Orientation

Smallpox
Anthrax
Ricin
WMD
What comes to mind? What do those words encite in your parasympathetic nervous system? For me, yikes! do you have a paperbag!??!?!? WEll... my one day hospital orientation was today, regular RN orientation starts on Feb 4th, then right into floor orientation. It was one day, just sitting, listening, mostly OSHA, benefits, and risk management stuff. I thought there may be some emergency preparedness since it is a hospital and it is in Hoboken, so when I saw the schedule, I thought "Oh what fun, the last hour is an entirely diaster readiness!!"
I knew I wouldn't enjoy it, but I didn't think I would be the only person biting my lip, fighting back tears for nearly the whole hour.
Alrighty, some history on this ... I lived in Jersey City, as we do now and on the same block, on 9/11. My 6 windows in my kitchen and living room framed the NY skyline. So after 9/11, all I could see was the smoking towers for, oh 3+ weeks. I have since battled PTSD. A 12 hour power outage in August 2003 sent me into level 4 panic for hours. Let's just say I freaked my sister out. Poor thing, she had no idea about me. So when we moved to Mass. I struggled with the move and PTSD, so while in nursing school, I utilized my resources at school. I was diagnosed with PTSD and met with my mental health professional on campus once a week for,oooh, 52 weeks....

I am better, but the reality of moving back to the hot zone, with my 2 kids, can strike the fear of whatever in me...

I know I have made some progress since I first sought help. Today, I was at about a 5 and knew I could more easily get to a 1 or 2, rather than going into a full-blown 8, and staying there for days..... It doesn't necessarily make me feel better or safer.

I wish I had better answers for myself. This is the best I can do right now. But, it is still better than what I had. I suppose it is some sort of progress.

As for everything else, just hanging in there. Kiddos are not sick, which is always nice. Dave starts his Saturday class this weekend. 9 to 4 every Sat. yay. I'm hoping I get some sort of schedule from my preceptor the beginning of Feb, otherwise I don't know how I'm going to sort out a bday party for Liam, who turns 5 on 2/21. OMG!!!!

I will be on days now. My new nurse manager called and offered me the change. I think 7a to 7p will be much more tolerable than 7p to 7a... ya think?!?!?

bad blogger

jeez! i can't even write one post in a month??!!? what was i doing in december?
well... christmas was quite nice. low-key, but nice. i somehow got myself a wonderous cold and near sinus infection the entire week. ugh, i wasn't too happy. esp since the friday morning after xmas when i woke (7 days into it) with the nastiest bit of what i thought was a sinus infection... i called my doctor, only to find she didn't have anyone covering. granted i anticipated having to see whomever she has covering her, since she was out, but what primary care doesn't have someone covering??!?!? they just tell her pts to go to the ER??? ugh.
lucky for me, things cleared quickly. just more difficult when your littlest enjoys waking you nightly each time you fall asleep, which is about 7x a night!!!
SORRY!!! enough whining!!!!
the boys LOVED their train table, and liam esp loved his T-Rex. Dave and I pooled our gifts and got the Canon S3IS. happy about that, just have to sit myself down and actually read some directions for once. i'm horrid at directions. i just get impatient.
i am inching my way closer and closer to my start date at h.boken hospital. i know dave is sooo happy about leaving hp, and i am glad he will be starting his anatomy class, but i definitely have my moments of panic when i remember a) i will be now be the sole bread-winner and b) i will no longer be the stay-at-home parent... i know this is only for the duration of dave's nursing school, but i keep thinking my time with rowan at home is OVER. i'm not sure what will help me get over this hump, but i'm going to try not to have my mini panic attacks!!!!

mama got a J-O-B

well, finally after months and months of interviewing, i got a job. i am so relieved. i met with the recruiter in hoboken and then sat down with the nurse manager in the unit. i knew we'd hit it off when she was talking about her daughter going to a school close by my nursing school in worcester, mass. the floor is really nice; bright and redesigned. they have dialysis and chemo on the floor also, so that would be interesting to train in...

i wanted this job for several reasons; i won't be car dependent and can walk to work, since d will be losing his HP car once he leaves. it is also 3 12-hour shifts on nights which i wanted. i will be home more nights than gone.

i just had this idiot grin today because this has been a dream i have been pursuing for over 8 years. while at hackensack on a cardiac floor, i was a unit clerk and was working on my mcats after finishing my undergrad pre-med. i was floundering in the pre-med stuff and in retrospect, didn't apply myself to the mcats. so i shouldn't have been surprised when i scored fairly low on the mcat. i hadn't pursued nursing since i had an archiacic notion of what it was. prior to working at hackensack, i pretty much thought it was changing bedpans and diapers. after woeking as a clerk and helping out the residents and nurses on the evening shift, i can to a sudden realization that that really was what i had a desire to do. i applied and started at felician college in nj, but just before starting clinicals, they closed the program without telling us. this soon became on ehurdle after another. i got married, had a baby, d lost his job. during that i was accepted to 3 nursing schools but couldn't start because of the baby or our impending move to mass. i remember walking through hackensack thinking that i just really wanted to be there in my nursing uniform, starting IV's, passing meds, and doing the bedside care.

there is such an intimate part of humanity that you experience working with people in those moments, that i just could never see myself doing anything else. i was so moved by my experiences in nursing school at clinicals, as well as working with several of my instructors. there was one in particular, enoh ukpong ("anna"). she was almost 4'10" and a potent little firecracker. i had her for my first clinical in a nursing home and several after that spring. we were barely 2 months into school and scared out of our minds to go in and do a history on these little old ladies. i was almost late the first day since i stayed to see the scott peterson verdict and just about got lost on my way.

