Author: Doris

Vince has been off the grid for the past week canoeing in the Boundary Waters in Canada. I sent him to the Northern Tier high adventure scout camp with a troop from Atlanta who was willing to take on an extra scout. I never spoke to the troop leader – we arranged everything via email and text. As I was dropping Vince off at the airport on the last day of school, I was thinking I hope it all works out as I have never spoken to the grown up in charge and maybe it wasn’t the best parental decision. Vince sent us a text when he left cell service and he sent us this photo when he got back into cell service late this afternoon. “It was the best” was the short, descriptive text we got. I can’t wait to hear about it when he gets home at midnight tomorrow via a 5-6 hour drive and flight home from Minneapolis.

I have been enjoying a tremendously reduced work schedule. During the summer, I’m working about once a week at the hospital and I’m still part time at my regular gig for another 4-5 weeks. On the one hand, I feel like I’ll get out of practice with the nursing skills, but on the other hand, who the hell cares? It is so luxurious – granted the $ is no good at this rate, but I don’t care very much. I’m sleeping a lot, I’m puttering around the house eating cheese and wasting time by watching TV. I also enjoy such things as watching the grass grow tall and then think about mowing it and then pretending that I am going to mow it, but then go scrounging in the fridge to look for interesting things to eat instead. Edda and I hang out in companionable silence which (I think) indicates the depth of our relationship and make outings to eat Swedish meatballs at IKEA where the most difficult decision is whether to get gravy on the french fries. Excitingly, I pay the water bill on time. It makes me realize how hard the past year has been on me which was caused entirely by my own doing.

As I relax into a blob of contentment, Jeremy’s anxiety is ramping up (I have this theory of all things in a marriage where there is a finite amount of anxiety, stress and/or happiness or whatever property that is constant in the marriage between the two people, it’s just that the amount in each person shifts all the time. So if one person is super happy, the other person inevitably is happy for them, but really super pissed about all other things – the same hold true for anxiety). It’s less than 3 weeks until Philmont where he’s responsible for hauling a busload of kids into the NM wilderness and back. He loves the hiking part (as evidenced by his 7 mile hike this morning with a 20 pound bag of rice to test out his new backpack), but the admin part is killing him. He just had a phone call with the troop treasurer to account for all the money and now he has to manage all the paperwork – permission slips, insurance, frequent flyer miles, health forms, medications etc, etc.

Edda starts camp on Monday. There is already a slightly ominous (ominous is too strong of a word) beginning to it all. We get an email from the camp saying – come this day to meet Edda’s counselor and then we get another email saying – oh! don’t come, Edda’s counselor is quitting and then another email saying – oh no! she decided to stay, come and meet her! So it’s going to be that kind of summer. Now we’ve been through so many summers at this camp, you know that some years, it’s fantastic – the kids and counselors are well matched and everything goes smoothly and other summers there is shifting of staff and kids and schedules and no one ever gets into the groove. It’s all OK, Edda seems mostly happy no matter the swirl around her, I’m not worried. I hope she enjoys the swimming and gets a bit of a tan. We’ll see.

Sorry, I have been remiss in updating. Lots of things going on, blogging got dropped. Last week was the last week of school and Jeremy was out of town, blah, blah, blah. The regular stuff.

I did go to my reunion. It was both exhilarating and disappointing. I do have very fond memories of going to college there, but I do have complicated feelings about who I was back then and who I am now and I think it, unfortunately, overwhelmed me in my typical weird ways where I retreat socially and my various attempts to join in on class activities were thwarted in odd ways. I managed to sit down at a table full of finance people who were all very nice, but there is only so many conversations I can make about Bitcoin. Is it weird to feel out of place and feel like you totally belong at the same time?

It was a beautiful weekend in Boston and I loved showing Vince all my special places. He was a good sport trekking across campus on a Saturday morning and I was pointing out some meaningful place and he smiled and then I was like – isn’t this cool? And then he said – honestly mom, it’s just a building.

