Need help with comment section!

I'm having trouble figuring out how to make my comment section appear right below the blog so that it makes a thread-like look.

I've seen this on other blogs and played around with the settings, but I just can't get it.

If anyone has any suggestions I'd appreciate them!

I woke up, it was a misty morning...

not trying to be antisocial, but...

After almost 2 years of writing on this blog I have still not really decided what is blog-worthy. I admire the people who can always stick to or rotate around one main topic on their blogs. I just don't want to start any more of them and so therefore this thing has turned into a hodge-podge. Without apology.

Tonight I was planning to go to a party for a co-worker who is in the military and will be leaving for a stint of active duty. The half-hour drive there will take me an hour (that is just me driving on the highway in the dark). The party is in Lebanon, which I pronounce Le-ban-on, which has my coworkers asking "where?" if only to be sarcastic. According to them it is "Lebnin" or something like that; I'm sure I still have it wrong. "You are too proper," they scold, "would you call it Louis-ville too?".

I was going to bring the infamous 7-layer taco dip. I originally asked what Tennesseans eat for side dishes. If it were up to me I would bring Hawaiian salad, potato salad or pimento cheese. They said that the taco dip would be fine. So I soaked the beans overnight and cooked them this morning, and now I have several pounds of black beans sitting in my refrigerator anxiously waiting to be married to cream cheese and Rotel.

I don't think that I'm going to go to the party though. Today has been a miserable day for me and I have spent it fighting the urge to rip these damned support stockings off with two hands and say the hell with it. Yesterday morning I had one of my large leg veins closed because the valve was warped from too many 8-pounder kids resting atop it, and I was instructed to wear these things for 5 straight days. Easier said than done when they are itching and pinching and rolling themselves down over the "baby fat" on my abdomen. How can I go to a party, with all the laughing and drinking and playfulness, when I am in a struggle to resist the urge to scratch, lest I appear to have scabies? I won't even be able to take any alcohol myself because I was advised to ingest 1600 mg of ibuprofen per day, which is surely eating away at my stomach lining and liver as I sit here typing. And that reminds me, I shouldn't be sitting like this, I need to get up and walk around again, lest I get a blood clot. Oy. I'd better have some nice-looking legs after all this!

The taco dip will be for work tomorrow night. I have the chips and everything already. It will help to get us through the shift, especially with all the beans I'm putting in there.

heeding the voices

My birthday is coming up this month. The great thing about birthdays is that they give you another chance to reflect on your life. Better than the new year when you are supposed to resolve to do things or not do things, of which about 75% of these haven't happened by the following January. With birthdays you get your whole life to make or break your promises and dreams.

I've learned over the years to listen to that little voice of God or angels or my brain or whatever or whoever is talking to me. This sounds kind-of crazy, but I will explain in order to make my case.

Several years ago I was in nursing school and commuting back and forth to Chicago from the suburbs almost every day.

Sometimes I would drive within a mile of my grandpa's house on the way home. But in my rush to get my daughter from day care, I never consciously realized how close I was.

On one of the afternoons the thought occurred to me that I should stop and see him. Just a quick visit. But what if he's napping or eating dinner or down the street at my aunt's house? I didn't want to be rude and just show up. I was finding every excuse that I could think of not to go.

A week later my healthy grandpa was suddenly dead, found lying on the floor next to his bed, at age 94. I never did stop to see him. I ignored the voice.

So today I was thinking about my mother, living alone up in central Illinois in a run-down house out in the country, surrounded by open land that puts no brakes on the cold, icy winter wind.

I was thinking about how I hadn't heard from her since she visited around Christmas. This, in itself, is nothing to worry about. I could go months without hearing from her. It has been like this for years. She lives her own life and seems to call me when it's convenient, and I've learned to deal with that.

But as I was sitting at the kitchen table eating my lunch, the little voice spoke up and told me to call her, and being that I'm about to turn 37 and I've learned that I need to pay greater attention to that sound, I called. I got the voicemail and left a message.

She returned my call later that evening, and as she rambled on about her visit to the spa and water aerobics, I breathed a sigh of relief. She was alive and well.

My mom told me that my aunt happened to have an extra ticket for an Eagles concert on the 18th, the day after my birthday. Some other family members that I hadn't seen in a long time were also going, but she told my aunt that she didn't think I would drive all the way up from Tennessee just to attend a concert. She figured that it wasn't even worth telling me about, but since I had called, she might as well mention it.

