Zombie Oregon Trail: Flee the Zombie Hordes!

Although it's a day late from Halloween, I wanted to repost this awsome re-hash of the classic game (on which this website is based) "The Oregon Trail".  Instead of battling natural forces, you are battling zombies to get to my new hometown of Portland, OR.  It's a blast.

You can play the game here.

There is really no better way to spend your All-Saints Day.

Let me get this straight, Fiver...

Last Friday I exposed my 11-year-old housemate to what is essentially the whole of my childhood- Watership Down. My sister and I had a game, we would name a line in the movie and the other would have to give the next line.  The loser either couldn't name the next line, or named the wrong line.  (The script, by the way, can be found here.)  That should give you an idea of how many times we watched that movie.  A lot.  And yes, on a few occasions we did manage to recite the entire movie from memory, a feat that I am sure I could repeat today.  Oh yes, and the lines also included the heavily-accented cockney spoken by the human characters at the start of the movie and during the farmhouse scene. 
I was glad to share this experience with my current foster family, as well as fill them in on any lines that they missed (and explain the Warren of the Shining Wire, which I don't think that the movie did a few good job of covering, we can't all be perfect.)  While watching this movie for an iteration that I am sure went into the triple digits, I was struck by how lovely the score was, one aspect of the movie that I had never really highlighted as one of it's charms.  Anyway, I got to thinking how nice it would be to be able to do a sort of medley on the flute.

Anyway, a quick search of "Watership Down Score" showed that no such was available.  No score is for sale.  The soundtrack is also out of print and very pricey.  I figured that I could pick it out myself, but I have a lousy ear and plus I wanted to have the option of piano accompaniment.  Anyway, just when I was about to give up, I found someone who shared the thing.  I got a copy, and I will start to work on a flute solo transposition straightaway, but first I thought that I would share it here:

Download a version of the Watership Down score.

It's not the actual score, I think that someone had my idea of putting together a medley, but they did it with a full orchestra.  Anyway, if you, like so many others, have been searching, enjoy!  And please leave a comment about the book, movie, or the score, as both are truly amazing.  (The TV show sucked however.)  If you haven't heard of this and would like to check it out, then use one of the links below as I get money from Amazon when people buy off my site.

And remember: "What is, is what must be."

Panyhose Haiku

Run in my stockings
I was chic dressed all in black
Now I just look cheap

Google Rocks

Sometimes I can't beleive how smart Google is.
I was applying for a job, and I wrote in the email cover letter "Please find my resume attached" but forgot to attach my resume, as I often do.

When I hitsend, Google threw up an error box that was like "Uh, do you want to attach something?"

I'm telling you, someone should write an app that can tell when you are romantic with someone by looking for keywords...

Then when you type too slowly or make too many mistakes, an error box will pop up and say "You appear drunk. Are you sure you want to send this?"

World watch it, it's Nurse Kim

Me celebrating NCLEX passage

 On Wednesday at approximately 11:45 AM, after taking the NCLEX, answering 75 questions in about 45 minutes, I officially became an RN.  This has been a long and difficult road, the nails in the pavement being people that told me that this was something that I could not do, the gaping manhole the middle of the sidewalk being the hours spent as a CNA doing you-don't-want-to-know to get the tuition money to pay for this, and the crap in the middle of my path that I had to jump over being a little pile of poo named Jodi K.  But here I am, Kimberley Anne Gray, RN.  Doesn't rhyme, but it does have a much nicer ring to it.

The RN exam is truly a great exam.  They use something called "Computer Adaptive Testing" (CAT) that allows you to basically as as few of the questions as possible.  Back in the day, you would have to travel to a test site, book a hotel room, and then sit in a room with about a hundred others and take a long, written, paper-and-pencil exam.  You would turn it in, wait several months, and then finally get your result.  Totally lame.

Today, what happens is that the questions are scored in terms of difficulty.  There is a midline that indicates the lowest level of competency for a new RN.  Your first question is slightly below the midline.  If you get that right, you get a harder question.  If you get it wrong, you get an easier question.  The computer will try to pick a question that it feels you have a 50% chance of getting right.

