Love.

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Went to see Joan and Christine this morning, this time with Jeremy.  Dropped Jeremy off at the train station and drove to see my parents.  My mom is still hobbling around on one good leg and one bad leg.  Snuggled in bed with her and took a nap.  I love naps.  I think my hobby is napping.  Is that such a thing?  Went home, worked a bit, went for a run.  Helped Vince with homework which was kind of a fail.  Jeremy is trying now.  It’s a compare/contrast paper and Vince (like his father) has very complicated ideas which require a high degree of writing skill to pull off.  Like using one of the contrasting differences to help prove that they are actually a similar thing.  I’m like – can you just pick obvious similarities and differences and write a simple paper?  I’m no fun really.  Edda agrees.

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Joan.

I spent a chunk of today with Christine, Jane and Joan. Joan had a stroke sometime between bedtime on Saturday and Sunday morning.  She was admitted to my hospital during the day on Sunday. I stopped by after work on Monday to see them.  She’s lost all ability to move on her right side and she’s not able to swallow or talk, though she tries to talk and we try to decipher – usually unsuccessfully.  They were headed home on Monday evening with Joan via ambulance to home hospice care.  It was good to see her at home today.  She seemed as comfortable as possible when one is letting go.  Christine and I chatted and ate snacks.  Christine swabbed her mom’s mouth.  Jane came home from classes and we set up a card table in Joan’s room and pulled out a puzzle and worked on it for a few hours.  Jane told stories about Joan taking Jane and George out to Outback Steakhouse where George would pretend that Jane hit/kicked him to get Jane in trouble.  I took a nap.  Jane brushed Joan’s hair and told her she loved her.  Peanut walked in and out of the room trying to decide whether to it was ok to settle in the room or if it was better to settle in the couch in the living room.  I went back home in the mid-afternoon.

sleep, waluigi, steve, cookies.

I spent most of the weekend sleeping and resting in bed.  I felt a little off at the hospital on Friday and thought I could shake it off quickly, but this whole weekend I could tell I was not 100%.  Mostly just sweating for no reason (not feverish tho) and tired and now it’s morphed into a mild GI bug.  I barely left the house.  I needed this weekend to do nothing.

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Jeremy spent the weekend a little more productively.  He spent hours doing some complicated bike repair maneuvers.  All of which involved specialized tools and time alone in the garage wearing his Waluigi halloween costume.

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Then he changed into his Steve halloween costume to make lunch for all of us.

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Vince made candy cane sugar cookies.

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cancelled, stitches.

I got cancelled today from my hospital gig.  Somehow, my unit is the only unit on the planet that is overstaffed, so they rotate who gets cancelled.  I think there is a way of tracking this, but I have no idea where the list is or who gets cancelled (I think some people ask to be cancelled and can get to the top of the list? Maybe?).  Though people generally don’t want to be cancelled (because you either 1) don’t get paid or 2) have to use your vacation time), I felt like I had gotten a free snow day.  Wheeee!!!  I was thrilled.  Honestly, I’m dreading going into work everyday.  It’s not that I’m getting yelled at or anyone is throwing me shade or anything, it’s just that it’s a ton of work.  On the one hand, it’s exactly what I thought it would be and I’m learning a lot and on the other hand, it’s completely overwhelming everyday.  I’m trying to convince myself not to think too hard about it and just do it. 

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There I am, at 8 am with both kids off to school and me thinking that I’d have a whole day of cool fun stuff like catching up with laundry, paying bills, cleaning up the house and just relaxing and watching youtube videos about asmr when I hear a crash in the front foyer.  I don’t move from where I’m eating my breakfast avocado toast and yelled to Jeremy – you OK?  I hear – uhh, could you help me, like now?

I found Jeremy splayed out on the ground in the front foyer in a puddle of glass and milk.  He’d tripped coming back into the house while carrying four glass bottles of milk.  A milk bottle fell to the ground and shattered and then he fell on top of it all.  I start trying to find out where all his cuts are, to clean the glass and the milk and keep Maxi from trying to lick all the milk and getting both cuts and diarrhea.  Jeremy had one large laceration below his right knee which I knew needed stitches.  So off we went to the ER.  And I thought I wasn’t going to go to a hospital today.

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Jeremy told the PA that was stitching him up that I was a new nurse, so the PA happily walked me through the stitching process.  How to properly inject the lidocaine, how to irrigate the wound, which types of stitches to use in what situation.  I often do wound care on the floor, but not accidental lacerations and no stitching.  Jeremy thinks he got a better stitch job because the PA was trying to show off.   It was a deeper wound than I thought it was at first glance, the glass went in sideways so it’s actually deeper than a quarter inch and the skin kind of “flaps” about half an inch from the incision.

