Pictures from the trip back

McNary dam across the Columbia River. One of the many.
I loved the show of color next to the river.

Fishermen and ducks enjoying the water.

If this will enlarge you might see the big horn sheep on the side of the hill.

This Coho Salmon was just waiting for me to take it's picture. He's looking pretty beat up.


The morning in Umatilla was beautiful. It was pouring down rain when I took the picture of the sheep. It didn't do much for the coloring on the photo either. Hope you can pick something out of them.

Rain, rain, rain, and oh yeah, more rain!

I'm baaaaacccccccccckkkkkkkkkk. It rained the majority of the trip down and most of the way back. It was not a good picture trip. I did enjoy my time with Mom tho. I have just learned that when I'm there she wants to talk about her and her life. I sometimes interject what's going on in mine and sometimes she even remembers :-) I found it very frustrating at first but have learned to let go of it. It makes my visits much more pleasant. We are each different and unusual. I'm also fortunate in that I have the patience of a saint. (most of the time)

Sometime this weekend I'll attempt to post the pictures I attempted to get of the mountain sheep that hang out a few miles from Bigs Crossing. They were pretty far up on the rocks and well, I still don't have that telephoto lens. The only reason I could see them was because of those big white rear ends. If I can clean them up I'll post em.

Oh.......I also wanted to invite anyone who reads this to come visit. When you do we'll take a trip up the gorge. It is SO beautiful.

Talk to ya all later!

Miles and Miles

OMG !! I am SO glad my nights are over with. I've worked the past three nights alone. Last night was crazy. It was traumas and amulances and people walking in and police escorts and.... geeze!! It will be nice to get back on days where if you have to work alone there are always admitters in other depts to help out if needed.

I am off to Mom's for my 'weekend'. I want to go get my hair cut and colored today sometime before going but if I can't get an appt I'll end up going to Hermiston and trying my luck there. I'm just ready for a change. I was going to let the grey grow out but it looks really tacky and the grow out is taking forever unless I want my hair cut less than an inch all over my head. Can we say porcupine?? I'll give it a few more years. Maybe when I reach 50 :-)

I'm going to be stopping back by my daughter's on Saturday sometime, hopefully, and spend the night so I can catch up with everyone. The last time I went up there after it had been awhile my grandson sez "Grandma, you came back". It was too stinkin' cute. I have been very lax about getting up there. Bad Grandma!!

K. I won't bore you with anymore details. I won't be posting until I get back so I hope everyone has a safe weekend and I'll catch up with everyone later!

I'm blank on a title for this post...................

It was another busy night. I worked alone again as I found out that my usual partner in crime has the H1N1 virus and is not allowed back at work for 10 days. I'm sure I'll be working alone tonight as well. No one wants those night shifts. I am glad tonight is my last night shift. It becomes someone else's problem. I should at least get time and a half or something for working alone. I work my a$$ off when there's only one admitter. It becomes challenging to do the little things like using the restroom, getting something to eat, trying to go back and talk to patients to get paperwork complete. GGGRRRRRRRRR

We've had two more Admitters quit and one scheduled to leave in December. That means lots of shifts that need to be picked up and that I'll be working a lot of overtime between now and the holidays. Willingly this time.

Again, most of the people we saw last night had flu like symptoms. There was one child with croup, an OSU student who had been elbowed in the head by an 8 yr old during cheerleading practice and split his eyebrow open, a retired ER doctor's mother who had cellulitis, a gentleman who had leukocytosis, a gentleman who had an enlarged prostrate and was having difficulty urinating, a young lady with a UTI, and a man who had OD'd.