You have a minimum of 75 questions, and a max of 265.  If, at the end of the 75 questions, you are above the minimum competency line, then you are granted a pass and the test cuts of.  Or, if you are well below the minimum competency rate at 75 questions, then the computer shuts off and you are granted a fail.  If you are around the line, then the computer keeps firing questions at you until it is either out of questions or your are well above or below the line for 60 questions.

So, while you are taking this test, your are constantly asking yourself "Am I getting easy questions or hard questions?"  Because, if the questions are easy, that means that you are bombing the test.  Of course, the questions might also be easy because you are incredibly smart and you think that they might be easy.  Or they might be easy because the person who grades the test deemed them hard when they are actually pretty easy.

In other words, trying to gauge your progress by the difficulty level of the question is kind of pointless.  You just have to wait for the results.

The results are available after 48 hours of starting the test.  The NCLEX testing crew really has us here, because they can really charge whatever they want by asking for a "Quick Results Fee" ($7.95 by Internet, $9.95 by phone) and they know that they will get that fee.  They didn't get mine, however!!  Nope, because after checking to see if my results were available, I finally just checked the OR BON (board of nursing) online registry the next morning to find that I had already been added.  OR BON rocks!!

If you don't believe me, then click here.

Now I just need to find a job.

MRSA the Superbug and the VERY BAD IDEA

So the other day I am chatting with an RN on a case.  She told me that a patient was put on a course of Vancomycin.  I asked her if the patient had MRSA, which is a condition that can only be treated by "Vanco" (as the drug is affectionately called).  She told me that no, the patient doesn't have MRSA, but rather that the hospital tends to put people on Vanco on admit as part of thier protocol, and then take them off if the cultures come back negative.

For reasons discussed below, this is a VERY BAD IDEA.

This is an interesting link that describes the problem from a different aspect:
Superbug’ patient treated at MGH


I wrote the following letter to my friend Cherelle Jackson, who is a Samoan Journalist:

Hey sweetie! How ya doing?



Listen, I came across this article and I thought about Samoa. You see, Samoa, along with many other counties in the developing world tend to offer antibiotics over the counter to anyone that asks. People will self-diagnose and take the antibiotics when they are not needed, or worse yet, they will take just a few pills and stop taking them when they feel better.

This causes the bacteria that the antibiotics are trying to kill become "resistant". (Please forgive me if you know this already.) Basically, you are killing all the bacteria that are weak and are left with just a few strong bacteria. (This is why you start to feel better a few days after taking an antibiotic.) However, if people stop taking their antibiotics at this point, then the "strong" bacteria will multiply and reinfect the person. After a few generations, the bacteria becomes resistant to the antibiotic and the antibiotic stops working.

The real scary thing is that some "bugs", like MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, methicillin is an antibiotic and staphylococcus aureus is the name of a bacteria,) are already resistant to all but a few antibiotics. If they become resistant to the few antibiotics that are left, then we will truly have a pandemic on our hands!!!

The reason that I think that you should write about this is that your audience includes a lot of the people in the Pacific Islands that are part of the groups that tend to misuse antibiotics. If people were to only take antibiotics that are prescribed by a doctor, and take ALL the antibiotics, then this would help to slow the problem-- hopefully until newer, stronger antibiotics are developed.


Anyway, I really think that there is a story in this and I think that this is information that is vital to know. Tell me what you think.

Love,

Kim

The Woeful Tale of Couple, Mousy, Bimbo, Frat, and me

So I am leaving my house the other day, and my housemate asks where I am going. I told her that I was going to the Lucky Lab to play games. "Cool," she said, "who are you going with?"

"I am going with my Depressed and Anxious people meet-up group!" I told her brightly. "Want to come?"

She burst out into laughter. "Sounds like a good time," she said, "but I'll pass."

Yes, there is a depressed and anxious person meet-up here in Portland. I have decided to stop fighting my depression and try to hang out with people that are more sympathetic to it. This was after many rather disappointing meetup experiments with the local social crowd. You see, whenever I go to one of these things, I am sandwiched between two people that have awesome chemistry and spend the evening flirting over me. It's quite annoying.

