New Washer and Calling

We bought a washer yesterday! Yippee!! See, Colleen (my mother-in-law), was buying her a new washer and dryer and was going to give us her old ones. Up until now, we've been going over to her house and doing all of our laundry. Well, after they put new tile in her laundry room, they moved the old washer and dryer in (the new ones hadn't come in it) and the washer leaked everywhere. It's an older one and we decided it would be better to just buy a new one than try to fix this one and have it break again in a few months. So, last night, we bought a brand new Maytag washer with a stainless steel tub. We're still getting the dryer from Colleen and will use it until it dies. But I'm excited to finally have a washer and dryer in my house. It'll be wierd...I don't know what we'll do with our Saturday afternoons!

Well, church has come up with something for me to do. I was in as la lider de economica domestica (I think that's what it is!). In English, it's the Enrichment Night Leader. Scary! Luckily, the counselor I'll be working with speaks both English and Spanish, whcih I need. However, I have no idea how to go about it. I don't have ideas for enrichment nights! Help, please! If you have any ideas, or just your favorite enrichment nights, or things your ward has done in the past, please, give them to me!!

Boring Clinical

Well, yesterday was my first clinical were I actually had a patient. Our instructor paired us up, so I wasn't completely on my own. Our patient had some mental issues and I don't think she ever even knew we were there. When she was awake, all she did was stare up at the ceiling. I don't think she even blinked...it was kind of sad. My partner wasn't very comfortable at first with going in and doing things on our own, so at the beginning we didn't really do a whole lot. By the time our instructor caught up to us, our patient was going down get some tests done. We went with her, which was kind of neat. She was getting an ultrasound and a CT-scan and the techs showed up were everything was at on the scans.

When we came back, our instructor came in with us and helped us do a full assessment on her. Not quite a physical, but almost. We take all the vitals, listen to breath sounds and bowels sounds, and do all the things like that.

Nothing else exciting happened until the very end. We had just gotten back from dinner and our instructor told us to go check on our patients and make sure they were alright and they we would meet for postconference, were we meet and go over any unexpected situations that came up, any questions, etc. We walked in to our patients room and her nurse was there feeding here through her G-tube. She pulled back her blanket and said "uh-oh." Yeah...our patient had a massive bowel movement that was just liquid. It was everywhere! I didn't even know where to begin with cleaning it up. It eventually us, our instructor, and all of the students to clean it up. It was a mess!! Sadly, that was about the most exciting thing that happened on our clinical. Maybe this next Saturday, I'll be able to do a little bit more.

Snow and Ice Days!

Well, Tiona has been bugging me for over a month to post our pictures of the ice storm we had in February and also of the snow storm we had a month ago.

I know many of you might not know what an ice storm is, so I will attempt to explain it. These storms are some of the neatest things you will ever see--if you don't have to drive. These are "rain" storms, but right as the rain hits the ground it turns to ice (sometimes it is actually ice-drops instead of rain drops, it sounds neat when it hits your windshield). These storms coat everything with a layer of ice. This was a fairly mild storm from what I have heard. As you can see in the pictures, it is just beautiful. I was sad that I didn't get a good picture of an entire tree, but they just looked magical. If you want to see what trees look like from a distance, go watch "A Christmas Story." At the very end, when Ralphie wakes up on Christmas morning, he looks out the window and says "Wow..." The view they show is just after an ice storm.

The other fun storm we had was about 3 weeks ago. It just snowed and snowed and left at least a foot (I know, Utah had a bigger storm this winter. Don't rub it in!). Since my parents live on a nice big hill, we decided to go sledding. We pulled out our snow tube and saucer and had a blast. The pictures we took were a lot of fun! We spent about 3 hours playing in the snow. I felt like a little kid again. We also saw a SUV stuck in the snow, so we went and got my parents Jeep and pulled them out. On the way back, we passed a huge Dodge pickup stuck in the snow, so we pulled them out too. It was fun.

Well, I hope this post made Tiona happy since I finally posted these pictures!

Enjoy!

Money and Other Musings

I passed off giving shots yesterday. And I passed off catheters today. Feel free to step right up for your shot and catheter... (Don't worry, the catheter was on a mannequin!)

I came home form work yesterday to find a green box sitting on the table. Excitedly, I asked Carl what is was, secretly hoping he had bought me a present. You'll never guess what it was. Go on, try to guess.

It was a skull. A real, live human skull. (I guess it's actually a real, dead human skull) The medical school loans one to each of the students go they can practice their anatomy at home. Carl placed his skull in a place of honor, on top of our entertainment center. It's a good thing I don't let Carl do all of the decorating...

Speaking of decorating, I am excited for our tax refund to come in. I would like to buy some bathroom stuff and also shelves for the kitchen wall with it.

Who knows, though? We just found out the Stratus needs new tires. That's like $500! So that's what our tax refund is going to: new tires on the Stratus. And probably what else is wrong with it. That car is falling apart.

That's how it always seems to go, though. We just can't get ahead. If it's not the car, it's medical bills or a trip or gas prices jumping up when Carl drives an hour a day! Every time we have a little bit of extra money, it goes towards something else.

Maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way. Perhaps I should be thanking my Heavenly Father that we always have enough money to pay for the unexpected car repair and that we can afford to have a weekend away.

One day, however, I would like to buy those shelves and stuff for that other bathroom.

Best Trained Doctor

So, I have to pass off giving shots tomorrow. Not on a real person, thank goodness. We've just been practicing on oranges. I think it's funny...the first time we actually give a shot on a person, is when it's a patient in the hospital! Luckily, my nursing instructor will be right there next to me, but still...pray for my patient!

But, honestly, I don't think it'll be that bad. What's hard is getting the right amount of medication into the syringe. I always get air bubbles in it, which is a no-no.

Anyways, the story I was going to tell. So, I was at the kitchen table, practicing my shots on an orange. (this poor orange is so full of holes!) And here comes Carl, who can't resist. He has to start playing with all my syringes and needles and fake medication. So, I had to sit there and show Carl the right way to give shots. I told him he is going to be the best trained doctor on shots! He had to sit there for about 20 minutes, playing with everything and giving shots to my orange. It was really funny.

So, as you can see, I've decided to start a blog. Hopefully, I'll keep it up and post pictures and all that fun stuff so everybody who no longer lives by me can see what's going on with Carl and I. Hopefully. We'll see how it goes!