the first cold gust that came over the mountain sucked the breathe right out of me and carried it away to the East.
I am no longer waiting for exciting new jobs.
I am settling down for a long winter - contenting myself with what is.

It sounds grey, like the snow-less days of now
but there are sunny moments.
Like taking a 3 year-old for her very first try at skating
Or making mini banana chocolate chip muffins with 2 toddlers and 2 preschoolers
Or drinking hot chocolate in front of a fire with friends on a cold night
Or sitting in a rocker and watching the first few flakes of snow pass by

preparing for fall

Autumn is approaching.
I eagerly await warm scarves
thick hearty squash soups
anne of green gables
crunchy leaves.

as the season draws to a close
i begin to suspect
that it is time to bring to a close
my job at the hospital of insufferable tension
and so
i am applying for a new job
which i think is beyond my qualifications
but for which i am rather exited.

as autumn approaches
i shall be holding my breath.

sixteen* of the summer's memorable moments

1. sitting on the grass watching the red wall of fire next door, waiting for the GO! for evacuation which never came and waking up a few hours later to have to call EMS and ALS (and subsequently realizing that Fid was right about me having inherent leadership skills)
2. the dorm duty nazi who busted down our door to tell us someone had puked
3. finding a new lake and laying on the dock all afternoon reading harry potter
4. a bleeding eyeball
5. diagnosing a friend better than a physician - and making her night by having a male nurse chat me up in front of her while waiting for the ER physician
6. having a girl who met me once 5 years ago remember my name
7. picking cherries from a tree house
8. having someone think the appearance of me in the extra noisy putt-putt wagon at 3am was a burgular
9. mabel lake nudity
10. driving 6hrs for sushi
11. being visited by an ice cream truck at a random, little-known forestry camp site
12. scaling wet mossy rock faces, dangling over rushing pools of water
13. jumping out of a garbage can at the end of the rainbow as a leprechaun
14. furtively hiding on a hill then running down it as a leprechaun, followed by a unicorn
15. having an unknown child follow me around the video store - perhaps a new career as the local Pied Piper?!
16. sneaking into someone's yard with someone else's dog and having a picnic

*numbers are for counting purposes, not for noting significance of events. This list is a partial list only; items on list must not be assumed to be the absolute record of summer events transpiring this calendar year.

full cool!

i had the good fortune to be invited to the Okanagan for the weekend. It was a little disappointing at first as it rained the first day. But the next morning the sun came out and it was fun fun fun! I learned a new game (i think its called rivel) and made some new friends. I think the best part was having a secret jam session in a tent one night with an old friend and a new friend! A close second would be the personal song request from an old friend as a goodbye present.

back in small town, the weather is a little drab. but the bugs are out in full force at the nature centre. Emma and i caught a baby damsel fly in the pond yesterday during our "mallard morning" class. she was so excited about it. it was the best!

from the mouth of a child

i've been spending a fair amount of time recently with a precocious 3 year-old named Emma. She is quite a force. Only most people dont know it because unless she's with me or her mom and dad, she's super super shy and quiet and wont play with others. But when i'm with her she drags me EVERYWHERE. and jumps on me til i fall over.
and she says the darndest things...

• but i like tummyaches. i want a tummyache. please can i have a tummyache?
• stop! i have a wedgie
• these pants give me a lot of wedgies!
• (said to her mom and myself as we were laughing in the car) you two, settle down!
• mommy you look frustrated
• when you die you go to heaven and get a new body with no more owies

resurfacing

things were rather dreary in this small town. bits of winter were lingering on. not the nice bits like freshly fallen snow. the ugly bits like mud and mud and ugly bare trees.

i laid low for awhile, hoping to catch Spring unawares but it was too sneaky for me. so i packed up the putt-putt wagon and headed to the Great Big City on the coast.
and there,
there i found spring.
i strolled along sidewalks with cherry blossom snow caressing my cheeks.

i hopped aboard a plane with Anastasia and went south to California for more sun. And lots of speed and bumps and rock 'n roll.
i learned about rollercoaster hangovers.
i learned that i'm seriously into adrenaline.
i learned that pinocchio and snow white are frightening.
i learned that i weigh 1600 tortillas.