The worst was a meet-up at some pub. It started out great. At the table was me, a couple, and another really nice mousy girl. The female half of the couple was a nurse and we talked about that for quite a while. I had a few beers and got pretty tipsy and was having a good time until this blonde little prima donna bimbo showed up.

You see, the problem with me, is that I tend to fade in the light. When I am in a group with those self-absorbed people that seem to want to talk about nothing but themselves, I find it pretty hard to engage. Part of me is bored still as this stupid blonde idiot described the last meetup that she went into in terms of how many people hit on her, and the other part is kind of resentful that she took what was a perfectly enjoyable and balanced conversation and tipped it towards her annoyingly scantily clad breasts.

At one point, Bimbo was gracious enough to shut up long enough for us to talk about the different meetups we went to. Couple went to a couple's meetup. Mousy had gone to some art meetup. And I told the group about my Scientology Adventure. This led to a conversation about Scientology which went on for a little bit.  This was due to the fact that Bimbo, upset that the focus was no longer on her, leaned back to tell the other table all about herself. At this point a young man who looked like he got lost on the way to a frat party joined our table and announced that he too was part of the group.

At this point we had moved on to the subjects of age. When it came to me, I said that I was 35 and Frat turned to me and said in a rather loud voice "You're 45?" I like to think that his shock due to the fact that I do not look like I am 45, however, when I corrected him, he just nodded approvingly, making me think rather that he was more shocked of my being at a meetup that was geared towards young adults aged 20-39.

"She's also a Scientologist!", Bimbo said, managing to rejoin the conversation right when Frat sat down, surprisingly. I protested this while Frat oogled Bimbo they began their sickening flirtation, which basically consisted of her describing what a ball-breaking bitch she tended to be, and him grinning like a moron and pretending to be shocked at the fact that she would send her one-night-stands out for coffee the next morning. (She never did mention if they bothered to come back.)

From then on out, whenever a new person came to the table, Frat and Bimbo thought that it was hilarious to go around the table and introduce everyone with a one word sentence, ending on "And this is Kim, she's a 45 year-old Scientologist." What was worse was that the newcomer would generally come back with a shocked "You're a scientologist?" rather then "You're 45?"

The first time that this was done, I smiled obligingly, the second time I slightly curtly corrected Frat, and the third time I finally told him that he needed to stop introducing me in such a way. He and Bimbo found this entire thing very amusing and stopped introducing me altogether, making me wonder if this was due to the fact that they didn't have another adjective to use in their little two-man introductions comedy routine.

I think that Mousy was getting sick of this as well (Couple had long ago stopped talking to the table entirely and was chatting among themselves) and she excused her self and took off. A few polite minutes later, I stood up and went to get my bill. It was a bit of a wait, so I went back to reclaim my seat just to see that it was taken by a twenty-something in a baseball cap that was hoping for a shot at Bimbo himself.

Needless to say, that was the last meetup I attended. They say that depressed people should make an effort to get out and meet new people. I say that those people have never meet to this particular Portland meetup.

Next week: Hello depressed and anxious folks…

Blog Update

This summer I am trying to make my life more blogworthy.  This means that I am trying to do things that other people may just want to read about.  In other words, I am trying to spend less time on the couch watching Seth MacFarlene cartoon reruns and drinking PBR.

So, I have updated this blog with a few new features.  You've probably already noticed the new title.  I am quite proud of that.  You can follow me on Twitter, RSS, or you can just subscribe via email.  I fixed the slideshow so that it actually works and doesn't show the same damn pictures.  (Well, it does show the same damn pictures, but it shows them in a different order.)

And, well, that's about it.  For the all the work it took me, I thought that I would have more to offer.

MICU?

I was just working with a medical record of someone who was on the MICU, and that got me wondering about what exactly a MICU is.  Turns out that it's a medical intensive care unit.

Excuse me?  Isn't that a tad redundant?  I mean, is there a non-medical intensive care unit where they just stand around and hope that you get better?