Then Vince took me on his own tour of Boston. We went to the Magic gaming store where it seemed like 100 boys were in the basement on Saturday morning starting a tournament.

And we celebrated Pride! The final note on Boston – Vince made it to Boston on his own from the house. I left early in the morning and he left later in the afternoon. He walked from the house to the Metro, then took the Metro to the BWI bus at Shady Grove. Got on the bus to BWI and then checked in, boarded the plane and then got to BOS. Took the silver line to the red line to Kendell Square and finally walked to the student center where I met up with him late in the evening.

Meanwhile on the left coast, Jeremy went early for a work trip and got his bike to travel with him. He saw some pals and did a planning week for work. I have no idea really what order these photos go in, but here they are.

Vince and I came back on Sunday to prep for the last week of school. Jeremy was still on the West Coast.

Vince had a big week. Now that I’m working less, I’m trying to fit all the appointments in that I can. Vince got new glasses to help him read distance. He took his driving test (he didn’t pass). And then he had his hair dyed by Ella with Sam watching on.

I’m done with being a full-time nurse! Thank goodness. It was/is a lot. I’m still learning about human nature and medicine. It certainly feels like meaningful work. I’m happy I’m doing it, but I’m also very happy to go part time now.

We got a GoPro camera for Vince’s many outdoor adventures this summer. We hemmed and hawed over the purchase of it because I think it might not be used very much – we have a long line of photo equipment that hasn’t been used enough to justify the cost. But at least it’s fun to check out.

I’m going to my 25th reunion tomorrow. Still gotta pack. Vince will come with on a later flight. Jeremy is headed to California to bike and do some work. Edda will be home with Kitachi.

The internet is can be evil. But it can also be a wonderous thing. You can see me graduate from college at the 1:17 mark. What the hell am I wearing? It looks like white socks and sneakers? WTF?

I’m not entirely thrilled by this new blogging software. I’m a little afraid that I won’t be able to make the transition well and my blogging life will be over. I’m nothing if not a pessimist. One post at a time.

I worked at the hospital over the weekend. I have two more shifts left before I go part time – tomorrow and Wed. Wish me luck.

Jeremy made a one day trip to Minneapolis today, he left before 6 this morning and will get back just after midnight. Even with this one-day schedule, I’m missing him this evening. I’m much more sensitive to his travel these days. The last few years I have really been fine with his travel. It’s not that often or that long, but it probably had worked out to 1.5 weeks per quarter. Sometimes I even had reveled in it, I get the whole bed to myself and I get to run the house just the way I want to run it (which means that we have scrambled eggs for dinner) and I think Jeremy also enjoyed having a room of one’s own – even it it was in a different city. But since I started being in the hospital, I’m more anxious and tired and needy. I usually work at the hospital on Weds, but Edda was off of school today because of graduation – the high school seniors graduate, but all the teachers go to the ceremony downtown and they shut down the whole school and I had to be home with Edda. I had a patchwork of childcare during the day, I managed to get some non-hospital work done.

Vince was elected to be the senior patrol leader of his scout troop. He made a lovely speech (according to Jeremy since I wasn’t there). I think he’ll be a good leader. I’m impressed.

Vince is going canoeing this summer. He’s going with a scout troop from Atlanta to the Boundary waters in Minnesota/Canada. I found the other troop via an email list, so I haven’t actually spoken to them, but I have exchanged many emails. Is it OK to send your son into the wilderness with people we haven’t ever spoken to? I hope so. We are doing exactly one prep outing for this canoeing trip which happened this weekend. Jeremy’s pal Ben owns a number of canoes which came in handy for this practice.

They have to portage which means you flip the canoe upside-down so you can walk over the dry parts that you can’t canoe over. I’m not sure Vince is on this particular itinerary, but the longest portage at Northern Tier is 3 miles. That’s a lot of miles to walk with a canoe over your head.

