The good, the bad and everything in between
It's been a while! Hmm, the last time I posted was October 11! Wow.
Anyhoo, today was lots of fun. Started the day singing in the folk choir at church, always a good time, even when the choir director is lately enamored of these odd songs from late 18th century which have the male tenor singing the melody which puts the sopranos in odd harmony. I protest! Dawn is not used to singing harmony. This is the third month in a row with these old hymns. We don't sing in December (the larger choir gets to sing the traditional Christmas carols) and I'll be out of town for our gig in January so here's hoping Mike finds something different to sing in February. I keep encouraging a Sunday with all songs from Biblecentric Broadway musicals but he resists.
This afternoon Demelza and I went to see Trevor Noah (from the Daily Show). Really funny--he covered many topics from stuff about 45 I'd heard on the air, to his childhood in Africa and the differences between American and South African English. Two thumbs up--Demelza fell asleep halfway through. Also, three cheers that I didn't get lost (I am fairly good at driving in San Francisco after having lived there for 25 years) and no stalling on vertical hills. YAY. We had dinner at Mel's Diner afterwards, and I ate my fave: biscuits in gravy.
Now the not so good. Three weeks ago, my mother broke her hip. I had literally talked on the phone with her three times that morning, planning to take her to church the next day because there was going to be a dedication of the new garden which is named for our former priest, and good friend.
At 12:30 that day, I lay down for a short cat nap before leaving for work. At one pm, Mom's neighbor called to say she had fallen and was hurt. I immediately called work to say I could not come and raced over. (roughly 15 min drive) Mom was in the front, sitting in the neighbor's chair in their driveway. She looked very pale and said her hip hurt. She could move her leg and wiggle her toes, so I thought--no broken hip. I'm not a very good diagnostition. I manouvered her into the car and drove to the ER. She had no memory of falling--I suspect that she simply took a step and went down because she had severe spinal stenosis and neuropathy in her feet, none of which she ever quite understood and always insisted her balance was fine, no walker necessary. Groan.
Long story short, surgery the next morning. These days, patients are up with a walker a day or so later and by Wednesday evening she was transferred to a nice rehab place where she stayed for 10 days. I ended up called off work two weeks after the fall to drive her home--coincidentally arriving at her place exactly the time we'd left 14 days earlier.
I only missed one day of visitation during the hospital stay and maybe only one day since then, now that she is at home. My sister Lesley lives with mom, and quite luckily, Lesley works at Safeway from 5am-2pm and I work evening shift, so we can be there with mom regularly. I don't usually stay for hours, but make sure she eats, takes meds, etc. Very amazingly, she has not had a single bit of the severe back and leg pain she was having previously. Did the broken hip fix the spinal stenosis? She walks with the walker now far, far better than she did before!
We all had Thanksgiving on Saturday with my sister's son the doctor and his new girlfriend. My sister outdid herself, cooking for two days. I clean up--that's my job. ;-)
However, yesterday night after leaving there, Demelza and I got home and I asked her to put her stuff in the lobby of our building to help me get all the Christmas shopping and leftovers out of the car. When we got back to the stairs--at most three minutes later--her bag was gone! Someone took a bag full of library books and DVDs, a coloring book, a graphic novel and an old ipad. Of course, she is broken up about the ipad. I put an erase on it through find my ipad. com (or whatever it is called) and promised if it wasn't found, we would get a new one Tuesday. This afternoon, two of the library books were sitting exactly where she had left the bag. Hmmm. Our building manager is on the case, like Sherlock Holmes, and we both suspect two particular women, both have caused much problems around here before. One is actually not allowed on the premises (although I saw her later than evening) and the other is being evicted on Thursday.
We went to see the Disney movies of Frozen Christmas and Coco. Both delightful, and Coco leaves you thinking of family and loved ones very much.
Worked a 12 hour shift on Monday last and felt like shouting "I'm back!" because although I restarted work on September 1st, this was the first time I did overtime. I was tired, sure, but did great and was proud. Oh--I precept or supervise a nursing student nearly every semester for two to three months to steer them in the ways of neonatal nursing, which isn't taught in school. I always have the most awesome, intelligent students--this semester's is so wonderful, I hope she gets hired. I'm working alongside my former student Corinna, from a year ago, and she continues to amaze me. Demelza's age but an old soul with so much poise, grace and smarts. I think there are 4 or 5 nurses in our unit that I helped teach. So I got an email from a former student nurse who got hired at Stanford's children's hospital. Her precepter in that ICN was my student in 2004! Blows my mind.
Reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Halfway through 500 pages and still not quite sure I like this book or not.
Love, love, love Stranger things. I watched the entire thing and have a sweatshirt with Dustin, Lucas and Mike on the front. I took the cat to the vet and she admired my sweatshirt, pointing to a bruise/scab on her lip. She'd watched the final two eps the night before and bit her lip so hard she hurt herself! Who thinks Hopper and Joyce belong together?