Little did she know that I had been in one of my all too frequent "I miss Illinois" funky moods lately, and had entertained the idea of driving up there for my birthday to cheer myself up. Later on I decided against such frivolity since we were planning another vacation in May. But now I had a reason to go.

So glad I heeded the voice this time.

best med rec this week by far

Medication reconciliation done on a 14-weeker prego who came in with shortness of breath:

1. Methadone

"I can tell you all about it--dose, how long I've been taking it, where I go to get it..."

"Are you taking prenatal vitamins?"

2. Oh yeah, I'm taking those

3. I have an inhaler, but I lost it.



"Do you have an ob/gyn?"

"Yeah."

"Who is it?"

"I can't remember the name."

Father: "Do you mind if I go out? I left my kid in the car."

It's 3 a.m., and they just made runner-up for the Parents Of The Year award. Almost tied with the parents of the 6-week-old who fell off the bed because "he rolled a little." Send more nominations to me. The contest is ongoing.

undercrowded

Ever since we moved to this house I have had trouble sleeping. It seems like I can't get through a night without waking up.

My first thought was that it was because I was working more night shifts. Bigger mortgage=have to work more=more stress=insomnia.

But I think that I have discovered the root of the problem. The bedroom is just TOO BIG. While it is lovely--with 2 closets, a fireplace, a bathroom, and a balcony facing the backyard--I do not feel secure in there. It feels like I am floating around in the open air when I am laying in bed.

I have always felt that I could live happily in a tiny home (that is, if I was able to part with some of the "junk"). I also thought that this was probably a character flaw of mine according to our society. Houses are built so large now--ours is from 1985 but still 3,000 square feet--it seems like living in a behemoth should be a normal way of life. Never mind all the earth's resources that it takes to maintain and run this house.

Our home in Illinois was 1,300 square feet. I was living happier in it. We were all closer. My bed was right next to the window where I could see and hear the oak leaves tap against one another every morning. I had birds to wake me and I could see strands of caterpillar silk reflected in the early sunlight.

I miss the simple life.

Rude Pencil

I found this pencil while unpacking some boxes in my room. Yes, that's right, I am STILL unpacking. That is beside the point.

I never really noticed or cared much about it--probably got it for free from some job fair back when I was a new grad--but now the message is so poignant to me, I am going to place it in one of my memory boxes so that it will last forever. Go on Southern nurses, remind me how rude us Northerners are. Wait a minute, I can't really consider myself a "Northern Nurse" anymore, now can I? Well, I will always be one in heart and spirit. Love live EICU!

expressing yourself

In ER world, nurses see lots of creative and innovative ways that patients choose to "express themselves." Why hold your anger inside when it can only lead to heart disease and aneurysms? Let it all out in the ER. The nurses are trained to therapeutically address your concerns. We are caring individuals.

Some ways that our patients like to release their pent-up feelings and emotions:

1. Tossing the written prescription on the floor in front of the nurse's station and storming out, all because the doc wouldn't write for Lortab or some other narcotic that the patient could sell on the street. Minutes later, housekeeper finds the word "bullshit" scribbled on the stretcher mattress.

2. One of my favorite nurses likes to advise his patients upon discharge to "drink plenty of water, eat your vegetables, and wear your seatbelt at all times in the car." Problem is that obese women who come visit us with barely a cold don't want this advice. "I sat in the waiting room for 4 hours just to be told to eat my fucking vegetables!"

3. Triage assessment on a patient brought in by ambulance goes like this: patient transferred to bed with help of EMS personnel, nurses assist patient into gown and instruct patient to lay down so that we can take vital signs, patient purses lips together and blows out a spitball straight into the air while two nurses are hovering above attaching electrodes. Or sometimes, the wall gets decorated. Safer for the nurse at least.

4. Phrase of the week: "I don't care." I don't care about this shit, I don't care about what you are prescribing me, I don't care what you say even though I myself chose to come here, I am not being admitted, I don't care if I have to pay the hospital bill out of my own pocket if I sign out AMA because you know that I won't pay it anyways.

5. Patient is bleeding profusely from surgical dressing, chux upon chux pooling up with blood. "When will I stop bleeding? Can I take a bath when I get home? Why do I have to stay here?" Fed-up Dr. Q responds with "I can't tell the future." Yes sir, go on home now, get blood all over your car and have your wife call EMS when you decide that you would rather bleed in the hospital.