Jon Stewart was Right: they are Appholes

Let me please take a minute to do what blogs were really designed for -- angry rants towards large corporations to minuscule and insignificant audiences who don't really care, all simply for the purpose of making me feel better.

So, recently, John Stewart recently went off on Apple. A brilliant monologue -- that was no surprise -- but I thought that Mr. Stewart had gone a little bit too far in saying that "…It wasn’t supposed to be this way – Microsoft was supposed to be the evil one! But you guys are busting down doors in Palo Alto while Commandant Gates is ridding the world of mosquitoes! What the fuck is going on???!!!"  I thought that this was a bit over the top until I actually had the pleasure of visiting a Apple Store.  You see, my iPod has suddenly decided that I really don't need to hear music in both the left and right ears.  One should do fine, thank you.

Let me take another second here to say that this is the third iPod I have owned and the third one that has broken down in less then a year.  The first was actually a present, so when that one decided that it didn't want to do anything except show the damned Apple logo on it's useless little screen I sort of cut my losses.  The second one was used and after it decided to become a $200 paperweight I decided that I would never own an iPod again.  Then a friend came around and sold me an iPod Touch after getting an Android, and well, I couldn't resist.  I mean, I figured that it was a totally different bit of machinery and I was willing to give iPod another chance.  Big mistake.  I don't see my Microsoft is so intent on building an "iPod killer"-- the damn things are committing suicide just fine on their own.

Anyway, I went to the Apple Store knowing that I was most likely going to be very disappointed.  My used iPod does not have AppleCare© associated with it, so I was pretty sure that the Apple Store was going to tell me to either fork over more money then my iPod was worth or get the hell out.  As it turns out, I didn't even get that far.

No, I got to the store and as I attempted to walk in, I was stopped by not one, but two mall security guards.  There were three at the door, and the third was chatting up the Apple guy who was lounging outside the store.  As the guard asked me what I needed, I looked over his shoudler assuming that someone was going bonkers with an uzi inside-- the only reason that I could think of that a store would need to have four men manning it's gates.  Turns out that this was not the case, this is just stardard operating procedures for an Apple Store nowadays.

I told the guard that I needed to have someone look at my iPod, and the guard indicated-- no, bowed, actually, at the Apple worker and told me that I would need to "talk to him first."  The guard told me that this god-like man "may or may not choose to let me in."  Excuse me?  Did I hear that right?  Let me in?  Is this studio fucking 54 now?  Would it help if I were a blonde bimbo?  I waited a good thirty seconds while the Apple guy talked to the guard about some restaurant that he'd gone to before Mr. Apple God finally agnowleged me.  When I told him what I wanted, he pulled out an iPhone and asked me in a snooty maitre'd sort of a way if I had an appointment.  No, I told him, I don't have a damn appointment, all I need is for some AppleCare moron to tell me that they can't fix my iPod.  The Apple Maitre'd offered to make an appointment for me.  When I asked if I could get in that day he just laughed at me.  (I am being totally serious.)  I turned around an walked away and Mr. Maitre'd Apphole remembered something he read about customer service and called after me to have a good day.

Like Mr. Stewart, I am also feeling a bit put off.  Aside from the fact that I haven't owned an Apple Computer since 2001 (when I went to work for MS), I did support those losers when their stock was worth less then a candy bar.  I spent my hard-earned money from working at my college cafeteria on a damn PowerMac 7100, for god sakes.  And now they won't even let me in the store to fix my broken iPod.

Screw them.  My next mp3 player is going to be... oh, who am I kidding.

Scientology is Complete Crap

So, one of my meet-up groups has been doing a tour of different religions.  I am new to the group, and I am pretty sorry that I missed pretty much every one of these talks.  They have had nights centered around all sorts of different faiths, including Baha'i, Muslim, Hindu, and even Mormon.  This week they were sort of scraping the bottom of the barrel and we went to explore the Church of Scientology.

The inside didn't really look much like a church, it looked more like the room of a top-rate nonprofit, with a main meeting room and classrooms and offices at the side.  The meeting room walls were advertising various books and workshops with "L. Ron Hubbard" spattered in every available niche.  (For someone that is so philanthropic, as we learned later, the guy sure seemed to like his name spread around.)

