I had a terrible shift on Friday. I had a patient I needed to call a stat team for and it took 2-3 hours of concerted single-focused effort from starting to worry about the patient (who I wasn’t worried about at 8 am) until I had transferred them to another unit and given report to the next nurse. The other 4 patients of mine could not be properly attended to by me during that time – though the charge nurse found cover for me as needed, and therefore, I spent the rest of the shift after the stat team apologizing for my poor service – a worried mother, another pretty sick patient who spent the day throwing up, two patients with delayed discharges and angry ride-givers. Ha ha. At least a certain patient said to me at the end of the shift – I’m sorry I was mean to you all day. Does that count for something? I’m not sure anymore. It’s certainly not thank you so much for your help. The last nursing report, I was kind of fond of my job. This time, I’m less sanguine. It’s Sunday morning and still I haven’t slept well because I can still feel the residual cortisol/adrenaline flowing through me. In the middle of the chaotic shift, I was like – this is enough. I’ve done what I needed to do. And in all honesty, there are some forthcoming expenses that will need to be covered, and my patent job will allow for that as I’ll probably work overtime at that job to cover the expense and that pays twice as much as nursing and no one is going to die on me or be mean to me all day at the same time.
My part-time paycheck came through from the patent job and as it’s just about half a paycheck, I’m determined to not work on the weekends (I know this is weird, but I explained this before as well), so a long walk on Saturday around Clopper Lake. I did a bad thing in which I left a poop bag early in the walk thinking I would backtrack because I thought the loop might be too long and pick it up, but then I realized at the halfway point that I could do(o)-do(o) the loop in the time that I had allotted myself, so I did do(o)-do(o) the loop and didn’t get the bag.
Elka says hi!
Sofie and I went out and did a Target run – just for fun. Nothing to buy, everything to try on. I did not wear a mask in the store and told Sofie that it was a big deal because I’d not done that since March of 2020 and now as I type this, I feel some regret and maybe I should have done it. I’m imagining the little cold germs coming for me. And she looked at me and said – yeah, I know it’s a big deal for you. Sofie is better at the selfie posing compared to me, obvs. It was 70 degrees yesterday. I wore shorts on my walk, we wore shorts and t-shirts to target. The playground was full of kids and adults playing Pokemon Go. I had forgotten it was an event day for Pokemon Go – us PoGo players are a slightly disheveled and introverted bunch of people. It’s kind of cute. And it wasn’t like a normal 70 degree day. We woke up and it was 65 already and it stayed that temperature all day – maybe the humidity varied, but also in a strange way.
Then we went to my parents for dinner. Elka is getting used to going to another house. I’m just worried she will pee on their carpet – she did not! good dog. She also likes to crowd the table. So we put a little mat out and told her to “place” which is suppose to mean that you can do whatever you want as long as all four paws are touching the mat. Elka thought it mean as long as any part of her was touching the mat, she was a-okay. So here she is creeping closer to the table, but still touching the mat. lol.
I told my mom to sit on the couch to get the “full Elka” experience and the doggie complied.
My grey streak in all its glory.