guess i needed it and i'll probably turn in fairly early tonight and just start normal tomorrow morning. nights can be exhausting. probably more so as i get a bit older. don't think i'd do well on days though. one day i may make the switch..not there yet. mentally anyway.
these are still from the big drive last month. Denali Highway.
i'm sure this is covered by snow now. we got a bit of the white stuff here in Anchorage the other day. i made 8 short snowmen when i got home from work...i was just so dang excited. not much sleep that day. loss of sleep is always worth it when it's a snow day.
a few campfires that week...finally!! it was a summer with few campfires...so odd.
the scenery is always lovely though.
thinking i'll try and start loading pictures onto my shutterfly page. the more places i load the pictures in this big world of internet the better chance i can save them . takes up less room than all the photo albums. i haven't even made a photo album for years. the blog is my photo album...guess it could all just go blippo and be gone one day. i will be gone too so i guess that is the story of life. we are born, we live and then...
always nice in the hospital when family members see a body bag rolled past them. this happened this week and the family member asked me..."was that a dead person"....of course, i did have to answer honestly...yes. we do see plenty of dead bodies in the hospital. do you get used to it...not sure, it just is what it is. acceptance. we do not save every person that enters the hospital. this world is already pretty full with humans...can you imagine this place if nobody ever died. what a mess.
lots of reflections in here today. brr..chilly out there. my walls are not very well insulated it seems. one of these days i need to get all new windows that are better at keeping out the chill. sweaters help.
with dead bodies there is also dead body parts. we had a short discussion about organ donation and it made me ponder archaeologists digging up bodies of organ donors 100's of years from now. they would note the missing organs and be excited at the find. they would know they had come across one of those who had donated their organs...a practice long since stopped as organs could easily be made then from stem cells or whatever new method comes in to play.
of course, i've always preferred the idea of just getting cremated to save myself from being dug up by young students who know little of life and may not show the most respect of the bodies they are digging up. i also am not too keen on the whole bugs slowly eating me thing. also it just seems such a waste of land to keep burying individuals. takes up a great deal of space. taking a forest and mowing it down to plant miles of grass...it's just not good ecology.
it's not that i love the idea of being burnt, but it just seems the most practical thing. scatter the ashes in a beautiful place...like these scenes on the Denali Highway. my body will then just become part of the ecosystem. i guess you could just ditch the whole body someplace and let nature take over...that seems a bit brutal as well though.
was in ER for most of the week. one night was split and i went to the adult ICU. strange, when you split a shift like that sometimes your brain tries to convince you that you have worked 2 shifts. my second night felt like my last night so i think it felt like i worked an extra shift.
nice crews all around....so many great folks out there.
some good news on the walrus front. season 2016 is safe...the island will be staffed. work begins on making sure the boys are taken care of in 2017.
ordered more calendars for WARIS sales. we are doing pretty well. thinking i'll hand out stickers to my board members and see if they can get some sold as well. i'm not always very good at sales stuff....awkward socially to begin with. always tough to then feel like i'm asking for money..it's for the walrus though. i would never want anyone to feel forced or guilted into buying stuff.
they have identified the jerks who killed the walrus at Point Lisbourne. no more information than that yet. the charges haven't yet been filed. i hope they get what they deserve..the max that can be given for the crimes committed. not sure that the max available will ever be close to what is deserved for such a heinous act against the walrus. it can never bring back the walrus...
the bears aren't sleeping yet...little stories of bear/human encounters and bears in urban locations will continue for a bit. always enjoy the video clips of bears doing what bears do. one wandered around a Juneau apartment complex. bears were filmed wandering around an Anchorage High School. i guess a young bear was just killed by some homeless guy with a spear? not sure what happened there yet.
the PFD checks should have been deposited. i haven't even looked yet. no big pick up in the ER last night, just the usual busy place. the mailed checks will come out in a few weeks....that may be the time the big overdoses start coming in to the ER;s across Alaska. pretty sad to see money spent of drugs and alcohol...there are no restrictions on what it's spent on and i'm sure plenty of kids PFD checks will be spent by their less than stellar parents. don't think there is any way to prevent that from happening though that would be cool, if kids PFD's could somehow be put in an account until they reach 18. i know many responsible parents create accounts or put a good percentage in a college fund that is offered. my neighbors kid didn't owe a dime when she finished her 4 year degree. she'll have to take out a loan for graduate work probably but so nice to be less in the hole when all is done.
with our heavy snowfall the other day a large limb cracked off of my tree out back. thankfully, it doesn't appear to have caused any damage as it dropped..pretty dang big though. i'll have to head out there with the power saw and chop it up. must wait for clear weather though. loads of leaves came down as well...so lots more yard work to do...though when i look up those trees still have many more leaves to drop.
Shell is pulling out of oil exploration off the coast of Alaska. good news for the walrus, whales, polar bears and all the other arctic species. so in many ways a good week. there was no plan as to how to really respond to an oil spill....and zero ability to do so in the winter months. we do not want another disaster like we had in Prince William Sound...do they never learn. the greed of these corporations. i suspect that Shell wasn't really finding much as they had hoped, if they had i doubt they would have ceased.
did a little google search of labradoodle breeders...every site i saw had the price of labradoodles $2500.00...wow!! Blossom really was a cheap doodle!!
seems like several people have gone missing up here of late. hunters and hikers overdue. some never are located. i can think of so many cases of people just disappearing. very sad, especially for their loved ones. i guess someone was located as well....his boat had flipped. his body was found...which is generally how it goes. Alaska can be a very unforgiving place, especially this time of year. it gets cold out there. survival gets harder. it is always amazing how many people survive after making questionable choices.