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Poor boy can’t bike for about two weeks.  Since it’s right near the knee, it’s skin that gets a lot of pull, so he’s suppose to keep his leg straight-ish for a while.

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taco wed, physics continued.

Lively dinner tonight.  A party and it’s a Wed!  Taco Wed is what it is.   This pleases me, the dinner table is full, we have a simple meal I put together in about 45 minutes.  We chat for about an hour and then it’s done.  We are all off our separate ways.

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Vince and I are struggling a bit with each other through his junior year.  I had to call Jeremy early this morning for a pep talk.  V and I always fight when Jeremy is out of town.  Jeremy was like – uhhh, it’s going to be hard for me to never leave town so you and Vince will never fight.  lol.  Vince is like – you only talk to me about things like grades, tests and SATs, why are you only picking on that?  I said, well when you hang out with dad, you guys cook or go out to eat.  Dad loves to cook.  Do you know what I love?  I love school.  If I could, I’d go to high school forever.  Do you know how satisfying it is to have the right answer for everything all the time?  Life is never like that, you never know what the hell you are doing in real life.  Like how to raise a teenager!  I looked at my old physics textbook because I need to relearn all the physics stuff before I help Vince – I see that every even question in the whole book, chapter after chapter, has a little check mark next to it (only the even ones had answers in the back).  Thirty year old check marks.  I can’t quite decide if I was an idiot for doing all of the questions or if my diligence was a good thing.  Somedays I feel like being a diligent, consistent person is an excellent quality to have.  Today I feel like I wasted time all that time as a teenager – in my little room, by myself with a swing arm lamp – circular motion, tension, ropes holding a boat on the dock – I could (and probably) should have been off doing more interesting things or meeting interesting people.  But I know doing all those physics problems was kind of soothing for me, as if all the questions I had about my life when I was 17 could be answered as simply as any of those checked-marked questions.  As for Vince, I have to say over and over again, it’s not about me, it’s not about me, it’s not about me.

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Tuesday.

I’ve been rewatching Good Will Hunting – one of my favorite movies.   To see Robin Willams again!

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I took a nap today.

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Jeremy saw Dave this morning in Minnesota.  Dave is doing some big data thing with health insurance companies.  Dave told me once that the most common billing tags are vaccines and his favorite least common billing tag was something like being pecked by a chicken.  I’m like – there is a tag for that?  He said yeah – it got used once last year.  Jeremy thinks we should open a health data company with Dave – Jeremy the idea guy, I’d bring in the nursing component and Dave would do all the programming and data stuff.  That sounds like too much work.

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Edda was so happy today!  Just laughing and laughing at dinner.  It’s been a while since she’s been like that.  I think her blistered toe is finally better.

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It’s really cold.

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With Jeremy gone, we’ve been having communal dinners to keep each other company – in many ways fun and easy.  Kitachi, Edda, Vince, me, Ning, Brian, Brian’s mom Kathy and baby Noah.  And I guess Maxi also.  I ordered Chinese last night.  Brian cooked tonight – spaghetti and meatballs.

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There are many things I miss by working so much.  There are many people who say – oh! you can have it all and I have a lot of it, but what fades away the quickest when you are busy paying attention to other things are your existing relationships.  I can always outsource many things – cleaning the house, watching the kids, cooking, walking the dog, etc.  But you can’t really outsource being friends with a person.  I miss my friends that I used to talk to on a daily, weekly, etc. basis.  These are relationships I’ve built up over half decades & decades.  It takes (lazy) time to be friends and I can’t do that now.  I have new relationships at work, it’s true, and I do value those, but all my old ones are suffering.  I don’t have a huge circle of friends, but I want to have a handful of close friends.  I promise them all it’s only a season, but it’s causing me to be somewhat unhappy.  There is so much value in having a friend who knows what you did yesterday and what you’ll do tomorrow and just what is going on where the conversation isn’t one big huge catch-up.  Sigh.

Egg rolls, fasting, fighting.

The Friday after Thanksgiving, we went to my parent’s house to have family dinner #2. This is where Vince made the eggrolls.  My mom is OK, walking around with a crutch.