Anyway, the first part was a viewing of thier new DVD (based on the book "The Problems of Work").  This was basically a poorly acted but generally well-produced "dramatization" (so we were told, no I have not read the book) of the different chapters.  They are geared to help improve communication at work as well as one's own being.  One of the things that they talked about were "Tones".  Someone at the bottom of the stack feels "sub-apathy", and the idea is to move them upward through the various tones to Serenity.  Now although tones are really just a rip-off of Kübler-Ross's grief model (Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) I do have to admit that for me, a chronic depressive, there is a bit appeal and dare I say logic to this model.  We were told that people get stuck at various tones and need help to pull them out.  When the video talked about how people who were stuck in apathy saw the world as (I am paraphrasing here) "like looking at shades of gray through water" I have to admit then had it not been freakin' Scientology, I might have considered actually picking up a few pamphlets and maybe checking out their books in the library.   I mean, after dealing with despression for more then half my life, that stuff spoke to me and I am long past the point where I will try just about anything.

Anyway, after the video we had a guy who looked remarkably like Kyle MacLachlan with a beard  (Cooper from Twin Peaks or Orson from Desperate Housewives) jumped up with a smile and ask if we had any questions.  He quickly established that he was one of us (sane) by saying that he is an engineer and Catholic (probably figuring that would cover pretty much everyone in the group in some way.)  Kyle took our questions, and being that we were a pretty nice and respectful group, we started out with some easy ones.  Is there a service in the Church?  How does the church see god?  Are other faiths accepted?    As Kyle took our questions with his smile, the other Scientologsts that were standing around holding thier free DVD and other stuff slowly inched in as the questions started to get more difficult.  When one gentleman asked about Scientology and it's believes towards physics and other established sciences, Kyle's little posse started to edge in protectively, smiling at us with suspicious eyes.

Finally, someone got around to asking about money.  After assuring as that "no one has ever gotten rich over Scientology" he said that this would be the last question, as he knew that "we" had to go.  I looked around and didn't see that anyone in my group looked particularly interested in leaving.  The Scientology posse was getting nearing and started making "alright" gestures- nodding and looking like they were ready to give us our DVDs and get us the hell out.   Before this happened, however, one girl did manage to ask about Tom Cruise and his views twoards Psychiatry.

Now here things got interesting.  Kyle gave a sort of fake laugh and then went all Jekyll and Hyde on us.  I inched towards the edge of my sheet, thinking that Kyle was going to go off on Tom Cruise and what a lousy representative of Scientology he was.  Instead, Kyle started to rail on psychiatry in general, stating that people are spirits and can not be controlled chemically.  Although he did come out in favor of Phycology and it's "talking cure" (every psychologist I ever had referred me to a psychiatrist for a prescription) he stated that pushing pills and chemistry was simply a way to control the natural spirit.  There was no pill, Kyle insisted, that would help the spirit.  Pills were a way of pushing buttons to control people, and Kyle said with a snear, do you know who started these vile experiments?  It was the NAZIs!!!!!


There was a definite change in the room at this point.  The Scientologist bouncers looked ready to jump and the audience was just getting started.  One woman in the back quickly jumped in and identified herself as a clinical psychologist.  She pointed out that although the "talking cure" was well and good, there were many of her patients that suffered from visual and audio hallucinations that talking really could not cure.  Kyle seemed to see that he had gone a bit too far and then back-peddled, saying that there were people who were "insane" that Scientology didn't really claim to help.  Apparently the door was closed to the "insane", non-insane people who didn't hear voices were welcome to join their own brand of "medicine"-- provided they were willing to toss their antidepressants and anti anxiety medications.  Obviously, that was the end of our little talk.

Anyway, my opinion of Scientology has gone from mocking it to realizing that this is a pretty scary concept that should be stopped.  They target people who are depressed, lonely, and scared and lure them in with promises of a cure.  They encourage them to abandon their established methods of treatment and throw their mental health (along with their wallets) into the hands of what is essentially a group of quacks.  This is wrong, and this is unethical.  It is no different then those people who claim that they can cure cancer with no more then clean living and a special concoction of vitamins and snake oil.

