Outer Lightness » Blog Happens

Expand blog entries with this slider:

Blog Happens (10 unread)

Cornychild: IS GOING TO KICK SOME ASS!

Posted: March 23rd, 2009, 6:27am EDT by Corn Child

Tags: [edit]

Just a note that I CAN'T post as my facebook status and would love to:

If you know I used to be Mormon and now I have AGNOSTIC listed as my religous views, don't be a passive-aggressive bitchfucker and invite me to the Mesa Easter Pageant at the Mormon temple. Even if you think it will make me suddenly forget that Joseph Smith was a big fraud.

It makes me feel all violent and shit.

That is all.
Stupid morals.

Posted: February 23rd, 2009, 1:33am EST by Corn Child

Tags: [edit]

On Saturday Horsey Girl and I trekked up to Scottsdale for the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show. Has to be one of the most incredible things I've ever been to. I have thought about it nearly every hour since we left. The beauty and intelligence of these animals is absolutely breathtaking. During the halter show I actually found myself with my lower jaw hanging open like some kind of mouth breather. (I'm sure the lady standing next to me with the strong European accent was horrified at how certain Americans are allowed out of the asylums to attend functions such as this.) I've always like horses and always planned, even as a kid, to have one but this really cemented it for me. I want an Arabian! Too bad the ones I saw were around $30,000 or so. Chump change, right? I'm just waiting for my money tree to sprout and I'll get right on buying one.

As we were leaving that afternoon (I had a party, otherwise I would have stayed to watch all night) we were wandering around the parking lot trying to find our car (a daily occurrence - I lose my car all the time) and Emma shouts, "Mom, money!" She was a few steps behind me and I was all, "mmm-hmmm", thinking that a penny or quarter was not worth the effort to retrieve it. But I turned and spied a WAD of bills lying under an exhibitor's truck. I picked it up and counted - $300. Cash! Not traceable! But how to find the owner? Can't just walk up to random people and show them the money and ask if it's theirs. My mind was racing trying to find out what to do with it. The strangest thing was this: in the past I would have immediately had churchy thoughts: I'll turn it in to lost and found and get a warm fuzzy feeling and a gold star in my passport book to the Celestial Kingdom. I'll get up on Sunday and bear my testimony about how righteous I felt! I'll go to heaven and Heavenly Father will be so proud of me! All the other people at church will see what a righteous soul I am and they will want to be just like me!

I had not ONE of those thoughts. And I was vividly aware of it. It was a little shocking and so liberating! I no longer base my decisions on whether I'm going to get in trouble with some obtuse higher power. I'm not living every day under the watchful eye of some invisible being, paranoid that at any given time I'm going to make a decision that will land me in the purgatory slammer. I'm so free! I only base my decisions on logic (we'll not talk about me flipping people off in traffic or spitting my gum out the window, hoping it will hit the tailgater behind me) and some remaining sense of morality. I sometimes wonder whether I would have a sense of "right" or "wrong" if I hadn't been raised in the church that I was. Is a basic sense of morality something that all humans are born with or it is completely learned? Nature vs. nurture? Don't have any idea. I haven't been an official member of the LDS church for nearly three years (when I had my records removed) but I keep making these cool discoveries about the changes in me and I LOVE IT. It really is a journey. I wonder when I get to the end?

You want to know whether I kept it don't you? I didn't. The only thing that made me turn it in to the 90 year-old moldy Scottsdale lady running the Lost and Found office was the thought of how pissed off I would be if I had lost that much money. I would want someone to turn it in if it were me. I'm kind of a believer in Karma. And, yeah, I guess it was a good lesson in honesty for my eight year-old or some such bullshit.