The Great Big City on the coast was nice but i missed my little home in Small Town.
i packed up the putt-putt wagon and drove back home. and i found that i didn't need to leave to find Spring. Spring came to me. It was waiting for me at home! Ah, Spring.

STARS and STARS

i rather enjoy the song "your ex-lover is dead" by STARS.

but today, i have been given a moment to reconsider. i was removing a patient's skin while waiting for STARS to arrive and take him to a burn unit. and the word was that he had set himself on fire.

where there's nothing left to burn, please dont set yourself on fire.

thanks.

(and i still really like the song!)

auntie babysits.... and gets arrested?!?!?

so here it is, the wee hours of saturday morning.

how did i spend my friday night in small town?
babysitting.
yes, auntie JV spent friday night babysitting. it was pretty good.

except...

its just past 1am and i'm driving home. the streets are bare. this car comes out of nowhere and is following annoyingly close. we enter the township and i slow to the required limit. the car behind me flashes its lights. it is a police car.
great.
i haven't been speeding.
i'm convinced of this.
i didn't run a stop sign.
and yet here i am pulled over by the police.

where are you coming from? asks the young french officer (who i remember because she interrogated me one night at the hospital about the confidentiality of medical records. i guess she didn't recognize me).

uh... babysitting?

do you have a driver's license?

uh... yes. (i know i look young and the fact that i just said i was babysitting is not helping my case, i'm sure. i suddenly start wondering if the town has a curfew i don't know about)

the officer looks at the licence suspiciously. i wonder if i should offer her my registration or if that would be cheeky...

is this your car?

yes.
why?

So here i am, a young-looking female, returning from "babysitting", at 1 o'clock in the morning. Looks suspicious in a small town. I guess do-gooders aren't driving at that time of day. Unless its a doctor but i'm sure they all recognize their vehicles. Even i know what most of them look like and i haven't been here that long.

In the end there wasn't a problem. She had run my plates and they came up without a driver's licence attached to it. I guess she thought i stole it.

I should be relieved i didn't get a ticket.
Reminds me of last summer when i got pulled over by the cops specifically for not breaking any laws. Being a goody-goody can be hard work!

AUNTIE JV

it has been an interesting week.

i had a busy but enjoyable time working the ER on saturday and sunday but monday morning i woke up and i was SICK. ugh. i dragged my arse to a meeting at work on "workplace environment" and left in the middle to go puke.
little known fact: JV does NOT puke. ever. except the one time she had food poisoning. still cant eat spanikopita...

so i'm in the brown-tiled bathroom of the nurses' changeroom and i felt like passing out and i thought "JV! You cant pass out in the basement of a hospital!".
I managed to make it upstairs to the ER where the doctor asked me if i had been around anyone with GI problems recently (diarrhea or vomiting). "doctor", i said "i have spent the last two days working the ER. Its full of sick people!".
silly doctor!

things got hazy for the next few days and are only starting to come back to me now in bits and pieces. The doctor said she'd give me some IV fluids (one of my not-so-favourite ER nurses called me Princess and made me cry when she couldn't get my IV started) and some gravol, another doctor came by and thought i was a boy named Steven and then tried to kick me out, and my boss drove me home.
on tuesday i went back for a second round of IV fluids and gravol. they put me in the quiet room (which was nice because its QUIET and private and they let me sleep as long as i wanted) but Irish doctor tried to pink-slip me! He told the nurse that since i was in the quiet room they might as well certify me as being crazy.

