hospital roulette

Hey all!! So this weekend is my little sister's college orientation. she's starting at the same tiny university i am going to but definitely NOT majoring in nursing. somehow she got the creative gene in the family. she's double majoring in fashion and environmental design. weird i know, but she's got some skill when it comes to things like that. anyway since she's here my mother came with her... lets just say i'm happy to be at work right now. it really hasnt been that terrible, she just makes me uncomfortable. i'm sad to say that i dont know how to act around my own mother. she doesnt know me. and if i'm honest, i dont know her. those two things make for awkward and uncomfortable conversation.

ok now for some fun stories. the last week and half at work has been interesting.
two clients stick out in my memory.
1. an elderly man who was sure the hospital staff and i were terrorists and that he was being kept captive. we kept reassuring him he was in the hospital and that he was safe. soon he started telling us what we wanted to hear but it was plain he didnt believe any of it. my night shift was nearly finished when he started getting out of bed. this dude was in no shape to be getting out of bed. his condition made him prone to just collapsing while walking. it is my job to keep patients like him in bed. while talking to him and trying to get him to understand this he began to warn me that if i dont let him go someone was going to get hurt. i called some techs in to help me talk him down. this happened about three times. the last time the man stood up and before i can do anything took a swing at my head. i backed out of his reach but then he began to loose balance. i caught him before he hit the floor and carried him to the bed. now he is pissed and hollering that i attacked him. the staff of course comes running. as soon as one of the nurses came the patient tries to hit her too. long story short, security finally got there and held him while the nurse gave him something to calm him down. i agreed to stay with him until he was safe. a few hours later he woke up again, looked at me, smiled, and introduced himself. he didnt remember any of the previous night. i could not believe it.
2. wicked, and i mean wicked old lady laying in bed, seemingly sweet, asked for her purse. i found it and handed it over to her. she started rifling through it, pulled out a mirror, some gum, and a few other classic old lady purse occupants, put everything back, and handed it back. not really anything out of the ordinary. about half hour later i saw her hands moving moving under the sheet. i asked what she was doing and she got all weird about it. i asked to see her hands, pulled the sheets back, and found that she had a sizable pocket knife. she was trying to cut her iv and o2 tubing. she started screaming about how we were poisoning her. i explained that we werent poisoning her and that her medicine was going through the tubes. she acted like she was going to give me the knife but then turned and acted like she was going to cut me instead. that was my limit. i called the techs, who in turn, called security. The lady started screaming about how she had been waiting for the right time to strike the whole time. how she conned me into giving her her purse and how she knew she had a knife hidden(and she would have gotten away with it if it werent for those meddling kids.) luckily they gave her something to calm her down and she slept the rest of my shift.
can i just say..... i LOVE my job!!

i've been working at TON because i'm planning on going to idaho for the fourth of july weekend. my social worker roommate( you know what? shes not my roommate any more since she graduated... lets call her kjw from now on). her parents won some kind of vacation home for the week and invited kjw and her sister's college friends to come hang out. i'm excited. i love spending time with her family. but plane tickets cost a lot. its a good thing i like my job so much.

in order to pay for plane tickets i had to open a checking account. and i know what you're thinking... yes, i've gone all this time without a checking account. i know i'm weird, you can quit bringing it up now. :) did you know it takes almost two weeks(in business days) to set up an account. i figured that since it was all electronic it would be instant or at most a couple days. well i guess i was wrong.

LAST thing. does anyone else watch glee?! its my favorite show on tv right now. the season finale was last tuesday and it was really good. i cried like three times. they packed so much material into that small 43 minute slot. i cant wait for next season. i'm in love with lea micheles voice and dianna agron (who proved herself in the finale and i'm excited what the writers have in store for her) is just, wow. and i could on and on about the rest of that cast, but i'll spare you all. although if i'm honest, i know the show wont stay amazing for much longer after the second season, if it stays that long. i know its been picked up for a third season already but...well we'll see.

i love you all and hope everyone is staying safe. i know the weather has been a might bit unpredictable around here. but thats what you get with illinois summers.

may God bless
all for now
-erl






This is my pallet where i slept for awhile this summer. its in the basement where im keeping all my stuff this summer. i've been told it looks like i live in an iraqi prison.

summers begining

hey all! hope everybodys is going well. after celebrate life, my life was relatively uneventful for a few weeks. but the last week has been full of activities.

last tuesday GLEE was on! i dont have tv at my sisters house(which is where i'm staying over the summer) so i every tuesday i have to scavenge for a cable connection somewhere in town. i tried what we at my tiny university call the 'red room'(named because the walls are painted red. who would have thought?:)) but the student workers there said they didnt have the keys to the remotes to change the channel on the tvs. *begin rant* ok first, i'm sorry, you are the keeper of the building. hell, not just the building, the whole campus. if anyone needs anything and they call the main number of my tiny university, that number leads to these people. if someone is visiting and they are lost they are always directed to these people. these people are THE GATEKEEPERS how in the world do they not have the keys to a remote control. *end rant* so i make my way around campus and end up kinda breaking into parrott lobby. its not as bad as you think. it was my freshman dorm and i remembered a trick to get the door open.

