we'll start with the street clean up. the road crew was out on my street today. cleaning up the snow even as more snow was falling down. it's a never ending job up here in alaska. people are always complaining about how slow the road crews are. personally, i think the crew does a grand job. there are loads of streets to plow and i never see them not working. 24 hours, 7 days. even this dog here looks to be working hard. it's quite fun to watch. our road is much wider tonight than it was this morning. not much snow fell today.
survived my 4 nights at work. we did the computer changeover and upgrade and i survived that as well. i had assumed the upgrade was happening on saturday night and was surprise to learn it was actually friday night. that just meant that at 10pm we went to paper charting. it took until well after 4 am for them to come back up on the computers, but even then they weren't totally ready for us to actually chart. mostly i just added in the meds i gave, tried to some charting and stuck to paper charting. i got an admit during downtime that night so not much i could do online with that one. the new computer system doesn't flow well in my opinion. i would prefer to just be able to focus on my assessment and get that charted without having to mix in all the crap stuff you do for the people who work in offices and forget there are sick people in hospitals. 
will take some getting used to. can't change it so i just have to work my way around it. my first night in the adult unit i had discharged one patient, transferred another and gotten an admit all before 10pm. i got another admit at 5:30 am. at first it was supposedly an easyish patient, but she turned out to be rather sick by my third night i had just her on the continuous dialysis machine. my 4th night i was back up in peds. i had a few chronic care kids. one kid totally reeked. i felt nauseated each time i entered the room from the smell. it may be i was already getting a stomach virus but one does have to wonder if one can actually get sick from an odor? anyway, i spent monday in bed exhausted, nauseated and with stomach cramps. by the wee hours of tuesday morning the pain and moved to my entire abdo cavity and i had the runs. i dozed off and on. luckily most stomach flu's only last 24-48 hours for me. by this afternoon i was weak and hungry but better. 
february has not been my best month as far as health goes. i'm holding out hope for a more healthy march! 
overall i feel like i am once again checked back into my life. was watching some supernanny last thursday. with being sick it is easy to take a mental break. lots of people with kids seem to get so exhausted that they seemingly check out of thier lives, only going through the motions. i felt a bit like that, but that afternoon i took the dogs out to the bog even though it was late. we hit the bog another day between shifts and also just cruised up patterson and back another day. 
had a hmong patient the other day. that book "the spirit catches you and you fall". i may have that wrong. i read it years ago. we do have a sizeable hmong population here and there are some cultural issues that you just have to try and work around. it's not always easy. they just often have thier own reasoning and understanding of why sickness happens. it can be difficult to mix thier old ways with the modern ways of medicine. that was what that book was about. it covered one case. it was very interesting. not sure it helps us do better in caring for these kids, just helps to accept the limitations of caring for kids and thier families in these cultures. it's not wrong, just a different view. culture and medicine often clash. 
i hadn't realized that polygamy is not uncommon in the hmong culture either before working with more people who were hmong. just a different family dynamic to be aware of. i remember taking care of one kid and a teenage sister was explaining her family dynamics to me. often the older kids are who you actually communicate with as the parents will frequent know little english. she didn't seem interested in carrying on this family tradition. it was an interesting discussion though.
the bohemian waxwings were hanging out in myhood this past week. have no idea how these birds survive. they seem to be flying constantly and they aren't the birds i see at my feeders ever. not sure where they have thier stash at.
the squirrel in my yard occasionally squares off with a few magpies in the neighborhood. i'm impressed seeing that squirrel chase up the tree to try and scare the magpies off. they don't seem to scare too easily.
by this afternoon i felt brave enough to venture out into the great outdoors. i took the dogs and headed to the dog park. seemed a fairly safe bet. i could escape pretty easily if i got into trouble with my intestinal tract. hey, peristalsis happens...after our walk i went to freddies to buy some new sheets. they were on sale and my sheets were pretty much toast. bought 400 count. not sure what they were before. i was going to buy one 400 and one 600 count. oh well. not sure i could tell the difference anyway. one day my prince will come and i'll sleep on egyptian cotton or something. oh wait...i'm a spinster! no prince is showing up. dang! guess, i'll just chill with my 400 thread count sheets. blossom was on the bed as i tried to make it with the new sheets. she often chooses to lounge on the bed just as i got to remake it. she's quite cute though.
i think it's a mom and baby moose out at university lake right now. they were pretty far apart this afternoon when i was there. probably the baby will be booted out in the spring and a new one will be born.below is blossom and in the foreground you can see where the moose have nibbled away at the bark.
and blossom at the bridge. rio came as well, but she stays close to me. 
the moose actually can be pretty easily camoflaged out there in the woods. 
the temperatures have remained in the 20's-30's F. so nice. the lake has a bit more open water than it had last month.
i'm currently watching "lady and the tramp". bought myself a few new video's during my convalescence. haven't seen this one for quite some time. growing up this one and the aristcats were my favorite disney movies i think. saw dumbo later in life again and i had never realized how terribly sad that movie is. big tears. don't think i could watch it again. for some reason we seem to have skipped bambi? i also bought "help" and "50/50" a few favorites from this year. actually several movies i haven't seen out there. maybe i'll catch them at the totem or beartooth theaters...movies are only $3 at those theaters. beartooth is a eat and watch movie place and the food is good. 
as i came out of work the other morning i noticed lots of moose poop on the walkway in the garage. eventually i ran into this little guy, a young moose. i grabbed my camera and snapped a few shots of him before heading home.
it did cross my mind that he was awful close to the automatic doors that lead into the hospital, but i was tired and i just headed on home. 
moose do occasionally enter buildings if given the opportunity. 
i guess this guy walked on through those double doors a few hours after i saw him. my co-worker lesley bagly actually took this picture. when we came back to work she showed us this and we all told her she should post it. looks like she did and everyone seems to be reposting it. saw an article for tomorrows anchorage daily news with the picture and the story about it going viral on facebook. very funny. so congrats to lesley for her fun photo!
she told us what happened. there are two sets of automatic opening doors in this location. the moose was caught inbetween the double doors. 4 security gaurds entered this area with the moose and shooed him out using those yellow signs they post to let you know the floor is wet. i guess at least one security gaurd took the opportunity to pet him. the young ones are often more curious than mean. the moose wandered around the hospital all weekend. when i returned he was bedded down outside near the subway sandwich shop.
this picture of me was taken by amy robberson..thanks amy! thought it was cute. it was from our walk out prospect heights the other day when i postholed! guess i will curl up in my new sheets and finish watching lady and the tramp! still coughing, but seem mostly over the cold and now the stomach flu as well!!!
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