Now give me my gold star dammit.
Poor honey

Posted: February 2nd, 2009, 2:18am EST by Corn Child

Tags: [edit]

For the first time since starting my nursing career last year, I had a day where I was frustrated beyond belief at the medical system. It may sound cold-hearted and bitchy, but I'm not a nurse that cries over my patients, even if most of them are still fetus-sized. As a NICU nurse you MUST build a brick defense otherwise you'll go home depressed every day. But we've had a baby for a few months that has chipped through that defense and last week completely knocked the rest of it down. I took care of her when she initially came into the NICU - she originally was admitted for an encephalocele. (Click for picture.) A fairly large one. It was removed and after some MRIs it was determined that she had all kinds of brain abnormalities. So she's been at my hospital since then, with more ups and downs, sometimes related to her brain problems and sometimes not. Her entire little body is a mess. Every system seems to have been affected. She has this dark brown, thick mass of curly, downy hair and these big brown eyes framed with long lashes that melt you. Her cry will break your heart. It's just a quiet little wail. She's an unhappy little gal. A month ago I spent three shifts in a row just rocking and holding her so she'd calm down. Whenever I was in that pod, even if she wasn't my patient, I was holding her or soothing her.

A few weeks ago she had surgery that didn't go so well. It's been finally determined that there's nothing medically that we can do to save her life. She'll die of multi-system organ failure. Soon. She's supposed to go home this week to hospice. In the meantime, they don't want her back on a ventilator so she's visibly struggling to breathe and in obvious distress. I had her two nights in a row last week and spent a large amount of my time with her FURIOUS at the way her case is being handled. Her pain meds have been discontinued, even though she has an infected g-tube and a huge angry abdominal wound. For some idiotic reason most docs and NNPs believe that infants don't feel pain because they can't remember it later. We use a scoring system to help us determine whether a baby is in pain or not but even when we use it as nurses, it is largely ignored by the docs. Do they all take the same class on how NOT to give pain meds? I don't understand! This poor baby girl was miserable all night and I just about lost it on my nurse practitioner. I knew exactly how to help her but my hands were tied by the Big Cheese. If I don't have an order for pain meds I can't give them. I thought the whole purpose of hospice was to make a patient comfortable as they pass. Because this patient's family is self-pay I have this horrible idea that the docs don't care about her anymore - they just want her out of there. Mom had expressed the same idea to another nurse a few weeks back as well. I drove home from my last shift and bawled the entire way home.

I understand our health system is complicated but as a nurse it's a simple as this: I watched an adorable, sweet baby girl, who still managed to smile at me when I turned her music on for her, suffer needlessly the other night because of overinflated ego and greed. It completely sickened me and for a moment made me consider going back to the mortgage world where it was just paper and dollar bills.
Hi.

Posted: January 12th, 2009, 2:52am EST by Corn Child

Tags: [edit]

I'm baaaaaa-aaack.

