do. I have to keep my mouth shut. I have to just do it. I am scared. There are things that need to be done. There are things that I need done to help the doctors I work with that I haven't been able to get done. Maybe there will be changes now. I don't know. Every doctor thinks their needs are more important than any other doctor and they should have the newest most expensive equipment. I just don't know. I just have to keep going I guess. I just want to cry. A lot. I only hope maybe there are some things we can do better.

Wait and see

Road trip for photos

Friday we took off after I got off work. I had to pick up Jake, feed him a snack and clean myself up before we could leave. I had been hoping to get out a little early from work but it didn't happen. Jake was about as uncooperative as he could be. Every thing seemed to be moving in slow motion except the clock. I got ready and I stood in the living room and had to decided if we were going to try to make it out or not. I decided that I just really really needed to get the heck out of Dodge even if for just a few hours.

So we hopped in the car and drove to our favorite photographer. She was having a fundraiser. It was "Free Fb Friday." You got your picture taken for a donation to the American Cancer Society. Now that is a cause I support. So we drove 75 miles for a few pictures. She is the best. She always takes more and does more than she says she is going to. She is just such a sweetheart. It was cute because Jake was bashful this trip. He has suddenly taken on this role. He now hugs Mommy's legs and hides. I did that forever when I was a kid. I just think it is funny because Jake has been so outgoing thus far. He knows and loves these women so it was pretty funny.

So a drive gives you time to think. So do pictures that are very nice but not really. I mean the photographer did a really good job it was her subject that was the issue. Anyway, I have been thinking a lot about cancer. Biology taught us that normal cells mutate and have abnormal growth and replication. It all starts with one tiny cell. One little cell can suddenly (maybe not suddenly) turn our world upside down. I would say that I see cancer at least three times a week. I mean I literally see this horrible disease at least three days a week. I might even see it three times in the same day, depending on what surgeon I am working with. A surgeon will remove a cancerous tumor and hand it to me to pass along to the pathologist. I will hold in my hand the nasty disease that is taking over some one's body. That can be a little depressing. I mean you can also say that we have cut that nasty cancer out, but it isn't that simple. Removing a cancer is usually just the very beginning of a long battle. It is a battle. Some people we are able to help as in cure. Some people we can only help make their remaining days less painful. This is something that some how weighs on me. I mean, it is like everyday routine work for us. I look around and I wonder if some of these people right here and there think about what this actually means to this person.

Surgery is a bit de-humanizing. Is that a word? I mean, most of the people actually in the OR don't get to meet the patient until they have sedation. Even if you meet them in pre-op before the sedation is given you are not meeting them in normal circumstances. They aren't themselves. They are nervous, scared, worried. They may be in a great deal of pain. We are meeting people at their most vulnerable. Within ten minutes of being taken into the OR the person is asleep or much more heavily sedated. We get them positioned. We expose the area that is that is having surgery and the rest of the person is covered up for warmth. OR's are very cold and thermoregulation is impaired. The surgical site is prepped and then everything but that one area is covered up. You kind of lose the person then. In some ways that is okay. I mean we have to be able to do one thing and then move on and do the next all day. If we let one patient impact us too much it makes it hard to take care of the next. It just feels a bit callus some times. Particularly when you are finding horrible new diagnosis such as cancer. I don't know how oncologists and oncology nurses do it day in and day out.

So anyway, I got my picture taken for a donation and permission to put it where ever you want. Obviously she has her name on it but that is fine. She deserves credit. But seeing my face makes me realize I need to get back to the lifestyle changes I kind of fell out of practice with. I did manage to lose 15 pounds but I have had the worst hormone issues. That isn't a good excuse, but I seem to have significant troubles at certain times of the month. Like the whole months work is undone in that time. I need to find a way to deal with that. I'm not sure what that is yet, but I have to work on it. Some time or another I seem to have lost the sides of my face. It bothers me to have my picture taken because I can see that my face isn't normal. Smiling always makes it more noticeable to me. I can feel that my left eye doesn't open as much as it should and I worry that my smile will be crooked. I know it could be a lot worse but it just reminds me that my face didn't recover as well as most people's do. I guess I don't have the nerve pain so I am thankful for that. I am just worried that it will come back. There is a high likelihood of that.

So then when we were done (I wasn't expecting to get pictures with Jake) I took a picture of Jake with Kelly. Jake has been visiting her since he was brand new and I just wanted a picture from the other side of the camera. Jake was being silly. He was more interested, for the first time, with the equipment than the pretty girls. But I did get a few of the photographer, her assistant, and Jake.