Scientology isn't just a cult, they are evil.

Update from Samoa

I found this old email, and thought that I would pass it along as an update to my time in Samoa.  A sister of my Samoan mother wrote me to let me know that my Samoan grandmother, Fetu, passed away.  Although she was never officially diagnosed, Fetu suffered from Alzheimer's and was cared for at home by my Samoan family.

Hi There Kimberely,


My name is Tui Filemoni I am one of many daughter in-laws of Fetu. I was asked by Talosia Sini in Nuusuatia to get in contact with you to inform you of the family's sad loss of Fetu. Who sadly passed away in Samoa on the 11 January 2008. Talosia sends her sincere apologise for not being able to get in contact with you sooner, and also asked to send her love onto you. I do apologise myself for being the one to inform you of our mum, but am pleased my sister Talosia has asked me to do this for her as she expressed you had deep love for our mum. I am in contact with Talosia quite alot so if you wish for me to relay any message to her and the family back in Samoa, please do so, would love to repay the favor for you.


Many best wishes from the Fetu Filemoni family


Tui Filemoni


Dear Tui,

Thank you so much for writing. I was so sorry to hear that Fetu passed way. I actually work at a hospital and we get a lot of elderly patients, most of which have Alheimers like Fetu had. For these poor people, they live in nursing homes and they have no one to care for them. When they come to the hospital they are very confused, and many of them are screaming for help. I try to help them, but I know that what they really need is to be at home in a familiar place with people who love them.

And then I think of Fetu. I am pretty sure that she also had Alheimers, but unlike the poor, lost, scared souls at the hospital she was at home, and she was with people who loved her dearly, and that made me so happy. She was such a lucky person to have so much love in her life. Many times people with Alheimers will become confused-- they will swear, and hit-- but this is just the disease. When I think of Fetu lying in her fale, tapping the floor, singing and saying prayers, it always makes me smile and feel glad that she was able to have so much support for such a terrible disease. I remember that I would teach Anne songs on a flute and after hearing them a few times, Fetu would be singing and tapping away with us.

I know that it must have been so difficult for Talosia to care for her mother when her mother was so different, and I hope that Talosia knows that it was the disease that made her mother do strange things. But when I work with people who have the same sickness here, in America, I always wish for them what Fetu had. I wish for them that their families would show even a little of the care and respect that Fetu's family gave her. That is something that I always remember when I think back to Samoa and to my family in Niusuatia-- the love and devotion that is shown to each other-- even to me, a stranger. So although I am very sad that she died, it always makes me so happy to know that Fetu had so much love at a time when she needed it the most.

Please tell Talosia that I am living in Iowa, and that I am studying to be a nurse. This may sound a little crazy, but I think that I started thinking about being a nurse when Angel got sick right when I first got to Samoa. She was so hot, so sick. I guess that something like that is normal in a country like Samoa, but for me I had never seen a child so sick and it made me scared. I went to Apia and found some children's fever medication, and the next day when I got back from school Angel ran out of the house and threw herself into my arms, not a trace of fever left. Ever since then I always felt that I wanted to help children everywhere get better. I am going to a school in Sioux City, Iowa called St. Luke's College, and to pay for school I work as a nursing assistant at St. Luke's Hospital. It's a Methodist hospital. :) I have about a year and a half left, then a few years working in the states before I travel again.

After I left Samoa I went to Yemen, then Thailand. It was so hard to leave Samoa, but it was something that I had to do. I felt bad that I left so quickly, but I was offered a job that needed me right away. I am glad that I have had the chance to travel so much, but everywhere that I have been I have never found anyone who cared about me so much as my family in Niusuatia.

Tima

PS:
Did you know that you can see Talosia's house on Googlemaps?
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=samoa&ie=UTF8&ll=-13.983696,-171.838735&spn=0.002415,0.00346&t=h&z=18

Nursing School: Check!!

My and my Dummy, who was my patient stand-in and helped my pass the CPNE. He is happy to return to his former job as my PJ's, a ski-mask from my Iowa days, and a few pillows.