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I worked all weekend at the hospital.  I’m now done with 4 months as a floor nurse and it is completely exhausting.  I’ve spent more time on the floor on my own than I have in orientation.  I step on the floor at 6:45 am and I don’t stop moving until I leave the floor, usually a 8 pm.  Jeremy opens my lunch box from the morning in the evening to clean it out and says I at three bites of the sandwich.  And I’m like – oh, yeah, that’s right, today I sat down to eat lunch and then some code alarm went off and I had to run.  I actually don’t understand what I’m suppose to do to make everything feel better except to care less about everything that is wrong/late or unaccomplished which is what I think will happen.  It pains me to realize this at this time. 

Jeremy was quoted in the NYTimes magazine this weekend.  He’s not exactly delighted with the article.  His quote did headline a section in the article.

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Jeremy is up a few pounds from eating more generously and exercising less.  He’s completely convinced of fasting diets, there is some book that he wants me to read.  He’s interested in fasting as a way to cure type II diabetes.  In the hospital, I feel like I’m never able to control a diabetic’s sugar.  We check sugars before each meal and the level is usually in the mid-200s (normal is 70-120ish) and then I cover it with a bit of fast acting insulin each time per a sliding scale and sometimes there is a daily long acting insulin that should act over 24 hours and I never, ever see it under 200.  I’m confused.  I thought insulin would bring it all down into the 100s.  I very, very rarely see that happen even when I’m perfect in the timing of the insulin dosing.  He says this book says that the type II diabetic could reset their insulin resistance by fasting for a week?  a couple of weeks?  maybe a month?  I’m like – can you fast for a month?  Won’t that kill you?  He said, nah, you won’t die after a month.  Anyways, he lost his 40 pounds with intermittent (one-day only) fasting, but now he’s interested in week-long fasts.  So he started a two day fast on Sunday.  He’s travelling this week (to Minnesota) so I dropped him off this morning, the 2nd day of fasting.  He’s for sure a little slow in talking because his glucose levels and he’s a little scatter-brained, but today is a travel day and then tomorrow he will break the fast and be ready for his meetings.  Here he is – off in the rain to catch the bus to catch his flight. 

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Vince has decided to make cookies every Sunday for his friends.  Boy likes to cook.  Of course, Jeremy leaves on a business trip and Vince & I get into a fight.  Over physics.  There is a test tomorrow and he asks at 5pm today for help.  I’m like – did you work on is this weekend?  Last weekend?  We talked about working on it last weekend?  The answer is – no.  We fight.  There is nothing that irks me more than last minute cramming. 

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Post – thanksgiving.

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Vince made this green bean casserole from scratch yesterday.  He followed the Binging with Babish recipe which included making the mushroom soup from scratch, deep frying the onions and then putting it together with fresh green beans.  I wish I had gotten a photo of it as it came out of the oven, but I didn’t.  It was amazing & delicious it was the first dish that was completely consumed. 

One of the reasons that our house was so crowded yesterday was because so many of Edda’s caregivers and their partners and families came.  I grieve about so many things regarding Edda, but when I think about the nice things that have come out of it one of it is that we have so many people interested in Edda’s wellbeing and that they have become like family to us.

My mom pulled her groin muscle yesterday and so she and my dad had to cancel and stayed home yesterday.  My dad dropped off all the egg roll ingredients anyways mid-afternoon.  It was weird not having either set of parents at Thanksgiving, but it was fine.  We are going to bring over the leftovers to their house tonight to have a 2nd Thanksgiving with them tonight (minus the green bean casserole).

I had this secret hope that Donald would show up on my doorstep at 4pm on Thanksgiving, but that didn’t happen.  Donald!  I miss you, I love you, come back to me.  <3  I will wait for you, take your time. 

Thanksgiving.

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We went out Monday night to celebrate my mom’s 77th birthday.  I thought the hummingbird cake was especially delicious.  It was a lovely evening out.  We’ve been slowly wading through the rest of the week.  I was at the hospital on Tue and Wed which meant that Jeremy has been the one wrestling with prepping for Thanksgiving and managing during the lead up to the big day (today!).  Jeremy’s parents are not coming and a lot of out of town guests are not coming either, so we will be a modest 35 (!).  I didn’t think we’d still have so many people.  As for the mishaps this week,  I accidentally ate Vince’s lunch, I managed to drive to the hospital with Edda’s wheelchair in my trunk and the van’s battery died – pretty much all on Wed, throwing Jeremy for a bunch of loops in his schedule.

I’m thankful for so many things and all the usual things.  I do not let a day go by without thinking about how lucky I am.

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