a nurse drove me home and then Fid (female irish doctor) came and picked me up and the Irish Doctors held me against my will in their rather large house for the next 3 days!
I remember laying on the couch and being offered a lot of tea. And more tea.
I remember trying to explain to a 4 and a 7 year-old what an IV was for while i was rather spaced-out on gravol.
But i woke up on the morning of the third day feeling better (aside from head cold i picked up from Fid) and i was Auntie JV and the 4 year-old and i played all day. She did my hair. She gave me a puppet show. We made banana chocolate chip muffins! Fid and i made dinner and then she left me with 2 of her kids while she went to pick up the third. Mid (male irish doctor) came home as i was herding his kids outside to wait for their mom. I felt as if i had taken over his family! His kids were fed and dressed for their evening's activities and his dinner was waiting on the counter. Fid has decided that they are going to put a kitchen in their basement and make it into a nanny suite for me and i will quit nursing and be their nanny. It wouldn't be so bad - they have an indoor pool! Fid also decided that she needs to marry me off so i can have kids. She asked her kids "don't you think auntie JV should get married and have babies?".

i think the best was having the four year-old running through the house yelling AUNTIE JV!!!!

how i scored free scrubs

this is a true tale experienced by JV, small town nurse.

it was a nightshift. not a night like any other night for the night started off with a high level of annoyance and frustration. Wait, did i just say it was NOT a typical night?... The staff member before me had done an excellent job of muddying up her work and i spent several hours playing catch up and straightening things out so come morning i wouldn't look like a dorkus.

Then, a few hours into the night, things started to look up. I had a rootbeer. And corn chips (corn is no place for a mighty warrior!). And the ER nurse was doing all of the work on my new admission for me. This is a very good way to be appreciated by your coworkers. At least, it initially seemed as if she had done me a favour. But my friends, let me tell you something. A slow-moving 92 year-old patient who has had not one but TWO enemas (top and bottom)just before being transferred to your care is not the recipe for a good time.

The LPN and i went it to do a little clean-up. Unfortunately we were ill-prepared for what awaited us...liquid poo splattering EVERYWHERE.

The ER nurse was forced to unlock the OR so i could borrow some surgical scrubs. I think the top was an XXL. But the pants are really comfy.... And at least the admitting doctor, when he returned in the wee hours of the morning to attend to something else, apologized for the mess he had ordered.

the Plan - brilliantly executed

So i did it!

i avoided work and went to the festival AND the Grassroot Deviation show!
(while i did go alone, i did at least call someone to go with me but Buddy wasn't home and the answering machine seemed out of order. Zoë, as fun as a tea invitation could be, i thought the GRD show would be a little better.)

I made it to the choir festival and didn't pass out from embarrassment when i had to sing a few noticeable measures by myself as my sectional mates (all one of them) silently abandoned me. I had been all prepared to sneak out before the clinic (number one because clinics are boring and number 2 because i wanted to go to the GRD show) but in the end it wasn't necessary. The adjudicator was some crazy manic woman who spent about 15mins telling us how impressive we are for such a small town and then we got to go home!

I made it to the Sasquatch after the first set, but the second set rocked so it was all good! And the drummer was the brother of a guy from my nursing class so that was good too!

GRD

on my way to the hardware store yesterday i noticed that the Grassroot Deviation, an edmonton band from my nursing school days, is coming to town! A band i've actually heard of! And even seen before! Sweet! And they are playing behind my house. I wont even have to worry about parking or a long stumble home post-show.

unfortunately, i'm already double-booked that night - i'm on a nightshift at work and i'm supposed to be singing in a choir festival. i was going to ditch the choir festival but now i'm the only person singing a part in one of the songs. damn.
i shall have to format a plan... a plan to ditch work legally and attend both the choir festival and GRD...

STARS

some rather evil person sent me a "rad-ass" CD in the mail. evil person!

yesterday me and my cold piled into the Putt-Putt Wagon and drove to the Big City to buy a STARS cd since the evil person is a tease and put only one of their fabulous songs on the cd she sent.

i found some sun on the trip. and several boxes of kleenex.

my only regret was only buying one STARS cd (the store actually had two different ones in!) but i also got a new Be Good Tanyas CD so i'm not too degradetated.

