25 and Counting

For me, birthdays are my business-- every time I go to work it is to celebrate someone's Birth Day. However, there's still something special about one's own birthday. My family still teases me about how I used to let everyone know that "someone" had a special day coming up... sometimes even a month or two in advance. I admit that the excitement is not quite the same as when I was little; I usually don't lie awake in bed on March 19th anymore, for example. Back then the whole day felt, well, different and my heart would beat faster each time I remembered that this was my special day. I guess the day is still magical-- just in different ways. And this year, I had as good a birthday as one can expect at my age :)

2009 means I celebrated my Silver Birthday-- and although I didn't get any silver, I did get something shiny. Lance has a wonderful knack for surprises, and this time he outdid himself. He bought me a beautiful shiny red-black-and-white seven speed cruiser, complete with klingel!

I don't think I've had a bike since my old banana seater back in the early 90's (doesn't that make me sound old?) and until my mission, that was probably the last time I really rode one, too. Lance is an avid mountain biker and recently I've wanted something simple just to ride around. I knew Lance was cooking up something when he left to "finish some homework" at school in the afternoon, but I really didn't expect a bicycle. It was a wonderful surprise.

The rest of the day was great, too. Lance had made me breakfast in the morning and while he was gone I had time to finish some work around the house while listening to the lectures on Haydn that Mom lent me. In the evening we went out to eat and then watched a movie at home. It really couldn't get much better. I was also happy to recieve several phone calls and messages from my family and friends. It's nice to know you are loved and remembered on your birthday, even without reminding everyone. So, thanks to all of you! And now I have just eight months to come up with something really good for Lance's birthday...


Thanks, Sweetheart!

One Lucky Day

I just lived through the most harrowing shift I've ever experienced in my nursing career, short though it may be.

I was planning on an uneventful night shift at the smallest of the three hospitals where I work, even when I walked in and saw the patient board almost completely full when I arrived at six pm. There were only two laboring patients and the rest were postpartum or post-operative. Hmm, I thought, maybe they will even send me home after my patient delivers, as I am not really trained to do Mother/Baby work... It's almost as if I jinxed myself with overly wishful thinking.

By the time my patient delivered, there was only one room left on the floor for one very lucky person-- who ended up being just that. She came in at about five centimeters, planning an unmedicated delivery for her fourth baby. She was doing awesome-- chatty and upbeat even after her Certified Nurse Midwife broke her water, and man, that was a LOT of water, more than even the midwife had ever seen, she said. I, on the other hand, was starting to get a headache and hoping she would go "complete" soon. Baby looked a little stressed on the monitor as well, and when the midwife came back to do a cervical check, that's when everything went downhill.

The midwife felt the pulsing umbilical cord coming down before the baby's head-- a big fat obstetrical emergency called prolapsed cord. The midwife went to sound the alarm while I was left to push the baby's head up off the cord, which by the way, is very difficult-- pushing baby UP when mom's whole body is working to push baby DOWN. Every nurse on the floor came rushing in to help. Get her in hands and knees position. Get the meds. Call the MD. Set up the OR. Wheel her back! Find baby's heart tones! ( They were in the sixties- normal for baby is at least 120). Prep her tummy! Get in that foley catheter! By this time you could actually see the umbilical cord sticking out. As soon as the mom was safely under general anesthesia (and it's lucky anesthesia was there already instead of being called in from home, which was mostly due to a paperwork glitch), they sliced her open. It was only one or two minutes from cut to delivery. Baby needed immediate resuscitative efforts, but to make a long story short, mom and baby made it.

It was frightening to say the least, but the real effort on my part came after the delivery. General anesthesia is a yucky thing and is only used in obstetrics in real emergencies when an epidural or spinal isn't already placed. I couldn't leave the room until mom was stable and I had to do a lot of nursing care that I've never done before on my own. Not only that, but of course that budding headache exploded and I felt sick to my stomach. All the nerves and the excitement and the fact that I had eaten a grand total of two sandwhiches and a bunch of grapes in the last 24 hours combined to make me feel utterly miserable. When a hematocrit was ordered "stat" I was left completely alone with a butterfly needle and a syringe. Poor mom was so swollen I couldn't even see or feel a vein. That was my lowest point. It was almost three am. I felt sick. I was tired. I was worried for my patient and her baby. And I'm lousy at blood draws! So I just prayed, and poked. And poked. And nothing. I put my head down and was hoping to simply pass out when lo and behold! There was blood in the tube! It was an absolute and complete miracle.

