Yes God, I'm listening. . .

Every once in a while, I'll have a day where I feel like God is slapping me across the head saying "What are you complaining about?!?" - Either that or "Really, you have a fabulous life y'know!" - I know that these days happen to everyone but as a nurse, these days happen a whole hell of a lot more often and to a higher degree.

Today was one of those days. Thankfully my patients were relatively "stable" (used loosely here). Both post car wrecks, one still wearing a Halo for a broken cervical vertebra (i.e. broken neck) and the other a paraplegic as a result of the accident. One is 3 weeks post accident (the paraplegic) and the other is 1 week out and still needs a cervical fusion (the Halo patient) but stable. That can be enough some days to make you realize how lucky you really are but the kicker today has really sucked every bit of emotional reserve out of me.

The shift started with one of our nurses having been called in early to go take a trauma patient off the unit to have examinations/tests done - BAD car accident. VERY. VERY. BAD. 4 hours, 2 "in the ICU room" open belly surgeries (yep, right there in the room), over 2 dozen (and counting at the time) blood products and one trip to the actual OR later. . . . the patient died of massive internal injuries on the OR table. Less than 10 months after an older sibling had died. Leaving a twin sibling as an only living child and a set of unbelievably distraught but wonderful parents with another child loss way to early. VERY. VERY. BAD. ACCIDENT.

1 1/2 hours later we got the call about a second "disaster patient" (i.e. severe trauma). Another car accident. Another BAD accident. Patient who was in the 24th week of a pregnancy. Severe internal injuries, severe head injury and multiple, multiple fractures. Loss of the fetal heart tones at the scene of the accident. No responsiveness since the wreck. Massive hemorrhaging. EVERYWHERE. A second destroyed family in the blink of an eye and in the span of a single 12 hour shift. The patient was still there when we left. . .well, in the physical sense (not sure about spiritually).

So, all day long I just kept thinking of how precious and fleeting life can be and how things that seem to drive us crazy and get under our skin REALLY don't matter that much in the end. . . .

SIGH.

Wear your seatbelts, kay?

Fortune

Y'know something that I love? I love fortune cookies. I also love reading the fortunes. Always have. So, I thought I would share:

Fortune for the week of June 4th:

"Don't stop dreaming, otherwise sleep will get awfully boring."


Yep. I'd agree with that one.

I'm getting boring, huh?

Sheesh! I am getting so boring that reading my own posts puts ME to sleep! Sorry guys. I just haven't gotten back into the swing of things. I guess that happens to a lot of bloggers but I did like getting comments and now, barely any. Hmmmm. I know, I know the comments aren't the reason I blog. Truly they aren't. I know that you all are out there and that is comforting. I blog to feel a sense of self, to understand what's going on in my world, to record today and what my life is like and about. But. Still. It was nice to see all the different people and their blogs that were including themselves in my little world. . . .ok, no more of that. On to what blogging is really about.

Hey, lookee, there ARE pictures to be shared:

First up is a photo of my Hogwarts sock swap socks. Almost done! Whoopee! I am knitting them in tandem because I decided to add some increases at the calves. They are a simple 3X1 rib until above the ankle and then I slowly increased to a 3X2 rib. Question for you all out there. . . How would you finish these off? Just, bind off? The ribbing is already there so I guess so but, I wanted them to look, y'know, finished. Can I picot edge with ribbing? Should I just bind off and not worry about it? Your suggestions are respectfully requested (how's that for comment begging? ;-> ) I am making them from Lorna's Laces Sheperd Sock in the "bee stripe" colorway. That swirly yellow stripe thing going up the foot of the sock was purely the colorway. I noticed that that was the point where they switched from gold to black. Seems they had a bit of extra gold. I kind of like the effect though. Don't you?

Now onto a spoiling for me! Here's the totality of my package from my FABULOUS Knitter's Tea Swap 3 spoilee, Jessica:

Isn't that some wonderful stuff? I got 3 different loose teas from the English Tea Store, many, many tea bags of assorted Stash teas, some organic honey lemon sticks, 3 different typed of tea cookies/treats, some dark chocolate (heaven) covered pretzel bits AND. . . . .my very first, ever Claudia's handpainted sock yarn. Woo Hoo! Here it is closer up:

And again:
Thank you so much for your generosity Jessica, it was amazing to have you as my pal. Hopefully you will like my package as much as I enjoyed yours!

Last, but not least, I leave you with a gratuitous family picture of us during Memorial Day weekend while out geocaching. This is a picture of us after finding our 100th cache:



We had so much fun that weekend!