I got a phone call from the Portland Police early this morning looking for a person who had been listed as missing. I let them know she was there in our mental health unit (which I found out later I was not suppose to do) and transferred them over. Late this morning I got a phone call from the pt's son. He wanted to know if his mom was at our hospital. Because of HIPPA I could not tell him anything, nor could the mental health unit. He became very upset and stated that the Portland Polilce had told him she was there but that mental health would neither confirm nor deny to the police that she was there. He never got belligerant or ugly, just determined. He told me he would be calling us every few minutes until we got so sick of him calling that we would tell him what he wanted to know. I told him that he would get the same answer every time he called and that it was not because we didn't want to tell him, it was due to HIPPA. He kept asking me "Are you kidding me?". Uh....NO. He finally called and got the hospital's address so I imagine he'll show up later this morning. I warned our switchboard operator because she's the information center of the hospital and she in turn warned security. I'll have to ask tonight when I go in if anything went down. I'm curious that way.

The other day we had a drug seeker come in and I can honestly say I've never been scared of anyone or felt unsafe in my environment until he arrived. He came in with difficulty breathing so he was taken back and given a breathing treatment. When he was told he could leave he became angry and asked why he could not just sleep there for the night and why he did not get any narcotics. Hello...we're not a hotel and we don't give people narcotics for breathing problems. Plus he was not going to be paying the bill. He got dressed and was throwing the blankets and his gown around according to his nurse. He came to my office so I could give him the financial paperwork. He asked where his wallet was. I told him I did not know. I only had his license and I had watched him pull it out of his wallet. I asked if maybe his friend had it. He said no and became aggitated. His nurse, who happened to be a male, had been standing out in the hallway because as he stated later "he had a bad feeling about the guy". He came into the office and asked what the problem was. The guy asked him where his wallet was. The nurse told him he (pt) had it in the exam room. The guy stands up, smacks his hand down with quite qa bit of force on my desk, and yells "Don't give me that shit, I didn't have it". The nurse sez "Calm down there buddy. We'll go look in your room". He lectured him on the way back to the exam room about it being his own resonsibility to keep track of his stuff. They found his wallet on the floor wadded up in the blankets. The nurse escorted him out of the ER to the waiting room where his ride was waiting. I was just glad to see him leave.

Corvallis is a nice little town. We have roughly 75,000 souls here and rarely does anything bad happen. We have some drugs here but not nearly as many as some close surrounding communities. Just for the experience I'd like to work a few nights in a big ER such as Portland. I'm betting it would make me even more thankful for the job I have and the community I live in.

So I've rambled again. :-) Thanks for hanging in there.

Blather

Whew! What a week it has been already. I keep thinking my weekend is sooner than it is because I worked Saturday. I did find out that I have 5 days to adapt to my day shift rather than being on one night, off one day, then to day shift. This will be much easier.

They have implemented new policies at the hospital due to the H1N1. The hospital has put security at two main entrances 24/7 and if you don't meet the criteria for entrance, you don't get in. No children under 12 are allowed in. They just changed that within the past few days. It was no children under the age of 18. No one under the age of 18 is allowed in the maternity unit and each pregnant mom can only have two support people with her during her whole visit. The two people must be the same, they cannot be a rotating 'two'. If anyone comes in that wishes to visit and is showing any signs at all of a cold (cough, fever, runny nose, sore throat) they are not allowed in. If they exhibit these signs and have to have lab work done they must wear a mask their entire visit. The ER entrance now is strictly that. No one but ER pts can enter. Everyone else is being redirected to the hospitals main entrance for screening. As employees, if we don't have our badge with us at all times it becomes a bit tricky getting in the doors. Especially as most of us enter through the ER.

There are mixed feelings regarding all of these policies. The way the official memo reads is that it is for the employees benefit so there are enough health care workers able to care for those who are sick. Also to help eliminate the chances of children contracting the virus through the hospital environment.

I worked alone last night. My co-worker called out and Main Admitting didn't even try to find a replacement as they knew no one would pick up the shift. It was a busy night. Not overwhelmingly so, but steady enough to keep me on my feet all night long.

