Afib-rvr, Bill Nye, water balloons.

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Friday I did my last clinical shift for the week and said goodbye to the floor and my two preceptors.  For this last day, I did get to see an interesting cardiac case where the nurses did a cardioversion on a young patient who was in a sustained afib-rvr rhythm (her pulse had been at 180 for hours) by administering ibutilide after a cardizem drip was not successful.  The first dose of ibutilide – nothing – though you could see on the heart monitor her heart trying to find the regular rhythm, a couple of normal beats and then back to the incredibly fast heart rate. Ten min later, halfway through pushing the 2nd dose into her IV line, her heart flipped back into a normal sinus rhythm, and we all looked up at her and asked how she felt and she said, I feel great.  Later that day, we went running into a room when someone’s monitor also read a heart rate of 180 only to find the patient totally pissed off at her phone and yelling to her friend in the room – he can’t disrespect me no more!  I gotta block him, how do I block him?  A few calming breaths were all that were needed to bring her heart rate back to normal.  I did not know you could get yourself that worked up to send your heart rate into the 180s.  I had a good time on the floor, busy and interesting.  I had my two preceptors who were great to me, Liz & Celine.

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Kiki’s in town for the climate march.  We’ve been prepping Vince for it for months now, he had to make it to DC for something.  Appropriately, it reached 90 degrees today at the White House, about 20 degrees hotter than it normally is at this time.  Edda and Kitachi were at home in the air conditioning, but the rest of us went out to march!

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Jeremy’s work folks were out in force wearing their Stand Up for Science shirts on the front and Union of pissed-off Scientists in the back.  Beaker was making the rounds.

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Vince got a selfie with Bill Nye the Science Guy.  Vince was really excited, this kind of perked him up for a while.

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We got to 13th street and we were hot and tired.  We needed a break.  It was a nice march though, lots of people, lots of chanting.  Booing as we passed the Trump hotel.

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Chris and Grafton came over for dinner.  Vince can’t wait to play water balloons with Grafton all summer!

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Youtube, last exam.

After Edda’s asleep, Vince will come into our room, crawl into our bed and we’ll watch this dude’s corgi videos.  He usually posts once a week and so now we watch them together.  The “host” is a funny guy – we enjoy it a lot.

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I did pretty poorly on this last exam today – a C!  And kind of a low one at that.  It’s a bit of a shame that I let it go that way, but there were so many other things to do this weekend besides studying.  Like – camping, orienteering, afternoon slacklining and birthday party, evening family Sunday night dinner and then Edda’s bath/shower – you know, regular living. As soon as I clicked “Done!” on the computer test and saw what I got, I kind of laughed and said – yeah, that’s worth the amount I studied. I’m thisclose to being done.  A poster presentation and one more shift at the hospital.  And then… I applied for only one job.  Many of the kiddos (and they are all kidddos – mostly) around me have excitedly committed to jobs this summer.  It is true, your nurse is young enough to be your child.  The doctors also not that much older.

Pulmonologist, last exam, enchiladas.

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Edda looks particularly squinched in this photo, her spine crookeding inside of her.  Ah. Today we went to the pulmonologist who said the thing I wanted to hear.  Let’s do nothing!  Which is what I’m going to do.  Actually, he’ll just write a note that if her breathing isn’t at a particular level when they extubate her at the end of the surgery, that she should be put on bi-pap for a bit of time to help her with her breathing.  I’m down with that.  He reminded me that I’m not her nurse in this situation, that I’m her mom and to only worry about mom things and not too much on nurse things (because I was starting to grill him about respiratory depression vs pain medications and weekend shifts because we are doing the surgery on a Friday headed into the weekend).

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Speaking of nursing school – one more exam.  Tomorrow.  About the most boring things, management, quality control, blah blah, blah.  I can barely make myself study.

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I love it when Jeremy works from home because I get deliciousness for dinner.

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Science, camping.

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Jeremy was not excited about going to the Science March on Sat.  It was a dreary day and it’s a little ridiculous in the first place to say – hooray science! because who could possibly not want actual data about stuff, but Jeremy work was all in and so he went downtown.  He biked both back and forth to work in the semi-rain, which did perk up his mood, so by the time he got him, we was pretty jolly.  I worked all day (a repetitive and somewhat sad state of affairs for me, but hopefully not lasting much longer).

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Met up with Mike & Hawk from New Mexico.

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Found Beaker.  Meep!

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Bumped into Lynn, our neighbor.

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The march didn’t start marching until 2pm which was too late for us.  I needed to help out with Vince’s campout at 5 pm, so Jeremy just rallied and then headed back home.

