moose, dogs, cats and break up..it's that time of year.

just finished my 4 day stretch. steady, mild craziness at times, but my patients and i all survived. always funny going between adult and kid units. everything just takes longer with kids. that is one of the biggest differences. with adults you have stuff to do, you just go do it, end of story, with kids that just doesn't happen. drop a nasogastric tube or similar task on an adult, you are done in like 10 minutes, this same task can take up to several hours with a kid. just funny. only worked in the peds icu one night. extubated the one kid so that worked out great for all. so happy to see sick kid from last shifts worked doing great and headed home. kids also recover more readily. the two i had in adults for a few nights have horrendous medical histories. you name it they seem to have it. how they survive is beyond reason. one has renal failure. i think people on dialysis often just get used to living on the edge of life and therefore become accustumed to surviving the unsurvivable. the moose in these two pictures was chilling at the hospital. he was a bit of an obstacle between the work parking area and the actual hospital building. was able to walk past him and snap a few pictures in the process.

the one really sick lady kept me busy the second night i had her, my shift started with a sticky situation. the previous shift hadn't left me a spare bag of one of her vasoactive drips and the bag that was running has less than 10 ml's of volume. it was running at a good clip....a bit of a panic moment. pharmacy was great and i was able to pump up her other drip. still her blood pressure got quite low before it recovered. then to ct and then to or. so i was hopping. everyone was super helpful. that was the fun part of coming to this larger icu. my first icu experience was in ketchikan. i was alone in that unit. the first time i had a crumping patient here all these people materialized to help...it was great!

miss breezy chatterbug continues to bond with the other animals in the house. love seeing her snuggle up with rio catalina. loved this picture. so cute.

the dogs got walks every day. this was last thursday. we did the rovers run loop. pretty day. the trails will be getting more and more sloppy, but aside from slush it hasn't been too bad yet. todays monday walk was very slushy. it's like walking fast on a sandy beach. a good work out though. this could last weeks. lots of snow to melt before we can think of actual spring...we call this "season" break up".

blossom has been very faithful in her exercise program and seems tolerant of her diet program. i have been feeding her a more controlled amount of food in hopes of aiding in her weight loss. she does get achy and this will hopefully improve with a few pounds off. i do feel guilty though and so want to give her all the food and snacks she loves.

joined my friend kelly at the dog park yesterday. the parking area is about 5 inches deep with water and slush. i wore my cleats but would probably have been better with my xtra tuffs. always great to catch up with kelly. we don't run into each other very often these days. her father in law passed away and she should be down in south dakota for the services now. always tough losing parents. feel bad for her husband. i've lost both my parents now. just still so strange. find myself wanting to call my mom and gab like we always did. my heart goes out to them. funerals just are stressful and emotional. no way around all that.

got my swim in today. the water was actually pretty warm. felt wonderful to get in and not be cold, but admittedly, it was a bit warm once you got going on the laps. never want to complain about the water being too warm though. i'd prefer too warm over too cold. after our monday walk today we met up at the coffee house. sandra joined us. as i waited with the others for my drink this lady looks at me and asked if i was a swimmer. i'm sure i was secretly hoping i was begining to have the body of a swimmer, but instead she had noticed the added shine my hair has from the water. still, i was impressed that anyone could guess stuff about you just from a once over. perhaps, what cinched it for her was my swimmers body. hehe.

took these photo's as proof that pogi is warming to miss breezy. he's been spotted doing some grooming and snuggling and i've seen them play a bit as well. hopefully, their feline relationship will continue to grow. i'm such a match maker.

read online about a set of conjoined twins that have reached thier first birthday. they share a heart, a weak heart at that. they have coded several times apparently and have never left the hospital. this has so far cost medicaid and our tax dollars some 4 million. the mother won't make them a no code. there is no hope of seperating them. does bring up some moral and ethical issues. when is enough, how much is too much? i guess for me, if there is no hope for meaningful survival they should be given the best care possible, but should be made a no code so that thier life and suffering aren't prolonged. i think sometimes we get so focused on "the save" that nobody thinks to the future and what saving will mean down the road. seems the days are gone when a baby with such tremendous medical issues would just simply be bundled and placed in the families loving arms. a hospital is not hte best place to grow up. before i worked in peds i just didn't get that some kids in our nation spend the first 2-3 years of thier life in the hospital they were born.

the kitten just snuggled up with rio again.

took a loop in the bog the other day. i did run into the psycho jogger that yelled at me several weeks back. i just decided to walk in the middle of the trail with a dog on each side. that day i pulled myself and the dogs off the trail 3 times to accomadate him and all i got was yelled at so i figured i wasn't doing that again. this day i would let him accomadate me and my dogs. occurs to me that he was afraid of dogs so i figure it's my trail now. just seeing the guy annoyed me all over again and i had to remind myself a few times to just not let crazy man have any power. i'm sure he knew who i was and there was no verbal contact between us.

did see a few moose out there. the one below was fairly close, but seemed pretty content. the next day i just walked patterson as it was a bit windy. moose get spooked more in wind so figured i'd just avoid that.

more snuggle shots.

some idiotic floridian evangelist thought it would be a good idea to burn a quran. what is wrong with some people. a few westerners have now been killed in retailiation. what good did that person think could possibly come from his action? i find it hard to imagine that anybodies god would approve of this. no matter how right you think you are, that never gives you the right to disrespect others rights to believe how they do. just angers me that people are such idiots.

snapped this picture of the beaufitul sky as i was walking into work the other night. bet it was a beautiful sunset.

on the way home, the sky was pretty again. always try and carry my little camera with me.

pogi's bum does look a bit wide in this shot...perhaps another animal in the house needs to diet.

barely made it awake for todays' monday walk. lucky i did though. i was joined by tanya, andrea (and nash) and at some point lena came jogging up from behind. i was just telling andrea that it looked like a jogger was coming so we could pull the dogs to the side, then we realized it was lena. always great to see her. we're turning into a great little dog walk group. lena's puppy was happy to join the group of big dogs.

he's starting to feel empowered. above he jumps on buddha and below he tries to tackle blossom.

puppies and kids are always a kick to be around. i'm happy i got myself motivated and out of bed. great to spend the day with great friends.

some last critter shots. the scenery up here through break up isn't my favorite. old snow, dirt, puddles...you'll have to bear with the blog til spring arrives and the place greens up. i still go walking every day, but seems less to photograph during break up.

miss breezy loves these track toys. she now has one upstairs and one downstairs. i can hear those little ping pong balls getting batted around all the time. she's also taken to chasing wagging dog tails and feet under the sheets.

blossom comes in for a big sniff.

andrea brought a few new tennis balls for blossoms entertainment today. of course, the other dogs always snag the tennis balls and blossom spends the entire walk dutifully following the others around hoping they will kindly drop hte ball and let her have a turn. this almost never happens. i think blossom held the ball today less than 30 seconds. got some play time in at home before i crashed for a post walk nap. i think i must have slept 3 hours. when i woke up rio's front paws were on my chest and her mug was in my face. she hasn't acquired the skill to jump totally on the bed, but she must have decided it was time to awaken me. it was 7 pm and they are usually fed between 5:30 and 6pm. guess i shall go read the sunday paper, maybe watch a movie. i know it's late, but i'm all off schedule now....the life of a night shifter. good night all.