each day an adventure in alaska: snow, fog, seasons are a changing...

finished my 4 night stretch. good stretch. can be tough work. the bald eagle above was out n. bivouac way saturday. it snowed friday night and both me and the dogs were excited so we headed out there between shifts saturday. the light hit this eagle just right. never bore of the encounters up here. it's just an amazing place to live. my daily walks can take amazing turns around any bend.

i remember my dad standing on a float of a float plane one day in misty fjords out of ketchikan. he was never a man to give you a compliment or let you know how he felt. i can't actually remember getting any positive feedback that didn't have the added "but" statement. that day though i could tell, he understood why i lived here in alaska. a part of me felt like he got me finally. things changed between us after i left california and the family. he never said it to me, but i think he was proud that i had made my own choices after a heartfelt soul search of my options. leaving the religion he raised me in wasn't a decision i ever took lightly. i didn't leave to go party and go wild. i studied, i prayed, eventually, i made my choice. he seemed to at least respect it even as he was disppointed with the choice.

another day i was at university lake. sunday i slept. saturday night at work was busy for me. trauma's. i actually really enjoy caring for trauma's...good thing as it seemed to be where i was all week. saturday both were stable, but still in bad shape. just alot of nursing care. i'm fine with the work and i think i actually do it all well. i am very organized. despite how busy i was i did leave in the morning on time. it's sometimes hard for me to understand how people can be so disorganized and end up leaving so late. i have a standard of care that i think is high so it's stressful trying to maintain that level on two patients with this level of care. i did whine a bit about the assignment i must admit...i am human after all.

the assignment wasn't horrible in the end but what sucked was that there wasn't any nurses or other patients in my area. by the end of the night i was begining to wonder if i was in some sort of leprosy colony and hadn't been made aware of it. seemed like nobody even passed by my area. that meant if i was in the one isolation room and the other patient had needs nobody was going to come to my aid, i would have to get out of my isolation garb for the first room and put on isolation garb for the second room. some bugs also require full handwashing as opposed to using the liquid rub on soap, just adds to the time. it was frustrating that the nurses in closest proximity to me seemed to stay as far away as they could. some nurses are just better at seeing needs and jumping in to help out. this one seemed to be happy to watch me run my arse off while she sat or hers and chatted. i suppose to some they see how busy you are and just think, thank god that isn't me. luckily, for me, the charge came whenever i called her, the lift team, respiratory therapist and xray tech were able to help me with the many log roll turns. with trauma's you often have to maintain spine allignment and that takes more people.

not many leaves left in the trees in anchorage.

i got my flu shot when i went on break up in peds that busy night and that thing hurt!! putting on all those gowns through the night was ouchy...i know i'm a wimp. overall, i was able to care for both my patients pretty much at the level of care that i require to feel like i've done a good job that day. luckily, i'd had the one patient the night before. i find patients have less need of you when they feel confident that you will be there when they need you. my attentiveness and neurotic attention to the little details does instill that and thus makes the second night better.

just catching up on the work. the blog is about walks, at least as far as photography goes, but it's also always been a place to put some of the work stuff out of my head. i always laugh at what some people think are stressful jobs. wimps!! haha.

isn't blossom adorable. got her face clipped. was hoping to get her girly bits clipped today since she was tired after the monday walk, but i forgot that due to lack of sleep i was also tired from the monday walk.

there are evergreens that actually change and drop their needles in fall. took me a few years to pick up on that stuff.

many patients have tubes that go in their nose to their stomachs. this tube is not pleasant. there is really no easy way to put them in, unless the patient is too sick to be coherent or sedated in some other way. i helped a co-worker put one in her patient. guy needed charcoal. i warned the nurse she'd need a bigger tube than what she'd selected. that stuff is thick. i got it in for her, but eventually as she put the charcoal in i guess it sprayed all over due to the pressure of her trying to instill it. that stuff is thick and sticks. i was busting my gut everytime i walked by and saw the black stuff covering the patient, the bed, the staff and the entire room and bed!! comic relief is always great.

used to give that stuff to dogs. we'd wrap a big ol blanket around their heads but still dogs like to shake their heads and that stuff would fly all over. it happens to all nurses who ever have worked with that stuff. still it's like the 3 stooges in that it just makes you laugh.

these are in the bog.

there are so many things in my job that we all laugh about because it's just not the sort of thing that seems to come across on the many tv shows dealing with life in the hospital.

i'm also certain that there was no mention of many of these things in nursing school.

ms breezy chatterbug makes the rounds of the dogs.

we had a wee bit early of a snowfall up here. it can actually snow anytime, but i guess the average snowfall usually happens kinda mid october and this one happend on the 28th of september. i could see it snowing a bit while i was at night, but i really didn't think it would stick. maybe an inch did. we could still see some patches on the monday walk of snow so...i think we are in for an interesting winter.

i've decided perhaps god sent the winds to lay down the trees as a warning that winter would be cold, prepare ye, prepare ye, and cut up the wood god gave us.

the snow stopped pretty much by the time i headed to bed and it was a beautiful afternoon. sunday was also amazing but i slept that day. no walk . i did pick up poop in the yard and rake so i guess i wasn't that much of a slacker.

the next morning it was foggy out. today on the n bivouac loop there was still a lot of semi frozen grounds.

had a few other not in my text book moments this weekend. a lost penis, which was eventually found and a patient willing to attempt to put in her own ngt. crazy.

my work is never dull. some days i wouldn't mind dull. they do come and go. seems to come in runs.

wild cranberries.

i definitely took on more pictures than my brain can handle.

actually i took many more. after the monday walk i stopped by the coffee shop just in case someone stopped by. it was just karen, lena and i on the walk and we all seemed happy to skip kaladi's today.

instead i headed out to potters to check out the swans. there are many out there right now.

loved these cool fall leaves on the snow.

after potters i headed out to portage and back. jsut relaxing to be out on the road, right.

you really don't have to drive far to see pretty stuff though.

reflections.

old seed pods along the side of the trail.

so lots of swan pictures to be loaded hopefully tomorrow. lots of people out doing the same thing at potters. a lady standing by me also just has a 300 zoom. we were both hoping the swans near us would accommadate out needs and give us some nice wing shots. oh well.

they are just beautiful birds and it's fun just to sit and watch wildlife. i remember being in churchill canada and watching polar bears up there. of course there were several amatuer photogs in the group and they just spent the entire time glued to their camera on fast mode taking thousands of photos of the bears. at some point some of those people seemed so focused on "getting their shot" that they seemed to forget to just relax and enjoy the wonder of where they were.

it was a great reminder to me to set the camera down sometimes, don't be so focused on the shot. when you get home and you look through the pictures you don't want to not remember the experience.

drove home in fog sunday morning. impressive.

lots of frost on the ground. above blossom enjoys laying on the deck. below you should be able to see the frost melted in the same shape as how blossom was laying there. always cute....at least i seem to get a kick out of it everytime it happens.