This story is already long and more details would simply be boring. Needless to say, it was an incredibly difficult night. However, there was certainly a lot of luck that St. Patrick's Day morning-- or perhaps better put, a lot of miracles.

Of Loquacity, Conifers, and Vacuum Cleaners

I have discovered that it is rather difficult to keep up a blog, mostly because I don't believe I have many "post-worthy" moments worth publishing here on my own personal-public journal (there's an oxymoron for you). Some people of course, have the talent of making even ordinary experiences seem quite entertaining simply by they way they retell it. I don't really think I am one of those people, but it won't stop me from posting whenever I feel like doing it. It's funny-- I am actually quite a loquatious person, and in fact I just discovered that in the two years and two months in which I've had my cell phone, I've spent at least 589 hours, 45 minutes and 53 seconds talking on it. However, when it comes to writing, I often draw a blank. Every now and then, though, I try to come up with something.

Today's post came to me this morning while I was cleaning. Now, there are many things I was looking forward to when Lance and I got married. One of them was getting to spend all the holidays together -- especially Christmas, and how much fun it was going to be to decorate our own place in the traditional Yuletide fashion. I was also looking forward to all the fun household things we would get to buy, including my very first, very own vacuum cleaner. It isn't like I love vacuuming or anything, but there was something thrilling to me--perhaps because I have never owned one personally--in the very idea of choosing my own Staubsauger (German, literally "dirt sucker"). Lance and I finally decided on a fire-engine red Dirt Devil upright from the Home Depot.

So our first Christmas together was wonderful and our little apartment looked fabulously festive. After the holidays were over I was so sad to take down all the decorations and to denude our beautiful little Christmas pine tree whom we dubbed "Needles." However, that thoughtful Needles left us a lovely parting gift, namely, all of his needles all over the carpet. But never fear! My trusty dirt devil came to the rescue and I didn't really have a problem cleaning up. But Needles' gift was more far-reaching than any of us would have guessed. Even though there aren't any more needles in the carpet (although I will admit that Needles himself is still sitting outside our doorway), and we've already unloaded all the dust and gunk from our vacuum, every time I've turned on the vacuum cleaner since then the effervescent aroma of pine wafts through the apartment. Now there's a gift that keeps on giving!

Needles Then...
and Now
Our faithful Sentinel! Thanks, Needles.

S.A.D. No Longer

I can still recall picking up a copy of the Daily Universe my sophomore year at BYU with a large color photograph of a few bitter, yet defiant looking students proclaiming February 14th as "S.A.D." Those of you who are not familiar with this acronym either 1.) Don't care a hoot about Valentine's Day (in which case you are probably male) 2.) Already have a significant other or 3.) Have never attended BYU and are therefore unfamiliar with its peculiar dating culture. Let me enlighten you: S.A.D. stands for "Singles Awareness Day," and anyone who has ever been lonely on the Day of Love knows that it can be very sad indeed. Although I will admit to being disappointed on February 14th, I have never been the embittered female/man hating/I'll-revel-in-my-singleness type, and instead for most of my life I have simply tried to tell myself that Valentine's Day is probably not all it's cracked up to be anyway.

This year, however, for the first time in my life, I had a Valentine-- and the day could hardly have been any better. In the morning we were able to attend the Provo Temple and then we braved the snow to buy groceries for our special dinner. In the afternoon we finally got around to returning some Christmas gifts at the Mall and then headed over to the movie theater to watch the new 3-D stop motion movie, Coraline. Boy, 3-D movies sure have come a long way. Gone are the old paper glasses with the cellophane red and green lenses. We were handed what looked like sunglasses in their very own individually wrapped, sanitary plastic bags. The movie itself had a very interesting plot, and if anyone tries to tell you it's creepy-- believe them! But we enjoyed it nevertheless.