I want to post something witty and funny and lighthearted but let's get updates out of the way on this one. Mmmm-k?
I still love my job. I have been primary for one particular patient lately - my first primary ever, in fact. This means that whenever I work I will have her. She has a day nurse primary too, so we hope that we can give her the most consistent care that way. She was born at 24 weeks gestation. (Recall that babies are supposed to cook for at least 40 weeks or so.) I had her the night she was admitted, back in November, and today she's doing amazingly well. She was a pound at birth, on the ventilator, looked like jell-o. Today she's in an open crib, bottle-feeding without trying to die (which is NOT normal for a micropreemie) and up to four pounds. She needs a little bit of oxygen through nasal prongs, and she's got some slight vision problems (something called retinopathy of prematurity, a complication from the high amounts of oxygen she needed to stay alive) that we'll follow up on, but other than that, she's a freakin' amazing little peanut. No head bleeds. Just wants to snuggle. I have not loved a patient the way I love her and have made mom swear that she will send me updates about her after discharge. I'm glad she's doing so well, but it's bittersweet. It means she'll go home soon and I'll miss her. I can't wait to see how she grows though.
Military Man? He's going to Iraq with his army unit in September. Hoo-ray. I'm absolutely thrilled. Military Man keeps trying to make me see the good side of this - more pay! spend less money on gas and food! he gets to defend the world from evil! - but all I'm hearing is "I'll get my re-enlistment bonus while I'm over there, tax-free, and I'm spending it on parts for my rustbucket VW bug in the garage." Oh yeah, and something about him being in danger every day for a year. Whatever. Which leads me to this: we won't be doing any IVF procedures for a while. I've done the single mom thing once before, after my divorce, and NO THANKS to that while my spouse is in a combat zone. It bums me out that the army, once again, comes before family. Hopefully my ovaries will hang in there and not shrivel up into dehydrated specks while he's away and we can do another round of ICSI when he comes home. There is, of course, the option of my trying about three months before he's set to come home, since what I need from him is currently on ice in Tucson, Arizona. I could keep it a secret and show up at the airport already pregnant when he gets home! (I've actually really enjoyed this visual.) Or I could find another "donor" and do it the cheap way. So what if it's not biologically yours, honey? I saved us ten thousand dollars! The sad part about that is that he *just* may go for that if I only let him spend the savings on car parts.
Heiko, The Attack Dog Boy, is in renal failure. He started peeing in his bed at night and then the next day went completely incontinent so we had the vet check him out. His kidneys are not working anymore. I picked up some expensive-ass low-protein dog food for him, and we changed his pain meds to some kidney-friendlier kinds, but we're really seeing a decline in him. He's tired all the time and has enormous trouble getting up the stairs. Mr. Corn Child is devastated, of course, but we knew this day would come when we got him a year and a half ago from Lackland Air Force Base. He's almost twelve - old for a shepherd. He's been an amazing dog and it's so depressing just kind of sitting around waiting for him to tell us when it's time. Since we found out on Christmas Eve, though, we were able to give him the most spoiled Christmas ever. Sorry, Memma, we couldn't get you that pony you wanted for Christmas because we spent it all on the dog!
Speaking of ponies and Memma, take a look at these pics of her at her lesson. She's learning how to trot. So. Adorable. One last tidbit - I've been on Accutane for the last three months. This month I've finally started to see a difference! I'm thirty-one and have struggled with skin issues since I was 20 and after our last failed IVF, I figured I should get the Accutane thing out of the way since we were going to be taking a break for a while (little did I know how long!). All the hype over the side effects? Pfffffft. My lips are chapped, yes, and my hands are dry from my OCD nurse hand-washing, but these are so minor compared to the good it has done for my skin! I never got the red face everyone says they get. No more oil! No more bumps! Self-confidence! I still have the occasional one here and there (around Aunt Flo time, usually) and I can't wait to see how this all turns out after two more months. (It's a five month regimen.) I can't believe I waited this long to do it. I'll keep you posted.
I promise!
We're so charming.

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 9:49am EDT by Corn Child

Tags: [edit]

Military Man has had the week off this past week, owing to the fact that the army MAKES its soldiers use up their leave before the fiscal year comes around for whatever reason. Making a man take a week off work, for two weeks in a row? PAID?! BASTARDS!

Since he and I both had today off we decided to run a couple of errands - including and not limited to buying me bigger jeans for my giant-sized failed-IVF ass, dropping off my possessed demon car at the dealership to make them fix the random honking my car has been doing lately (which in turn makes me scream loudly at it in public - right J?) and we also made a side trip to Sportsman's World (I think that was what it was called, I was really too busy throwing a temper tantrum over being forced into that place to really take note) where the following conversations may or may not have earned us some very dirty looks:

Corn Child passing a huge $500 industrial-waste-sized cooler: Look honey, you could fit like THREE bodies in this thing!

Me, horrified, glaring up at the dead animals adorning the walls: That one's horns look really weird! What's wrong with it?
Military Man: Um, honey, that's a REINDEER.
Me, even more horrified: THEY SHOT RUDOLPH AND PUT HIS CARCASS ON THE WALL?!!!! (Seriously, what is it about killing defenseless wild animals that makes a guy feel "manly"? Take your bullets out on something that deserves it more, like my neighbor's defenseless non-wild chihuahua that barks at 2:00 in the morning!)

Military Man, as we're exiting the store and I'm still grumbling over stupid hunter people: You know, hunting animals really does nothing for me. I've hunted PEOPLE for God's sake.
Rawr.

Posted: September 17th, 2008, 1:57am EDT by Corn Child

Tags: [edit]

Arizona has some stupid proposition on the ballot this year to define marriage as a union ONLY between a man and a woman. WHO FUCKING CARES?!! I don't understand what bigots are so afraid of. Afraid of having to teach your children tolerance? Gay marriage is already illegal in Arizona so the only reason this is on the ballot is because a bunch of religious fanatics (read: MORMONS) want to further push their religious views on the rest of the world.