i couldn't "read" her at first. she has this look, and as cliche as it sounds, when she's looking at you like this, you can almost feel her reading your soul. she will catch you at the oddest moments, and ask you in this strange maya angelou sort of way what you are feeling about the experience when you are drawing up heparin in the med room. she can read your mind and there is something oddly soothing and jarring when you are alone with someone and you're on this similar plane, juxtaposing these moments, changing wound dressings and philosophizing life choices and motherhood. i soon understood that a huge part of nursing is social science.

well, i could go on and on, but that's another time... i just know that there is a great deal more in store for me in the coming months....

bad weekend

ugh... it seems we have all been host to nice little stomach bug and this weekend was d and mine turn. so much so that i had to miss my interview this morning. i started feeling like something wasn't right last night, but not he worst i've felt in my life. i thought if i could just wait it out, i could go, but there was no way that would have happened! d had called in for a sick day sunday night, and thank god he did...
ah well, hopefully i will be rescheduled soon, maybe wed morning. i felt like an ass calling the recruiter since i have checked in with her frequently lately, not quite hounding her for an interview, but she got the idea.
i'm having some quasi-anxious feelings about working and having d stay home with the boys, but i guess i get this way when i know there is an impending change in our lives. i got this way right before nursing school started, maybe a touch before r's birth (but i was mostly excited). i'm always tetering on the edge of feeling empowered as a mother, trying to multi-task and feel accomplished and then trying to rangle the guilt i have needing to work. i can rationalize all of it to a cetain part of my brain, but there is the other part that says i should be their primary caregiver. i don't know. this is just something i am deaing with at the moment...

interviews

well i had my final interview at chr*st hospital today, and after haunting the recruiter from hobok*n hospital, i have an interview monday morning. i am waiting to hear from the recruiter at h*ly name hospital about when i will meet with the nurse manager. both chr*st and hobok*n would be decent since i could walk to work, and (will explain in a sec) won't need a car... d's job totally sucks now. hp (he's been there a year since leaving the temp job he had, which was even shittier) is not giving xmas bonuses, cut their overttime rates by 2/3, and are changing their job codes which will allow them to cut the hourly wage of everyone. now since our parttime nanny (whom we love even after only 7 weeks) makes the same hourly rate as d. our plan is that when i get offered a fulltime position it just makes sense for him to leave and be a sahd since my rate (with the night and weekend shift differential) is nearly twice his. he would then get more aggressive in his nursing school admissions process. i am not totally excited about working nights, but hobok*n is doing 3 12 hour shifts which would be ideal in this situation. i am tentative about how i feel since we cosleep and i feel like i will miss r, but i've been sleeping in l's bed 1/2 the night since sept. due to r's awful sleeping habits... what i really have to do is just enjoy this period, with d not in school and r still only 14 months almost. he is getting so big and i don't want to miss anything. at least this way, i am most likely not working xmas this year and am happy about that... we're getting the boys a train table and eb*y is full of some that we can pick-up and then save some dough!!

update on the flea situation....

well... it seems we are ok. it only took us about 7 weeks or so to get it under control and that is after bombing and spraying for a month. i know there are worse things, but having a severe infestation of any kind is awful...
i have an interview tomorrow with the little hospital down the street. i don't really want to work there but, i think i may be able to get in and it would be terribly close to home. i am hoping that the interview last wed will come through. i spoke with the recruiter today and hopefully i will meet with one of the nurse managers next week...
keeping my fingers and toes crossed

a little about me (little long folks...)

it is the end of november. i cannot believe it. am i done with my shopping? barely started. i will get there, but it will be as always, right at the very last minute.
i have been meaning to post this for months. i have wanted to finish my journal that i started several years ago, when L was months old. but it has been patchy at best ever since.
here we go....
D and i met in 1999, and by the fall of that year, moved in together. very happy and then engaged feb 2002. found out we were pregnant in june 2002. married and bought house in oct 2002. on bedrest in late 2002 to feb 2003. L was born feb 2003. in june of 2003, D lost his job. no severence, no health insurance. i was still at home and getting ready to go back to school for nursing. D is in IT/help desk, and wanted to go back to school for nursing as well. his parents offered that if we sold our house and moved from NJ to MA, we could live with them and finish our RNs. well, as hard as i felt that was at the time, being a newlywed and new mom, i thought it was the best decision for us. it tore me apart but i went and tried to put on a brave face. it worked for a time but i struggled. in sept of 2004, i began nursing school in MA. there were many waitlists and since i already had an undergrad, i started and D did some pre-reqs in the meantime. ok, just of note... nursing school is hard as it is, but nursing school with a toddler while living with your in-laws is rough.
*breathe*
in oct of 2005 i was heavy into my 3rd semester. i got pneumonia and whooping cough at the same time just before mid-terms. while on antibiotics, i realized we put ourselves in a situation where we may get pregnant. to my utter shock, D was surprisingly disappointed when i wasn't. we talked and deicded that it would be a good time to try since the baby would be born after i finished school. we tried and i got pregnant after 3 cycles and finished my last semester. at the same time, we did all the paperwork for D to go to RN school in NJ. i graduated with honors in may 2006. my parents bought a multi-family and we decided that moving back to NJ and then living with MY parents while he went to RN school would be the plan... we moved in july 2006, and i passed my NJ RN boards in august 2006. R was born naturally (YAY!!) on my 30th bday in oct 2006.
since all this i have been at home with L and R. D got a job with HP, but it doesn't make it for us every month. i am now working part-time at my old fertility clinic job but am still searching for a perm RN job, and we are anticipating reapplying D to nursing school before jan. (the other school lost his transcripts 3 times, so needlesstosay, we are looking elsewhere..)
think i'm crazy?!??! no, i'm just trying to do what's best. although some days i just don't know, and don't want to screw us up with a bad decision.
sometimes, i don't know what the best decision is.....