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.