Anyway, all of my mormon family and friends keep sending me invites on facebook to join their "vote yes on Prop 101! save marriage!" groups and the next person who does is going to get a flaming bag of poo from me.

I'll be so glad when this election year is OVER.
A few things, list style.

Posted: August 23rd, 2008, 7:33am EDT by Corn Child

Tags: [edit]

1. We have a new dog. Her name is Maggie. She's a total crackhead. I got her from the local shelter, where I started volunteering. (I SWEAR she's the only one I'm taking home!) She is fond of eating plants, chewing moulding and flipflops, sticking her nose in any passing asscrack, flinging toys across the room and crashing into walls after sliding across the wood floor. Oh yeah, and she drinks out of the toilet. Did I mention that I love my new dog?

2. Emma , after watching me put on eyeliner, informed me that she was going to "wear her eyebrows UP to school today" and then combed them toward the top of her head. Much cackling ensued. I think she was making fun of me!

3. I can't get the tiny peaked, pale face of the dead 600-grammer baby out of my head after last night's horrible evening and subsequent trip to the morgue. (So much for this whole post being light-hearted!)

4. I was discussing the joys of fishing with a four year-old brother of one of my patients as I showed him how to wash his hands before touching baby sister. He was being extraordinarily silly and of course I was egging him on. After a particularly hilarious exchange (I can't remember even what it was about anymore, I just remember really getting chuckly over the whole thing) I just looked at him and asked him if his dad (who was standing a few feet away) had ever told him that he was a goofball. He cocked his little dark head, looked at me seriously and replied, "No, he calls me a dirtbag." Dad, of course, vehemently denied this and looked very embarrassed.

5. My nephew. He's a very serious little soul - an old man in a three year-old's body. I was sitting at a table playing cards with other family members when he came to tattle angrily: "Daddy, Grandpa ate my TOE and won't give it back!"

6. To the co-worker who incessantly talked about being pregnant before she went on maternity leave: I thought we were done hearing your constant whining about your how much your life sucks because you were pregnant. Now that you are back, I see that I was wrong. Now I have to hear your incessant whining about how your breastmilk turned sour. I know we are all nurses and deal with breastmilk on a daily basis anyway but I don't want to accidentally overhear a loud conversation about your breasts and their leakage and how it's sour. EW!
No inbetweens

Posted: July 30th, 2008, 1:07pm EDT by Corn Child

Tags: [edit]

I love it when Winston *wrmoof*s in his sleep.

I hate it when Winston eats poop.

I hate it when my twenty two year-old sister-in-law with multiple spawn of her own tries to make my failed IVF all about her because we didn't tell *her* about it when we were trying.

I hate it when I'm stuck in computer training classes with 98 year-old women who don't even know what a mouse is. It makes me want to bloody my forehead on a brick wall.

I hate it when I get in trouble in that class because I'm goofing off with my seatmate due to boredom.

I hate getting busted for being bad in class at age 31.

I love being told that my daughter scored in the 98th percentile in the nation for the second-grade equivalent of the AIMS test.

I hate living in Arizona in July and August.

I love knowing that August is really the last horrible Arizona summer month.

I hate being stupid enough to drive a vehicle in Arizona with black leather seats.

I love watching Bailey the sulcata (tortoise) eat. His little pink tongue is the cutest thing evah.

I hate crying at night.

I love when Military Man lets down his guard and rubs my back until I stop crying and do fall asleep.

I love getting pedicures with my eight year-old.

I love my eight year-old more than any other kid in the world.

I love taking pictures with my crappy camera. (Click on pic to see toe jam.)

I love blogging but wish I felt inspired to do it more often.
Deeper thoughts today.

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 5:21am EDT by Corn Child

Tags: [edit]

Tomorrow is Emma's birthday. We're having a small shingdig with her buddies and my family. The Evil Sister is coming over too - we're making an attempt at amends - wish me luck!