Anyhoo, today was lots of fun. Started the day singing in the folk choir at church, always a good time, even when the choir director is lately enamored of these odd songs from late 18th century which have the male tenor singing the melody which puts the sopranos in odd harmony. I protest! Dawn is not used to singing harmony. This is the third month in a row with these old hymns. We don't sing in December (the larger choir gets to sing the traditional Christmas carols) and I'll be out of town for our gig in January so here's hoping Mike finds something different to sing in February. I keep encouraging a Sunday with all songs from Biblecentric Broadway musicals but he resists.
This afternoon Demelza and I went to see Trevor Noah (from the Daily Show). Really funny--he covered many topics from stuff about 45 I'd heard on the air, to his childhood in Africa and the differences between American and South African English. Two thumbs up--Demelza fell asleep halfway through. Also, three cheers that I didn't get lost (I am fairly good at driving in San Francisco after having lived there for 25 years) and no stalling on vertical hills. YAY. We had dinner at Mel's Diner afterwards, and I ate my fave: biscuits in gravy.
Now the not so good. Three weeks ago, my mother broke her hip. I had literally talked on the phone with her three times that morning, planning to take her to church the next day because there was going to be a dedication of the new garden which is named for our former priest, and good friend.
At 12:30 that day, I lay down for a short cat nap before leaving for work. At one pm, Mom's neighbor called to say she had fallen and was hurt. I immediately called work to say I could not come and raced over. (roughly 15 min drive) Mom was in the front, sitting in the neighbor's chair in their driveway. She looked very pale and said her hip hurt. She could move her leg and wiggle her toes, so I thought--no broken hip. I'm not a very good diagnostition. I manouvered her into the car and drove to the ER. She had no memory of falling--I suspect that she simply took a step and went down because she had severe spinal stenosis and neuropathy in her feet, none of which she ever quite understood and always insisted her balance was fine, no walker necessary. Groan.
Long story short, surgery the next morning. These days, patients are up with a walker a day or so later and by Wednesday evening she was transferred to a nice rehab place where she stayed for 10 days. I ended up called off work two weeks after the fall to drive her home--coincidentally arriving at her place exactly the time we'd left 14 days earlier.
I only missed one day of visitation during the hospital stay and maybe only one day since then, now that she is at home. My sister Lesley lives with mom, and quite luckily, Lesley works at Safeway from 5am-2pm and I work evening shift, so we can be there with mom regularly. I don't usually stay for hours, but make sure she eats, takes meds, etc. Very amazingly, she has not had a single bit of the severe back and leg pain she was having previously. Did the broken hip fix the spinal stenosis? She walks with the walker now far, far better than she did before!
We all had Thanksgiving on Saturday with my sister's son the doctor and his new girlfriend. My sister outdid herself, cooking for two days. I clean up--that's my job. ;-)
However, yesterday night after leaving there, Demelza and I got home and I asked her to put her stuff in the lobby of our building to help me get all the Christmas shopping and leftovers out of the car. When we got back to the stairs--at most three minutes later--her bag was gone! Someone took a bag full of library books and DVDs, a coloring book, a graphic novel and an old ipad. Of course, she is broken up about the ipad. I put an erase on it through find my ipad. com (or whatever it is called) and promised if it wasn't found, we would get a new one Tuesday. This afternoon, two of the library books were sitting exactly where she had left the bag. Hmmm. Our building manager is on the case, like Sherlock Holmes, and we both suspect two particular women, both have caused much problems around here before. One is actually not allowed on the premises (although I saw her later than evening) and the other is being evicted on Thursday.
We went to see the Disney movies of Frozen Christmas and Coco. Both delightful, and Coco leaves you thinking of family and loved ones very much.
Worked a 12 hour shift on Monday last and felt like shouting "I'm back!" because although I restarted work on September 1st, this was the first time I did overtime. I was tired, sure, but did great and was proud. Oh--I precept or supervise a nursing student nearly every semester for two to three months to steer them in the ways of neonatal nursing, which isn't taught in school. I always have the most awesome, intelligent students--this semester's is so wonderful, I hope she gets hired. I'm working alongside my former student Corinna, from a year ago, and she continues to amaze me. Demelza's age but an old soul with so much poise, grace and smarts. I think there are 4 or 5 nurses in our unit that I helped teach. So I got an email from a former student nurse who got hired at Stanford's children's hospital. Her precepter in that ICN was my student in 2004! Blows my mind.
Reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Halfway through 500 pages and still not quite sure I like this book or not.
Love, love, love Stranger things. I watched the entire thing and have a sweatshirt with Dustin, Lucas and Mike on the front. I took the cat to the vet and she admired my sweatshirt, pointing to a bruise/scab on her lip. She'd watched the final two eps the night before and bit her lip so hard she hurt herself! Who thinks Hopper and Joyce belong together?