For instance, baseball. I am a Baseball Wife, am I not?
Baseball started in January and goes until the end of April or early May. Coach has been gone pretty much every night during the week, keeping him blissfully happy and coming home smelling like dirt and grass.
The team is 7-7 for the season so far. The hard thing to keep track of is that unlike in Missouri and Mississippi, Varsity and JV do not play on the same night - therefore the reason Coach isn't home four to five nights of the week, and I cannot for the life of me keep track of which team plays which night.
Spring break just kicked off for Matt this week though, and I think his plans include sleeping, going to the beach, sleeping, sitting by the pool and sleeping. Oh. And sleeping.
I, on the other hand, have been keeping myself occupied by turning in my resignation at the hospital and going to visit my sister in Georgia.
We never do anything by little steps and measures around here. It's all or nothing, folks.
First: my job. I really, really love working with cardiac patients. I love that I have the knowledge and skill in how to bring down someone's sky-high blood pressure, relieve their pain and teach them how to move while protecting their chest after open heart surgery, and how to administer and monitor critical drips and medications. I love that chest tubes - while they still make me nervous - don't scare the bejeezus out of me anymore.
I love the girls that I worked with. Our floor was so insanely busy and crazy day after day, it was great to work with a team that would pull together and help each other out - some days it was all about survival for us.
However, you all know that I'm a Funeral Home Girl at heart. Growing up in the environment that I did - with the dinner table conversations that I had with my family - I was destined to have a career dealing with end-of-life issues.
Enter: Hospice.
Hospice and oncology is one of the main reasons I went back to school for nursing. I'll be helping someone stay comfortable and live their life to the fullest that they possibly can, while managing their end-stage disease symptoms. Hard, challenging, and one of those career moves that you just know is right. I couldn't pass it up when I was offered the job.
Everyone I'll be working with is so compassionate and caring, with such positive, encouraging attitudes. I'm learning more and more about Hospice and what it does - it's not just giving pain meds and watching someone slip away. I'll be going to patient's homes and doing complete assessments, wound care, medication administration, lab draws, and my big passion - education. Teaching families and their patients about what to expect as the disease enters it's final stages. What happens when the body starts shutting down. How to keep their loved one comfortable and to not hesitate to page the crisis team. You're not only be dealing with the physical, but the emotional and spiritual needs of the patient as well. The Hospice physicians are amazingly kind and helpful, the chaplains and social workers are fabulous resources that work hand-in-hand with the RN.
I'll be working out of the Fort Pierce location, but the Hospice House in Stuart, FL is where I spent the past week in orientation. Policies, procedures, OSHA, HIPAA, etc. My brain was gone as of 2pm Friday. The grounds are beautiful though - lots of landscaping, walkways, paths, fountains...all dedicated in remembrance of patients of TCH.
Ok. Sorry for the RN rambling. Now on to non-job stuff.
My sister!
I spent four days in Georgia visiting Erin, Cole, and Addie.
(Say cheese!!)
She kept going around the house (for hours...days...bedtime...bathtime) saying "Checkup! Checkup!"
She also refers to one of the bearded pirates on her Pirates of the Caribbean placemat as "Jesus," so I'm not really holding out hopes that she'll be a Nurse Practitioner in the next two years or anything.
Erin and Cole are looking forward to the arrival of Liddie in the next couple months - especially since every time I would turn around I would accidentally run into Erin's pregnant tummy. Ooops. My bad. It got to be hilarious after awhile...for me, anyway.
Fun Florida things we've done lately:
Universal Studios, particularly Harry Potter World. We're Potteraholics.
Braves vs. Mets spring training game. We live about 20 minutes from Tradition Field, spring home of the Mets (boooooooo!!!!). Since I'm married to a Braves fan, I humored him and drug myself to a game. Since he's a baseball coach who somehow gets incredible hookups from people he knows, the tickets were front-row and free. I can't really complain.
The only Braves person I cheered for was their first base coach, former St. Louis Cardinals third-baseman Terry Pendleton. I watched him play with Ozzie Smith under Whitey Herzog in the 80's. Actually, I mostly remember Fredbird and eating ice cream out of plastic Cardinals helmets because I was only 10 years old, but still. I remember my parents getting really, really excited about all those good old STL guys and Ozzie's handsprings at shortstop.
So...the best part is...
WE WENT TO A CARDINALS GAME!!
A good friend of ours from our days in Licking came down from Missouri, and we spent the day at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, watching our boys.
I felt so giddy and homesick and wanted to hug every single one of them and say "I know you!! I follow all of you on Twitter!!"
But I decided that that's fairly stalker-ish, so I stayed in my seat and took pictures of the best side of Yadier Molina.
Matt just rolled his eyes and pretended he hated being at a Cardinals game. I knew he secretly wanted to cheer for them. You can't run from the red.
And the best part...I got to revive my childhood.
Ice cream helmets! And sunburns!
Great day, despite the loss by one run. I still love you, Redbirds!!
Coming up: I officially joined CrossFit last week. Not sure what it is? Google it. I have no words on how to explain it other than it hurts you and empowers you and makes you want to laugh and cry and scream all at the same time. Fundamentals Day One included roughly five bazillion squats with weights, which meant I couldn't walk upstairs to our bedroom or sit down to use the bathroom for about four days.
Anyway, my sadistic trainer Kristi told me to get all my fun out this weekend, because CF starts for real tomorrow. Meaning clean eating, meaning the complete opposite of the Dixie Cream doughnuts we just had to get for our Missouri guest this morning. (Seriously. Dixie Cream makes Krispy Kreme taste like nastiness. Come to Vero and we'll show you what's what.)
So tomorrow - WOD for real and Paleo/clean eating for real. Matt doesn't think I can stick with it so you know. Now I have to to prove him wrong.
It's on.