Want to hear a sad story about that sister? She's a super Mormon. Has four kids. Wanted more but had some thyroid problems and hasn't been able to get pregnant since her last, who is now almost eight (and freakin' adorable, BTW). She plopped herself down beside me during the reception at my little sister's wedding in Portland two weekends ago (which kind of sucked, since her kids then surrounded me and I felt REALLY uncomfortable tanking myself up next to them and ended up abstaining that night - MEH!) and even though I haven't any sort of real conversation with her in over six years she suddenly decided to confide in me that she had recently miscarried. She must have heard about my IVF thing and figured we could bond based on both of our losses. Ok, whatever. She told me that she found out she was pregnant but was supposed to go on the "trek" thing that the Mormon church encourages their members to go on - a long week-long march through 100+ degree temps in Pioneer garb pulling handcarts. So she goes, as she states, to "be like a real pregnant pioneer woman". Then she miscarries.

How sad is it that a church has people so brainwashed that they would risk losing a desperately wanted baby solely for a "spiritual experience" and with the thought that since they are doing something faith-promoting that they will be spared any physical consequence of putting their pregnant body through something as taxing as that? It makes me wonder if it's planted some doubts in my sister's mind, although I'm more than positive that even if she's angry at God or whatever it won't lead toward anything positive for her. She's too firmly entrenched with her husband and four kids and the rest of my family to leave. So. Fucking. Twisted. And sad. Even though my sister and I have really hated each other for years I still don't wish that on her.

Work is interesting. Had a 25-week fetus basically turn black on me and try to die the other night. I was fucking SCARED. Had to bag the thing for five minutes (five minutes is a LONG time when a kid is dying) to get it's oxygen sats and heart rate back up. Never have I felt the weight of what I do like I did that night. After it was all over and baby was back in its closed isolette and stable again I took a moment in the bathroom to cry and have a small freakout. What the HELL am I doing? I'm not capable of doing this! I am not good enough to play God and keep these tiny sick things alive! Then after I came out of the bathroom I sat at a bedside with another mother while she cried about her little newborn girl who failed extubation (we tried to take her off the ventilator and it didn't work - thing started grunting and couldn't breathe on its own yet) and ended up intubated again. The baby is really very stable and will be fine, but for mom it was way overwhelming. I ended up sitting next to her with my arms around her while she cried into my shoulder. Good LORD what an emotional roller coaster of a night. I later confided in my manager; going over the things I felt I had done wrong during my first baby's episode. My manager FUCKING ROCKS. She told me she remembered the exact moment she really felt the weight of what we nurses do and how terrified she was and that I had just graduated to being a "real" nurse and that she was so proud of me. For what? Watching a baby almost die in front of me? She reminded me that these kids are only here because of medical intervention and all we can do is get them through our twelve hours and hope that they're still there for our next shift. Whew. I don't write any of this thinking that I'm wonderful or so great to have this job - I'm telling you that I am so overwhelmed and frightened and humbled but I really love what I do so I'm going back next week. I had no idea, when I started nursing school, what this job was really about. It sucks and it's awesome at the same time. I love it and I hate it. But I'm going to keep doing it.

And for lighter thoughts, some recent pictures.
Further testament to my heathen-raising ways

Posted: June 30th, 2008, 5:24am EDT by Corn Child

Tags: [edit]

Went to Portland this past weekend with the Memma for my sister's wedding. Military Man had to stay home due to lack of funds and lack of dog boarding facilities that cater to dogs that are capable and trained to rip strange peoples' faces off. (So glad I spent $1000 of my much-needed money on a trip where my sister completely ignored her entire family, in true selfish-my-friends-are-so-way-cooler-than-all-of-you fashion!) Emma's basically bored after the three-hour flight so when we get to the hotel room she's picking up the phone and wondering aloud if she can call the front desk or dial 911 to talk to the operators (NO! Put down that phone right now!) and going through all the drawers in the room. My little reader opens the nightstand drawer and upon finding a Gideon's copy of the bible pauses to read the cover and then exclaims disgustedly, "Oh maaaan. I thought this was going to be a nice book for me to read but it's the HOLY BIBLE!" Drawer is quickly slammed shut.

My Mormon mother would be so proud!