Sump pump. Dinner.

Argh.  The sump pump in the basement just broke semi-flooding the basement and leaving our tenants without water.  I do a lot of plumbing, but I don’t do sump pumps.  I really want a nap, but I’m not sure when it is happening today.  Jeremy and Vince did cook for 100 – really 120 last night, but less than 60 people showed up.  It was a little disheartening.  We gave a lot of it away this morning to the homeless shelter – I’m hoping they enjoy the pork loin and chicken and mounds of potatoes.  It occured to me that Jeremy has cooked for 100 twice in the span of 8 days.  We really are sliding into a few months of crazy scheduling (I pride myself in under-scheduling, I like staying at home and watching Netflix for a long time). 

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Everything was delicious (of course). 

Dentist, Scout dinner, Bike ride.

I took Edda to the dentist on Thursday morning.  Usually I manage to get someone to come with me, but everyone was already committed to spending their time elsewhere and I got to go myself.  Jeremy assured me not to worry because he’s done it before by himself, so I wasn’t worried – honestly, no worries.  But I should have brought someone.  Really, it’s one person to hold her limbs and another person to steady her head.  Then the dentist and hygienist can do their jobs.  So we were one person short and Edda was in a thrashy mood so I straddled her body to pin her arms and then used my hands to hold some dental tools for the dentist while she tried to steady Edda’s head with the crook of her arms.  Edda managed to kick pretty hard since no one was manning her legs and sent some kiddy chairs flying.  It was not relaxing.  And we are not doing a good job cleaning her teeth so we are back to checkups/cleanings every three months.  I think Edda is holding more food in her mouth – less able to clear it in the back of her cheeks.  We are going to implement the two person tooth brushing when possible.  We’ll see how that goes. 

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Jeremy took the day off today because he’s cooking dinner for 100 tomorrow so today he needed to go to Costco and do food prep.  But first he cleared out our dryer vent.  I spent the day working at home closing out the quarter – eeeking one last thing that needed to be done.  Look at that forehead vein.  I just want to put an IV in it.  (I’m still terrible and terrified at inserting IVs, the IV team person told me to stop practicing on myself.)

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Why is Jeremy cooking for 100 tomorrow?  Because he signed up to cook the annual scout banquet.  I honestly don’t know what happened, but when Vince was in 2nd grade and I wanted him to join scouts because a bunch of his friends were in scouts, Jeremy balked at the idea because it was too military-like and they – at the time – discriminated against gay scouts and leaders and although our troop never honored that national policy, Jeremy took one look at little, tiny 8 year old Vince in his cub scout uniform and thought it was a bad idea.  And now, like a decade later, Jeremy has a uniform, he’s cooking for the scout banquet, coordinating the big summer hiking trip and he’s going to all the meetings and has a lot of work to do for the scouts.  He is kind of bewildered himself.  He’s like – how did this exactly happen to me? 

Of course, he’s cooking the way he wants to cook – not the way they’ve always done it.  He ixnayed the Salisbury steak and store bought veggie lasagne.  He decided to make pork loin sous-vide.  He’s making homemade croutons for the Caesar salad and I think he’s making homemade salad dressing.  He’s crazy.  This is one of three lasagnes he made this afternoon.  Now he’s trying to figure out how to put three giant pork loins in a tub of water so he can sous-vide them. 

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Vince started his biking club this week.  They rode around the Millenium trail (about 10 miles).  He managed to 1) get bit by a friend’s dog on both his hand and his leg and 2) stop for ice cream.

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Ruth.

Ruth came by last night for dinner.  I was worried that I’d miss her since I was working, but I managed to get out relatively on time so I snagged a few minutes with her (and Jeremy too).

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I tried on Ruth’s crazy dyed peacock feather hat from the 60s.  This photo does not do it justice.

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I had a terrible shift on Sunday and then a few good shifts on Tue/Wed.  I love it when my patients make me laugh and they often do.  Now I have five days off in a row!  A dream.  It’s like a vacation.  A vacation to do taxes.  I’m looking forward to it.

update.

