SNOW DAY!!

Well, we'll call it a snow day, but it's really all the freezing rain we had during the night. It started as a two hour delay but at the end of the two hours they called it a day! Needless to say Mandy is still sleeping and it's 9:50am.

I, in the meantime, have made James' favorite dish for his birthday dinner tonight and baked a cake! Yes I would rather be asleep still too but...

So far I'm enjoying work, it is a challenge getting use to working nights but out of the month of January I have only had a couple of nights where I had to walk the hallways to snap out of the tired spell. Hopefully I'll be done with orientation at the end of this month. We have a check-off book that we have our preceptor sign each time a new skill is observed or done, the funniest one is "death". I told Nick that I feel like I have to hope one patient dies soon so I can check off this skill!! I was told that the book had to be complete before they could put me on the schedule! Isn't a hospital a place of healing? where we hope to send you home close to your original health? hmmmm....I usually am praying "don't die on my shift" but I guess I'll have to change my prayer.

Last week there was a couple in the hospital together. She came in first and she is 77 years young. Suffering from extreme jaundice, her husband came in the next day suffering from dehydration and anemia. He's 78 years young. She is his nurse when they are home. Hospital usually prevents man and a women from being in the same room but they made an exception...they have been married for 61 years!!! and you know they will recover better together. One night I was helping her to the bath room, with all her hook-ups, IV pole, O2 tubing, Foley...it wasn't easy but we made it. As we came out of the bath room her husband looked up and said "you look beautiful today, my dear"...I fought tears because after 61 years it was beautiful to see a love still strong. She thanked him (he's hard of hearing...) but said she didn't feel very beautiful. We had just stood in the mirror together where I had to show her how yellow her skin was and to trust her doctor to perform the surgery to make her better. As I left their room I turned to see him rise from his bed and with his cane and O2 tubing shuffle his way over to her bed and sit down beside her and put his arm around her. There was no talking between the two of them but WOW could you feel the love. I brushed a tear away and said a little prayer...

He's home now awaiting his wife. She had her surgery and looks fantastic...

I've seen some interesting things in just the short time I've been employed but that "Kodak moment" of two people still in love after 61 years will forever be etched in my memory.

Well I have to cut this short, I hear Dylan crying... I'll be back on later and post some new pictures.
Take care, Deb