that settles it

so here i am, its 622am and i am eating my breakfast before work. i am also getting distracted looking and blogs and online quizzes.
its all Bond's fault with his post on Are You a Movie Buff?
while i was looking at that quiz, i found some other fun ones. like "what year should you have been born?". i was hoping it would give an exact year but it just says under what year (it says i should be year of the rabbit).
and then i found "what advanced degree should you get?".
if the online quiz says it, it must be true.
i'm going to get my MD because it says i'm both compassionate AND brilliant. i was BORN to be a doctor. oh online quizzes, i love you!

not about groundhogs

i want cake.

yummy yummy cake.

maybe i'll make some.
cant think of any reason not to (besides the fact that i'll never finish a whole cake on my own but that doesnt seem like a good enough reason to refrain from baking).

and anyways, i'm half a year older today.
i declare it unpathetic to make oneself a cake.

i wish i still had the tiara i got for my birthday that Sean broke and didnt replace. then i would wear my tiara and my pink frilly apron and make myself a cherry chip cake with pink frosting even though i apparently dont like pink because i think it would be fun.

i deserve cake!

everyone deserves cake.

another day

I chatted with the nurse manager from Another Hospital today. The place is slightly larger than my current facility. I am frightened of my unfamiliarity with their staffing system.

They have 2 interesting positions open at the moment but after she asked about my ER experience (let's just compound my ER headache) i have decided that i'll be staying put for the time being.

well.... except maybe for two days next week if my work isn't being a poopoohead and let's us newbies go to a special ER course.

babies, babies, chubby babies

on sunday i held the Chubby baby all during church and my arms hurt my whole nightshift afterwards. its a very chubby baby. a butterball. a fifty-pound butterball turkey of a baby!

sick babies are multiplying this week.
on sunday night i had one sick baby. last night i had two sick babies and a third had gone out by ambulance before i got there.
i understand that babies are people too and thus get sick. but the one sick baby? holy strangeness! the baby had stomatitis (a mouth infection i haven't seen since oncology) that occurred after having a rotten tooth pulled out. the tooth was rotten because the baby has TRENCH MOUTH. How on earth does a two year-old get trench mouth?!?!?!

the second baby was a cutey. he was one year-old. he looked as if he had Down's syndrome but one of the nurses is adamant that he doesn't. but i'm annoyed with that nurse so i'm not listening to her. i'm very mature. hello my name is JV and i'm mature. my coworker had brought his wife's baby sling to show another RN who had just become a grandma so i got to test it out with the one year-old. it was like having a monkey on my hip and i still had both hands free to do my work! monkey monkey monkey!

friday night fun

finally, JV steps out on friday night - i found myself sitting in Big City McDonald's with two male paramedics. The younger one wasn't bad looking but i think he was married.

i learned last night that Big City ER nurses are mean. I felt as if i was being interrogated. I didn't know my patient's hemoglobin. I didn't know if it was an upper or lower GI bleed. I didn't know if it was a mistake and she was simply chronically anemic. All i knew was that when Dr. Formidable says "this patient has a GI bleed - give her blood stat and send her to Big City", you give her blood STAT and jump in an ambulance with her. And don't forget the transfer bag because it will really save your bum-bum.

i got home last night to find a message from the Nurse Manager at Another Hospital. she did not sound entirely enthusiastic to be leaving a voicemessage, but the important thing is she wants to chat next week!

strange sort of day

the mailman arrived early today. i went out to collect the mail in my pjs and greasy hair.
there was a lone letter in the metal box.
a thin airmail envelope.
return address.
no name.
no letter.
just a cut out picture with a single word written on the back.
FRESH.

later on, in the early afternoon, i received a rather curious email.
it seems i am being headhunted by the lady in charge of HR at another hospital.
i didn't think nurses got headhunted. or maybe only highly specialized ones.
they must have the wrong impression of me.

quotes of the week

• you don't know her, but i do and i trust her ten out of ten!

• we have no rights as humans - a job is a privilege

• i wish i was a man!

• i wouldn't talk to her about that - i've seen her buy ammo!

he's little... and sort of smelly... but he's mine!

i went out to the irish doctors' rather large house last night and i came home with a new friend. he's rather cute. i have him in my care for a week or two as a sort of aversion therapy. he's their children's pet mouse... Speedy... and he nests in a huge pile of (*shudder*) cotton balls.