Now I know why we studied therapeutic communication in school. Because it works so well in the ER. Patients always respond positively to logical reasoning there.

Remedial Composting 095

Let us, just for a moment, forget that it has been in the 20's down here in Tennessee for the past few days. Pretend that nitrogen is infusing all those weeds and unidentifiable green things known as "forbs" with power so that they take over the lawn. Let's ask a few random questions about composting.

1. If the toddler/preschooler throws a 2mm-thick fruit leather down because "it's too sticky!", and it becomes stuck with dog hairs that have been on the kitchen floor for awhile (quite a long time), will this piece of fruit leather then proceed to decompose in the compost pile?

2. What about peanut butter? Or will my dog get to it first?

3. Macaroni and cheese? Does the expensive organic kind break down faster?

4. A pumpkin from last Halloween? Or should I just keep rolling it around the pile in hopes that a raccoon will eventually carry it off?

5. Chex Mix? Does anyone think that the powdered cheese that's stuck on there will affect this process adversely?

6. Bills, if they are finely shredded?

Master Gardener Class #4

I'm not sure if I mentioned on here that I was going to attend the Master Gardener class from January through March. I am trying to progress from growing impatiens and tomatoes successfully to something a little more complicated. Not only that, but the growing environment in Tennessee is crazy different compared to Illinois. More and larger insects, hot and dry summer days, nosy next-door neighbors who prune and cut things down without notice.

The other night at work we had a little downtime, and I was sitting at the nurse's station along with a lab tech who was waiting to get into a room. My "Gardening in Tennessee and Kentucky" book was laying on the desk nearby.

"A garden book? Who's the gardener?"

"That's mine. I am. I'm from Illinois, so I need to learn more about growing things here."

ALERT, ALERT: Probably one of the stupidest questions ever asked to me:

"Does anything even GROW in Illinois? You know, with it bein' so cold up there?"

Hello foo, have you ever heard of "The Corn Belt?"

So today was my fourth class. Every night the "graduated" Master Gardeners serve a spread of food that follows a theme. Tonight was Italian night, I think. There was tomato bread and garlic toast with basil, pesto, and sun-dried tomato spreads, and pasta salad with feta cheese and artichoke hearts. Tonight was my first time ever tasting artichokes, which turned out to be a little bit of a disaster. There was a large woman sitting next to me in class and she had that "dirty" smell that I recognized so easily, the same malodorous stench that waifs around the ER all the time. The smell didn't ruin my appetite, but like my friend said on facebook, it could have influenced my opinion about the artichoke hearts in a negative direction. So I will have to be sure to sample them again sometime in this lifetime.

Continuing on with the food list (and this is about where the Italian ends, except for the pizzelles and pizza rolls)--pumpkin bread, vegetable tray, and nuts. The ongoing discussion in the food line during our halftime break was the impending snow.

"I wonder if the kids will have school in the morning."

"Well, it's got to be colder than in the 40's for them to cancel it."

"I hear the temperature is going to drop tonight and turn to freezing rain."

"They are predicting an inch of snow!"

A winter weather advisory for ONE INCH??? All I could think to myself was, wimps.

The woman who needed to thoroughly clean all of her body folds kind-of ruined the educational experience for me tonight. The speaker, who was a retired professor from the University of Tennessee, kept the discussion light and humorous. But even that didn't help much, because every time the woman laughed she would move around and kick up a new round of stench.

Quotes from the professor:

When speaking of living in Minnesota: "It started snowing in October and you could look outside and see snow until the 16th of April, and we found that somewhat excessive." Almost everyone in the class nodded in agreement.

While showing a slide of a badly-pruned tree that had the terminal branch (top branch) hacked off: "Yes Virginia, you too can have a 40-foot hat rack in your front yard. If you have to prune it again I recommend one single cut right here," and he motioned to the base of the trunk.

Toward the end of night, regarding his being the speaker for the class: "It's all in the unit, everything's in the unit. I don't know why I even do this." That got quite a chuckle from all, but I think he might have been dead serious.

It was overall a fun class, but I have been sitting here typing for the past 20 minutes, home for almost 2 hours, and have changed my clothes. Yet I can still smell that woman. Maybe next week I'll be antisocial and sit in a corner somewhere, just in case.