thursday my day started at 6am. (keep in mind i fell asleep at 4am.) my (old) social worker roommate and i made our way to milwaukee to go see an astros/brewers baseball game. i'm not much of a sports watcher. i mean i can enjoy watching sports but its not something i do unless i'm with someone who is a sports watcher. my roomie is one heck of sports fan. baseball is her second favorite sport and the 'tros are her team (footballs the first and we share the packers as our team of choice) (however my baseball team is the cardinals) anyway back to the story... we get there we eat the classic stadium foods. we find our seats and realize they are going to be in the sun the WHOLE time. so we go buy some sunscreen at the gift shop(six bucks for i think 4 ounces) my roomie put some on but i'm awesome and of course refused any block. ps i dont burn, i tan. thats right be jealous. the game was the all right overall. the astros were winning the majority of the time but things went down hill and they ended losing. of course we are in wisconsin and the astros are from texas. my roommate is the only red jersey in the whole stadium. we got mocked a bit. but nothing to terrible.
on our way back how we took a scenic route thanks to gracie(the gps. the whole time i kept calling it the wrong name. i came up with some winners. but i finally got the name right and added my own twist. i settled on calling the navigational device gracie lou freebush. extra points if you can name that movie.) it was great, we sang songs. listened to papa dont preach as sung by dianna agron of GLEE like fifty times. took some random detour route that i'm pretty sure led us all the way round southern wisconsin. finally we made it through chicago and back to our small town. we stop for some photo opportunities along the way of course. also on the way back i discovered that i'm not as BA as i alway claim to be and that i do indeed burn. i have never burned in my entire life. ok so yeah sometimes my skin will get a little red and itchy after going to a waterpark. but i had never experienced what my fair skinned friends talked about when they would talk about burns. i couldnt move my arms. or my knees both were burned so bad. my pain level on a scale of 0-10 was like a constant five. to put in perspective, i took pain meds. i dont ever take pain meds. i dont even own pain meds. still today, five days later, i hurt. once we got home, we went to fridays and finished out our day with an awesome dinner. that was one of my top days.

on friday my sister, brotherinlaw, nephew, and i drove down to my parents house for my baby sister's high school graduation. my oldest sister, her husband and their daughter drove from out east as well. the ceremony was on saturday night. we all hung out and had a good time. i love my sisters and my baby sister and i are bffs. i love her very much. my parents were... well my parents. it was the first time i had been back to their house since christmas and i'll honestly be ok not going back till thanksgiving.
the thing about being the youngest of a fair few of siblings is parents tend to quit caring after awhile. this is good and bad. but for a thing like a graduation party its not good. i kinda feel like my baby sister got screwed. no one seemed to really be celebrating the fact she had accomplished something.(yeah i know she just graduated high school, but its still a big deal to the graduate right?) i remember my graduation party being more party like. her party just felt like a family gathering that featured a cake with her name on it. but whatever, if she was happy i'm happy. soon she'll be here with me at my tiny university and we wont have to worry (much) about my parents. i'm looking forward to that day.

today(i should proly say yesterday seeing its almost three in the morning) is/was memorial day. on top of remembering those who died for our rights and freedoms, i also want to remember those who have passed away in my life. my dad's mother and father passed away over christmas break. i love them very much. and miss them. i look forward to seeing them in their new bodies when Jesus comes back. also my friend kenny. we were new friends when he passed but my memories of him are full of joy. you are missed man.

last but not least on my list. as i mentioned before, i live with my sister and brotherinlaw. another couple lives with them. i'm very tight with this other couple. tighter than i am with my own blood. they are like my family. well they moved out this weekend. i'm sad to see them go but i know it's for the best. i was looking forward to getting their old room because i've been sleeping in the basement which i've been told looks like an iraqi prison so far this summer. well no such luck. even more people have moved into our tiny house upon my friends departure. so not only do i feel more crowded in my house, i'm now in danger of losing the couch i would sneak upstairs and sleep on in hopes of staving off the growth of mold in my lungs. why dont i move you ask? well i literally dont have anywhere else to go. but i may start sleeping in my car as a last resort. at least i still have a place to keep my stuff if that has to happen. cause believe me living entirely in your car SUCKS.

well i'm work right now and it 3 in the morning. i work till 5am. then i sleep, wake up around 2pm go back to work from 5pm-5am. i need the hours so im totally ok with it. however i'm going to miss GLEE tonight. that makes me sad. but the money is going to buy me a plane ticket to idaho for the fourth of july so that makes me happy again.

ok now really this is the last thing. i mentioned i'm at work. well i have an 'as needed' position at my hospital i work at. recently i have not been needed so i havent worked. me not being needed means that are less sick people which is generally a good thing. but me not being needed means me not getting money. sick people=money. how terrible is that? yet at the same time thats the profession i'm going into. i know this isnt some shocking revelation or anything. i just kinda felt bad being upset that i wasnt working but that really meant i was wishing people sick. ok i'm done being philosophical.

much love to everyone out there. my God bless you
all for now
erl