Closing in on the end of Houston

We are getting close to the end of our time here in Houston.  It can't come soon enough.  This place does something to me.

I want to write, I don't.  At least not much.  Heck, my post count here is abysmal and I usually really enjoy keeping up the blog.

I want to run, I don't.  I signed up for a marathon and I haven't been running much at all.  I don't like to do it near this, the horrible RV park.  There is a park near Sarah's parent's house, but I find little joy in running on a flat oval sidewalk lap after lap. 

I want to take pictures.  I love the camera and finding a great, or even good, shot, is a blast, but I don't find much to photograph here that isn't depressing. 

This place just sucks the soul right out of me.  Instead of finding reasons to do things and go places, I find myself making more excuses to not do things and go places.  This place is toxic I think.  I am beginning to believe that those who live here have become so used to the toxicity that they no longer even recognize it.  It is like the frog in the gradually boiling water. 

But venting about it really isn't going to do anyone any good.  So, I just remind myself.  Two weeks. 

Then we head out, to wherever. 

Hopefully an announcement to follow.

Gone with the Wynns

Well, it turns out Sarah and I have been featured on the website of the fine folks at Gone with the Wynns in their, "Make Money and Travel." section.  This is where they tell show different ways people make a living while making a life on the road.  They run a very interesting website where you can learn a lot about the RV lifestyle.  You can see more...

Here

Unfortunately we will be getting more traffic in something of a lull in our adventures.  Still, welcome aboard and thanks for stopping by.  If you are interested in the nursing profession as a traveler, please feel free to send me an email and I can send you a rough copy of an article I am working on about how to be a travel nurse.  I think it is a good article, so I am going to try to sell it somewhere before I release it to the general public.  If you are interested though, drop me a line. 

Email

I'm in the middle of a work stretch and those 12 hour shifts keep me from blogging much.  Thanks for stopping by. 

Just a little something to think about.

A neat intersection of ideas today.  While I was out for a run (Woohoo!  I went for a run.  Yaaay me!) I was listening to a podcast from You Are Not So Smart.  This is a neat program/website/book series where a guy named David McRaney.  He investigates the multiple ways in which we delude ourselves.  He interviews people who are doing research in that area of psychology and puts together an occasional podcast.  This one was about the power of narrative.  So, of course, I was interested.  What happened though is that I stuck on one fact and found myself thinking more about this one fact than listening to the podcast.  That's fine though, it will still be there next time. 

The other thing that happened was a call from my recruiter at the travel nursing company.  I had written a fairly extensive article about travel nursing and wanted to see if she had any feedback that might be useful.  She told me she loved the article and wondered what I was going to do with it.  She asked me when I had found time, with two kids, a job, a blog and all of the other obligations of a modern life, to write anything. 

Hell, I didn't have it in me to tell her I am finishing up a book about our first few years travel nursing and starting a novel length fiction work.  I did tell her about the article I sold to the RV magazine though.  I was bragging, I admit it. 

Now, back to that first point, the one from the podcast. 

Did you know that the TV series Lost had 121 one hour episodes?  Breaking Bad had 62.  Dexter had 96.  If you watched all three of those series ( I watched Breaking Bad, my hypocrisy only goes so far.) that totals up to 250 hours or so if you count commercials. 

Damn.

It takes 120 or so credit hours to complete a bachelor's degree.  30 more for a master's.  Now, I know that isn't taking into account study time or travel time or whatever other commitments it takes to achieve that education, but damn.  That was only three shows.  Add in a couple more and you have a pretty good college education.  Or a new skill, or language.  Or maybe just a better understanding of the world around you.  Or...

Or whatever you want. 

I'm not perfect.  Tonight, I didn't feel like doing anything.  When we got home from Grandma and Papa's house I was tired and pretty much done.  So I mixed a drink and watched two hours of Hoarders.  Far from perfect. 

But I don't watch much TV and if I find I have something I want to do that will take a time commitment, I know the first thing that will be sacrificed to do it. 

Just living, and keeping busy

Not a lot to report here.  And I hate reporting that there is not a lot to report. 

Just living.  I am currently sucking as a runner and doing reasonably well as a writer.  I am at least getting some things done.  Unfortunately not as a blogger though. 

On the up side, Sarah's sister Rachel is going to watch the kids next weekend giving Sarah and I a rare date night opportunity.  On the not so up side, this is such a rare thing that we have no idea what to do. 

I don't know, what do you want to do?

We both decided we would go for a long hike or something to that effect if we were somewhere else.  Guess that doesn't help much here. 

The one thing that Houston does have in spades is good restaurants.  My waistline is showing it too.  Did I mention I have sucked lately as a runner?  Still going for a marathon this year. 

Wish me luck.

Another weekend at work...

Another pediatric code.  Dang, this is way too regular.  I have equaled my career total of pediatric codes in the past two weeks.

This one was a little different though, we never had a chance.  The only reason it even came into our ER was because a child was involved.  That makes it a bit easier to take, I think.  To fight is to become emotionally invested.  Just going through the motions on the outside chance something startling happens doesn't require much emotion.  Just a numb sadness.  Or perhaps, as Papa likes to say, my sensory strunods have been numbnetized.