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Jeremy got home and then we exchanged hellos/goodbyes and I headed north an hour to spend the night camping with Vince and the scouts.  They need three people at night in case there is an emergency and only had two people signed up.  So Jeremy (!) volunteered me to go because it was an orienteering campout, but, really, by the time I got there, the orienteering part of the trip was over.  I was a little worried about the food – I had no time to prep any food for myself and I didn’t want to eat what Vince bought for the boys.  But I didn’t need to worry because the scoutmaster made the grown-ups a delicious dinner.

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Vince is suppose to help the younger scouts get some badge requirements – here he is helping I. get his fireman’s badge.

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I tried to study – I have a final in a couple of days, but I have no time to study for it.  It’s also soooooo boring.  So I shove it to the side when I have other things to do.

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I got up before the boys and was rewarded with a sunrise run!

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Grocery shopping, sign making, ice cream.

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Last night, around 1am, I was having a dream where I was arguing with Jeremy and then in a moment of fury, I woke up suddenly and slapped Jeremy really hard.  He did wake up and ask me quizzically what I was doing and I said I think I was arguing with you in my head and needed to slap you.  Anyways, when we both woke up for real, I asked him, did I really hit you last night?  Jeremy said – yeah!  and it hurt!

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Vince is out scouting this weekend and was in charge of getting the food.  So my regular grocery date night was hijacked by a teenager.

Just to set the record straight – I approve of none of these purchases.  None.

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Because they are short on adults and I’m feeling extra guilty for not pulling my fair share of scouting duties even though it is the cornerstone of Vince’s social whatever, I volunteered to camp out on Sat night (which is forecasted to be pouring rain).  Vince promised to set up my tent tonight so I don’t have to do it in the rain.  Jeremy also bought a cot so I don’t have to rest my old bones on the ground.

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Vince spent the afternoon playing D&D.  These are new-ish friends.  His closest friends are the scout friends who he’s had since the 2nd grade and they are pretty tight still – surviving both the transistions to middle school & high school.  But it makes me happy to see he’s finding new friends.

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Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Jeremy had his own party at work prepping for the Science March (today).  The weather isn’t cooperating.

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Jeremy stayed a bit late for the sign making and I needed to get the kids out to the campout carpool, so we went to Five Guys.

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Jeremy meet up with us in town center, I dropped off the boys and then we snuck in some ice cream.

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Sea Base 2017

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We’ve known for 18 months that Vince was going to spend a week in the Florida Keys with the scout troop, but it was only a few months ago that a space opened up for Jeremy.  He had signed up, but there were too many adults that wanted to go and Jeremy’s pretty far down the list b/c he doesn’t volunteer that much with the scouts.  But one kid decided to drop out and Jeremy was first on the waitlist and we pounced on the opportunity to go!

The boys went to a remote, undeveloped island south of where they had stopped in the Florida Keys for the night and had to row 7 miles in open ocean to get there.  A power boat brought in enough water and food for the week.  This island was donated to the scouts from someone and it is in the middle of paradise.  Jeremy said every moonlit night and every sunrise was so beautiful it was verging on being cliche.  The island next to the boys’ island was a fancy beach resort – you could stay there for $1500 a night and fly in on sea plane.  The next island on the other side was rumored to be Beyonce’s.

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Vince is an expert pancake maker.

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Kayaking through the mangroves.

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Jeremy, ever fearful of sunburning his pale, white skin, remained the most dressed.

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Paradise.

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A group photo.

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Fishing!  Vince and Jeremy have orthogonal interests.  Vince loves to fish and to snorkel.   Jeremy loves the rowing and kayaking.

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Weighing anchor.

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Gutting fish.

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Cleaning out the sleeping bag.

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Snorkeling (this isn’t Vince, it’s just a nice photo.  Good job Jeremy!)

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Collection of hermit crabs.

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Peach cobbler baking contest.

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No boy scout camp is complete without some boy/night/scare/ritual thing.

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Headed home!

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Back to civilization/internet.

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They arranged for a stretch limo to take them back to Miami airport.

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Annoying, bear, Sid.

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Sue was in town for Easter with her family, so we all got together and headed out to dinner.  These two actually manage people for a living, so it’s interesting for me to hear their managerial stories (because I think I should be a manager someday because how does one go through life without managing someone?) – which just usually boil down to people are so annoying.  Which I did know, but I don’t really have to deal with on a professional level.  Like ever.

