Category Archives: vampira

not missed

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At work the other night I find that I have a little bit of time on my hands…

No! Goodness, no it is not that word that is the opposite of fast or busy and it isn’t that word that starts with the letter “q” either.

SSSHHHH!!!!

Nurses do not say such things out loud unless they are naive, newbies, desperate for more hours and time away from bathroom breaks, meal breaks, family time, sleep…or are eager to help move things along for a patient who might have been  maybe laboring all day.

Don’t say those words out loud.

Please.

Trust me in my unit we have plenty to keep us occupied and working hard…very hard…all the time. But the other night I found time on my hands…down time…and with down time we try to catch up. I chose to stock supplies; supplies that when I am slammed with patient care find that I do not have close at hand to help me deliver the kind of patient care that I expect to deliver….

EKG leads…feeding tubes…syringes…kleenex…lancets…heel warmers…gloves…IV tubing…baby wipes…diapers…4x4s…and on and on and on.

I pulled these things (and more) from the stock room with the intent that the next time we get slammed, when I am there, these things will be right where I expect them to be when I need them.

I can be very selfish when I am stocking the patient care areas that I am working in. Then again, I do it for my tiny patients too.

You are welcome tiny patients! Love you beautiful babies!!

So while gathering feeding supplies for gavage feedings because I do a lot of gavage feedings on any given 12 hour shift, I came across this.

Oh you 14 French MIC-Key gastrostomy feeding tube…you were such a HUGE part of my life for such a long time…a HUGE part of my son’s life and his father’s life and his sisters’ lives…until you were replaced by a Bard gastrostomy tube that had to be surgically placed and then, years later, surgically removed. I hated you and I hated the Bard too. Then again, I valued you, grew to rely on you…a lot. It is because of you I often questioned my own ability to care for my child, to nurture him, to feed him. But at the same time I was thankful that you were there poking out of my little boy’s abdominal wall because without you how else would I be able to feed my little boy for so many years?

Oh little 14 French MIC-Key gastrostomy feeding tube, we don’t see you very often here in our NICU but you are here tucked in that drawer in the stock room where we keep all the tube feeding supplies just in case. That is indeed a good thing because what if we did need you at say 0200? There you are, in that drawer. Waiting. Ready.

I close the drawer which you are stored in and sigh. No one needs you tonight or any time soon. Thank goodness. I don’t miss seeing you little 14 French MIC-Key gastrostomy feeding tube. I don’t miss you at all.

fighting to get up

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I am so not a morning person. Surprised much? Well, considering that most of my career as a nurse has been as Vampira the Night Shift Nurse, one should not be too surprised.

But lately I find myself struggling just to get up even more than usual. Oh, who am I kidding? It has been hard to get out of bed pretty much every day the last few weeks…months…perhaps years…a couple? Depression sucks, doesn’t it? It sucks a lot.

Here’s where I confess that this truth scares me. It scares me a whole lot. Growing up with a parent living with Bipolar Disorder I have seen how it can be at its very worst…and even worse than that. The mania was often scary, very scary, but nothing scared me more than when she would not get up…not even move.  I think the hardest thing for me to forgive was when she would not get up…would not even try…no matter how badly my brothers, sister and myself needed her to. That’s why I try so very hard to force myself to get up no matter how badly I just want to pull the covers up over my head and pretend that there is no reason to get up, no world out there that I must live in.

But there is.

There are quite a few reasons that I must get up. I can think of at least eight…eight wonderful reasons.

Yeah, lately it has been really hard to get up in the morning…or in the afternoon when I am working nights. Still I fight. I fight hard, so very hard to get up. And I am thankful for the eight reasons I have to do just that…so very thankful.

morning has broken

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Mornings mean a lot of different things to different people. Me, I’m not much of a morning person.

Neither are some other people…at least until after he has his breakfast. He might look like he could use a cup of coffee but he swears he doesn’t need it. He’s a kid and kids don’t drink coffee, he chides me. It is then that I tell him as a micropreemie in the NICU for four and a half months he was a total pain in the butt until he had his morning dose of caffeine. He thinks that it is absolutely crazy that he was given caffeine when he was so tiny…CRAZY!

But after breakfast is eaten, my happy boy is there to warm my heart with sunshine…er, son-shine.

Still I am not a morning person. Not at all. Which explains why, with the exception of three years, I have always worked the night shift as a NICU nurse…working nights for over twenty years now. So while the world is slumbering I am here, in the NICU.

Yes, most nights sitting here, or running around but always working very hard in the dark. We vampire nurses like it that way as do our patients. And when y’all are getting up, having coffee, eating breakfast, heading out the door to work or school and your busy, busy days, I am here…

Here unwinding and powering down before I try to sleep. Y’all need to please keep it down while you are living your lives (so loudly) during my sleep time…your daytime.

Today is Nurses Day, which is the beginning of Nurses Week, and ends with the remembrance of Florence Nightingale’s birthday. If I was queen of the world we would be celebrating nurses all month long…and nurses would be celebrated all month long…not sharing it with anyone else. Alas, I am not queen of the world. I am just a lowly bedside, per-diem registered nurse which is the best place to be for me and for my patients. Tell a nurse that they are awesome and you appreciate them. It makes the missed meals, the missed bathroom breaks, the dehydration, the achy feet, backs and legs and all the stress and headaches worth it. And again, keep it down just a little. I’m trying to sleep.

This week’s Focus 52 assignment was morning. Be sure to check out other people’s view of the morning and compare it yours.

Good night, er, morning!

breakfast with Bob

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…probably wouldn’t include this.

and DEFINITELY would not have been this!