My kids are 15 and 17 now.  I can’t believe that it is true, but here we are.  Edda’s pancake breakfast was wonderful, a lively event.  We used Evite for the invitations for the first time and I think that decision resulted in an excellent turnout – we had about 100 people RSVP yes.  I think we had been on a downward trajectory in terms of attendance, so this well-attended party even during a low social year for both of us was a boost.  I’m so happy both sets of grandparents were able to attend.  My father especially had a great time – I think this type of party does lend itself to his personality.  We invited a lot of people who have been with Edda for a long time going back as far as we can, so it’s nice to see old caregivers and therapists and teachers who haven’t seen each other in a while hug each other and catch up.   Vince, I think for the first time, extended the invitation to his friends and a big handful of them came and pitched in with the pancake production.  Lauren made a beautiful, delicious cake which we served at the peak of the party (11:30 am) and was quickly devoured.  I, of course, ate nothing the whole time.  I almost never eat until everyone leaves and then help myself to two or three pancakes and a couple slices of bacon, a big slice of cake and then I put my feet up on the coffee table sitting next to Edda and sigh a long sigh.

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It’s hard for me to think clearly these days, I don’t have much time for myself.  When I do have time for myself, I do spend it scrolling through instagram or napping.  I find it hard to trust my own feelings these days because often I feel like my feelings are misleading me.  I often have negative or semi-disastrous feelings about situations or interactions and in order to not be consumed by them, I back up and try to reframe them or tell myself, it’s really not that bad or it’s really not the true story, but then what feelings do I rely upon to make judgement calls?  It’s hard for me to say.  This is a long, winding story about how do I feel about Edda turning 15?  I’m both happy because she is happy and I’m still incredibly upset that this is happening to her.  Is it still happening?  Rett Syndrome – is it still happening?  Or is it in the past tense and it has already happened?  Then I feel badly because Edda is doing so well in many ways, so well that we manage to have a pretty predictable life. 

Update.

Shift on Wed was terrible.  I’m getting better at brushing it off, but it makes me angry.  Census on our 30 bed unit was 26.  So they cancelled a nurse.  Of course, by 10 am we were full up.  I discharged two patients and I admitted two patients.  By the end of the day, I couldn’t remember which abdominal incision belonged to which patient (low transverse?  midline? staples? dermabond?  steri strips? I’m pretty sure the hysterectomies belonged to the women)  Argh. I complained about this to Vickey who said – you know perfectly well that if you did the exact same thing when you were 20, you would have remembered every wound, every bandage and every incision.  It’s just ‘cuz you are in your late 40s that you can’t remember as well anymore.  And it’s true.  I hate that every medication has at least two names.  It’s just killing me.

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People are so weird.  So weird.  A patient who is like, I’m sorry, I don’t want an IV.  I hate being poked, they poked me 17 times to get an IV in the ED and now that it’s blown, I don’t want a new one.  I explained to him that basically the whole point of the hospital was being poked and if your problem could be fixed by oral medications then, trust me, everyone would have kicked you out the door.  And then there was the patient who is like, no I’m not in pain.  Not even when I move, but it’s a 7/10 when I poke my incision.  What?!  What are you doing pressing on your surgical incisions?  Stop that!

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I’m at the point in my life where I just want everything to work.  I don’t care how it looks, I just want it to work.  Our basement tenants’ faucet broke Sunday night, I couldn’t repair it until Tuesday morning.  I went to Home Depot early on Tues morning and stared at all the faucets.  Honestly, they all look exactly the same to me.  All brushed stainless with the long curved neck and pull out spray hose thing-y.  So why exactly is this one $400? and the one above it half the price?  I have absolutely no idea.

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Tomorrow is Edda’s birthday party.  We spent the day buying blueberries and putting up streamers.

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Kiki and Kappa are here.  Kappa presented his case for a liberal arts education to Vince. We’ll see how that goes.

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Jeremy likes to night-prep the bacon.

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Pi day pie.

Happy pi day!  Only a few days late.  But it got done.  It’s actually St Paddy’s Day, so maybe I should have made it green somehow.

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Look who is home?  Thank goodness.  Now there is good food in the house.  Aaaannnnnddd, we careen into another week.  See you guys on the other side.

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UCS gala, hiking, and decluttering.

