northern lights are dancing a bit outside tonight. set up my camera and then they chilled, will check back from time to time and play a bit...while enjoying the lights.  supposed to be good all weekend.i just get excited to watch them from my deck here in Anchorage.  lots of light pollution here so you know they are pretty impressive if they can be seen easily here. it is cold out there.
the last few days i have gone to the dog park.  yesterday with both dogs, today with just Blossom.

 above is the view from my window as i woke the other morning.  beautiful sunrise.  great this time of year as you get to see both sunrise and sunset, they are relatively close together.

 had fun with the ice at the lake and my little camera.  it's pretty lousy at close up i find but for other stuff it does make a decent point and shoot.  works for my lazier days.

 3 nights of work past, off til wednesday i think.  i do have a training for donning and doffing for ebola.  will have to try and get some pictures of that, just to keep us entertained.

 my first two nights i  started out in the adult world.  both nights my name wasn't listed as having a patient assignment which is really odd.  the first night i worked with another nurse and we tried to help save a life.  our many interventions were not effective and eventually we did the kind and respectful thing and let this unfortunate woman pass with her friends at her bedside.  it was so refreshing how much her friends knew her desire about all the things related to her death and were lovely advocates for her and her wishes.  they knew we had tried and also knew she would not want this taken further.

 think i surprised the ER by showing up down there to finish the rest of the night.  the next night i ended up going home after just floating around the adult icu and helping out.  after that, nobody really needed me so i went home on call.  never got called in.  :-)  always a nice surprise.

 my last night was spent in the ER.

 was thinking about a few patients/families of this week while i soaked in the tub tonight.  it is funny how some people let their niceness guard down when they are patients and become the really, truly nasty people that resides in so many people.   these are people who probably nod hello to you at the grocery store.
this one lady in the adult world went nuts and so everyone was holding her down, trying to take care of her and protect her from herself.  the crap flying out of that not so young woman's mouth...it was just nasty mean.  she even bit one of my co-workers.  it was like she was taken over by a she-devil.  you do learn to have a tough shell as a nurse. you can't take comments seriously and you have to at least try and tell yourself that it's the medications and that these people really aren't as nasty as they are seeming to be in that moment...though really, the truth is probably more that they are really that mean and being patients just makes them forget to hold back their true spirit.

 some are just pains...this ladies husband last night was out of their room hunting me down ever 5-10 minutes, literally.  they refuse stuff, then demand stuff and there is just not a thing you are going to do to please them . they had discharge orders hours before i arrived, but insisted they wanted her admitted and for a specialist to be called, finally the specialist is called.  he recommends they go home and follow up as outpatients, but he'd be willing to have them have a ct and see if that shows something else going on.  refuse ct but since they are worried she will go home and end up with an infection the doc agrees to a second urine test...knowing the results will be basically the same as the first.  after she pees and i send the lab she now decides it looks ok and she wants to go home.  the doc doesn't have time for all their demands and is off doing procedures on other patients.  then they want the perscriptions and to just leave...no way...i informed them they do not get the Rx until doc sees the results that they requested and makes that determination himself...they are free to leave anytime they want though...without the scripts!

 guy complains to charge as he leaves to get her food, i'd offered her food but she didn't want the food we had...charge goes in to see her and listen to her complaint, she's got nothing but asks me why that woman came in, i tell her the charge came in because her husband complained about her care. then the lady was seemingly mad at her husband and thanks me repeatedly for the care.  psycho!!!

 another patient later informed me in front of the doc and another nurse that he was going to kiss me after i changed out his cath which was plugged.  no idea where that came from.  i pretty much ignored that...really the best way to deal with this i think, the doc got a good chuckle out of it...apologies to Roddy for shooting urine all over him and thanks to the doc who smartly suggested we gown and mask.  haha...just another day in the life of a nurse i guess.

 i set my alarm time this afternoon but not the actual alarm.  thankfully i woke up at 2.  my MRI appointment was at 3.  so i hopped in shower and then zipped down there.

 i have no metal...i told the MRI tech though that i had no metal that i knew of but of course there is always the possibility that i had been taken my aliens and of course, then i may have an implant...i never felt any magnetic pull so i can rest assured tonight that no aliens have microchipped me and done experiments on me.

 he gave me earplugs but it was still pretty loud.  my brain seems to have recovered nicely as the noise wasn't too bothersome.  it was a bit tougher to lay there in that tube than i would have expected.  good thing my head remained just outside the tube...if i ever have to go completely in the tube i think i'd ask for something to keep me from getting anxious.  i could feel myself getting a bit anxious trying to lay still.  there was a little timer clock right above me that kept retiming for 3-5 minute spurts and then the noise would come and the timer would count down.  to keep myself calm i counted down with the clock.

 as you can see above, Blossom was on a leash.  i let her off to chase her toy a bit and then put her back on.  she's not the wisest when it comes to thin ice.

 beautiful days out there though.  loved all these chunks of ice.