To preserve the shorelines, the scouts must do wet and dry landings which means they don’t pull the canoes across the shorelines. They get in and out of the canoe when they can see the bottom of the lake from the canoe. This means that your shoes are always 100% wet and your pants are also pretty wet. Vince happily tested out his gear.

I’m lucky to have Memorial Day weekend off! We have been shopping like crazy at REI getting Vince and Jeremy ready for the summer outings. Vince owns an unprecedented four pairs of hiking boots. Waterproof, water shedding, ice/snow and regular hiking boots? Everyday Jeremy asks me – can I buy a new pack? The other one gives me shooting numbness down the front of my legs that lasts for days. Can I buy some quick dry pants? Yes. Can I buy a synthetic sleeping bag even though we have down sleeping bags? Yes. I tell him to stop asking me these questions and just buy the damn things. This is exactly what I save my money for. I don’t buy clothes, I don’t get my hair colored, I don’t go shopping for fun. I save my money to buy four pairs of hiking boots for my family. Vince is channeling his inner Steve Irwin he said.

Louisa stayed at the house on Thursday night so that she and Jeremy could head up to Bard to join in on the graduation ceremonies. There were final concerts to attend and awards for Bob to receive.

Meanwhile, the kids went to school on Friday and I worked from home. Nat came over at 6 to take care of Edda while I went out to see the Usual Suspects. This is a super rare occasion – like a blue moon and a four leaf clover and a lucky penny all at once.

The next day, I mowed the lawn, cut Edda’s hair and went to Montgomery Mall to have lunch and do some gift shopping for…

Jane’s graduation party. Jeremy and Louisa made it home just in time for us to climb back into the car to celebrate Jane’s graduation from Maryland. What do you sing? We sang for she’s a jolly good fellow.

And Sunday started off with an epic bloody nose!

Hmmm, the days are going by so quickly. Another two shifts down, 6 to go. Of course, as soon as I decide to go part time, I feel like I’m starting to get more control of the situation. It’s still exhausting, but I’m friends with the docs now. I can see how care gets compromised. Let’s say you have this pregnant lady coming in complaining of abdominal pain. She is admitted under the general hospitalist care. But they need a surgical consult to see if they want to do surgery. So surgery – before they see her – tell her to stop eating, just in case they want to do surgery that day. They come in and see her, decide to not do surgery and then forget about her. But they forget to let her eat again. So the computer system is stuck. The kitchen can’t send food because she’s not suppose to eat anything. I can’t let her eat anything because I’m like – it says you can’t eat. I call the hospitalist and say – this pregnant lady hasn’t eaten in like 36 hours she’s not having surgery today, can I feed her? The hospitalist says – surgery has to decide. I keep trying to call surgery. The surgical resident (who, it takes me 2 hours to reach them because, duh, they are in surgery) says, there is nothing in the attending’s note that says anything about eating or not eating. I’m like – this pregnant lady hasn’t eaten in 36 hours, are we really not going to let her eat? The resident is like, yes, she’s not eating.

Jeremy & Edda both got walloped by a cold on Tuesday/Wed. Edda and Jeremy both went to school/work on Tuesday, but Edda came home on Tuesday night coughing and sniffling. That night, Jeremy started to feel lousy. I was at the hospital on Wed, so Jeremy and Ning sent Edda to school on Wed, but Jeremy was home sick and then got the call from Edda’s school to pick her up at noon. I have no idea why I’m not sick, because I have people coughing in my face ALL THE TIME. And all I can think about is – god I hope it’s not TB. I’m actually fine when I have a patient who I know has TB – because then they are in the negative pressure room and you wear the N95 mask and you kind of avoid their space as much as possible, but when someone is coughing and they are in a regular room and then you are not masked or anything, you are just kind of like – if it’s TB, I’m totally screwed. Jeremy does not like this line of thought.