(for those of you who are unaware, i have an aversion to cotton balls. some days i cant even say their name)

the irish doctors are going on a two week cruise so its just me and Speedy. They offered me their 2 dogs (and i think a cat) but i had to draw the line someplace.

yesterday, work started out well. when i arrived and was putting my food in the fridge, i found a present. someone had left me CHICKEN MCNUGGETS. they figured that if i was happy, everyone else would be better off. amen to that. placate me!

it didn't exactly go uphill from there though.
one of my patients' belly was about to burst so they rushed him out to another hospital. he came back later still bloated to high heaven.
i went to do an assessment on the LPN's maternity patient who was supposed to go home in an hour or so and that's when i had my first experience with post-partum hemorrhage. holy dang! apparently when a mat patient says "large clot", they mean a LARGE clot - it was as big as her baby's head! luckily the head nurse was in the next room with another mat patient who was having contractions so she helped me out (i did an awesome IV!!). But we could not get a hold of the midwife who had delivered the baby. Or the mat doctor on call (turns out she was having a romantic lunch with her husband). Or any of the other mat doctors in town. and we don't like that extra anxiety. and no one even had any calming chocolate for us.

i dont like mondays

yesterday i went to Women's Group. no, it was not a jazz choir meeting with puffed-sleeved shirts that make whooshing sounds. the premise is rather straight-forward - a group of women get together for tea and coffee and chat. i was not the youngest. nor was i the only childless singleton. but i felt like... hmmm.... an asocial monkey? no, more like a potato - funny-looking and nonverbal.

i couldnt sleep last night.
now its early and i'm getting ready for work (which i imagine will be hell since word on the street is that it is hell right now and we are beginning to get the impression that the new site manager is trying to sabotage us so we quit and she can shut down the hospital) and i'm exhausted and dizzy and to top it all off the roof of my mouth is excoriated. i thought it was from excessive pistachio consumption but that was almost a week ago - shouldnt flesh wounds heal faster than that?

and i just realized that it isnt even monday.
sure as hell feels like it.

ps - did i correctly employ the word premise? its 630am, its understandable if i didnt.

good bye parker, hello finn

the old year has departed and with it parker.

parker survived the Great Rootbeer Incident of '02 and the Flood of '03.
but he could not survive the effects of a broken mother board.
so long parker, you have served me well (except for the burns you caused on my right thigh during those long nights of paper-writing).

the old year also took away my oven.
i spent the last few days of 2006 trying to bake pies and hearty meals in my toaster oven and not go crazy from lack of contact with the outside world (i dont think i was so successful)

hello new year.

the new year has brought me many things thus far.

on the first day of the new year i got into a fight at work - a food fight! so far no one has noticed the tomato stains on Wylie the Photocopier....

on the second day of the new year i had the first interrogation of 2007 regarding my marital status. "so JV, do you have a boyfriend yet?!?!?!" How can someone who spent new year's day sleeping, then working a nightshift, and the second of january sleeping and working a nightshift have found time to find a boyfriend?!?!?

on the tenth day of the new year a purolator man brought to me a new laptop! i was in the shower at the time, trying to wake myself up for a nightshift when he knocked on the door. My first encounter with Finn (my new 'puter) was in a hot pink towel. I think Finn wants to change his name to Pico but we're still in discussion over that one.

on the twelfth day of the new year the appliance man brought to me a new ignitor for my oven!

on the eleventh (yes i know i am not reciting the events chronologically) day of the new year my friend gave me a parting gift! Myself and the resident had been invited to the irish doctor's house for dinner with him and his wife as a farewell to the resident who left our small town today (i almost said for good but i am holding a pair of her skis for her - her car was too full - so she has to come back sometime). It seems my friend the resident thought that i would appreciate if she asked the doctor for a favour - to find me a HUSBAND. Him and his wife spent the evening making a list of potential suitors.