She Makes the Best of What's Around

Well, it appears I have a neck injury. I left the doctor's office with a steroid pack, a painkiller, a muscle relaxer, and an anti-inflammatory, as well as the instructions to come back to schedule an MRI if this pain doesn't clear up in a week. GREAT.

So far it is...not clearing up. I had rather hoped it would. I'm only on day 2 of the steroid pack, however, so I'm giving it more time. I won't be taking the painkiller for work for 2 reasons: 1) I can function on it and stay awake, but it does make me slightly fuzzy. 2) I need the pain as a reminder that I shouldn't be pulling people around. Or at least I should use proper body mechanics when I have to (because I will have to).

Incidentally, this injury is not due to improper body mechanics. At least not so far as I was in control. I had a combative patient who was going to jerk the staples out of an incision, and folks that had to be STOPPED. So I did what I had to do, and now I am sorta paying for it. Nice.

---

The fondue party was epic fun. In attendance we had

Jess & Zak
Alice (who always brings me bread!!! She's so on my List of Awesome.)
Kit
Becca
Jennifer (my LJ-less co-worker who was soundly chastised for not living on the internet)
Jodi & Kayli
Me & Bryan (Cause we live here)

The fondue was great. I had to experiment a bit; I bought only 1 bottle of Tire Biter (a Flying Dog golden ale) and it turned out not to be enough liquid. So I busted out one of my Woodchuck Ciders (amber) because I'd seen Alton Brown do it with that very stuff. The cheese was about a pound & 1/2 of red wax gouda with almost 1/2 lb of 18-month aged gouda for sharpness. It went VERY well with the rye bread that Alice brought and the hard-crust sourdough I had. We also had dates stuffed with goat cheese & wrapped in bacon. Everyone loved them except Jess, who had a texture issue. I get that. Those darn things are my major weakness, though. LOVE THEM.

A delightful time was had by all, Zak has some rather hilarious video on his iPhone, and I ended up with glowstick goo in my EYE. (I have it on good authority that this stuff is called luminol, but I like "glowstick goo".) For future reference, it is an EYE IRRITANT. It stung!! It was pretty hilarious when it happened, because 3 of us in the kitchen were nurses (me, Jennifer, & Jess). It got in my eye and we all just reacted instinctively to get me to the sink & start washing out my eye. It ended fine; my eye is perfectly okay, though my contact lens is a lost cause. :)

Zak is convinced that if Bryan & I move to Little Rock, I will steal his wife & he will never see her again.

---

Q & I went to Memphis on Friday night for to get some cheez. We ended up at Whole Foods because we could eat AND get the cheese there. As we sat eating supper and drinking our Very Fancy Sodas( ...we had an adventure )

On the way home Q & I decided that wheatgrass shots are the evil to which we will compare all other things. "At least it's not wheatgrass" or "Man, that's worse than wheatgrass". It's our golden standard of suckage.

---

This week I work Monday-Wednesday nights, and then guess what! Trip to Branson! My family used to do this thing every year where we went on a vacation to Branson. We haven't done it in YEARS now, so I'm pretty excited. We're going to Silver Dollar City to look at the lights they do every year (I can't wait to try to photograph Christmas lights), outlet malls to shop, etc. It'll be a very nice getaway & I'm stoked. Even more stoked because I won't have to drive! We're renting a big van. I will plug my head into my iPhone, jam out to DMB, & surf to my little heart's content.

Yesterday Q & I had conversations about everything on the way home. One conversation led to wondering how old Rashawn Ross (cuddly, adorable trumpet player for DMB) is, and that led to a Wikipedia lookup, which led to the discovery that Rashawn Ross was born in 1979: only 2 months older than me, 7 months older than Q. It's always weird to discover that someone you consider to be MASSIVELY, incredibly, mind-blowingly talented is your own age.

This led to a convo about mind-blowing talent; I am not starstruck by people who are just "famous", but I think that if I met someone like Rashawn Ross or Jeff Coffin or someone else who's sheer incredible talent I admire, I'd be a jibbering, stuttering, blushing wreck. It isn't because they're famous; after all, if you had never seen my Jeff Coffin icons, would you know him if you ran into him at the grocery store? He's not famous that way. But for me, running into someone like that at the grocery store, knowing what they do, listening to their music, feeling completely humbled by their talent, and there they are buying milk or mac & cheese or apples or cheetos...I'd probably go to pieces.