bought my plane tickets for a trek out to California. will spend the first few days in LA hopefully visiting friends...anyone in? then i'll chill with family in the Laguna area over Thanksgiving...then i'm thinking i may drive north a bit and see if any of my northern california family want to drive a bit south and meet some place pretty. then i head back to LA to catch the flight back. since my Barrow flightseeing trek got me a $500 gift card for Alaska Air i spend about $150 and upgraded my return flight to Anchorage to first class!! 6 hours direct flight over night in a cushy seat. i plan on getting sauced and sleeping.
single road in the middle of the wilderness. they talk of building a road out to Nome...i'd so drive that road if it existed. need to make the trek back up to Deadhorse again. that was beautiful. love a long road trip.
yet another mass shooting on a campus. what is wrong with our society? seems like we are raising a generation of nut jobs. loaded guns and crazy people are not a good mix.
started my online PALS course at the work the other night. PALS is a course update for Pediatric Advanced Life Support. training for what to do when a kid stops breathing or their heart stops beating. most like to do this in peace at home and i may end up doing that just to get it done. i'd rather do it while i'm at work. it's hard though as people constantly interrupt you as you are clearly trying to focus on the computer...i don't mean patients or even patient related..part of me figures, well..perhaps that makes it more of a realistic study. in a code situation chaos can occur so being able to stay focused with chaos happening around you is probably an added skill.
people are always saying...is it really busy today, especially in the ER. as a resource pool nurse though i suspect i am most often dropped into the busiest places in the hospital so my view is probably off...it's always busy where ever i am.
we generally ask everyone standard questions...required stuff to ask. your medical history, your medications, if you've been to Africa lately, do you feel in danger at home, how much/often do you drink, do you smoke...do you do drugs...
i do roll my eyes on occasion. the other night i was asking a patient about alcohol intake. this patient said, no i don't drink...I'm still Mormon. i've always been annoyed by this...a simple no was all that was needed. i don't think i need to be informed of your religion at this point. plenty of people do not drink who are not Mormon.
there is a report that the Pope met up with that crazy Kentucky clerk. sad that he wasted time on this person...guess i won't switch to Catholicism after all, haha.
a little glacier sighting off in the distance. it was a bit cloudy at times.
a nurse i gave report to that called me back and was a bit ridiculous to me....she figured out who i was and apologized the other day as i was headed in to work. nice of her. it seems so rare and is greatly appreciated when people actually recognize such behaviour and then take that extra step to apologize for it. we all have bad days and bad moments, especially in this job.
in another note another co-worker took the time to let me know that some were singing my praises in PCU. they like getting report from me in the ER. often it's a mess giving report on ER patients so it's good that most of the time i don't do too badly. you always want to apologize down there. i try to get as much as i can done on those Hold patients as well, which i'm guessing they appreciate. there were quite a few holds this week...again. people get stuck in the ER waiting for beds for 24-48 hours some weeks. when you do holds there is a butt load more work to do. full assessment and paperwork...all to be done only to have that patient get a bed and start all over again with a new hold patient.
it gets pretty exhausting. i can tell you that is when i get a bit impatient. i feel like some of those ER folks don't really get the work that goes into the actual admit patients from a floor nurse stand point. they just don't know the stuff that is required and aren't held accountable for it because of that...it's different when you do know and feel obligated to get the extended work done. got a patient dumped on me that had been there for over 24 hours, she was in tears in pain, meds not given or addressed...got her sorted out but it just makes that role that much tougher. at some point no more rooms would be opening so my night finally settled in..that was the night i was able to get started on the course online.
several swans out there.
i'm sure our snow has prompted the migrating birds to get a move on. no point lingering in this cold place.
will see what the weather does tomorrow. would be cool to head out to powerline and look for moose. could also be a good day to make a run out to Seward. always fun.
a musher out in Akiak on the Kuskokwim River found his team in immediate danger a few weeks back. the river had changed course dramatically and he lost a good deal of land to the river...a massive eroding. several sled dogs were dangling from their leads on the verge of being taken into the rivers rough waters. they were able to pull all the dogs to safety at the last moment. he lost 45-55 feet of land in a matter of a few hours. happy there was no loss of life. lots of snow up north means that dog teams are busy training for the sledding season. so cute to see video's of dog teams..the sounds of the breathing and paws on the snow.
more reflections..stopped along the way so that Blossom could stretch out and enjoy the water....she enjoys a good swim no matter how cold the water is.
reading and writing, reading and writing. love to catch up on the old newspapers that i set aside. most of it is crap i guess or old news that is no longer of interest. i still do enjoy the old paper. it will eventually disappear like so many things seem to. that is the way of the world.
fur seals have apparently discovered a new haul out. Bogoslof Island. it does look scenic. it's out the Aleutian chain. the island is home to an active volcano. this population of seals seems to be doing very well. i went and saw fur seals several years back on one of our summer trips
we've had some great summer trips... to recap. 1. Round Island 2. Kayak Island 3 Pribilof islands 4.Churchill 5. Chilkoot trail 6. Shuyak Island 7 Ferry to Dutch Harbor 8. Kayak out of Gustavus 9 Drive to Deadhorse 10. Round Island 11. Nome 12. Barrow 13. Ketchikan-Misty Fjords Kayak trip. i think that is all of our trips...hope i'm not forgetting any and i know they are not totally in order. we've seen some amazing places and hope to see many more.
love the colors and reflections. guess i shall get away from the computer and curl up for the night...hoping for a much more productive day tomorrow.
thankful for: A. co-workers with a sense of humor. laughter always makes work better B. pleasant neighbors. C. chocolate...just makes life sweeter.
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