The credit for our dinner idea has to go to Mom and Dad, who gave us a fondue pot for Christmas. We made an oriental beef broth fondue and enjoyed cooking sirloin steak, shrimp, asparagus, yellow squash, broccoli, and baby bella mushrooms. And since there was only the two of us, we each got four forks--which makes the wait quite a bit shorter! We also had a couple homemade dipping sauces and cold bottled Apple Beer. To top it all off, we had homemade mint oreo milkshakes.

We exchanged small gifts and then fell asleep watching The Sword in the Stone. It was a wonderful day-- probably just because I got to spend it all with the person I love the most. So, in the end I have to say that Valentine's Day really is all it's cracked up to be once you've found that special someone, and I'm blessed to declare I'm S.A.D. no longer :)

What Do You Do?

What do you do on your day off when you have no kids to take care of and your best friend is busy doing school work? If you are me, you

1. Do crossword puzzles.
2. Pretend to be creative by attempting to be crafty (right now it's Valentine cards).
3. Do more crossword puzzles.
4. Go to the grocery store-- but only if the cupboards are bare and you are really craving ice cream.
5. Did I mention crosswords?
6. Call Mom.

What you don't do:

1. Write wedding thank-you cards which are almost six months overdue.
2. Clean.
3. Get up early and stay awake.
4. Check your work email (they might remind you of some responsibility you don't want to know about. Be warned: this is a particularly dangerous one-- only for those who like living on the edge).
5. Iron.
6. Exercise.

I'm sure I've just made you all suberbly jealous of my day-off routine. How is it that I can be blessed with so much free time and yet still manage to avoid doing anything useful? Trust me, if I could share some of it with you, I would. Of course, I would also remind you that on the days I do work, I really do work. This week I almost had to deliver another baby. The doctor was mulling around the nurse's station and then ran into the wrong room when the baby's head was poking out. I'm afraid I'm going to get a bad reputation at Orem Community Hospital!

Oh, and did I mention I need a new crossword puzzle book?

Catch Me If You Can

As anyone who is remotely familiar with the hospital labor/delivery scene will know, it's true that the nurse does practically everything until the MD shows up with the catcher's mitt. Well, a few weeks ago I got that "wonderful" experience that every L/D RN will have at least once (if not more) in her career. I got to catch the baby.

Now, I have delivered a baby once in nursing school... of course "Mom" was a mannequin with a mechanical track running down her back and baby was made of plastic. So, needless to say, it's nothing like the real thing. Real people are a lot... squishier, to name one difference. Anyway, it was a routine pitocin induction for a second time mom. Now, I may not have been working too long in this area, but I have learned a thing or two about when delivery time is close. With the epidural rate for women at IHC hospitals running about 90%, this can be a bit trickier. However, there are two good hints that baby is getting close: Mom complains of pressure (which the epidural cannot take away) and baby's heart beat slows down along with contractions and comes back up again.

Mom was as happy as a clam, epidural working perfectly. Admittedly it had been a while since her cervix had last been checked, but as baby looked great and there were no complaints of pressure, we just mosied along. When mom said she was feeling a tiny bit of back pain, and could she get a redose, I thought nothing of it. The anesthesiologist got her all nice and comfy and then I noticed that that baby just wouldn't stay on the monitor. I finally decided just to check the mom's cervix, thinking that we must be getting close. Apparently all that was holding that baby in was the fact that the mom's legs were closed, because as soon as I moved them, there was that bluish-black, gooey little head making his way into the wide world. As I am unfamiliar with the set up of these hospital rooms (therefore not knowing where the emergency button is) I had to run out to the nurses' station yelling, "She's crowning! She's crowning!"

I had just enough time to run back in and pull that baby out. The midwife got there pretty quickly after that... but all the fun was over by then! Fortunately both mom and baby were a-ok, and now I can say that I have delivered a baby with my own two hands. What a day!

It's Official

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have officially joined the in-crowd-- or at least we have submitted our application. Thanks to my brother Tim, we now have our very own blog. From here on out we can publish the details of our very small lives to the world at large. Kind of scary, isn't it? I can't guarantee that it will always be worth the two minutes you'll spend browsing it while skimming through the lists of blogs linked to your own site, but at least it will give me something to do when I'm off work and Lance is busy studying. So, dear reader, press on if you dare!