This led to another point in the conversation: I want, with all my heart and all the way into my bones, to be That Good at something. And offhandedly I remarked to Q that I'd just never found the thing I felt I could be that good at (or had the specific motivation to), and she pointed out that yes, I have. It's nursing, and specifically trauma nursing. She's right; I want to be known for being that person who stands in the treatment room, waiting for the stretchers to pour in after the multi-vehicle pileup, a rock of calm & not a trace of panic. I want to be that person who wades into dangerous situations and snatches other people out. I want people to remember their close calls and say "If it hadn't been for that redheaded nurse..."

Of course that's never going to make someone go into a pile of jibbering, blushing stutters at me in the grocery store, but I don't really care about that part. No, this is for ME. If I'm that good at trauma nursing, if I'm That Nurse, then maybe I wouldn't feel like I'd go to pieces if I met someone with that kind of talent. I want to be able to say "Yes, he's one of the greatest sax players in the world, and I am one of the best trauma nurses in the world."

If only I could learn faster! Get more experience quicker! This is the part where Q said "There you go again, eating the world with your eyes." Ha. Yes, well, I suppose Ganon got it somewhere, right? I've been at it for 3 months and I know I've learned a thousand things in that time--things that will make me a better nurse. Oh, but how I long for it to go faster! How I want to learn enough to feel relatively confident, and then go into the ER and then get into a trauma center and LIVE this thing that I have in my head! All the little things like work-related lacerations and broken bones all the way up to multiple trauma from a MVA or burns from a house fire. I want that NOW and I know I'm not ready for it yet. I just don't have the background. Why can't I get the background FASTER?!

But at least I'm progressing. I can see it. I'm in arrhythmia recognition now, and then I can take advanced cardiac life support. That's as far as they'll pay for me to go where I am currently, but then someday when I'm in ER, they will send me to advanced trauma life support and sexual assault nursing.

But I still need to get my tattoo, my compass that reminds me that this is a journey & not a destination. This is not someplace I'm going, this is something I'm doing. I need to stop being so impatient, so frantic to get on with it.

This has been another stream-of-consciousness life realization brought to you by the letter Q. Certainly one of my favorite letters. ^_~

On September 29, 2009, the marvelous asqmh and I attended a fabulous Dave Matthws Band concert in North Little Rock, Arkansas, at Dickey-Stephens Stadium. HOW SO FUN?!

First of all: I ditched a computer training course at the hospital for this. Come on. How could I not?

We left at like 1:30 or 2-ish and drove to Little Rock. Q kept trying to take a nap but the fact that we cannot HELP but talk about fascinating & important subjects (like makeup, politics, cupcakes, religion, attractive men, fashion, and world peace) hindered the nap greatly. When we arrived in Little Rock we found the stadium right away. I yelled out the window to ask the waiting fans what time the doors opened, and they yelled back that it would be 5pm. We drove across the bridge to find a bathroom & kill a bit of time at the River Market, which I maintain is one of the coolest places in any large city. Seriously, anyone who comes to visit me from now on is getting a River Market visit. I love it so. We bought souvenirs there; beaded necklaces & earrings from a nice lady named Becky and sunglasses from a little tourist trap called Shop the Rock. Mostly so Q's retinas would not become charbroiled.

At about 4:45 we got back in the car and crossed the bridge again...very very slowly this time. Traffic was getting very bad in anticipation of the concert. We still got a pretty choice parking spot. I'm glad we chose to come down early & get in as the doors opened.
( This is long & has a metric buttload of photos )

I used to know this girl who might seem snobby. She used to avoid people she didn't know and she certainly avoided being photographed. Kinda in the same way most people avoid contracting H1N1 flu. She never paid much attention to her hair or her face or what she wore, and while that's not bad, in her case, I think it might've been to ensure she attracted no attention at all.

I don't know her anymore. Now I know this girl who has raging ruby hair because she got bored & likes color, who smells divine always & readily answers when people ask what she's wearing, who wears smoky green & gold eyeshadow & went in with me on a couple of rainbow stacks of ultra-pigmented mineral powders so we can do looks like red eyeliner & mango washes with pink mascara.

I once knew a finch, but she turned into a bird of paradise. I love them both. <3