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That Easter day, I went out in the woods,  Usually when I go out into the woods, I go on an intermediate course and there are so many landmarks, I don’t have to use a compass and I just run around looking for the large road or building or pond or river or power line and just go from there.  Like so:

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But this weekend, they placed only advanced courses and I thought I’d give it a go (because why not?) and it was basically just one huge hill with no landmarks and so you had to do distance estimation and compassing and I’m not really good at either, so I got lost on the way to the first one.  So there I am, lost in the woods by myself, everything looking the same in all directions and then, 100m away from me, I see a large, black lumbering object running diagonally across my field of view and I’m like – holy crap! – that’s a bear. And then I’m like, it’s totally going to come over here and maul me and I’ll be dead in the woods by myself.  But I’m still alive and so therefore I must have outwitted the bear (who probably never even noticed me).

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I tried three times to find the first control.  I got lost, backtracked back to the start, got lost again and then was about to give up until I realized I was in the only gully that ran north/south near the first control and I made a third and final attempt to find the first control again when I bumped into a stranger who I asked if I could go the rest of the course with him and he was nice enough to let me tag along.  As we walked in the woods, I found out he’s been orienteering for as long as I’ve been alive, that he’s a mathematician and that his name is Sid and he’s 80.  So he taught me about pace counting, compensating for downhill drifting, coming from the control from up high and attack points.  When we had to climb a uphill to find a control, he’d rest on a log and I’d go scouting up the hill in a few directions to find it and then he’d follow me uphill.  A nice team.  He is a reluctant selfie photo taker.

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Habit burger, Easter, cookies.

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The boys are back & it’s Easter Sunday and we are already back to the old routine.  Edda up early, Vince still asleep, an early run for me, an early ride for Jeremy and — taxes, laundry, baths, meals to plan, projects to finish, lessons to go to, outings to agenda-ize.  Everyone came back safe to me, thank goodness.  <3, <3  I was trying to teach Jeremy to take a good selfie.  He’s surprisingly not very good at it.

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Last night (Saturday), was the last night of just me & Edda – so we headed out to Habit Burger.

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I love the Habit Burger – they play quieter music than Five Guys and their meals are cheaper and I might like the fries better.  Two burgers & fries for just about 10 dollars.  We sat there a long time and we were surrounded by families with little kids.  I do sometimes feel a little awkward when I’m out just me and Edda – we are a bit of a show with the wheelchair, the huge bib, the hand feeding of Edda and the various random flinging of food bits –  so it does take me some momentum to overcome the inertia of staying home.  We were sitting there at the HB (at one of their numerous handicapped tables (also a plus)) and Edda was almost done with her burger when a couple came up to me and told me that I was doing a great job with Edda and then said hello to Edda – this happens every once in awhile, especially when I’m out alone with Edda.  They told me that they did the same thing with their son who passed away last year at the age of 25, lots of feedings at restaurants.  Anyways, it was a nice conversation, I’m happy they stopped by and said hello.  Sometimes I’m not in the mood for this type of interaction, but today it was fine.  Actually it was very nice.  We wished each other a Happy Easter.  I think inspired by this little conversation, the toddler at the next table ambled over to say hello and give me a high five and then looked a bit at Edda.  Then his mom crouched down and told him to say hello to Edda and blow her some kisses.  Which he did and then offered me his fire truck.  Very nice.  Happy Easter all!

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I wasn’t ready to go home yet, so I ordered a sundae which was $2.50.  At that price, how big can it be?  It can be enormous apparently.

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Nat came up to use our oven and made a million of these delicious Easter cookies.  She bent each bunny arm into an embrace of each chocolate egg.

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Back (return), back (spine), pastries.

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The boys are off the non-electricity, non-internet island and at the scout base in the Florida Keys with intermittent wi-fi.  Enough wi-fi to get this photo.  Trip was great, but they are looking forward to coming home tomorrow night.  Me too!

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I took a photo of Edda’s back today for my pals.

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I know I’m short on time when I cut out making the beds, but maybe it’s OK as Maxi prefers the unmade bed.  Making the all three rumpled beds in the house takes 2 minutes tops, I don’t know why I haven’t been doing it.  I started making the beds a while ago because I realize it makes me feel like I’ve started the day with a clean slate.  I’ve been loving the bed rails which have allowed me to get a full night’s sleep every night knowing that Edda is safe.  Many nights I don’t hear her at all, but some nights, I hear her wake up and then she goes back to sleep quickly.

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In my efforts to not be a total hermit, I did see two friends this week – Deb and Marla, both photo adverse.  I will take a picture of pastries instead.  A poor substitute really.  Both friends I haven’t seen in many months, I’d love to see them more often, but both lunches ran over two hours and know this in advance and I schedule them (mainly making sure I have both childcare coverage and I can get enough hours in at work) that way.  

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