The security guard last night is an older gentleman. I believe he said he was 68. Retired mailman, has had a few independant businesses on the side. He is also a smooth talker. It was fun to banter back and forth. He'll be there again tonight. At least there is an entertainment factor!

I am off to visit a few blogs before my sleep meds kick in and I can see straight. Have a great day everyone!

I Wish I Could Take Pictures

I volunteered to work last night purely for the entertainment factor. I was not disappointed.

If I only could take pictures of the drunk college kids as they stagger in or are brought in by ambulance.

We had a fisherman and his mermaid who came in because she had fallen at a nightclub and cut her hand. She needed to be much more buxom to be a good mermaid.

We had Tinkerbell who had vomited her nights worth of alcohol onto her costume and was not afraid to show the world her pink ruffled panties that were close to being thong. She turned out to be a real pain in the a$$ and was calling our nurses the 'c' word. They discharged her to her friends.

There was another character who came in but they got her undressed before I had the opportunity to see what she was wearing. The nurses did however not hesitate to leave the curtain open on her room as they undressed her and one of our male admitters got an eye full :-)
He is a gentleman. He just didn't look away fast enough.

There was the frequent flyer who came in and as this same male Admitter was getting signatures she 'accidently' let one of her boobs fall out. His take on that was 'I could have gone a lifetime without seeing that'.

Ambulance after ambulance came in. Police officer after police officer came in. It was a busy night and the extra hands were needed.

I love my job.

Palm Trees and Ocean Breezes

I contemplate moving quite frequently. The adventure of living somewhere new, exploring interesting places, meeting new friends, starting over.

I am one of those people who has trepadations about the unknown. Making a life changing decision such as moving without a plan of action and 'for sures' taken care of. By saying it causes anxiety attacks would be putting it mildly.

There are only so many details that can be worked out before you have to step out in faith and know that God will catch you no matter where you land. I am a firm believer in the statement 'there are no wrong choices, only best and better'. You must make the best of your choices and if one is not working for you, you switch gears and try another.

I long to move to somewhere that is warm and mild all year round. I would love to live close to the ocean. Hawaii is a thought but it is truly expensive there and a long ways across that beautiful Pacific Ocean. It would be difficult to find a job and then move there, or move there and then find a job. Both of those options make the sweat break out and the chills begin. Much too scary for me at this point.

On the other hand, Southern California, as was so kindly pointed out by my sister, is a viable option. It has the mild weather I crave, beautiful sunny beaches, and lots and lots of ocean. It is a bit expensive to live there but jobs are fairly easily obtained, especially if I stay in the health care industry. The one thing that will hold me back from taking that plunge is the earthquakes that California experiences. The thought of those scares the bejesus out of me.

So, I guess the bottom line is.............will I allow my fears to control my wants and desires or will I stifle them, take the plunge, and live with the consequences?

Gas Mask and fun times!

I was going to fix meatloaf tonight for dinner. I turned the oven on, loaded the dishwasher and turned it on, did what few wouldn't fit, carried my laptop from the living room to the kitchen, son was mixing the meatloaf ingredients together. He smelled something, brought it to my attention, smelled like melting plastic so I looked into the dishwasher. Nothing there, turned around and there was a fire in the oven~!~! EEK! Could see a cookie sheet in there, but that does nto normally catch on fire, this was something down on the element of the oven. I, of course, don't have a fire extinguisher, the once outside on the stairs that should be there is not, so I called 911. I had three handsome and one pretty firefighter show up at my door in less than five minutes. Turns out in addition to the cookie sheet I had evidently left a plastic tupperware bowl in there from doing dishes previously. WHOOPS!! Ruined the element and the bowl but everything else worked. The fire alarm did not go off, no surprise there. It works, just did not go off. I now have two fans going in the middle of late fall (bbbbrrrrrr) to get the horrendous smell of burnt plastic out of my house. I'm also wearing my duck mask from the hospital so I can't smell it. I'll share it with my son when he gets back..........maybe...........

Sometimes I surprise even myself.