The house is a complete disaster. I haven’t really picked up in 10 months now. It is just overflowing with crap. Crap is on the floors, crap is in all the closets. We can’t find certain crap, so then we have to rebuy crap to replace the unfound crap, thus doubling our crap. It is no good. And since Bob and Katherine are moving to Europe, we have asked to bring in things that aren’t crap at all, but deserve some attention which are all sitting in a metaphorical pile in the living room. I’m looking forward to cleaning up the house. In three weeks.

OK, only 8 more shifts until I go part time. This weekend was particularly bad. Don’t ever, ever, never get sick on a beautiful spring/summer weekend. The patient load remains the same, but all the workers call out and everyone is working short. Pharmacy runs behind and no one answers your call. ICU calls for a transfer and pleads for you to take the patient because they are overflowing and short-staff as well. At least on my unit, if we are short, you might have to sit in your own poop for a long time before someone comes to help you out, but if the ICU is short, it means that your ventilator isn’t being a carefully monitored as you might need/want it to be. I pride myself on being a good, fast worker, efficient, friendly, easy to get along with and I’m completely gobsmacked and flattened at 7:45pm when I’ve finally transferred my patients to the night shift nurse and I can gather my wits about myself. This was the week of nursing skills – sometime I can go a long time without doing the following things, but this week I did it all – NG tubes, wound vacs, dressing changes, Foleys, hanging blood, heparin drips, enemas, argh. Before I became a nurse, you have this feeling – huh? nurses just give out a bunch of pills and follow orders, how hard can it possibly be? OK. I need to stop complaining.

Jeremy went backpacking with the scouts this weekend gone from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. I missed him terribly because I was at the hospital all day on Saturday and came home to a house with a sleeping Edda and Eliana to say hello to and which is fine, everything is fine. But I realized that I can only take care of people all day and then I need to be taken care of for at least a little bit of time before I can do it all again. When I come home – usually Jeremy is there waiting with a plate of warmed dinner and a hug.

Jeremy said the camping went relatively well. Everyone should be able to handle the hiking at Philmont. There was a downpour on Saturday night and the boys kinda forgot to pack enough tents (long story) and a bunch of them got soaking wet.

F you self-hosted WordPress. I do not want to own my own website. I do not want to think about updating my WordPress to prevent malware attacks on my website.

I took Max to the vet today. She is not fat. I’m glad she isn’t fat, but the vet spent five minutes explaining how she isn’t fat which I thought was a little too much time explaining that – yes, everything is normal. After the vet told me she wasn’t fat, he proceeded to give her some spray can cheese which Max (to my knowledge) has never had and she was completely fascinated by it. There is a little scale that has visual cues about how thin/fat your pet is that the vet gave me printed out on a nice sheet of paper. She’s just like me – a little high on the normal weight scale. Always kind of wishing to lose 3-5 pounds. She does not have heartworms. I hope to not see the vet for another year.

Jeremy worked from home today, but today was bike to work day. So he biked to the Rockville Bike to Work Day celebration by the Rockville Metro. He added one more t-shirt to the pile of Bike to Work Day t-shirts we have.

Jeremy and Vince are going backpacking this weekend (in Pennsylvania) to train for Philmont and I’m at the hospital this weekend. Which makes it extra tricky regarding Edda. Eliana is going to stay the weekend and look after Edda, I have to (after this) set up the guest bedroom before I go to bed. Because Jeremy was working from home today and we aren’t going to see each other all weekend, we took a mid-day date to each at A&Js and then to Giant to buy supplies for the campout. The kids all plan and cook for themselves and then the adults usually appoint a person to plan the grown-up meal. But the last time turned out terribly because the person in charge of bringing the meals is just accustomed to eating about 50% of the calories of a normal person. So the grown ups on that trip might have ended up eating something like a rice cake with a slather of peanut butter and a slice of cheddar cheese for dinner. Everyone was unhappy (except perhaps the food bringer). Anyways, Jeremy needed to pick up some essentials to fuel his journey.