This is the UCS gala Jeremy worked on Wed night – celebrating 50 years of UCS.  I was at the hospital that day and apologized for not making it but Jeremy said that I wasn’t invited anyways that it was a working event for staff and not a social event.  They invited all the UCS alums and donors and Jeremy ran into June! 

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Jeremy spent a gorgeous today hiking with Vince’s scout troop sans Vince.

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I asked Jeremy what I should do while he’s gone camping and he said, Edda’s birthday party is next week, if you could clean up the downstairs and bring up the pancake supplies, that would be great.  Our house has not been picked up in 8 months.  We do have our housekeepers come every other week, but they clean around the piles of crap.  I have not been able to clean up for the housekeepers at all.  I spent all day today clearing all the horizontal surfaces of all the crap.  There was crap from Christmas still lying around.

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Update II

I now have evidence that perhaps my gloomy mood over the past few days? weeks? have been entirely hormone driven.  I hate that about being female.  I tend to always forget that is a possibility when I’m in the terrible mood and then when everything shifts and seems OK again, I’m like – oh yea!  that’s right.  I’m a girl.  F that.

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I want to give kudos to Jeremy this week.  I was at the hospital on Wed & Thursday – completely without my phone.  I’ve given it up, the reception is so bad on the unit and then I feel like it gets snot, puke, urine, poop, hep C, TB, HIV all over it while it’s sitting there in my scrub pocket.  Vince got a stomach bug on Wed in the middle of school and Jeremy handled the whole thing with him – getting him excused, suggesting an uber home, getting him some immodium.  And then on Thursday, I had no idea Vince stayed home all day from school until I came home at 8:30 pm (which was before Jeremy got home).  Jeremy took care of it all despite having to work a gala on Wed night and meetings on Thursday night which brought him home later than me on both nights.

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For my weekend off, Jeremy is going camping this weekend for two nights, he’ll be back on Sunday.  As Jeremy is the #1 adult organizer for the scout trip to Philmont this summer, he was suppose to go with Vince and the rest of the scouts for prepping for Philmont, but Vince says his stomach is still off.  I wanted to give Vince some trouble for this as he went to school today, but Jeremy told me to lay off of him.  Fine, I said.  Jeremy, as he was packing, was mumbling something about being too busy.  He had taken today as a vacation day, but a few things came up and he ended up fielding calls and working most of the day.  I’m like – you OK going camping without Vince?  He said – yeah, I wouldn’t want to rush to the bathroom all the time camping, it’s OK.  As soon as Jeremy left for the campout, Vince said, I have a friend coming to pick me up for a Magic the Gathering party.  I’m like – hold your horses, what?  I thought you were sick?  I put the kibosh on the Friday night party.  If you’re sick, you’re sick.  We are spending the evening trying to not be irritated at each other.  We managed to watch the first episode of Friends together.  It’s a good show right from the start.

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I read with interest the bribing to get into, of all places, USC.  I whispered to Jeremy late on Thursday night and said – I think I could have done that (well not at USC – somewhere else.  not to knock USC or anything).  Jeremy practically lept from the bed and said – you would never, ever do that.  You would never pay someone to take the SATs for our kids or fake they played soccer.  I wasn’t so sure.  All I can say is that I had no idea how strong my compulsion was (is?) for my kids to go to an elite college.  I think I’ve mostly let go of it now.  I had to let go of it when Edda was 3.  And I’m doing it again right now for Vince.  Honestly, it’s easier to give it up knowing that it’s not a meritocracy.  Jeremy laughed at me and said – it was never a meritocracy, why would you ever have think it was so?  Grad school is better.  This college thing is a compulsion or a fixation which is deeply, deeply ingrained in my psyche.  There is no other clear shortcut of saying how great of a parent one is than by saying – Yeah, he goes to Stanford.  I’m as wanting of status as the next guy.  (Notice this is all about me, nothing about my kids.  My kids have good heads on their shoulders.)  I might play it off cool, but trust me, I want it too. 

