12 Hour Shifts and Grandma

It has been a very busy week.  I worked four 12-hour day shifts in a row.

12-hour Shifts

It's actually not that bad to work 12 hour shifts when things are busy.  Time flies by.  When I have a bit of a breather in my work, I go and help the other nurses with their patients.

The only problem with 12 hour shifts is that the days fly by as well.  By the time you go home, it's almost time to go to sleep.  I can shower, eat a little snack, play with Poggles for a bit, and then it's time to get ready for bed.  Otherwise I won't have enough sleep for the next day.

On some of the days I was working, I was so exhausted that I actually took naps during my lunch and dinner break.  I just meant to close my eyes for a bit, but I dozed right off.  When my co-workers got up to get back to work, the sounds would wake me and I'd get up and go back to work too.

Grandma's Fall
After the four days, I got home completely exhausted.  Unfortunately, I found out that my 93 year old grandmother had fallen and hit the floor face first.  She was in the hospital with a bloody nose, a black eye, and a fractured jaw.  I was horrified.

When I went to visit her, her face was so bruised and swollen that she could barely open her left eye.  I felt so sad.  I sat with her and helped her with whatever I could.

The nurse was very sweet and did her best.  My grandmother doesn't speak English, so she I translated questions for her.  We had to give my grandmother some extra medicine for pain because the scheduled medications weren't enough for pain control, and we found out that she was having some trouble eating her food.  The lovely nurse had the kitchen puree all of my grandmother's food for her and my grandmother loved it.

Chatting With Grandma
When my parents went for a walk, I sat on my grandmother's bedside and we talked about things that she likes to do.  She told me that she likes to play Bingo on Wednesdays with the other residents at her care home.  It costs 10 cents per card and she told me how she once played 11 games in a row and it cost her $1.10.  We had a good chuckle over it because $1.10 is not a lot of money, but she had made it sound like it was a very big deal.

On Mondays, they play for free and there are prizes to be won.  She says that you can win candy or crackers/biscuits.  When she won once, she got some lovely biscuits for herself.  She seemed pretty proud of that.

On Fridays, they go on outings to different places.  Her favourite place to go is T&T Supermarket.  She says that she can walk around and buy whatever she wants.  I guess she likes candy and biscuits a lot since that's what she says you can buy there.  I like how she makes it seem like such a great place to go because you can buy whatever you want.  She really emphasized how buying anything you want is such a great thing.

I thought it was very sweet to visit my grandmother.  She has been through a lot lately.  Her heart is not very good anymore and she caught Shingles recently too.  I hope she gets better soon.

New Paper Goodies In The Shop!

Time off means lots of fun working on new things for the shop!

Check out how cute these hearts are!  They are made from recycled envelope paper.

I needed something to write the number of items in packages and this was a really cute way to do it.  If you have a paper punch, consider making some of your own!  They look like so much fun and I have been using quite a lot of them.

I happened to find a pink envelope and that was one of the best parts  :)

I have also been making 3D paper flowers!

I needed a few big ones to make a mother's day card and now I have a whole collection of them!

I sell the petal layers in my shop, so you can make some too!

You can choose them in different designs and colours.

Look at all the different flower designs I made!  There are matching leaves too!

Purple butterflies are now in the shop too.

I have them available in assorted small sizes and some big ones too.  They are perfect for writing messages on and hanging from a decorative tree at a wedding or baby shower. 

Speaking of wedding decor, the classic white butterflies that I used to carry in my shop are back! 

I have designed a few new shapes as well so you have more options!

F is the classic butterfly shape, but look at all the other options!

I even made some swallowtail butterfly shapes.  They are quite lovely. 

I also made a few more detailed shapes.  I am quite pleased with how they turned out.

I tested a few of the shapes out and they look quite good.

My favourite were the monarch butterflies.  This monarch butterfly has rounded wing tips.

This one has scalloped, more pointed wing tips.

They both turned out quite lovely.

I made a few SUPER detailed butterflies.

They look amazing, but they cannot be made in small sizes.  The details are so fine that they must be made large or the details will turn to mush in the machine!  I'm going to test out a big one soon.  I think they would look nice on a card.

I have been busy!  What do you think of all the new paper products?