Note: this blog entry could alternatively be titled "Jodi K can kiss my ass."  Yeah, you know what I be talkin' about.

Despite trials, tribulations, tears, and transfers I have finally completed nursing school, yes, about 6 months late.  8 months late if you include the obscene amount of time that they make you wait for your actual graduation date.  Anyway, you can read about the final test that I had to take to achieve this milestone here.  Basically, this was a hellish weekend in Albany, NY (no, not Albany OR, and yes, there is an Albany, OR) where I had to perform at my highest standards.  To pass this test you have to:

1. Complete for simulated lab stations: IV push, wound dressing, IV drip, SubQ/IM injection
2. Real-life "Patient Care Scenarios" where you have to provide care under the very watchful eyes of an instructor.

On each of these, you can fail once.  Most people fail for little things.  But really, this is an easy exam.  If you had to walk across the street at any time of your choosing and just do it for $25, then this exam would be a joke.  When you have to wait 4-6 months for a test date and need to cough up $2500 for the test, plane ticket, and lodgings, it becomes a little bigger of a deal.  And it's generally the only think that stands between you and the RN.  So I will just say that I was feeling pretty fuckin' good when I passed that.  I told everyone at Starbucks and killed my phone battery.

Today, I am suffering from post-CPNE syndrome.  I wake up panicked before I realize that I don't have to take the CPNE again.  I start to get restless if I don't check the CPNE bulletin boards after about a day.  I need to double check with my college to make sure that I really passed it.  The real scary thing was that after I got back from the CPNE, my body totally went to shit.  I was sick for a week.  My periods, which had been absent for about three months, suddenly came back with an angry vengeance.  It was all this that made me realize just what my body can do for me.

The good think about the CPNE is that it makes the NCLEX look like a pathetic joke in comparison.  Onwards!!

Old Friends, new friends?

(Kloro, it would be good to catch up, send me your email, you should be able to email me though my profile...)

My good friend Dylan suprised me with a visit yesterday, and we wandered around my 'hood a bit, got some Thai, et cetera.  It was good to see him again, and he asked me about Portland.  I had actually just been talking about that subject with one of my Portland friends... ahem, let me restate that, my ONLY Portland friend the night before.

Dylan asked me how I was liking Portland and I said that I liked it fine, however I have not been terribly sucessful is making friends.  Talking with Dylan made be realize just how much easier it was to make friends when I was younger-- why is that?  Have I changed, or have the people around me changed?

When I was younger, like when I was at Apple or Microsoft, I felt that I had a good number of friends, of course back then I worked in teams and had to deal with other people to meets goals.  In my current job at a call center, I really don't work with my co-workers all that much.  I think that it also has a lot to do with the fact that most people my age are involved with kids and families and are not really in that "lets make friends" place.

I can see why many people choose to stay in one place for thier entire lives.  It sucks when you are in your twenties, but then you get a little older and having a few familiar faces can make all the difference.

New Spiffy Blog Title and Look! Yeehaww!

I am going to start off my requesting that the person who left the comment that they met me in Santa Cruz please stand up and identify yourself. I have an idea who you are, but I am not sure, and it is drive me crazy.

Anyhoo, It's been a while since my last update. I have to say, it is hard to keep a blog when your life is nothing but work and you are not allowed to discuss your job outside of work. Had that problem when I worked at the hospital and I have that problem now.

Anyway, I am working at the Lions Eye Bank of Oregon as a Donor Coordinator. I love it, it's a great job!
All for now.  My next post will be all about PDX biking.

Get Picked up at the Supermarket

I got picked up at a Seattle supermarket, unfortunatly he turned out to be gay.

Just a Thought...