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I pulled my back lifting a patient on Sunday.  She was scrunched, sliding down in the bed or was it he?  I can’t remember honestly.  I used the draw sheet to pull the patient up towards the head of the bed and I felt a muscle in the small of my back just ever so slightly ease out of its proper range of motion.  I didn’t feel it much while working that shift, but I could feel it the rest of the week only when I replicated the “pulling the patient up towards the head of the bed” motion.  My charge nurse saw me stretching it out on Wed and said that I needed to go to Employee Health down in the basement an file a report.  I’m like – whatever, it’s not so bad.  Then later, Jeremy said – I think you should take it seriously and report it. So I went today and filed a report.  And they told me to take some Motrin.  I’m like – I don’t like taking Motrin.  I know I’m a nurse and I give medication all day, but really, I don’t believe in any of it.  (well not really, I do believe in it – like I totally vaccinate my kids and myself and I believe that antibiotics work, etc. etc.)  I just believe in suffering more than relief.

Wow, this is a weird blog post.  I think it’s time to stop.

Good night!

Update.

Gah.  Sorry, I’ve been overcome with one of my regular bouts of slight depression over the last little bit.  It’s not so bad right now and over the years, I’ve discovered various coping mechanisms.  Mostly, it’s that I’ve grown older and know that I can pretty much live through anything and even though it feels bad, it’s not really that bad.  Not that I want to tempt life because now that I’ve said it, a tsunami will come down and drown me right at my desk.  The most effective is to get up and do something or to ignore the feelings.  The feelings almost always go away after time.  I’m not opposed to taking meds which I have done in the past, but I haven’t been on them for over half a decade and I’m hoping all my CBT efforts will be good enough.  I think I can be pretty resilient or whatever, but Jeremy says my habit is to borrow trouble which I like to do. 

For example, Edda’s redetermination letter for Medicaid was due in Baltimore today.  This provides Medicaid for Edda and pays for all the aftercare program and the caregivers in the house.  I’m behind on the mail and didn’t open the envelope until last Thursday when I panicked and found all the paperwork and then FedExed it on Friday expecting a Monday noon delivery.  When by Monday at 12:15pm, the tracking system hadn’t registered it delivered, I freaked out, called the number on the form (which went straight to voicemail and promised a call back and (surprise! not!) they haven’t called back even 24 hours later) and called Jeremy in tears and told him I’d have to spend all day today driving to Baltimore to the Health Department office because I just knew no one would call me back and then at 12:30 pm, it was marked as delivered.  And then I freaked out that I had filled the form in wrong.  This is such a small thing, I think I could have handled it better (like less crying), but I’m not in a relaxed form.

I’m still having anxiety about work at the hospital.  It’s not great.  It’s better than before but still not fine.  I’m still getting used to everything, it’ll take a long time (I’m about 100 shifts in, I think I’ll need another 100 to feel good), but I’m not sure how much longer I sustain this.  The scheduling is better, I have kind of a fixed schedule – out of the 12 shifts for the next 4 weeks, 11 were on days that I had planned.  Still, on the one unexpectedly shifted day, our caregiver is out of town so Jeremy has to pick Edda up and I had to make late arrangements for her aftercare.  But the summer is a scheduling sh*tshow with both Jeremy and Vince traveling and Edda having weeks off at the beginning and end of summer and all my caregivers having weirder schedules.  It’s not only the scheduling, but I’m trying to figure out how to think about the patients.  Lots of people get better, but lots of people are just kind of stabilized and then sent out into the world into their problems.  I had to discharge a person to a homeless shelter.  I feel sad for the patient with intellectual disabilities living in a group home with no one visiting.  Families find me when they are upset at their doctor for not being doctorly when I can see the bad scan or test results and they haven’t seen it yet.  I became friendly to a mess of a person who everytime I walked into the room reported that he had something more distressing happen to the people he loved and later I found out he was shooting up through his IV line while we were out of the room.  These are not things I can brush off easily. 

I am doing my best to take care of myself.  Lots of sleep.  Lots of good, healthy food.  Not too many cookies.  Exercising.  Lots of hugs.  Time off from work.  I’m terrible at taking vacations – I think because I don’t know how to relax and I hate spending money on fun and sometimes one needs a vacation from vacation because they can be a lot of trouble, but I’m going on vacations!  Soon!