As a side comment, let me know if you need these shapes in dxf, silhouette cameo, jpeg, pdf, or other formats.  You can contact me through my shop for more details.

Cheerio!

Semester Break Time!

Okay, so I've been extremely delinquent when it comes to blogging about nursing school.  I basically skipped a whole clinical rotation.  Oops.

Public Health Nursing

For CPE IV I worked at two public health units.

The nurses there do a number of different tasks including giving immunizations (shots), helping new parents with breastfeeding and adjusting to new parenthood, teaching breastfeeding skills, and teaching the public about different health topics related to preventing disease and improving health.

Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to actually give any immunizations and do most of the other public health tasks.  I almost went crazy with boredom and inactivity.  I really, really wanted to do something.

In the end, I spent a lot of time talking with families and helping to distract the children while they got their immunizations.

I learned a few tricks from nurses like cheering and praising the babies right after the shot- they think something good is happening; or telling the children that you know they can handle this and that they are brave before getting their shot.  They handle the shot better and curiously live up to your expectations.  Then you praise them for being so brave and continue to heap on the positivity.

We also taught health lessons at elementary schools, helped organize activities for a community health fair, visited various community organizations, and helped out at community healthy baby outreach programs.

I liked all the outside activities, but I didn't particularly love the office activities.  I got tired of observing the same things over and over again and not being able to actually do what I was observing.  So, public health nursing doesn't rate highly in my list of potential areas to go into right now.  I love that they work fairly regular office hours, but I miss the fast-paced hospital environment where things are constantly changing and there is no shortage of things I can help out with.  One day, I might bite my tongue and sing a different tune, but for now I think I like acute care more.

Starting Work

I started working as an employed student nurse!  It was an exciting few days for me.  The first day I mostly shadowed my buddy-shift nurse and helped her with her work.  The second day I got to have my own patient to care for.  It was fantastic!

There were medicines to administer, baths to give, patients to talk to, charts to read, notes to write... yes, I had missed acute care.  Which I think is crazy because the environment is so busy and some other nurses avoid it like the plague.  Fortunately for me, it is just perfect  :)

I worked two 12-hour day shifts and then one 12-hour night shift.

Night Shift

My first night shift was great!  I thought I would be so tired and that it would be terrible, but it wasn't bad at all.  I was paired up with a fantastic nurse and she was so good at explaining things to me and making sure I knew what to expect.

I also got to take a long nap during my break.  It was perfect timing because I was starting to feel tired then.  After the nap, I was fresh and ready to go again.

No Horror Movie

Night shift is different than I expected.  I thought it would be like those horror movies with dark hallways and flickering lights, but it was brightly lit most of the time with only bedside lights turned off.  There are less medicines to give, no baths... a lot of the usual tasks were bunched at the beginning of my shift and then everyone went to sleep.

I spent my time checking on patients, taking the occasion patient to the bathroom, writing in the chart, checking doctor orders against the medication schedules for the next day, preparing things for the day shift, and caring for any patients that couldn't fall asleep.

I was surprised at how easy it was to stay up all night in this way.  An unfortunate side effect is that I find myself awake late at night.  It is lucky that I am on a semester break right now since I can sleep in.

Hm... this is a very odd bear.

Anyhow, I am going to book some work for next week, but I'm going to enjoy a few days off.  Time to relax, do some art work, and just goof off.

Have a wonderful week!
 

Poggy's 2nd Birthday

Today is Poggle's 2nd birthday!  Yay!

I made him a cake to celebrate his big day.  

His cake is made with 2 layers of havarti cheese with softened  kibble mixed with cheese in the middle.  His candles are made with thin sticks cut from his treats.  I made flames out of cheese and attached them on with a tiny dot of honey.

Here is the birthday boy!  You can see how "excited" he is about celebrating his big day.  Tee hee hee! 

I put him down and he quickly unrolled.

Sniff-sniff!  What is this strange thing?  It smells good!

The candles are so tasty...

Om nom nom! 

Poggles made quick work of his tasty birthday cake. 

He ate the whole top off and the layer in between.

The king-for-the-day sat on his throne and waited for 2nd course. 

Mealworms!  Yay!

I had a fun time making Poggy's cake for him.  I hope he has a very good 2nd birthday and that this will be a very happy and healthy year for him.  I love my little hedgehog  :)

Happy birthday, Poggles!