I may or may not have indulged in such things recently.

Don’t tell Bob!

During a recent opportunity (yes, I’m still talking about BlogHer three weeks later!) to have breakfast with Bob Harper, of The Biggest Loser, I did indeed sit this close to Bob. Although he seemed to be as warm, open, honest and funny as he is on the NBC reality show, I chose to not share the indulgences that I may or may not have enjoyed with him. Instead I remembered to say hello to him from Shredheads‘ Kristen and Bill. I also made him laugh because I used the word “dude” in a sentence. I then asked him to share some advice and wisdom for those of us who work all night and sleep all day as to how to maintain our health and fitness.  He laughed again when I referred to myself as Vampira, the Night Shift Nurse. Obviously the dude has never worked all night and then found himself blinded by the early morning sun as his day, er, night of work has ended…it burns!

Bob’s advice to me, and other Vampiras and Vampires who work the o’dark-thirty shift is this:

  • nutrition is #1
  • nutrition is #2
  • exercise is #3
  • sleep is in there…somewhere…ideally 6-8 hours…anyone who works 12 hour shifts like I do is now laughing hysterically right now.

But I think Bob kind of got that part since I emphasized that I work twelve hour shifts overnight. What he offered to me is something I already know: eat 30 minutes after waking up (regardless of the time of day or night), eat small meals containing protein and complex carbs every four hours and that last meal before bedtime (day or night) should contain little or no carbs. I know this as do anyone else in healthcare. But a lot of us in the healthcare industry don’t always walk the talk that we advise patients. No we don’t.

Bob also emphasized something that I have come to realize over the last few years of shredding and running and just moving: exercise, moving your body is so crucial to feel healthy and keep going and stay young.

Following his advice and wisdom focusing on good nutrition, moving my body and getting enough sleep…okay, trying to get enough sleep makes occasional indulgences like these that I may have or may have not recently consumed okay….OCCASIONALLY! But for now, today I need to get off the couch and move. Perhaps I might get moving with one of Bob’s dvds thinking how I sat that close to Bob one day and made him laugh…or perhaps I will just get out and run.

But I will definitely get moving.

What about you?

the last 30 days…

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…I ran.

Well, give or take a few days. But I did run pretty much everyday this last month. With the moving of the Big Top at the beginning of last month, there was nothing else but running for me because my Bob and Jillian dvd’s, weights and yoga mat were all packed away. I had to focus on un-packing the essentials like the dishes, the cookware, the linens the books. Plus every time I walk into my closet and see those boxes containing shoes, boots and fitness related items I manage to find something else that needs to be done.

Okay, fine.

I’m too freakin’ lazy to un-pack my closet and I can be a bit of a procrastinator. There has been always something else I needed to do I would tell myself as I shut my closet door…like work or laundry or running.

Thankfully, my darling husband set up that treadmill of mine right away. He knows me too well. I need to run. According to my Daily Mile log, I have ran over 2000 miles in the last two years. That is crazy-amazing to me. But I have and I am damn proud of that feat.

So yeah, the last 30 days or so I have been running. No, I am not training for any race right now. You need the monies to run races and, well, there is no money for what falls under the wants column of the Big Top’s wants/needs list. It’s okay. Surprisingly, there has been something freeing about running just because I feel like running this last month. There is no training plan…none at all. If I feel like running a mile and nothing more then I run a mile and if I feel like running six or more then I do…if I can. Funny thing is I can and I have, run six miles or more at a time…and I have run only about a mile.

Thank goodness my darling husband set up the treadmill especially with the hot summer days we have had lately and especially because of the crazy day versus night schedule I keep as Vampira, the night shift nurse. I don’t think I could have run as little or as much as I have were it not for that dear old ‘mill.

What can I say…

because…

  1. It challenges me to go farther, faster, harder.
  2. It is for me, just me…not my husband, not my circus clowns, not for anyone but me.
  3. When I run I don’t have anyone to argue with.
  4. It gives me the energy to tackle the day…especially when my day is overnight.
  5. I have some pretty awesome bling…seven medals and I hope for more to come someday soon.
  6. It’s fun. No, really. It is fun!
  7. Sometimes running is my only quiet time and my only alone time.
  8. It pulled me out of my depressing, anxiety-filled mid-life slump that I was sinking into over two years ago.
  9. I can do it alone, with friends or with thousands of strangers.
  10. It clears my head of all the stress and worry that fills it up sometimes. Focusing on pace and breathing I can’t dwell on all that garbage.
  11. The way I feel when I finish, no matter how hot, sweat-soaked and exhausted I am, is amazing.
  12. More than two years ago it was something I never would have imagined that I would do…ever.
  13. It makes me smile.
  14. I like to eat delicious food.
  15. I like to drink delicious wine.
  16. I like the idea that my circus clowns can tell people that I run half marathons.
  17. I solve so many problems when I run.
  18. I release so much…resentments, anger, everything toxic.
  19. I like how my ass looks.
  20. I like how my legs look.
  21. I like how I look in my clothes.
  22. I like how I look naked.
  23. It daily reminds that I am a super human being.
  24. It is the part of my day that I absolutely look forward too.
  25. I like the sound of my feet striking the ground.
  26. I like the sound of the music that is my running playlist (a long, varied list) and the beat that drives me onward.
  27. It makes me powerful and in control of my body and mind.
  28. I am addicted to endorphins
  29. I am inspired that so many friends of mine started running because I started running.
  30. I CAN run

Thirty reasons why to represent the last thirty days (give or take a day here and there) of running. I can’t wait to see what the next thirty days and the days that follow thereafter reveal to me.