For those of you that forgot to get a birthday present, it isn't too late...

http://www.peterrivard.com/Pages/potter.html

Home Health Haikus

I work as a Home Health nurse while I am getting through the end of nursing school. During an twelve hour overnight job, I wrote the following haikus whilst trying to stay awake at 3AM which I feel are a rather poignet insight into my character:

The focused student
Learn! Because after the test
She'll forget this crap

Red roses in a vase
Starting to wilt and show age
What a waste of cash

Oh stupid black dog
Wake up the patient again
And YOU'LL need a nurse

Warm heater air blows
I drape my shirt on your vent
Oh such warm buttocks

Dumb empty Coke bottle
Laughing at my exhaustion
Laugh in the trash can

(This one is a bit darker, but keep in mind it was three in the morning:)
Diligent nurse
Watches her patient all night
"Just die! I want sleep"

Update, finally

Hello world, I am hailing from Portland, my new home. Anyway, I am here and am very happy to be out of Iowa. Very happy.

Anyway, a new friend just asked me why I haven't updated my blog in a while. He also seemed to express a bit of surprise over the fact that I hated my new (and please God, temporary) home health care job that I have. I hope to answer both of these queries in My New Rant (TM).

Ahem.

As you know, there is a a huge health care problem we face today. Too many sick people and not enough money. And as you also may have noticed, there is another problem which is less pressing where funeral homes get these poor people who have lost their loved ones to spend way to much money on their uptake.

I will connect these two in a minute. Grandma dies, and the family is either told or feels that their final act will indicate how much they loved Grandma. I mean, what cold hearted bastard is going to place her in a pine coffin and throw her in the sea? Even though she is dead and doesn't care, it just feels wrong to not do the best. Even when the best is a total waste of energy and time.

You see, I am not a advocate of the so-called "death panels", but I do feel that money would be better spent if we could figure out a way to put people who are in Hospice and have no quality of life out of their misery and spent that money, say, giving a five-year-old a new kidney. But of course going around and telling people to euthanize grandma is a step above telling people to just dump that corpse into a patch of forest that desperately needs fertilization. It isn't going to fly.

Keep in mind that I am talking about people who have no quality of life. People who don't know who they are, where they are, and who do not enjoy anything. People who can't get out of bed and have bedsores and people who are in constant pain and stress because of all the things that we are doing to them to "make them comfortable". When a person is screaming in pain as you roll them to clean up a BM or apply a dressing to an open bedsore, you really have to wonder what you are keeping them alive for.

I hope that I never see this. Someone please-- about 150 units on Insulin in my ass should really do the trick, thank you. Take the money that you would have used to keep me alive for another year and go feed Africa.

So why I hate my job-- well, although home health has a romantic ring to it-- helping the suffering, easing pain, yadda yadda yadda, most of the people that I see are pushed aside, forgotten. I mean, if you loved you sick little mother so much that you just had to keep her around for another year so that the two of you could bask in each other's glory-- even if she didn't recognise you-- would you really hire someone to take care of her for 10 bucks an hour and whose only job requirement was a GED? I mean, these aren't exactly the kid from Lorenzo's Oil that I am taking care of. Yeah, I am sure those patients exist, but most of what your average home health worker is seeing is a person that is forgotten. It's sad, and it's a waste of their time.

I think that Lorenzo from Lorenzo's Oil is a good example of why to keep someone around-- not that he kind of got better at the end, but that he had people who loved him enough to really take care of him. Had he been forgotten in a nursing home and neglected until his sacrum as pushing through the skin, I might have felt differently for the poor kid.

I also want to finish with a story from Thailand. My teenaged students refused to wear their helmits on thier motorbikes. I woudl bed, threaten, and bribe them to wear them, but the best I got was for them to take a helmit, wear it, and then take if off when they got around the bend. One day, a guy crashed outside our school and half the school watched as he was taken into a car and driven to the hospital, where he died of a brain hemorrhage. Most people knew of this poor guy. I fully intended to make a point about this man. The next lecture, I told the students sternly how sad this man-- a husband and a father-- had to die when all he had to do was wear a ten dollar helmet, which would have very likely saved his life. My class listened patiently and politely to my stern lecture and then one brave student raised his hand and asked "Teacher, why Americans afraid of die?" I was so taken aback by the question that I didn't even bother to correct his grammar. Why are we so afraid of death? And who is more afraid of death, the person facing it, or the ones they will leave behind?


Anyway, end of rant. I hope that I haven't offended anyone too much.