After it was called I went back out to my other three patients.  One has a heart rate of 30-35, one is a large man freaked out on PCP and one has a toothache.  Yeah.

Can you guess which one was more demanding?

I've noticed a correlation.  If it is a true emergency, nobody cares how long it takes.  Nobody cares.  Just please do whatever you have to do to make it right.  It is the non-emergency that is demanding things hurry up.  Why is this taking so long?  Can't you see that I am in pain?  10/10 pain!

And as ridiculous as that seems when compared to the other patients, you can't let that get to you.  You have to try to remember that their pain is the most important thing in the world to them, or they likely wouldn't be here.

It's hard though, sometimes.  I don't care if you brought your mom.  I don't care if ibuprofen doesn't work for you.  I am devoting more time to you than a patient that has a legitimate risk of dying...tonight.

And if I don't smile, and don't show enough concern, they fill out a survey and I get in trouble.

Don't worry.  I smiled, I effectively demonstrated my compassion while expressing as effectively as I could why they weren't getting admitted and sedated for their toothache. 

It is amazing to me how much can happen in one 12 hour random ER shift. I have thought about writing one, but I don't think people would believe it who weren't ER nurses.

You know that feeling you get on a Friday after a busy work week?  Hell yeah!  I made it!  I get that after every shift.  I am always a little surprised I and at least most of my patients survived and nobody got fired.

So, I'm taking a couple days off.  Maybe I'll post up about how I fixed my toilet next.  Give everybody a break and talk about a different type of crap.

Head colds

I hate head colds.  You know what I'm talking about.  Your nose runs like a faucet with a slow leak.  Your head feels like someone is blowing a balloon up inside your face.  None of your thoughts seem to be clear and you have that nagging, tingling itch in the back of your sinuses that is driving you insane.

That is not an excuse to go to the ER.  Unless of course, you work in the ER.  Then it is not an excuse NOT to go to the ER.  Staffing for a shift is usually pretty tight anyway.  If one person calls in it usually means everyone else has to take an extra patient or two and when patient to nurse numbers go up, outcomes are pretty well correlated to go down.  We all know this.  So just try calling in to work with anything that doesn't involve needing to go to the ER, some other ER because you wouldn't willingly show up at your own (I fear they might create new and inventive ways to use catheters).  Sinusitis?  Bronchitis?  Ha.  We train to not get sick from contacting sick people.  The reverse is true as well.  Besides, as a traveler, I don't get PTO.  Don't work, don't eat. 

Usually you just slog around the nursing station like the zombie you are until you need to go into a patient room and then marshal all your energy so you can appear like a normal human while you work with the patient.  Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands.  Then, as soon as you leave the room, you re-zombie and trudge about your business. 

Then they bring me a code stroke.

This is a patient that has developed symptoms of a stroke recently.  Like, within the last hour.  You see, if you have signs of a stroke, it is a race.  There is a medicine we can give you if you are having a certain type of stroke, but we can only give it to you if we can start it within around 4 hours of the onset of symptoms.  Later than that and the risk outweighs the reward.  The drug tPA essentially dissolves all blood clots and prevents new ones from forming for a period of time.  This can be detrimental to you, so the decision to use it is not taken lightly.

By the time the patient is in the room, they have been in the ED for 40 minutes or so, getting triaged and then taken to CT to rule out a bleeding stroke.  They want the medicine administered within 60 minutes of arrival.  The guy at triage has tried three times to get a line on the patient and failed, they are a hard stick.

So, there are 20 minutes to get two IV's started, administer a stroke scale, get the medication from pharmacy  and about a hundred other things.  Do you think anyone cares about that head cold?  Nope.

I got two lines in two sticks, we beat our target times and got the medicine in...with help from the stellar crew here.  Then I had to stay in the room with the patient for the next hour to make sure nothing more drastic than bleeding from those three missed IV's earlier happened.

So, I'm happy to have a couple of days off.  Head colds suck.

Houston

We lived in Houston for ten years. We have a house here.  This is where we started traveling...it's the place we left.

That should give you an idea of how we feel about the place.  We left for a reason. And every day, we are reminded in a hundred little ways of why we don't live here anymore. 

Miles outside of the city we started to dread everything.  The traffic built up.  The trees and ponds were replaced by strip malls and storage yards.  Flowers were replaced by plastic bags.  Even the prettier places, and there are a few, are all landscaped and designed.  They are the golf courses and wealthier neighborhoods.  I don't really like those personally, I prefer a wilder beauty. 

So I decided to do a little cathartic photo essay of why I don't like Houston.  I keep forgetting my camera when I go out though.  Seems like my motivation is to capture beautiful scenery and not the ugly stuff.  I think it would make an interesting project and still want to do it.  Since I keep forgetting my camera, I used my cell phone.  Not the best, but it will have to do for now.

Houston hates trees.  Houston kills trees all the time.

See, more dead trees with a tank of flammable liquids to finish them off.  Probably so they can put in another strip mall or dollar store.

Because we take such great pride in the beautiful strip malls and dollar stores we already have. 

Why is there a path in the middle median and not the side?  This is the panhandler path.  Back and forth.

Still, we come back.

Why? 

Papa helping Michael with math homework.

Because this stuff can be priceless.