 chatted for a bit with the director of the sealife center.  super nice by the way.  just wanted to keep round island on her mind.  she says she is planning on trying to work with zoos/aquariums down south and get them to get involved.  she seems to think they don't do enough of this sort of reach out and seem to be wanting to do more of it.  bring the wild back into the zoo.  a good idea to have a combination of zoo animals in cages with a means of supporting wild animals out of cages.

 speaking of zoos.  it was funny the other night.  had a really nice patient and his wife, i was in the room and the doc was in the room . turns out we all had a connection to exotic animals.  just a strange moment when we all realized that.  i trained as a zoo keeper at the Los Angeles Zoo.  then i just worked as a volunteer keeper through my 20's.  i never worked elephants, at the level i was all i would have done was pick up elephant poop. i'd already done a day or two with the rhino's...who also have rather large stools.

 i have often told patients that i am a true poop expert!!  not only am i knowledgeable about human poop, i am well versed in poop in dogs, cats, snakes,  birds and any number of exotic species!  people are often embarrassed when they are in a position of having their arse wiped.  making a joke and letting them know of my many years of poop experience seems to calm them a bit about it all.  it's just poop after all. the people i find annoying are the ones that don't seem to mind having their butts wiped at all  because they are just that lazy and/or large.

 Blossom checks out the ice...she seems aware that there is some instability in this new water surface.

 the ice just looked cool with the sun shining through it.

 curious to find out what my MRI shows....have i been overly dramatic and wimpy about this discomfort or do i have a valid reason?

 mentioned to the director of the sealife center that i had had that commentary piece in the ADN and that i felt after this that DVL was more open to splitting the costs of the running of Round Island.  she had pulled up the article before i was off the phone.  wonder what she thought of it.

 she did say that how it had generally worked is that our senator Murkowski is more in charge of fish and wildlife end of things and she figured that wouldn't change with the change in senators.  of course, you hear nothing from her when you write except a form letter.  she also said that not much will happen until after this election stuff gets sorted out.  i think it's worthwhile to get a letter out to the guy who will be our new governor it looks like, let him know we want a change in a few things.  RB and DVL could possibly get changed out.  no idea who would replace them or what impact that could possibly have.

 we will have to wait.  my goal this week is to get a letter formed from previous letters and post it on the facebook pages so people can copy/paste it and send it off to Walker and his people.  never too early to be heard.

 the ducks are braving the cold.  it's actually starting to get more chilly again so perhaps i can go kicksledding again one of these days off.

 chilling in the icy waters of University lake.

 maybe enjoying the little bit of sun

 lights look pretty faint from my back yard.  have to get up and walk my knee out occasionally.  it stiffens up when i sit for a few minutes. takes a few steps to get it loosened up again.

 haha...reading over the news a bit, my usual catch up. some idiot had 11 days left on a federal sentence and was completing it in a halfway house...he escaped, got caught and now will get a term of 15 months for his escape...that is just stupid!

 Blossom found a safe spot to swim...i still kept her on leash.  i know, i'm overprotective and mean.

 pretty cool that they were able to land a probe on a comet.  my mom worked as a secretary for JPL and she often brought home photo's from space that had been taken with various probes and satelites.  it was pretty cool i always thought. i do wish our country hadn't stepped back from space exploration.  exploring of any kind is valid in my mind.  it opens us all up to dream of something bigger than ourselves. not having a program leaves us dependent on Russia for our travel to space.

 aww...my sweet puppy!!

 no pics of Rio...she was getting loved by everyone she could find.  she loves the dog park

 after my MRI today Blossom and i headed back to the lake to catch what i could of the sunset.

 the open areas were just a wee bit smaller today.  temperatures are dropping for sure.

 sunset was nice...it's always lovely in the winter i think.

 a few folks out with their dog.

 nice color in the skies.

 Obama apparently worked some deal to decrease carbon use with China.  i'm not opposed to the idea of this...not sure China can be trusted to carry out much improvement and it's tough to see them as at all friendly to the environment when you read about their leadership going to Africa in the spring and buying out every bit of elephant ivory they could find, raising the price of ivory and increasing the poaching.

 the unseen voice of Mrs Wolowitz on "the Big Bang" passed away in real life.  not sure how they will deal with that on the show.  she was never really seen on the show, just her voice really.  sounded like she wasn't all that old though.  not sure the show is as good this year as years past...fear it may be hitting that point.  hoping fame doesn't change it too much.  as i've said before.  these shows start out with a bunch of singletons who eventually all get married off and then babies come and the the show sort of loses it's edge....Seinfeld avoided that, none of the characters really ended up settling down in any stable relationship which seemed to work.

one last check on the lights then i'm going to bed.  enjoyed the bit i did watch earlier.
thankful for...A.  access to healthcare, so many things can be done here that are not even a dream in other places out there.  B.  nestle chocolate chip/peanut butter cookies  C. cool co-workers.